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

My Lords, the Government expect the board of British Airways to improve efficiency in the use of capital and labour resources to match the level of its most efficient competitors and to attain a level of profitability consistent with the financial target that we have set for the airline.

My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for his reply, may I ask whether he would agree that, despite the technical excellence of British Airways, the airline is consistently below average in the world airline efficiency charts, owing to gross overmanning and heavy unionisation?

My Lords, I think that my noble friend overstates the position slightly. Certainly there is room for improvement in British Airways, but in recent years there has been just that. I can give my noble friend sonic figures. For example, in 1979–80 output per employee was 7 per cent. better than the 1978–79 level, which in turn was 10 per cent. better than the 1977–78 level. I could give my noble friend further figures along the same lines, but that might unduly weary the House.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for the figures he has quoted. Is he aware that according to a recent study comparing 12 different major European and American airlines, plus Japan Airlines, British Airways' revenue earned per employee is the lowest and that it is also at the bottom of the table when comparing passengers carried per employee?

My Lords, I cannot pretend that all is necessarily perfect with British Airways; indeed it is not. There is still room for improvement, as I have said, but in looking at the surveys that are made one must consider carefully whether those who carry out the surveys are comparing like with like.

My Lords, is it not a fact that on the formation of British Airways a certain gentleman was asked to join the board of the airline, but said that he would not do so unless it agreed to take action regarding certain overmanning and the top-heavy situation? He then went on to join the board of British Caledonian. Surely from that we can learn a lesson for the running of British Airways.

My Lords, I do not know who the gentleman is to whom the noble Lord refers, but perhaps a better course would have been for him to join British Airways and try to put it right.

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that some of us would like to know on what authority the question of overmanning is analysed? If the overmanning is analysed for the purpose of seeking cuts, will the noble Lord let it be known to the captains and other staff of British Airways that some of us who use the airline have a feeling of confidence and of being in safe hands when we are taken to various parts of the world? No good is done to the system by attacking it or by trying to cut and pare its cost.

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord to a very great extent. In technical terms British Airways is in my opinion the best in the world. On the other hand, with regard to the question of overmanning, which several noble Lords and noble Baronesses have raised, the British Airways management is itself on record as saying that there is room for improvement, and that is what it is striving to achieve.

My Lords, is it not a fact that the punctuality record of British Airways has greatly improved in the last year or two? Will my noble friend also confirm that the outgoing chairman, Sir Ross Stainton, has been tackling the overmanning problem with courage and determination.

My Lords, with regard to the latter point, my noble friend is quite right. Certainly Sir Ross Stainton, who has recently retired as chairman of British Airways, had a most distinguished record with the airline, in particular in recent years when he was chairman, and he has undoubtedly achieved considerable reduction in the manning levels to which my noble friend referred.

My Lords, may I say what a delight it is to hear a Minister at that Box supporting a public corporation?

My Lords, before we have a debate on this issue on 18th February, will my noble friend study the charts which appeared in Flight International of 3rd January? I reliase that any one criterion is not a perfect reflection, but Flight International contained eight charts and British Airways was not shown up very well by any of the eight different criteria. Is it not rather sad that following the amalgamation of the British Overseas Airways Corporation and British European Airways, from which it was hoped there would be considerable economies, the total number of personnel in British Airways in 1979 reached an all-time peak of 59,000? That is not the kind of economy which this Parliament was looking for.

My Lords, I have already referred to the decline in manning levels in British Airways in the last year or so. In fact, the peak to which my noble friend referred was reached some years earlier than he suggested, and figures have been significantly below that level in recent years. I have already studied the charts to which my noble friend referred, but I shall ensure that I refresh my memory on them before the debate which we are to have on, I think, 18th February. On the question of punctuality raised by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter a few moments ago, I would say that I believe that my noble friend Lord Kimberley has put down a Question on that precise point, and it is to be answered the week after next.

