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

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether public money has been used to bribe Swiss bank officials; and, if so, to what Vote it has been charged.

My Lords, there is provision in the Treasury Vote for the years 1971–72 of £5,000 for awards for information leading to the prevention of offences under the Exchange Control Act. I do not think it would be right to disclose whether a reward has been given in any particular instance.

My Lords, does this Vote include the use of corruption as a method of gaining this information? As we are joining as a partner in Europe, is there not a more civilised way of ensuring the observance of the Exchange Control Act?

My Lords, I do not think I can accept the assumption lying behind the first part of my noble friend's supplementary question. On the second part of his question, I consider it is right for Her Majesty's Government, when they believe that the law of this country is being infringed, to take necessary measures to prevent it.

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

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to refer cross-channel ferry charges to the Monopolies Commission.

My Lords, the noble Lord's proposal is at present being examined.

My Lords, I am obliged for that Answer. Was a similar answer given in another place about five or six months ago; and, if so, when may we hope for a more forthcoming answer?

My Lords, perhaps I may add that the proposal is being actively examined and I hope that a decision will be arrived at before long.

My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that the real issue is whether these services are being operated efficiently? Is it not time that the name of the Monopolies Commission was changed to the Efficiency Commission?

My Lords, we operate under the existing legislation, which concerns the public interest and whether companies operate in accordance with the public interest or are likely to operate against it.

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

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will now state their plans for developing the Third London Airport at Maplin with the aid of private enterprise.

My Lords, I can at present add nothing to the Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.

My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he can give us some indication, when we may expect more information, and in particular whether he is aware that some of the private enterprise consortia which have spent much time and money in gathering data which will be useful in developing the airport are afraid that their knowledge will not be put to good use?

My Lords, I cannot go further on this point, but, as my noble friend knows, there are five or six separate considerations in connection with the establishment of the Third London Airport. The latest consultative document to be issued is on the siting of the runways. However I have nothing to add on the point raised by my noble friend.

My Lords, can my noble friend say whether the co-operation of private enterprise will be welcomed at some stage?

Yes, my Lords, there will certainly be a role for private enterprise at some later stage.

My Lords, can the noble Lord answer a simple question of principle; namely, whether the land is to be publicly or privately owned when it has been reclaimed?

My Lords, it will be publicly owned.

My Lords, at the resumption of our business after the Easter Recess (and I am glad to see that at least one noble Lord opposite has been enjoying the sun) your Lordships may like to know that a revised edition of the Companion to the Standing Orders has now been published and is available in the Printed Paper Office. This is the Twelfth Edition of this volume since Sir John Shaw Lefevre compiled his first slim volume in 1862, 110 years ago. Like the previous edition which dated from 1963 this version is issued with the authority of the Procedure Committee, given in the Fifth Report dated February 3 of this year.

My Lords, our thanks are due in full measure to the Clerk of the Parliaments and his staff, who prepared the new edition; to the Companion Sub-Committee of the Procedure Committee who wrestled with the many points of difficulty which arose in the course of revision, and finally to the Procedure Committee themselves for their helpful scrutiny and approval of the text. I am sure that those Members of your Lordships' House who are members of the Procedure Committee will know what a great deal of work went into the preparation of the new edition. This edition is accompanied by a reprint of the Standing Orders relating to Public Business, which includes all amendments made up to the end of January, 1972. The Standing Orders have been renumbered so far as necessary, and since any further renumbering would disturb the references in the present edition it is intended that no further renumbering shall take place until the next edition of the Companion is published.

I think all your Lordships are aware that our procedure has recently been subject to fairly rapid evolution and for that reason the 1963 edition has for some time been very much out of date. The present intention of the Procedure Committee is that the Companion should be republished at more frequent intervals than has obtained at least in the recent past. Both the new edition of the Companion and the revised Standing Orders are now available in the Printed Paper Office and will also be noted on the pink demand form which is circulated to your Lordships and which is familiarly known as the "pink slip". I hope that all your Lordships will make a point of getting your own copies of both these valuable publications.

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl, the Leader of the House for drawing attention to some really rather splendid work that the Companion Sub-Committee have done. Those of us who have had an opportunity to go through it are gratified to find that the Companion will, be generally in line with our Standing Orders, where we have Standing Orders, instead of in certain respects being flatly contrary to them. May I support the noble Earl in suggesting, as I think he did implicitly, that the re-draft of certain sections will well repay study? The new Companion gives a great deal of clarification about our customs in this House which I believe will help all those who are sometimes inclined to think that the House of Lords is so free that it has no procedural rules of any kind, whereas in fact it has. This Companion provides valuable guidance, and we are very grateful to those who have worked so hard on it.

In accordance with the freedom granted to us in Standing Orders and the new Companion, may I take this opportunity to congratulate the new Ministers on the Government Front Bench, the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, and the noble Earl, Lord Limerick, who seems to have moved rapidly from one corner of the House to another. We are very glad that although the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, has suffered a sea change, he has not left us, and I should like to take this opportunity of thanking him for his unfailing courtesy to noble Lords on any matters with which he had to deal. Perhaps I should also congratulate the new Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the noble Baroness Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, who acquired a great reputation in Scotland on Scottish matters. We shall look forward to equal quality of service from her in her new post. Finally, I would congratulate the noble Earl in getting one more Minister on his Front Bench. We shall expect a greatly improved performance in future.

My Lords, if I may rise once again, I assure the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition that the magnificence of the performance of the Government Front. Bench will, naturally, be even enhanced in its new guise. I am sure that I am speaking on behalf of all my noble friends on the Front Bench, and indeed on the Back Benches, in saying how much we appreciate the kind references the noble Lord has made to my new colleagues on the Front Bench.

My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to secure that the minimum age at which children may be employed is not affected by any further change in the school-leaving age. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a first time.

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Polwarth, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to consolidate certain enactments relating to town and country planning in Scotland with amendments to give effect to recommendations of the Scottish Law Commission. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a first time.

My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper. I have already rather mischievously drawn noble Lords' attention to the mahogany tan of the noble Lord concerned, which I think proves his eminent suitability for this particular appointment.

My Lords, I rise to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It is a pure consolidation Bill which consolidates the enactments relating to costs in Criminal Cases. It consolidates what remains of the Costs in Criminal Cases Act 1952, the relevant provisions of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968, and the Courts Act 1971, and certain minor amending provisions. The result is that the scope of the Bill is similar to the original scope of the 1952 Act. This Bill will, of course, go to the Joint Committee, who will examine it with their usual thoroughness; and I beg to move that it now be read a second time.

rose to move, That the Order of Commitment of Tuesday, March 14, be discharged, and that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. Perhaps I should give a little background to this Motion. Your Lordships will remember that this Bill was given a Second Reading by your Lordships on March 14, before Easter, by a majority on a Division, despite a reasoned Amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. I think it is true to say that during the debate even many of your Lordships who supported the Bill felt that further consideration should be given to improving it. It has now been agreed through the usual channels and with, I should underline, the agreement of the sponsor of the Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee, which will give an opportunity for the Committee to hear evidence. When the Committee have heard such evidence as they consider ncessary they can then examine the Bill in detail with a view to making Amendments. A formal Report is then made to your Lordships, reporting the Bill with or without amendment. It is, by the same token, quite possible for the Select Committee to report that the Bill should not be proceeded with, or that quite a different Bill should be introduced.

My Lords, I may be a lone voice, but I very much regret that this Bill, of which I am an ardent supporter, is to be referred to a Select Committee and that we are not following our usual procedure of referring a Bill, which undoubtedly requires some amendment, to a Committee of the Whole House. My reason for this is that this Bill establishes a moral judgment: the judgment that women are not to be discriminated against. That is not a complicated question but a simple moral issue, and in my judgment moral issues are not suitable subjects for Select Committees to take a lot of evidence upon. That would only have the result of bogging down the essential issue and of creating complication for complication's sake.

The Americans are doing much the same thing in trying to abolish discrimination against women, and they are proposing—and I think this is the right course—a simple constitutional amendment. It takes rather a long time in their country, but we can do it more quickly here. They are proposing a constitutional amendment, well aware that there will be complications when a woman applies for a job in the eighth month of pregnancy, or there may be many other practical difficulties. But they are doing this and saying that this is something which, on moral grounds, must be enacted, and people must work out the complications afterwards if and when they arise. One of the things which is most characteristic in discrimination against women is in always making them a special case and using a special procedure on issues which affect them. I want to suggest very strongly that it is a great mistake once again to have a special procedure about women. Discrimination will end when we are treated as people and not as women.

My Lords, may I remind my noble friend of one or two things? Of course we all agree that the time has come when discrimination should end, but as a politician who has been in Parliament for 34 years—I think a little longer than has my noble friend Lady Wootton—I regard the setting up of a Select Committee as the best way of ventilating this Bill, and so persuading the other place that they should accept it. The House should recall that this Bill has already been before another place and been rejected. Therefore, in my opinion, there are two objectives: first, to convince your Lordships that morally this Bill should be accepted—and that includes the Bishops' Benches, of which we are a little ashamed—and, secondly, that the other place, when the Bill goes there, should be convinced that it has been carefully examined, that every aspect of it has been discussed, and that able lawyers such as my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner, and, I hope, the Lord Chancellor and other eminent people in this House, are agreed that the Bill should go on the Statute Book. I hope that this Select Committee will effect those objectives. It will convince the other place that time and energy have been used in order that this Bill should be perfected. Therefore I must ask my noble friend to realise that when we do something like this we are concerned not only with morals, but also with expediency.

My Lords, I apologise to my noble Leader, but I should like to say something. Much as I dislike disagreeing with my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger, for whom I have a great respect and affection, I find myself to-day disagreeing with her strongly on this matter. I never regard moral issues as simple. They are never simple. Therefore in this case a Select Committee seems to me absolutely right. I do not always find myself agreeing with my noble friend Lady Summerskill, but to-day I absolutely agree with her.

My Lords, I do not know whether it was an act of discrimination on my part to give way to three noble Baronesses. However, I very much agree with my noble friend Lady Summerskill, with her very long Parliamentary experience, and indeed with my noble friend Lady Gaitskell. I am grateful to the Government for the flexibility with which they have approached this matter. This is not an occasion to re-debate the whole issue, but the fact is that the House carried the Second Reading by a substantial majority. As the noble Earl said, the great majority of us were well aware that there are defects in the Bill, as there always are in Private Members' Bills. Therefore, although I hope the moral point is conceded, what is important is to translate it into effective action.

Passing an amendment to the American Constitution, especially in view of the way their Constitution operates, is a very different matter from producing an effective piece of legislation which can be operated in this country. It may well be that this Bill will have to be altered out of all recognition in order to achieve the objectives, and in a way which would not be possible under the ordinary Committee procedure of this House or an ordinary Public Bill Committee. The Motion closely follows the views of the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Byers, that there are opportunities for something almost akin to a pre-legislation Committee. I would certainly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, on having got the Bill this far. I think it is important to note that the original Bill is still before another place, but that because, if I remember rightly, it was talked out it is unlikely to proceed further. But as we have found with other legislation—and this is, I think, the sort of factor which led the House to give this Bill a Second Reading—we now have an opportunity to get the Bill into a form in which another place can take it up.

I should like to ask the noble Earl one question. All Private Members' Bills are apt to pass through a number of hands. Happily, in this House this Bill is in the hands of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. But certainly Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Bishop and Mrs. Butler (who I think was really the originator of the first Bill) are all deeply interested. I think the general view is that on this occasion it is better that we have our own Select Committee rather than attempt a Joint Select Committee, but I take it that Members of another place, because evidence will have to be marshalled and they are in touch with the various organisations—I am assuming that the noble Baroness, Lady Seear will herself be a member of the Committee—will be able to give evidence, that the case will be marshalled, and that the Committee will not be debarred either by funds or by anything else from studying what is happening in other countries—for example, in the United States of America, in particular. I trust that the noble Earl will be able to give us an assurance on that matter. But I hope that Members of another place who have laboured long on this matter will feel able to come and give evidence on the Bill. Obviously, that will be for the Committee to decide.

My Lords, I should like to make only two points. But, first of all, I should like to thank the noble Earl the Leader of the House on behalf of my colleagues, particularly my noble friend Lady Seear, for putting forward this proposal. I really feel that the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, need not be too worried because in the final result the House will decide what to do when the Select Committee have reported. The two points which I should like to put to the noble Earl are these. While recognising that it is for the Committee to decide how they will conduct their work, may I ask whether it will be possible for them to take as much evidence as they can in public, so that there may be a wide public debate on this issue and, at the same time, an educational process? Also, may I express the hope that, in view of the nature and title of this Bill, there will be more than one woman out of seven on the Committee?

My Lords, the Motion before the House contains no terms of reference. May I ask whether it will be open to the Committee to recommend whatever changes they think fit, not only in the clauses of the Bill, but also in both the long and short titles? Secondly, as this is a field in which women themselves have exceptional experience, has the noble Earl any news to give the House of the likely proportion of women to men serving on the Committee?

My Lords, the noble Earl said that the Committee—to which I have no objection—will have power in certain circumstances to recommend that the Bill be not proceeded with. Alternatively, the Committee could propose an entirely different Bill in place of this one. May we have an assurance that, if it were found necessary to propose a different Bill, the principle already adopted by the House would be embodied in the new Bill?

My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House to clear up one misunderstanding which some of us have? We understood from his statement that the proposal was that this Bill would go to a Joint Select Committee of the two Houses, and that that is almost a precedent since the last world war. I now understand from my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition that that is not the case. Perhaps the noble Earl will clear up that point.

My Lords, may I ask whether I am right in assuming that any Member of this House may attend this Committee, may speak at this Committee and may even examine witnesses before this Committee, but of course may not vote?

My Lords, first of all, I should like to express the hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, will acquit me of any antifeminist bias in this matter. I assure her that there is no anti-feminist bias lying behind the Motion which I have just moved. There is no intention of turning the ladies or the Bill to leg, as it were, by this procedural technique. May I pray in aid of that the fact that the Civil Service Department—I am not claiming any personal credit for this, because a large part of the initiative was due to Sir William Armstrong and my own predecessor in the Civil Service Department—has made clear, by its recent Report on this subject and by its general implementation of it, that it is in the forefront of this move towards anti-discrimination in this sphere. That is by way of—

My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Earl the Leader of the House can explain why a similar procedure was not thought proper in regard to racial anti-discrimination?

My Lords, may I come on to deploy a few other remarks as well? The noble Baroness, Lady Wootton, suggested that the fact that we were proposing a rather new procedure—although it is really a revival of an old procedure—meant that we were, in a way, discriminating against women. I should like to assure her that that is very far from our intention. It is rather the case that by reviving an old procedure we might be helping in an ordered way, in a way which will allow full evidence to be taken, to bring about the reverse of discrimination. As the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, has said, undoubtedly there are moral questions involved here; but as the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, has pointed out, there are also involved very difficult technical and practical questions which in certain instances go very deeply into trade union and industrial practice. To me at least, this seems pre-eminently the sort of area which should be open to the procedures of inquiry and investigation which this course would open up.

My Lords, I turn to the specific questions which have been put to me. I hope that I have gathered them all in. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, asked me a number of questions. He asked me whether adequate funds would be available to the Select Committee for inquiry abroad. I think I can assure him straight away that this would be the case. He then asked me whether Members of another place would be entitled to give evidence to the Select Committee. The answer is most certainly "Yes". The decision lies within the discretion of the Select Committee itself, I think, but this would certainly be done. May I now remove a misconception which I may inadvertently have given? I think when the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, reads my introductory remarks the position will be clear to him. This is intended to be a Select Committee of your Lordships' House and of your Lordships' House alone. I was merely referring—and this I think gave rise to the misconception—to that part of the White Paper on Lords Reform which spoke of Joint Select Committees looking into this particular area. But this is a proposal to set up a Select Committee of your Lordships' House alone.

The noble Lord, Lord Byers, asked whether the proceedings of the Select Committee would be in public. I think this is invariably the case with Select Committees of your Lordships' House and it is certainly my assumption that this would be so in this instance. I have foreshadowed a Motion proposing the membership of this Committee, and perhaps it would be wrong to lift the skirts of this Motion too high at this particular moment. It is certainly in my mind that this Select Committee of, say, seven people, should contain more than one lady member.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, asked me whether it would be within the powers of the Select Committee to propose amendments to the long or short title of the Bill and it is certainly my understanding that this would be the case. I am afraid that I have forgotten what the noble Lord, Lord Pargiter, asked me. I know it was a pregnant question.

I asked whether or not, under the powers which the Committee would have even to present a different Bill to the House, the principle would necessarily be the same in the Bill that was put in its place in view of the decision that the House has already taken?