My Lords, is the Minister aware that many of us who travel on British Airways are deeply impressed by the efficiency of the service and the friendliness of the staff? Is it not a matter of patriotism that we should be giving support to our own airline and seeking constructively to bring about continual improvement?

Yes, indeed, my Lords; but of course only a small percentage of British Airways passengers are British people, and for the others patriotism may go in a different direction.

My Lords, is it not a fact that though much yet needs to be done in British Airways, nevertheless credit is due to those who have been working in the corporation? As regards punctuality, is it not a fact that 70 per cent. of British Airways' departures on long-haul leave on time, compared with, I think, 56 per cent. of Pan American's and 65 per cent. of TWA's? So the competitive state of British Airways is not as desperate as certain individuals wish to suggest.

My Lords, of course we in the Government have to judge British Airways not only by its competitiveness and efficiency, which we do, but also by its financial results which, like those of other airlines, are at present not as good as they might be. However, we are to have a debate on this matter in a week or so, and perhaps it would now be appropriate to move on.

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

My Lords, plans to maintain essential, life-saving services in the National Health Service are of long standing and are reviewed from time to time. The recent unauthorised disclosure to the press of material concerned the latest review of certain plans, details of which must, of course, remain confidential.

My Lords, is the noble Baroness correct when she says that plans—implying those to which I make reference—are of long standing? Is it not true that quite recently the Department of Health and Social Security issued three plans—a plan known as Plan Lionel, a Plan Concord, and a Plan Bittern—dealing with the use of service personnel in the event of difficulties? May I also ask the noble Baroness what has happened to the code of practice which the last Government introduced and got agreed; and does this mean that the Government have decided, in the event of a dispute, to abandon consultation and replace it with confrontation?

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, is not entirely accurate in what he says, for the timing of the recent review of contingency planning is in fact entirely fortuitous. Work on it started as long ago as 1979, following upon the industrial action in the early part of that year, and the planning is continuing. It would not be proper for me to comment on the details, but this is not a new situation.

But, my Lords, the noble Baroness will agree that it is a new situation in the sense that the documents to which I am referring have come into being since the Government came into power in May 1979?

My Lords, the letter to which the noble Lord refers is, of course, new, but the contingency planning has been going on since the former Administration, of which he was a member, was in office, and in principle there is nothing new in what is happening now.

My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness, as she has implied that there has in fact been a leak of a confidential circular, whether the circular goes on to say:

"The security of these documents is paramount. You are in possession of military plans which are highly sensitive. Any disclosure of information contained in these plans would be extremely damaging to the Government's industrial relations policy".

My Lords, I am not prepared to comment on what might or might not be in a confidential letter, but may I say categorically that the use of servicemen is a serious matter, and their deployment must remain under ministerial control. Only in the event that health authorities could not maintain essential services through any other means, and when all other means of settling an industrial dispute had been tried and had failed, would troops be used as a final resort; and f might remind the noble Lord that, very unfortunately, they had to be used in the winter of 1979, as he will recall.

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

My Lords, up to 31st January subscriptions to the new "granny bonds" amounted to £600 million. The target for increased National Savings for this financial year was £1,500 million, but this covers other measures as well as "granny bonds", and there are, of course, still two months to go. Sales of gilt-edged securities will continue to be the major source of finance for the Government's borrowing requirement, but in present circumstances an additional contribution from National Savings is also needed.

My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, and without suggesting that my noble friend either qualifies for "granny bonds" or has a stake in them, may I ask him whether, despite the encouraging influx of monies into the building society movement in recent months, he is aware that the movement is very anxious about "granny bonds" and the incursion into the housing finance market? As the Government target for "granny bonds" is, I believe, £3 billion for 1980–81, as against £4·5 billion for the building society movement, will he keep the matter under review?

My Lords, I am of course aware of the anxieties to which my noble friend refers. Nevertheless, the position is as he indicates, that the flow of funds into the building societies has been at a record level, and is continuing. This indicates that the building societies have met the situation successfully, and they are to be congratulated on so doing.