My Lords, I think the Select Committee has very great discretion in this particular matter, but I am quite certain that the members of it would obviously be guided by the decision in principle of your Lordships' House and would not wish to run counter to that decision.

My Lords, may I press the noble Earl a little on this, because it is surely of the greatest constitutional importance if the House has reached a decision on a matter of principle. Although in this particular case I think we are well justified in following the proposed procedure, one can envisage circumstances in which one might deliberately try to sidetrack the Bill and one might use the excuse of that procedure for getting rid of something one does not care for. I hope that we shall be fully assured that if the Select Committee is to deal with this matter that it should be at least bound by the general principle.

My Lords, may I put a question supplementary to that which has just been put by the noble Baroness? Is there any constitutional means of setting a term to the procedure of a Select Committee? Much has been said in the last ten minutes about the taking of full evidence. This seems to me to be a subject which we would liken to the devil and all his works which may proceed ad infinitum and that might be a way in which inadvertently the subject might be sidetracked.

My Lords, I do not know why the noble Lord, who is usually of a very unsuspicious nature, is voicing these dark suspicions. I think the speed at which the Select Committee proceeds will necessarily be a matter for the Select Committee and will very largely be a result of the membership of that Select Committee. I think your Lordships will be able to exercise judgment if this Motion is approved and then on a subsequent occasion, as I have foreshadowed, speak to a Motion on the membership of the Select Committee when your Lordships will again be able to exercise your unfettered judgment, as I hope you will allow the Select Committee also to exercise its unfettered judgment. This applies also to the question which the noble Baroness, Lady White, has put to me. It would be wrong to fetter the Select Committee, although I am absolutely certain—and I am glad to repeat it—that they will pay full attention to the opinions expressed in your Lordships' House. As the Select Committee will be reporting back to your Lordships' House, it lies still within the power of your Lordships' House, if they feel the Select Committee has in any way departed from the views already expressed by your Lordships, to bring the matter forward from that stage.

My Lords, I have covered at least the majority of the matters about which I have been asked. A point was put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, and in reply to his question I should like to assure him that at the Select Committee of your Lordships' House any Lord within that House but not a member of the Committee—and I am now quoting Standing Order 62 of your Lordships' House—is not excluded from coming in and speaking, although he may not vote. I hope that that gives the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, the assurance he was seeking. Unless there are any other questions which your Lordships would like me to answer. I would ask you to agree to this Motion.

My Lords, it has been suggested to me that I might make the position clear about the debate on the Motion of my noble friend Lord Alport. As your Lordships know, the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, was unable to move his Motion and the question was whether this debate could in fact extend beyond the 2½ hours. The answer is, my Lords, that it cannot. The House has passed a Resolution requiring my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack to put the Question at the end of 2½ hours.

rose to call attention to the need to establish a national organisation with adequate resources to ensure the preservation or adaptation of churches and other ecclesiastical buildings of special historic or architectural value, but which are no longer required for public worship or whose congregations are no longer able to sustain the financial burden of their maintenance; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, St. Augustin, in the 4th Book of The City of God, noted that the Goddess Fortune

"offers herself indifferently to all, and deserts them who serve her, to minister to those who despise her."

Having despised the idea of selection of Motions by ballot under the auspices of that particular goddess, assisted by the Government Chief Whip, I find that I have drawn the first debate on the first occasion I have placed a Motion on the Order Paper. All I can say, my Lords, is that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hippo, who was right about so many things, was right about that, too.

My Lords, I wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Alport, for bringing this Motion before the House. Having just taken "a severe beating" from the noble Baroness opposite, who I am sorry to see has just left her place—I almost said a "knock-out blow"; but I think that that would be far from favourable to her way of thinking—I must say that I am sorry to see that no noble Baroness has put her name down to speak on this Motion; so perhaps the Prelates might say that they feel they have scored a point. There is much in this Motion that is worthy of great and careful consideration. The care of our churches, one of the great heritages of our nation, is a matter which, whatever may be our opinion on other subjects, must surely be of importance to us all. I think I might just add to the words I said about the noble Baronesses in this House that the Chairman of our very important Uses of Redundant Churches Committee in the Church of England is a lady.

The problem of redundant churches of special historical and architectural interest is, of course, by no means new. It was in 1958 that the Church Commissioners, recognising the growing difficulties, took the initiative and asked for an inquiry into the whole question. As a result, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York appointed a Commission under the chairmanship of the late Lord Bridges and including Church and Government representatives to consider the procedural and financial problems involved. The present position concerning the preservation, adaptation or disposal of redundant churches in the Church of England stems from the Commission's report published in 1960. Returns then made to the Bridges Commission indicated that there were some 790 churches which would be redundant in the 15 to 20 years following 1960, of which 440 were of very special architectural or historical interest. A further 86 had a certain amount of special interest. The Commission made a tentative estimate that the total capital cost of putting between 300 and 400 of these redundant churches into reasonable repair over a period of about twenty years would be not less than £1½ million to £2 million and that there would also be required £60,000 to £70,000 a year for maintenance costs. Those estimates are based on 1960 prices.

As a result of the recommendations of the Bridges Commission, which were accepted in principle by the authorities of both Church and State, important procedural and financial steps were taken. A unified ecclesiastical procedure for declaration of a fact of redundancy of a church and the action consequent thereon was established by the Church as part of a revised system of pastoral reorganisation in the shape of the Pastoral Measure of 1968. That Measure provided for the establishment of the Redundant Churches Fund, to be appointed by Her Majesty on the advice of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. The object of the Fund, as stated in the Measure, is the preservation, in the interests of nation and Church, of churches and parts of churches of historic or architectural interest vested in the Fund under the provisions of the Measure.

Again the provisions of the Measure said that the Church Commissioners were authorised to contribute a sum not exceeding £200,000 during the five years following the coming into operation of the Measure. Also there were powers for the Commissioners to continue the contribution and to vary its amount in subsequent years. Furthermore, the Fund is to receive one-third of the proceeds of the sale of the sites of redundant churches of insufficient merit to require preservation. This sum is not to exceed £100,000 in the first five years. By the Act of 1968, the Minister of Housing and Local Government (now the Minister for the Environment) was empowered to contribute a sum of £200,000 from public funds over the same period and for the same purpose, with power, subject to Treasury approval, to continue to make further contributions in the years ahead. There is thus a financial partnership between Church and State with the Church providing rather more than the State.

The Measure of 1968 also established an Advisory Board for Redundant Churches, appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York after consultation with the Prime Minister, to advise the Church Commissioners regarding the historic and architectural qualities of any church likely to be declared redundant. No part of the Advisory Board cost falls on the State; the Church provides all the funds required for that. The Pastoral Measure therefore provided in at least two important respects what had hitherto been lacking; first, a strongly composed Advisory Board to set standards. The Bridges Commission did not accept that because a church was on the statutory list it must ipso facto not be demolished, and Ian Amendment to that effect in the Church Assembly during the passage of the Pastoral Measure did not succeed. The second provision was the establishment of a body with adequate means to care for a redundant church when the decision had been taken that it should be preserved.

The Motion before your Lordships' House raises the question whether the Redundant Churches Fund possesses resources adequate to its task. Of course there are secondary considerations arising from Lord Alport's words in the Motion

"… other ecclesiastical buildings … no longer required for public worship …"

but I do not think that I need pursue that point at the moment. The first three annual reports of the Redundant Churches Fund, covering the years 1969 to 1971, disclose that during that period, largely on account—as the noble Lord, Lord Alport, remarked—of the deliberate stages of the procedure laid down in the Pastoral Measure, no church was actually vested in the Fund for preservation until 1971 and then only five were so vested. A few others are known to be in the process of consideration.

The second of these reports asserts that this slow beginning is deceptive and expresses the view that no doubt the prog nostications of the Bridges Commission will eventually be realised. It ends by expressing the conviction that in the first quinquennium the Fund will be able to keep in being all churches of architectural or historical interest declared redundant and not appropriated to another use. Not surprisingly the Fund's balance sheet shows a healthy financial position, but I should like to stress that this healthy financial position is only because of the very slow process of declaring redundancy. The Advisory Board may not, of course, recommend to the Church Commissioners that all redundant churches should be vested in the Redundant Churches Fund. It must, however, be noted that the purpose of the Fund is to preserve the churches vested in it. Though its resources may also be—and indeed are—used to carry out repairs to churches vested in diocesan authorities for a "waiting period" of twelve months to 'three years while a possible alternative use is being sought prior to vesting in the Fund, the powers of the Fund do not extend to the financing of the adaptation of churches to other uses and thus where the building is not vested in the Fund.