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

My Lords, the study into the problems facing the Royal Dockyards which was carried out last year under the chairmanship of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy made recommendations on a framework for the future. Those recommendations are still under consideration.

My Lords, while I thank my noble friend for that reply, may I ask him whether it is not time some action was taken in view of the fact that these recommendations have been in the hands of the Minister for some time and were published in August 1980? I think the dockyards have been neglected, and I raised many of these points in the last defence debate. I hope that, in view of what I have said, my noble friend will see that some action is taken soon. No Government have taken a real interest in the dockyards since 1955.

My Lords, I know that my noble friend has taken a great interest in the Royal Dockyards for many years, but if I may say so the Consultative Document on the Royal Dockyards is a comprehensive and penetrating analysis of the situation, and its recommendations have far-reaching implications. Subsidiary, in-depth studies have been necessary to prepare the way for final decisions to be taken on the recommendations. Some of the recommendations, which are in Chapter 14 of the Consultative Document, embrace, among other things, the workload of the dockyards, their manpower, their management structure, their methods of accounting and their arrangements for pay and productivity payments. The implications of the recommended changes in all these areas must be considered.

My Lords, may we have an assurance from the noble Viscount that before any fundamental change is brought about both Houses of Parliament will be offered an opportunity to express an opinion—in particular, if any question of disposal of Government assets to private enterprise is under review? Furthermore, will he understand that, whatever may be thought in political circles about the transfer of nationalised assets to private ownership, when it comes to the disposal of Government equipment associated with defence the Government will meet with opposition of such a formidable character that they will not last very long afterwards?

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, but, if I may say so, that is not what was in the document. What the document contained were suggestions to improve the situation in the Royal Dockyards. If I may go one stage further, there is certainly no doubt that the Royal Navy will continue to need the capacity provided by the four dockyards.

My Lords, it may be for the convenience of your Lordships if I announce that dinner will be available at the usual time this evening. I think I should possibly add that it is not intended to adjourn the House for dinner.

moved Amendment No. 1:

My Lords, I should like to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, to which I have added my name. The noble Lord has made a very good case with which I fully agree and has fully justified the fact that this amendment has been put down again. It should give the Government more opportunity to justify the exclusion of electrical appliances, and domestic appliances in particular.

The Bill as it now stands gives the Secretary of State powers to require space and water heaters, which use energy in any form including solar radiation and electricity, as well as gas appliances for cooking, refrigeration, lighting or washing, to conform to energy efficiency standards. It has not included electrical appliances. We are not convinced by Lord Gowrie's arguments in Committee and we wish to have another chance to hear why the Government have left out this important area from the Bill. They like to call the Bill—and the noble Earl told us in Committee that this was not for cosmetic reasons, but for compelling reasons—an energy conservation Bill. How one can conserve energy without attempting to conserve energy through the important area of electrical appliances is something that perhaps the noble Earl will tell us when he comes to reply.

Apart from the obvious argument that the Bill proposes to include gas appliances, as I have said, these are also subject to the same market forces as electrical appliances; it is these market forces that must be examined if the Government's case is to be convincing. The total cost of ownership (buying, running, maintaining and repairing of the product) is a concept which is still not widely used in buying decisions. Therefore—and this is the view of many outside bodies including the Consumers' Association—there is no strong incentive on manufacturers to improve the energy efficiency of appliances. I am sure that they can be improved.

As the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, has said, the IIED has cited Danish work which shows that through good design energy consumption can be cut by almost half. There have also been recent United States studies which show that energy use in the larger electrical appliances, such as freezers, refrigerators, tumble dryers and dishwashers, could be reduced by 50 per cent. for little or no extra cost to the consumer by such devices as improved seals round doors and latches, better heat pumps, internal recycling of heat, et cetera, and more thermal insulation and better heat exchangers.

Therefore, it is our case that it is likely that the energy efficiency of electrical appliances will be increased more rapidly with rather than without energy efficiency standards, especially if those standards are changed when technical advances are made. This is one area where the Government must consider very seriously that they cannot rely entirely on market forces, however much they may believe in them in many other spheres. Therefore, I support the amendment.

My Lords, I should also like to support this amendment. Living in a suburban area, as I do, I have come to realise to what an enormous extent the average person relies upon electricity for their day to day lives. Apart from those that are mentioned in the amendment, there are electric hedge cutters, electric car washers and polishers, power drills (of which I must confess ownership) and many others. Electricity is used for anything in order to save making a little effort yourself. Of course, electric mowers also use a considerable amount of energy. Therefore, I think that an amendment certainly similar to the one proposed, if not exactly the same, is by all means necessary.

My Lords, I am at a loss to understand why, considering that this only gives an enabling provision, the Minister should have been against it. I do not think that he has succeeded in making any satisfactory case as to why electrical appliances are different from gas.

I have carried out some studies on energy consumption. I did an analysis of a number of Which? reports and I also looked into some of those from the Continent. There is in many cases a 100 per cent. difference between the least energy consuming example and the worst. In nearly all cases there was something like 50 per cent. difference between the best and the average. There was no actual cost correlation. In other words, the appliance that used least energy was not any more expensive. The Minister, I believe, has talked about market forces. We have to remember in the first place that the consumers do not have the information when making their choice. In one case, with deep freezers, the outside casing of the deep freeze was used to dissipate the heat instead of having the radiator located behind it. This of course greatly lowers the efficiency of the deep freeze. That was done because it improved its looks.

I want to be fair: there is some endeavour now among manufacturers to improve efficiency. But it has not gone anything like far enough. If this amendment is accepted, I do not suggest that the Minister should start straight away laying down criteria; but he certainly ought to be able to do so if it proves necessary, because the manufacturers do not continue with energy-saving designs.

To take a simple example of the television set, which is not included in this list, there is very often a two-to-one difference in the consumption of energy and because some people use the television a lot this adds a considerable cost in the year. Much the same applies to refrigerators. One might say that those appliances do not have a high current consumption; but they are in practically every home and when one looks at the situation overall it represents quite a significant amount of our national demand for energy. So it is most important that the manufacturers should be encouraged to do their best to improve the energy in the ways that they can. I therefore very strongly support this amendment and I suggest that it might be pressed to a Division.

My Lords, of course I accept much of what the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, said in moving the amendment, and also much of what has been said by other noble Lords who have supported him. I certainly agree it is very likely that domestic electrical appliances will continue to consume an increasing proportion of electricity used in the home, and that therefore the consumer is intimately involved in the improvement of energy use. The Government care a great deal about that. We want to make it clear to manufacturers and others that we think a high priority should be given to practical cost-effective improvements in the energy efficiency of every kind of appliance, including of course the domestic electrical appliances with which the amendment is concerned.

But all that said, I think there are a number of points intimately connected with the Bill which some speakers have overlooked. I would remind the House that this Bill is not just about setting standards: it is about applying standards, with which we would all agree, through a system of type-approval. Type-approval, by definition, does not come free. There is a cost to the manufacturer who has to pay fees to the type-approval body and these costs will, generally speaking, be passed on to the consumer. I do not particularly quarrel with that because, of course, it is the consumer who ultimately reaps the benefit of the system. We believe it is right to have powers to require the appliance covered by the Bill to be type-approved in this way.

As I said on Second Reading, it is possible to identify respects in which the performance of various kinds of boilers and other heating appliances can be improved and also type-approved. In short, we believe that the benefits of this kind of system will greatly outweigh any costs to manufacturer and consumer and hence these appliances covered by the Bill. So any difference between us really comes down to this question: can the same thing be said of the domestic electrical appliances which the noble Lord's amendment wishes to add to the Bill? I have to say to the House that I am not convinced that this case has been made out, and in the time remaining to me I should like to address myself to that issue.