My Lords, I want to say a word about what is happening in my own diocese, one of the 42 dioceses in the Church of England. Hereford is the most rural See in the country. There are well over 400 churches in 378 parishes served by some 200 clergy. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alport, for his words about the difficulty in which the Church finds itself in keeping an adequate ministry as well as keeping churches in repair. Inflation has dealt, and looks like continuing to deal, deadly blows at this situation in the Church of England. Seven of our churches in Hereford have been declared redundant and six more are being considered. I should estimate, though it is only a rough guess informed by some comparison with the Bridges Report, that about three quarters of a million pounds must be raised for church repairs alone every ten years. The population is only a quarter of a million, so it will be seen that the task is a formidable one. Of 380 churches inspected in the past five years the requirement, for repair was £641,660.

Our people in Herefordshire and South Shropshire love their churches and wish to keep them open for worship. It may surprise your Lordships—it often does surprise people—when I point out that never in the history of our nation have the ordinary people cared for their churches more than they do at present. This will seem strange to historians in the years ahead. If they hear about what they think was the decay of religion at this point in our history they will then come up against the extraordinary fact that more ordinary people are caring for their churches than ever before. Not now the squire; not now the patron; not now just the parson, but the ordinary people are contributing to the care of their churches and keeping them in the beauty of holiness.

We are of course progressing in the ecumenical sharing of our churches, but in one parish of under 600 people at the moment £31,000 is needed for repairs. In another parish with an even smaller population over £12,000 is needed. One or two parishes with interesting churches are now reduced to a handful of people, as our farming grows ever more and more mechanised. I may add that we are concerned about the number of churches used only in summer months, for damp and frost can cause considerable and lasting damage. So there is this great problem before us concerning one of our greatest heritages, the English parish church.

May I therefore sum up by saying that the evidence seems to suggest that so far as the Church of England is concerned no new organisation is needed to deal with redundant churches of special architectural or historic interest, though it may well be that the Redundant Churches Fund will need more money after the current quinquennium. However, there is certainly a case for assistance towards the upkeep of the fabric of churches still in use where the cost of maintenance exceeds the resources of the local congregation, and discussions on the latter topic are currently proceeding with the Department of the Environment. With the reservations which I made in my speech, I wish to support Lord Alport's Motion and once again would thank him for bringing it before your Lordships' House.

My Lords, as this is a short debate, I shall keep my remarks to the minimum; but in doing so may I suggest that it would be for the general convenience of your Lordships if in future the Order Paper indicated whether a debate was, to use a term which I should not use were the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, present, a "mini debate". I am, and I think the whole House is, indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Alport, for what was a distinguished speech. I personally am even more indebted to him for the care and solicitude which he has shown for the churches in and around Colchester over a very long period. Nevertheless, I have some reservations about the Motion which the noble Lord has brought before your Lordships' House, and to a very large extent I agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford, although perhaps a slight note of dissension may creep into my later remarks. The present position, which sterns from the Pastoral Measure of 1968, was accepted by the last Government during the time when I was a Minister, and we introduced and passed the necessary legislation. In that work my noble friend Lord Kennet played a most important role. If noble Lords wish to pursue and investigate more the background to the Measure, I would refer them to my noble friend's recent book, Preservation.

The financial provision, as noble Lords have said, was for a five-year period. I should like to endorse everything that has been said in praise of those who are responsible for the Redundant Churches Scheme and the machinery that has been set up, and particularly my noble friend Lord Fletcher and Mr. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas, both of whom have given such single-minded devotion to the preservation of this important heritage. It may be, as the noble Lord, Lord Alport, said, that the Pastoral Measure and the machinery under it are inadequate. I confess that I have some sympathy with Mr. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas in the Memorandum that he submitted to the Georgian Group in December for their meeting in January, when he said:

"The Pastoral Measure needs a radical revision which would establish a single Disused Churches Board in place of the present Advisory Board for Redundant Churches and the Redundant Churches Fund."

Nevertheless, on consideration, I think that I am more inclined to accept the view of the noble Marquess, Lord Anglesey, who, when he addressed the annual meeting of the Friends of Friendless Churches, said:

"It is scarcely credible that a Measure which took ten years to get on to the Statute Book should be scrapped in little more than two years after its coming into force."

I agree with the noble Marquess, Lord Anglesey, that it would be better to let a little more time elapse before we propose any drastic changes in the procedures to which your Lordships' House agreed so short a time ago. I find myself, too, in strong agreement with the noble Marquess, Lord Anglesey, in his plea to the Friends of Friendless Churches that the Church should stop arguing about the Measure and, instead, use it. He pointed out that a number of churches had been lost through deliberate refusal to take advantage of the Pastoral Measure and the Redundant Churches Act, and that others have been lost through what he called a "paralysis of the will".

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford talked about the number of churches which had been affected by the Measure. I am indebted to Mr. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas for an article in Home Words in which the latest figures are available. He writes, if I may summarise him, that altogether 168 churches have been declared redundant under the Pastoral Measure, and a further 21 under earlier legislation which has now been superseded: that is, a total of 189 churches. I understand that 38 have been demolished or are to be demolished; that 56 have been appropriated to another use; that 9 have been vested in the Redundant Churches Fund; and that none, so far, has been vested in the Department of the Environment. So 103 out of 189 churches have been handled, as it were, and 86 are still under consideration.

Mr. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas, in what I think is a most important analysis of the problem, tells us that the Redundant Churches Fund still has in hand over £148,000 of total uncommitted funds. That lends substance to the Third Annual Report of the Redundant Churches Fund, which I must say I think at 10p is remarkably good value. The Report says:

"… we wish to make it clear beyond any shadow of doubt that there is at present no need to demolish any church of architectural or historic interest on the ground that the Fund lacks the means to preserve it. Statements to the contrary have often been made, but they are clearly without foundation".

I hope, with all my heart, that that is the situation, but I am disturbed by the references of the noble Lord, Lord Alport, and the right reverend Prelate to the fact that the machinery is extremely slow, very cumbersome, and that perhaps it is failing to catch all the churches which ought to come into the net.

When we turn to the question of churches in use, I begin to find myself diverging a little from the noble Lord, Lord Alport. It is of course a quite different problem. I was grateful to the noble Lord for his kindly references to the decision of the last Government to make £500,000 a year available to the Historic Buildings Council for churches which are in use. That, as he said, was subject to a satisfactory settlement of the question of ecclesiastical exemption. My noble friend Lord Kennet, with my full support, had talks at that time with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas also had an opportunity of discussions with Mr. Jenkins. I thought that the outcome of those discussions was extremely satisfactory, subject of course to the question of ecclesiastical exemption.

I was not quite clear from the remarks of the right reverend Prelate how sympathetic he was to abandoning this exemption, for which the Church itself asked in the early years of this century; but I think the attitude of any Government must to a large extent be determined by the attitude of the Church upon that point. It would certainly reassure me, and I think many Members of your Lordships' House, if the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, could tell us that the present Government's attitude is broadly the same as that of their predecessors in this respect.

Finally, I would only say that for as long as I can remember parish church architecture has been my only hobby: and it is, I know, one that is shared by many Members of your Lordships' House. I think that we all should agree with the words of my noble friend Lord Kennet, which to me sum it up so well, when he says:

"Fine old churches are the accumulated piety of our ancestors. They are lasting praise."

We have in our parish churches, as the noble Lord, Lord Alport, so movingly reminded us, a priceless heritage, a heritage which we have a duty to preserve; and I, for one, am grateful to the noble Lord for having reminded us of that duty this afternoon.

My Lords, I did not like to interrupt the noble Lord, but perhaps I might intervene now to say that I feel that I ought not to allow myself to be drawn on the question of ecclesiastical exemption: my opinion would not be of much value to the House. I ought perhaps to add that it is a matter upon which the Synod has not yet made any pronouncement.