Most electrical appliances already convert electrical energy to heat or mechanical energy with a very high degree of efficiency. That is not the only aspect which is relevant to energy efficiency, because the controls on appliances and insulation of things like ovens and refrigerators are also important; but I think it represents a major difference between electrical appliances and those which use other fuels. My advice is that there are even problems about how standards of energy efficiency for domestic electrical appliances might be devised. International standards bodies have been working in this field for 15 years and so far have failed to come up with acceptably accurate standards by which the energy consumption of domestic electrical appliances, except in the case of ovens, can be measured for legislative purposes.

The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, mentioned the report of the International Institute for Environment and Development. I am happy to pay tribute to that as an admirable body. Indeed, my honourable friend in the Government who is responsible for energy conservation has appeared on the same platform as one of the authors of the report, Mr. Gerald Leach. The report has been discussed and widely studied by the Government: it contains much valuable work. Some appliances—and here television sets come to mind—now use very much less energy than was used by typical sets of only five or six years ago. The base year for that report's comment on electrical appliances was 1975. The report said, for instance, that each colour television set used 500 Kw hours a year. In 1975, with some of the larger sets which were then on the market, that level of consumption could have been reached with only four to six hours' viewing each evening. But with the modern colour sets of a similar screen size, a viewer could not use 500 Kw hours costing about £20 in a whole year, let alone in five or six hours, unless he had his television set on for up to 15 hours a day every day of the year. So in any case technology is moving, in our contention, in the direction of energy conservation.

Of course we recognise there is evidence from other countries that the efficiency of appliances can be significandy improved, although when we have looked into the details of improvements suggested we have generally found that the appliances criticised in other countries were much bigger or had more energy-using or energy-wasting features than the domestic appliances typically on sale in this country. Therefore only some of the more minor and expensive recommendations were relevant to appliances generally on sale here.

As I said, we accept that the number of domestic electrical appliances in use in homes is likely to grow, and we believe that some improvement in efficiency is likely to grow, and we believe that some improvement in efficiency is likely to prove practical and cost-effective. We would very much like to see such improvements but we do not think it is right to take powers in the Bill to impose efficiency standards by law in those areas in a market, whatever noble Lords may think of it, which is already imposing the efficiency standards rather more rapidly than any legislation that can be devised.

There is another point, which addresses itself particularly to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, in supporting the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont. There is another difference between domestic electrical appliances and those covered in the Bill. I would refer your Lordships to my remarks at the Committee stage about this difference. Many of the appliances covered by the Bill are not sold direct to the customer. By definition therefore they are not subject very easily to the interplay of competitive market forces. They are sold through builders, through central heating installers and so on. The final user of the appliances—that is to say the person who pays the fuel bills—often has little say over which appliances are installed. If you happen to live in a flat you do not necessarily have much say over what kind of central heating system has been installed in the basement of the building in which your flat is.

This is clearly, I think, a difference with the situation where domestic electrical appliances are concerned because the latter are bought direct by the final user. There are very many competing products to choose from. The customer can go to bodies which produce reports like those of the Consumers' Association—and if your Lordships think that is rather a "la-di-da" thing to do, many people are now aware of the Consumers' Association and do make use of it—I would say that modern advertising, using the instance of the Mini-Metro during the last stage, often makes the energy efficiency point to the customer very efficiently and well.

I think it is absurd to suggest that manufacturers do not now use claims of improved energy efficiency as good selling points. Therefore it would seem to us that in this case market forces do seem to operate for such appliances in the direction of improved energy efficiency. As I said, perhaps slightly teasingly at the last stage, "market forces" has become something of a political "buzz word" and I recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, must respond to this "buzz"; but I must say I am rather shocked and distressed to see the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, with all the classical Liberal attachment to freedom of markets, in such company.

As to the point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, on enabling powers, we should be slightly disciplined about scattering enabling powers through the legislative landscape like confetti. All Governments have been guilty of this in recent years. But, of course, the general argument that I finally want to come back to goes deeper than this. Including domestic electrical appliances in the Bill would take us a very long way beyond Community obligations, which it is one purpose—not the main purpose—of the Bill to fulfil. Indeed, it is possible that there would be a conflict between requiring type approval for domestic electrical appliances and our other obligations under the low voltage directive.

The proposals which are now incorporated in Part I of the Bill have been very widely consulted on and discussed. We have taken into account the views and comments of 170 different organisations. The great majority of those who responded, which included a majority of organisations representing our own domestic manufacturers, agreed with our general approach. We were, therefore, able to bring this Bill before Parliament in the knowledge that it commanded wide support among those whom it was likely to affect.

But if we were now to extend the scope of the Bill, as the amendment would have us do, to cover domestic electrical appliances, I believe that we should be in a very different position. We should be acting without consultation and we should be in a less defensible position still, since the main association which represents manufacturers of domestic electrical appliances made it clear to us that they were very strongly opposed to an extension of the Bill and they believed that such an extension would be detrimental to their members' commercial interests, not only in this country but in overseas markets.

So we should consider very carefully before moving away from the broad agreement among those affected, upon which this Bill has hitherto been based, on which a lot of work has been done, and where we feel that we have got the balance of competing interests about right—not least, the interest of energy conservation.

My Lords, the noble Earl has produced a number of heavy arguments, some of which are very much the same as he produced before. But that is not surprising, because, presumably, he thought they were good then and he thinks they are good now. I must say that I am far from convinced. Of course, type approval costs money and there is no difference between us as to who should pay for it. It is the manufacturers and, presumably, in some form or another the cost would then be passed on to the customer. I do not think that the customer would particularly mind that if it meant that he was spending less on his energy consumption. Nor do I think, given the kind of appliances and the very large numbers that we are talking about, that the amount of money concerned would be more than infinitesimal.

The noble Earl also said that electrical appliances are already efficient. That is true, certainly compared to a number of other fuels and a number of other kinds of machinery. But very few of them are so efficient that they cannot be made more so. The difference between the energy efficiency of machines of the same kind which are equally successful in the market seems to show not only that there is not a very great deal of market pressure here, but also that there is very considerable room for improvement.

We accept, as the noble Earl the Minister said, that some improvement is already occurring, but I do not think we would accept that it is occurring—I think this is what he said—much more rapidly than any regulation could effect. We do not think that is true. We think, on the whole, that in the past it has been slow in happening, and, although we agree that it is happening now, we do not think it is happening fast enough.

Energy efficiency—until energy becomes a very great deal more expensive than it is now, which it may well do—does not appear to be a major consideration in customers' choices. The reason for this, which I attempted to point out in my opening speech and shall not repeat again, is the multiplicity of sales points of one kind or another in these appliances, and the difficulty of finding an easily understandable formula, which people can use and quantify as against costs. This amendment, if passed, would have a considerable effect.

The noble Earl twitted me for speaking from these Benches on the freedom of markets. The noble Earl knows perfectly well that in real life there is no such thing as a free market and one has to take into consideration all kinds of things, including the lack of freedom of the market, the reasons which militate against people making a choice on a particular matter and the public interest, and, in the question of energy conservation in 1981, there is a public interest which goes far beyond the private interests that we are talking about.

We are not trying to force anything. The noble Earl the Minister said that permissive clauses were scattered like confetti. I think that where there is a very great deal to be said for permissive clauses—not for compulsory clauses—there is no harm in scattering them about quite a lot because, as we all know, there are difficulties in finding time in your Lordships' House, or in Parliament generally, for Bills of one kind or another. We do not want to take two bites at this cherry. To give the Secretary of State these powers for electricity, when we have given them for gas, is not something about which he has very much to complain.