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alport, for raising this subject because, apart from anything else, I think it is one of the foremost ethical problems to confront the Christian Church in this country. We have on the best authority what kind of questions we are likely to be asked on Judgment Day, and I have always felt that when we are asked whether we have fed the hungry, clothed the naked and visited the imprisoned, it will not be an adequate substitute to say, "No; but we raised £250,000 to keep up York Minster". But, on the other hand, I realise that this is an over-simplification, and that the Church must always be working in and through the culture it finds itself and with human beings as they are, with their affections and loyalties. Therefore the simple solution to which I have sometimes been tempted is to knock them all down. But I am still convinced that the far best thing for the Church as the Church would quite obviously not be the best thing for the community, for these buildings of such enormous architectural interest are in so many of our villages the main building of an area and, as has already been said, the repositories of history and piety. The Church has its responsibilities for keeping these going. That is why I welcome the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Alport, which recognise that there is a joint responsibility—which has nothing to do with the establishment of the Church of England—between the Christian denominations and the State, to see that what is worth while in this heritage of ours should be retained. I think that one of the most useful things to come out of this debate is the discussion of the churches which are still in use and which comes out of the terms of the statement. I do not necessarily agree with the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, that this is entirely a different subject. In fact, I suspect that the short story which I am about to tell your Lordships will show that this can get very entangled and that it is very important to tackle both subjects at the same time.

My plea this afternoon is that when any steps to modify the present situation are taken—and many people seem to think that some modification is needed—nothing should be done to make it more complicated or difficult for the ordinary Christian congregation to do what it conceives to be its duty. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, whose presence we miss to-day and to whom we send our best wishes for a speedy recovery from his illness, said to me just a few days before taking to his bed how much he wished that when a congregation had finally decided that it no longer needed a church and that the church should be demolished, the bulldozers should be moved in immediately. He was not talking about buildings of architectural interest at that time but of those—of which he has many in his diocese—which are not of great architectural interest. He was talking about the demoralisation of a congregation which has made the painful decision to do away with a building for which it has great affection, to see the whole thing rolling on through committee after committee and stage after stage before the church is finally demolished.

I should like very briefly to tell your Lordships the story of St. Stephen's, Hampstead: not the story of the church itself, because whether or not it is of great architectural merit is irrelevant; not because I am trying to argue a point about a particular church or—God forbid!—to apportion any blame, but because I am trying to illustrate a certain point in the life of its congregation. St. Stephen's, Hampstead, was built by Teulon at the end of the nineteenth century and is, according to some, a gem of Byzantine architecture: according to others it is a monstrously ugly mausoleum. It has a very alive congregation with an absolutely first-class priest who has given it forward-looking, though by no means gimmicky, leadership over the last few years. About 1960 it started, frankly, to fall down. At that time, in order to knock down a church there had to be an Act of Parliament, so that was not considered. The church hall was also falling down and plans were prepared to knock it down, to sell the ground and use the proceeds to support the church. It was thought at some time that the legal owner of the site was not the parish but the Board of Education, and in 1964 the matter was drawn to the attention of the diocesan authorities. Plans were made for getting rid of the church hall and for the money received to be spent on restoring the church. However, after a great deal of work had been done on that, the authorities said, "You will realise, of course, that any profit which is made on the sale cannot he put towards the restoration of the church building." I am still unable to discover why, but I am assured that this is so.

Several months passed and more plans were put forward, and the authorities then informed the parish that they were surprised to discover that the land on which redevelopment was to take place was owned not by the parish but by the Board of Education. This was sorted out, which took another year. During this time nothing practical could be done and no money was available for the restoration of the church, which was falling further and further apart. The church council finally came to the decision by 20 votes to 2 after a great deal of heart-searching that the church ought to be demolished. The decision was not lightly taken. Sympathetic letters had been received from admirers of Victoriana, but no offers of financial help. Then came the Pastoral Measures and the hope that something might be able to be done to the church under the new laws.

At that time the new ecumenical movement was in full swing and the church council agreed to talk to the local Congregational and Presbyterian Churches as to what might be done in the situation. After some time—this is really remarkable, and I know that some noble Lords who have experience of such matters will bear me out—there was unanimous agreement among the Congregationals, the Presbyterians and the Anglicans that they all wanted to knock down their churches and they would share one joint church on the St. Stephen's site. This was agreed by them all but it has not proved possible to carry it out because this is either a redundant building, in which case it can be made available for other uses but not for a church, or it is not a redundant building and cannot be knocked down. According to one estimate, the repairs will now cost £120,000. The foundations and the structure are unsound; cracks are appearing, and there are bits of boarding shoring up parts of the church: and nothing can they do at this moment.

What is the attitude of a congregation like this? I am not trying to argue the merits of the case. I am asking for sympathy for a congregation which sees that it has a job to do, that it can join with its fellow Christians in an area, but that every single channel it tries to explore is blocked by the laws, the administration and the rules. By themselves, many of these rules may be sensible, but I submit that the whole procedure at the moment is very over-complicated. I beg that whatever is done—and it seems that something ought to be done—ought not to make it more complicated for ordinary Christians in a given place to try to do their common sense and Christian duty by their churches, their parishes and their neighbourhood.

My Lords, may I begin by joining with other noble Lords in expressing my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Alport, for the eloquent way in which he has introduced this most interesting and important subject? I wholeheartedly agree with his general approach to the question, and I echo his hope that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, will respond to his appeal to make more Government financial aid available for the preservation of churches, whether redundant or in use. As the noble Lord, Lord Alport said, my reason for intervening in this debate is that I have had some experience of considering numerous redundant churches on which the Advisory Board have had to advise the Church Commissioners. As the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Hereford, and the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, have indicated, one can only appreciate the nature of this problem not merely by discussing it in generalities, but by instancing, as the noble Lord has done, some of the specific cases which have come to one's notice as a result of the inadequate provisions of the Pastoral Measure.

Whatever the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, may be to the general proposition put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Alport, may I suggest as a matter of detail that there are certain steps that can be taken now without any additional legislation to facilitate the problem? I take the view that the resources of the Redundant Churches Fund will almost certainly prove inadequate to deal with all the redundant churches that will be vested in it in the next few years. There is however, an alternative procedure available. Under Section 66 of the Pastoral Measure 1968, which was amended by Section 3 of the Redundant Churches and Other Religious Buildings Act. 1969, a Bill of which my noble friend Lord Greenwood of Rossendale was in charge when it passed through another place the Minister is able at the present time to take into custody redundant churches by reason of their outstanding historic and architectural interest, whether they are in a ruined condition, or whether they are especially appropriate for being taken over by the Department of the Environment as distinct from being left for attention by what will surely become the overburdened resources of the Redundant Churches Fund. If the Minister will respond and make use of this section he will merely be following the traditions of the Ancient Monuments Board, which is now part of his Department, in connection with a great many ecclesiastic buildings of the pre-Reformation period. I will instance some: Glastonbury Abbey, Tintern Abbey, Fountains Abbey and Rievaulx. These are also part of the historic heritage of our nation, and though they are in a ruined condition they are preserved by the Ministry.

There are redundant churches, some in ruined conditions, which it seems equally appropriate should be taken over by the Ministry, in this way supplementing the resources of the Redundant Churches Fund. I have written to the Minister about this and have instanced one or two cases which seem particularly appropriate for preservation in this way. These is, for example, St. Mary, Studley Royal, in the Diocese of Ripon, which happens to be within a mile of Fountains Abbey, which is already in the custody of the Minister's Department. Another good example is the fascinating church, attractively called St. Peter the Poor Fisherman, at Revelstoke in the County of Devon, which I visited recently. This is situated in a remarkable position about three-quarters the way down a cliff face and is almost inaccessible. But it contains many charming features relics of pre-Conquest architecture, and examples of nearly every subsequent period of architecture; the kind of church which is just as appropriate for preservation by the Minister as Glastonbury or Tintern, although not so spectacular.

My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for giving way? My information is that Glastonbury Abbey for instance, has not been taken over by the Department of the Environment. It is in the hands of private trustees. I make that point because it would be a pity if it went on the Record that that was not the case.

My Lords, I am much obliged for that correction. I ought to have checked that point but did not do so. Let me substitute the outstanding example, of St. Augustine's Abbey at Canterbury, with the adjoining church of St. Pancras, which is a notable example of the work a preservation carried out by the Ancient Monuments Board. There is one church in the diocese of the right reverend Prelate, St. Michael's. Michaelschurch, Herefordshire; and there are others, like St. Peter and Paul at Albury, on which I will not elaborate. I hope the Minister will give serious thought to these possibilities.