I accept the fact that there will have to be consultation before all these standards are set, but I do not see why the general principle cannot now be accepted, whether or not the makers of the electrical installations have been consulted. I do not believe for a moment that it will be detrimental in overseas markets. If we set these standards, it will help our overseas exports a very great deal. I see no reason at all not to pass this purely permissive amendment and, unless my colleagues object, I feel inclined to divide the House on it.

moved Amendment No. 3:

My Lords, before the noble Earl replies, I wonder whether I might add one brief point in support of the arguments already advanced on this amendment by my noble friend Lord Tanlaw. My noble friend has reminded the House of the alarming increase in muggings, attacks, robberies and other kinds of maltreatment of elderly people and others living alone by bogus callers of one kind or another, and some of those bogus callers who have gained entry to the homes of elderly people have in fact done so disguised as meter readers.

Some time ago, I played a part in persuading the electricity boards to introduce what is known as the "password scheme" for the visually handicapped; in other words, for the blind; for people who are unable to study callers' credentials and decide whether they are genuine; people who cannot benefit from a door chain so that they can scrutinise a caller before letting him in. The blind are in a particularly vulnerable position. Therefore, the electricity boards introduced a password scheme, under which visually handicapped people could choose their own password which was kept entirely secret and unless the would-be meter reader gave that password the blind person did not let the meter reader in. Some time after that the gas boards were persuaded to introduce a similar scheme.

At the moment, particularly in the North-West, in Greater Manchester and in Merseyside, where there has recently been a great increase in the number of these attacks, muggings and so on by bogus callers, we are now having pressure from other bodies representing the disabled and the elderly for the electricity boards and the gas boards to extend the password scheme to other categories of people and not merely restrict it to the blind. It may be that would be a good thing, but how much cheaper and how much more economical in terms of money and manpower it would be merely to site the meters outside. Surely, if we can do anything to reduce the number of people who have a statutory right, for one purpose or another, to enter the homes of elderly people living alone, we should seize the opportunity.

My Lords, I should like briefly to support all that has been said and also to give another reason why, in my view, this amendment should be carefully considered. It is that if the meter reader cannot get into the home, for reasons which have been described so well by noble Lords on the Liberal Benches, then a "guesstimate" is sent in to the consumer, which sometimes bears very little relation to the actual consumption of energy and can be better described as a "wild surmise".

What happens? The consumer gets a bill—I have had this happen myself—which is sometimes 10 or 15 times more than the normal amount for that period of the year; he takes a little time to consider it and then within three weeks receives a red notice threatening to cut him off. Three weeks is really far too short a time to deal with a bill. Very often it takes a week by second-class post for it to reach the consumer. People cannot deal with everything the same day; they very often deal with their bills over the weekend, so probably it takes a week to answer it. They cannot afford first-class post any longer for this kind of thing so they use second-class post. Therefore payment takes another week to reach the board. Then the computer starts getting threatening. The cheque reaches the electricity or gas authority the day after the computer has got to work and a threatening letter with a red notice is sent off, which is a great shock to elderly people.

Therefore, I consider there is a case for leaving it much longer than the boards leave it at the moment. No store, Harrods or any other large store, would start to send threatening letters for at least a month or six weeks, and there is no case for sending these threatening notices in such a short period of time. So I hope the noble Earl will look into this aspect as well.

My Lords, to take the latter point very quickly, I certainly would not want—of course, none of us would want—people to be alarmed by threatening letters, and certainly one should not pay attention to threatening letters sent by computers. I was once billed by a computer for £150 for the service of IBM equipment which I did not happen to own. I wrote a letter protesting and I received a bill back from the computer for £0·00. So something can happen! I will look at the latter point. I do not think it is directly connected with the siting of meters, because of course it would be possible for threatening letters or red flag letters to arrive for non-payment whether one's meter was sited inside or outside the premises. However, I will certainly draw attention to the noble Lord's remarks about the speed at which letters go out. I cannot give the answer to that.

Going back to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, I would remind the House that the amendment really is about money. It would have the effect of enabling the Secretary of State to pay grants to cover the cost of re-siting gas or electricity meters outside private dwellings. In a very coherent and sensible manner the noble Lord made his case, and that implied that the costs were pretty negligible in return for the service which the public would receive as a result. I shall come back to that in a moment.