Lord Alport's Motion refers not only to redundant churches but also to churches still in use where the congregation is unable to sustain the financial burden of maintenance. It seems to me that on principle once the State has recognised an obligation to make contributions to the preservation of ecclesiastical buildings that principle ought not to depend upon whether the church is or is not redundant for pastoral purposes. In so far as this is an obligation on the State, the distinction as to whether the church becomes redundant or not seems completely irrelevant. The unfortunate result of the position as it stands is, as in the case of St. Stephen's, Hampstead, this. There are a number of churches, some with small and some with larger congregations, all deeply attached to their parish church, a church which is eminently worthy of preservation, and in which at present services are held, not necessarily every week but at least once a month and on special occasions. Such a church can be vested in the Redundant Churches Fund for preservation only if it is first declared redundant and desecrated or secularised. That is one of the glaring anomalies of the present legal position. If it were not for that anomaly, a sensible solution for St. Stephen's, Hampstead could have been found. The case of St. Stephen's, Hampstead, is not an isolated example. I have come across numerous other cases where similar considerations apply, where the church must be preserved by somebody and eventually will be declared redundant in order that it may be preserved. But as a result of the existing procedure the congregation will be deprived of the benefit of using the church for the spiritual purposes to which they have been accustomed. That seems a quite unnecessary and regrettable situation.

Another example of this situation is the interesting Norman church of St. Peter and St. Paul. Preston Deanery, in the Diocese of Peterborough. In connection with the waiver of the ecclesiastical exemption, the only reason, as I understand it, that would prevent the State from making a contribution to such a church as St. Peter and St. Paul, Preston Deanery or St. Stephen's. Hampstead is the ecclesiastical exemption. My hope is that whether or not the Church of England as a whole will agree to the waiver of the ecclesiastical exemption, it should at least be possible for any particular church which wished to opt out of the ecclesiastical exemption, and to waive any existing rights it might have as a condition of accepting State aid, to do so. It seems to me there is no need for there to be a general waiver of ecclesiastical exemptions, which may or may not be favoured by the Synod, but I can see no objection to allowing each congregation in specific cases to decide for itself whether or not it will waive exemption.

As the noble Lord, Lord Alport, has said, we must in these days recognise that the primary concern of the Church of England, and of other Churches, must be with the spiritual welfare of the people and with pastoral care; and I think we are all in sympathy with the view of the Church authorities that it would be a misuse of their funds to spend large sums in maintaining the fabric of buildings at the expense of their more important spiritual and pastoral work. There was a time, unhappily long past, when the interests of both Church and State coalesced in the construction of buildings that have become part of our natural heritage. It may be that those days will recur, but in the meantime it is the duty of the State, more than that of the Church, to secure the preservation of those buildings, whether in use or not, that have for so long been a continual matter of pride, concern and inspiration to the community at large. As Professor Baldwin wrote not long ago:

"There is no possession of the British Race endowed with a charm more intimate, more essentially their own, than the English country village. There are numberless rural hamlets where Nature and Man have worked in concert to fill the place with a mellowed beauty, that win their chief claim to praise in the perfect setting they provide for the country church … often the simple shrine surviving in a later fabric linked with it in historic continuity and bound to it by waves of poetic sentiments that are still in radial contact with the receptive heart."

These priceless heritages of the British people ought not, in my view, to be sacrificed because of any sordid economic consideration.

May I conclude, my Lords, by referring to something which greatly troubles me and also my colleagues on the Advisory Board as another of the anomalies resulting from the present legal position. I will not mention figures because they are continually changing as regards those which have been certified, or are likely to be certified, for demolition and those which are recommended for preservation by the Redundant Churches Fund. Your Lordships will appreciate that these cases fall into three categories in some cases there is no doubt that a church has such historic and architectural merits that it must be preserved. There are other cases—regrettably many Victorian churches, chiefly in industrial areas, including what used to be my own constituency of Islington, and places like Everton where there have been shifts of population—where a church cannot claim any historic merit, and even the most zealous amenity society would not be likely to plead for its preservation. But between those two extremes there is a large number of borderline cases in regard to which I personally find it difficult either to recommend demolition or to advocate preservation, particularly where the cost of preservation is almost prohibitive. But those are cases in which, as the law now stands, the church must be either preserved or demolished. This is unfortunate because I can mention one or two cases where neither preservation nor demolition is suitable, where it would be much better to leave them as they are; if necessary to do some minor repairs and allow them to remain in the countryside as tidy ruins.

To give your Lordships one example which I saw recently I refer to St. Mary, Fleet Marston, just North of Aylesbury, which must have been a most attractive church catering for a dedicated congregation since the 12th century until comparatively recently. It now stands in the middle of a field, surrounded by trees and 300 yards from the main road, and may be approached only across a muddy farm track. It has long ceased to serve any spiritual or religious purpose. Externally the structure is quite sound, and although the interior is in a sorry state of dilapidation and deterioration, it would not cost very much to put that right. It surely is a tragedy that the Church Commissioners have to decide either to preserve that church or to pull it down. Although dating from the 12th or 13th century, it would be difficult to say that it is of outstanding historic or architectural interest, but it does not seem to me to do any harm to leave it as it stands. It is a very pleasant feature of the landscape and is of passing interest to many using the highway. It so happened that when I was there the other Sunday—this may have been a coincidence—two motorists and their families drove up by the wayside and crossed this muddy farm path to have a look at it. It is particularly sad that churches like that and St. Andrew, Clay Coton, near Rugby, may have to be demolished. It is doubtful whether even Mr. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas would wish to spend the large sum of money required for the preservation of the latter. But a solution which seems to me sensible and practical, but is now outside the jurisdiction of those who have to decide, would be to leave it as it stands as one of the picturesque features of the landscape. My Lords, I have spoken too long. May I conclude by saying, as I did when I began, that I also would urge the Minister to give a sympathetic ear to the suggestions that have been pressed upon him from both sides of the House.

My Lords, unlike the noble Lord who has just delivered what seemed to me a most interesting speech, I have no special qualifications to take part in this debate, which I hope my noble friend will feel has already justified his action in initiating it. But I have a special interest, in the best sense, in that, as my noble friend said, I have within the last two or three years been chairman of commissions or committees set up by the respective Bishops to examine and report on the parochial problems of two very different cities: the City of Norwich and the City of Salisbury. In that capacity I have not been brought up against the problem of the village church that so badly needs attention, beyond the powers of the small community which it serves. But I have had very sharply brought to my notice inevitably, the problems of medieval churches which are closely gathered together in the centre of a city, a centre from which much of the population has removed owing to commercial development of the area. This is nobody's fault; it is simply historical change. But it poses to the Church of England, and sometimes to other Churches, the problem of the density of notable church buildings in the centre of a city.

We published our report on Salisbury only last month. There, in addition to the cathedral, there are three fine mediaeval churches in the city centre. Had the Church of England in Salisbury possessed unlimited financial and manpower resources, we would not have said that any of them should be considered as redundant. But the Church of England nowhere possesses these limitless resources, and therefore one has to ask the question whether it is right that men and money should be used for maintaining in use churches which are no longer really needed for worship or for other spiritual purposes. In the case of the church in Salisbury which seemed to us likely to have to be declared redundant, St. Edmund's, I would judge that there were very good hopes for an acceptable alternative use, if in fact the careful procedure under the Pastoral Measure does in the end lead to a declaration of redundancy. I cannot forecast whether it will.

Norwich is very different, and indeed unique, in that there are in the centre of that city more than 30 mediaeval churches, 14 of which already were no longer in use for services when the commission which I chaired was set up. We examined the whole problem as carefully and sympathetically as we could, but we came to the conclusion that in addition to those 14 there were another 10 which were not really needed for worship or other spiritual purposes. It seems to me, and it has seemed to all the members of the bodies with whom I have been studying these problems, that it is not right that money which has been given primarily for bringing the Christian message to the people should have to be spent as a first priority on the repair and maintenance of church buildings which are no longer required for worship.

This change has occurred not because of any weakness in the Church or the buildings but purely in those cases through movement of population consequent on the growth of commercial and office uses in the middle of cities where people in the old days used to have their homes. In our Norwich report (we were examining the law on church buildings declared redundant) we said this—and I think it has a bearing on a good deal that has been mentioned in the course of this debate:

"If no appropriate and serviceable alternative use can be found, but the church is of outstanding historical and architectural merits, it is possible that it may be deemed worthy of vesting in the Redundant Churches Fund. This fund is financed by the Church of England and the Exchequer jointly. Its available resources are limited, and only the very best church buildings can be expected to qualify for preservation in this way."

One reason why we did not suggest that resort to the Redundant Churches Fund would solve all the problems in Norwich was because it seemed to us that the primary responsibility lay with the people of Norwich to seek to find means to preserve their own heritage; and I am glad to say that the Norwich City Council has clearly recognised this, and I believe is going to play a full and worthy part in securing the preservation of its mediaeval churches which are no longer required.

In that case the tension which was mentioned by a previous speaker between the ecclesiastical authorities and the secular authorities does not exist, or at any rate has been resolved; and that is what one would wish to see in every town or city. However, I incurred some criticism over that paragraph I quoted, on the ground that the Commission had failed to recognise that the Redundant Churches Fund intended to make sure that all church buildings of historical and architectural merit would be preserved from demolition, and not only those whose merits were outstanding.

This same criticism of doubters is repeated in the third annual report of the Redundant Churches Fund, which has been referred to this afternoon. This is one of the questions on which we all need authoritative independent opinion. It was first raised, I think, by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford; and the noble Lord, Lord Fletcher, has mentioned it again. The question is: even if the Redundant Churches Fund has resources which at present enable it to carry out its declared purpose in full, ought we not to be looking further ahead and considering seriously whether there will still be sufficient resources in that fund when declarations of redundancy come along much more frequently than they have done so far? It is when declarations of redundancy under the Pastoral Measure reach their peak, as they will, that we have to consider the position. At the moment they have only just begun.

My Lords, when we were studying the problems of Norwich I could not keep out of my mind the far more massive and intractable problems which were likely to threaten many of the village churches of that diocese. They were outside our terms of reference, and it was understandable that the Church authorities should wish the City of Norwich to be looked at first. But in that diocese there are magnificent church buildings that have stood for hundreds of years, serving what are now tiny communities with correspondingly tiny resources—tiny, at any rate, in comparison with the strength as well as the population of a great city like Norwich. These village church problems are not problems of redundancy; they are, as has been said, problems of repair. I have no idea whether the Historic Churches Preservation Bill, which received a Second Reading in another place on, I think, March 24 is likely to reach the Statute Book. I take it that Clause 3 of that Bill is intended as an attempt to solve the problem of the village church—the village church which requires costly repairs far beyond the means of the local community.

My main concern is to lend my voice in support of comprehensive examination of all the problems which have been identified in the course of this debate, and I hope that the Government will give this their strong support. It is not simply a Government problem. Neither as Churchmen nor as citizens can we unload our responsibilities on to the Government. Nevertheless, leadership from the Government is of great importance, because this is a national as well as an ecclesiastical and local problem. Finally, my Lords, I wish to say this. Time is not on our side. We must be beforehand, not behindhand, with plans for coping successfully with the needs, which are, as I have said, of national and not only of Church importance. We must do that before these needs press in on us cumulatively and overwhelmingly, as I can foresee that they are going to do. Otherwise we shall be too late.

My Lords, I must first add my thanks to my noble friend Lord Alport because this subject is, like others in your Lordships' House, very close to my heart. To-day we have heard many valuable and useful points put forward, and I hope that on the subjects on which I am going to speak I shall not be too repetitious.

The right reverend Prelate spoke about small congregations, and the noble Lord, Lord Fletcher, mentioned a tour of the West Country. I have just been to Cornwall where I visited four particularly beautiful churches. These little churches were all over 500 years old, and each of them had some particular artistic, architectural or historic value. In all of them was pinned up a notice saying that so many hundreds of pounds were required for maintenance and would visitors please help to support them. The congregations themselves do valuable work; anybody who is a regular worshipper in any church does his part. I had experience of this myself a few years ago when I did some work in connection with Christian Stewardship. I believe other churches of other denominations have similar schemes. But every parish has the problem that the time comes when they have to face something out of the ordinary and so often they have to apply to the public to provide that help. I wondered whether any other noble Lord would mention preservation where the church has been threatened by a project like a new motorway or a new airport. There have in the last few years been instances where churches have been moved bodily from one place to another piecemeal. But if the scheme which the noble Lord, Lord Alport, is proposing comes into effect can we visualise anything designed to relieve such a need?

There is a danger, too, in our work of preservation. I hope I am not getting too much off the point. I speak as an experienced traveller, one fortunate in having travelled to many places, and I know that our churches in this country are a great draw to tourists and travellers. The work of preserving them will improve the important tourist industry and will encourage more people to visit our churches. But when the worshipping has been done it must not be seen to be spoiled by the way the churches are treated. So far as I have seen travellers to our more prominent churches, particularly those in use, have treated them with great respect. But when I went touring on the Continent I visited various famous churches, and unless a service was actually in progress it was impossible for anybody to go in and use the church for a quiet moment, not just because of the crowds but because of the babble of uncontrolled conversation. I particularly recommend the project of my noble friend as a very present help towards overcoming trouble, but its value will be lost if our churches lose their true value.

My Lords, may I join with other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend for giving us this opportunity to discuss this subject. In, I hope, a very brief intervention I wish to raise the question of parish records and monumental inscriptions. My noble friend Lord Alport said, quite rightly, that these redundant churches are a visible record of our national heritage. I suggest that these written records are of equal importance. I raised the subject of the better preservation of parish records in an Unstarred Question a year ago, and I do not wish to go all over the ground we discussed then. My noble friend Lord Aberdare answered that Question and very kindly dealt with certain matters that arose out of it. But it was definitely accepted that there was a need for better preservation. These records date back in some cases to as early as 1538, and the majority begin in the 16th century. The records themselves consist of the parish register of christenings, marriages and deaths, churchwardens' accounts, and such other items as the settlement records of people which have been transferred from another parish. They are of great use to genealogists, to people pursuing their family history, to demographers, historians and the like.

My suggestion to the Government is that as soon as a church becomes redundant these records should automatically be deposited at the County Records Office. I believe the present situation is that the records are passed on to the new parish. But there might not be suitable accommodation for them there at that particular church. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford mentioned that many of these redundant churches suffer from damp and frost, only being used in the summer. The records can suffer likewise, from being housed in inadequate safes. They may suffer from fire, flood and theft as well as from damp and frost. I am sure that in many cases the records are now deposited, but this is by no means definitely so.

Finally, my Lords, most of your Lordships have said a word or two about Victorian churches, which may or may not be defined as of architectural interest. Your Lordships may wonder why these churches ever came to be built in the first place. But one needs only to look at the registers of the highly populated parishes of our cities for the answer. In London churches like St. Marylebone, St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, or St. Mary at Lambeth, in the early part of the 19th century could be compared with Piccadilly Circus to-day. There would be no fewer than 30 christenings on a Sunday, and in certain cases about 30 to 50 funerals a week, as well as a great number of marriages. How they ever managed one does not know. These churches provided a great service at that time, and it is sad that they have been rejected rather into obscurity. I would again thank my noble friend for raising this Question, and I hope that the records will be looked after.

My Lords, I should like to start by congratulating my noble friend Lord Alport on his good fortune in the ballot box and also on his choice of subject; and, if I may say so, on the eloquence with which he expounded it. I would add that it so happens that I am looking forward to paying a visit to the County of Essex and the Diocese of Chelmsford—including visits to Chelmsford and Colchester—this weekend to look at some matters of conservation, and I hope very much to see some of the things he has been mentioning. I find myself in the position to-day of being officially, because of the office I hold, unaware of a number of things we have been discussing, but of personally having some experience of and insight into them. It is not, for instance, for me now to comment on the efficacy of the Redundant Churches Fund or on the inner workings of the Pastoral Measure. These are still internal matters of the Church of England. But that does not mean to say that I cannot join with others in admiring the skill and judgment of the noble Lord, Lord Fletcher, as Chairman of the Advisory Body, or the work of Mr. Bulmer-Thomas, as Chairman of the Redundant Churches Fund. Mr. Bulmer-Thomas, in his indefatigable way, has seen to it that we are all well furnished with information for the purposes of this debate.

I think the subject falls into two parts: first of all, the fate of churches no longer required for worship the redundant churches, and the problem of churches still required for worship but in one way or another thought to be beyond the capacity of their congregations to maintain them. I should like to deal with them separately in those two parts. The facts which Mr. Bulmer-Thomas has supplied to us (and which the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, has already quoted) indicate to me that in a period which is roughly one-fifth of the period for which the Bridges Committee were reviewing (that is to say, three years, and the Bridges Committee looks forward over 15 years) about one-fifth of the churches which the Bridges Committee thought in the end would be declared redundant have in fact been declared redundant: 168 out of 790. But in that period, of the £257,000 that has become available—not quite a fifth of what will become available if the Redundant Churches Fund and its arrangements flow on unaltered over the next 15 years—just a fraction over £100,000 has been spent, and £148,000 remains uncommitted in the kitty of the fund. Therefore, on present trends it looks as though the forecasts of the Bridges Committee are about right; churches are being declared redundant at about the rate they expected, and the funds, on the whole, are about meeting the figure intended. At the moment it has not been necessary to commit all of them though they are now available.

It is quite true that in the first three years of the working of the Pastoral Measure and Redundant Churches Fund progress appears to have been slow at the start; on the other hand, there is the fact which my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor mentioned, that we started this period with 14 churches already redundant, and known to be redundant, in the City of Norwich alone, and these immediately went into the process and went through the shortened procedure. Therefore I think the fact that it might be taking a little time for the process to get started is to some extent counteracted by that further consideration.

My own view is that the facts as we have them so far indicate that, so far as churches declared redundant for worship are concerned, the case for an entirely new organisation, or a new scale of funding, has yet to be made out, though obviously we must be prepared for a change in the current trends. That is not to say that the possibility put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Fletcher, is not one which can constantly be borne in mind—namely, using the Ancient Monuments Act 1953, Section 5. But of course, as the noble Lord will know, the standards of building which can be brought into care under that Act are of the very highest.

Now may I turn to the more open and difficult question of churches in use for worship and the possibility of State aid for them? I should like to endorse straight away, in order to make it quite clear, that the State officially is in no doubt about the architectural value of the parish churches of England—as so many noble Lords have already said—over and above their value for worship, for witness, for the pastoral work of the Church and for Christian mission, which it would not be for a Minister of the Crown to comment on. They are among the most highly prized architectural jewels in the whole of our heritage, and that is a matter on which the State, as well as the Church, has a right to express an opinion and show a concern.

The position at the moment, without going back and examining the question as it was left in 1913, is that the central Government are not in a position to use their funds for the maintenance or repair or the upkeep of churches in use for worship; but this is not the case in regard to the use of local government funds. Under two enactments, the Local Authorities (Historic Buildings) Act 1962 and the Local Government Act 1948, Section 136, it is possible for local authorities to give financial assistance to churches, cathedrals and other ecclesiastical buildings in their area. Under those powers the local authorities of Yorkshire have made a signal contribution in respect of York Minster. Using as a basis the extremely valuable document for which the city and the churches in Norwich are deeply in debt to my noble friend, Lord Brooke, the city of Norwich is in fact following up his suggestion, which I personally think is so sound, of securing that the local people, and local government through their locally elected bodies, should support as far as they can the medixyal churches of the city of Norwich, both redundant and otherwise. But the position remains that before the central Government can contemplate any system of State aid for the churches a thorough review of all the factors involved must be undertaken.

The noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, mentioned that our predecessors had offered a sum of £500,000 for this purpose. That is not my understanding of the position, and it is not the position as it was reported to the Church Assembly immediately before the General Election. I should like, if I may, to quote rather extensively on the position as it was reported then. This information was disclosed to the Church Assembly with the consent of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, and it is recorded in Church Assembly Document 1777 of June 7. 1970, which was immediately before the Election. There had been two conferences between the Churches and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, chaired by my predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Kennet. I will now quote:

"On each occasion Lord Kennet made a point of discouraging any expectations of immediate financial assistance for historic churches which were still in use as places of worship. The agreed note of the first conference of 28th July "—

1969—

"records the following statement by Lord Kennet—There was no money available now and it could be taken that any suggestion of releasing a worthwhile sum was virtually nil. It was however well worth entering into discussions for the future.' In the course of discussion at this conference a member of the Commission "—

that is, the Church Assembly Places of Worship Commission—

"observed 'that the suggestion had been made that if the exemption were removed a considerable sum might be available. Lord Kennet assured him that this was certainly not the case.' According to the agreed note of the second conference on 16th September, 1969, Lord Kennet stated that at present there was no immediate likelihood of sufficient exchequer funds being available to make institution of a new system worthwhile."

That is the position as it was reported to the Churches following discussions with our predecessors. On the other hand, the position now is that, first of all, there are, as there were then, powers for local authorities to assist churches, both in use for worship and others. There has been an announcement in the course of the Budget in another place to the effect that the Chancellor is now ready to give relief in respect of estate duty on gifts to charities of up to £50,000, and on capital gains tax without any upper limit. I am quite certain that that will be of con siderable assistance to all charities, including parochial church councils and other organisations set up to conduct appeals, or in the case of the churches to organise Christian stewardship schemes, such as my noble friend Lord Gainford referred to, for the upkeep of churches. To that extent, the position of the churches as of all other charities is considerably improved.

But as to the general question, a working party chaired by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester, commissioned by the General Synod of the Church of England, has approached the Department of the Environment on behalf of all the churches to consider the possibility of State aid from central Government sources for the churches as a whole. All I can do at the moment is to confirm what other Governments have said, that this is a matter which we are now ready to approach with an open mind. We cannot arrive—and I do not think any Government have ever thought that it would be possible to arrive—at any solution to this problem, or at any formula for dealing with it, without a full consideration of all the factors involved. This is a matter of Church/State relationships and it is very difficult to move in this field without being extremely circumspect, especially in this particular one of the exemption of the churches from certain aspects of planning and development control.

So the first thing we need to do in our studies together is to know the nature of the problem and the scale of the cost involved. The position at the moment is that, on behalf of my colleagues in the Government, I have asked for a sample, drawn from at least one diocese, of what is involved in dealing with the churches that are now beyond, or are said to be beyond, the capacity of their congregations to maintain. I suppose that for this purpose the Church of England will choose a rural diocese such as, say, Lincoln or Suffolk, but I do not know. I am confident that studies like this will give us a large number of very useful facts. The churches have the great advantage over secular pleadings of now having had quinquennial inspections by qualified architects for ten or 15 years, and their condition and the amount of money that needs to be spent on them, both in the short-term and in the long-term, is all known with some exactitude. So we shall be able to make a fair assessment. When I have that information I shall have to report to my colleagues and, on the basis of that, substantive negotiations can then proceed.

Meanwhile, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor for making the point, which I think has much strength and weight, that, in the first instance, there is a great deal to be said for the maintenance of parish churches and cathedrals being borne so far as possible not only by their local congregations but also by local communities and local authorities. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alport, for having raised this issue and for giving me this opportunity to state to your Lordships the position, as we see it, in respect of churches redundant for worship and churches in use for worship.

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I wonder whether I may put one point to him, because he referred to what I said about the sum of money which the previous Government had decided upon as appropriate for churches in use, subject to an abandonment of the ecclesiastical exemption. The OFFICIAL REPORT will tomorrow show the exact words which I used. I do not think I said that they decided to offer that. What I certainly should have said was that they decided to make that available. That was the figure which had been used in discussions between Ministers. It remains the impression of my noble friend Lord Kennet that that was the figure which was to be made available at that time, subject to the conditions. I think it is the figure to which the noble Lord, Lord Alport, referred, and it is also the figure which is very firmly in the mind of Mr. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas. This has been mentioned in correspondence in The Times on at least two occasions, and I believe it to be an accurate record of what the last Government decided to do.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for what he has said, but I think he will agree that it was also as well to have on the record the position as it was officially set before the Church Assembly, following the two official discussions held by his colleagues with the churches on the occasions to which I referred.

My Lords, I had an opportunity at the end of my remarks at the beginning of this debate to thank in prospect, so to speak, noble Lords who were going to take part in it. I can now repeat those thanks, particularly to the Minister for the careful reply which he has given to this debate. There is only one point which I should like to make, and it is that I hope that when the consideration and negotiations which are being undertaken are in train they will include not only the churches of the Church of England but also the chapels and meetings places on the Free Churches.

My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Lord would like me to confirm that now, but I certainly can. The working party has been commissioned by the Synod of the Church of England and it is led by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester, hut it is certainly acting on behalf of all the denominations and is in close touch with the Churches Main Committee.

My Lords, I am grateful for that, because I think it is important—and certainly it is important so far as my Motion is concerned—that this consideration should be in respect not merely of the Established Church in either England or Wales but of religious places of worship throughout the United Kingdom. As I said, I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this subject. Your Lordships have covered the course in an hour and 50 minutes, which shows that these mini-debates, if I may use that term, can be of great use in thoroughly covering a restricted subject within a relatively short period of time and in allowing a number of your Lordships to take part in deliberations of the House. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.