I, of course, accept that there are good reasons for consumers wanting to have their electricity or gas meters re-sited outside the premises. I absolutely agree with that. External meters avoid the need for estimated readings when the reader is unable to gain access, thereby causing the problem mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi. We do not want to place unnecessary obstacles in the way of re-siting meters. Following the discussion of this issue during the Committee stage the Department of Energy drew the attention of the Gas Corporation and the Electricity Council to the views expressed here. But we believe that this question of the siting of meters is best left to the boards and the Gas Corporation to handle as they think fit, taking into account commercial considerations and the interests and wishes of their customers.

I would argue that this is not a matter on which it is necessary or desirable to have legislation. Nor is it a matter for Government subsidies, since it would not be the Government, or through the Government the taxpayer, but the individual consumer, and conceivably the electricity and gas authorities, who would benefit by re-siting. I can think of many improvements in life, large and small, which could be made by Government expenditure following some central legislative requirement, but priorities have to be considered.

Also, I think it would not be fair to say that the gas and electricity boards are unresponsive to consumer demand. If we turn our minds back to the debate in your Lordships' House yesterday, I was somewhat castigated, and so were some of my noble friends, for taking the view—which I do not think we take, but which the Opposition represented us as taking—that in some way the public sector is altogether unresponsive to the needs of its consumers. I do not take that view, and I think noble Lords who felt that we took that view should not take that view now. I think the gas and electricity boards can be very responsive to the wishes of their customers. I think there is quite a lot of movement on this point, in that the electricity and gas authorities are willing, where they are requested to do so, to consider re-siting where they can do it, and they are also trying to site most meters externally on any new buildings. We certainly welcome that.

The question is—this is where I come back to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw—one of cost. The advice I have is that if this cost were to be met by the Government, which appears to be the intention behind the amendment, it would be a major, and in my view unjustifiable, use of taxpayers' money. I am advised that the total cost of re-siting gas meters alone—this is gas alone and not electricity meters, which are also covered by the amendment—has been estimated by the British Gas Corporation to be of the order of £500 million. That is a lot of money. As an Employment Minister who is engaged in administering sums of that order for youth employment and other schemes, I can think of many more urgent uses for that money if I could only get hold of it.

My Lords, is not that the estimate for every single meter in the country?

Yes, my Lords, that would obviously be a maximum figure. But the noble Lord's amendment would lay us open to defraying costs of this kind whenever that was demanded. As I say, the gas and electricity authorities are responsive to their customers' requests and where they can do it they will do it. I think it would be very dangerous, as well as possibly marginally unconstitutional, to write a money provision of this kind into a Bill which might be interpreted as being a new right, to have one's meter, come hell or high water, re-sited on demand. I think that would be not only wrong—I think it goes further than the noble Lord himself would wish—but also would be an unjustifiable use of taxpayers' money. I therefore hope that, in the light of these comments, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl very much for his expression of the Government view, I am a little surprised, to take one of his major points first, that he used the full figure of £500 million to prove the point. The point of this amendment, as I am sure the noble Earl appreciates, is that it would be at the request of the owner when this is required; I do not think every single householder wishes to have his meters moved. Secondly, it is the special category of householder, the elderly, the lonely and so on, who would require this.

On the question of money, the noble Earl will recall that under the thermal insulation Bill the grant given by the Government was not fully taken up by the public. I am not at all sure that the grants available for advice through the Department of Energy will be fully taken up by the public. After all, the information available is about the equivalent of what you can receive from any normal double glazing company as a free estimate before you purchase. Would the Government consider that, if grants are not fully taken up under this Bill, these sums of money perhaps could be made available to, if you like, subsidise local gas and electricity boards for special cases, where either harassment or criminal elements have created severe worries in certain districts?

The noble Earl mentioned, as it were in passing, that most new houses and buildings would be given outside meters. It would be helpful if this was definite, not necessarily a directive. I think it is the feeling of the House that as a matter of common sense the service meters should be designed to be sited externally by the architects and the builders, be they in the public or private sector, and the individual authorities should co-operate in seeing that this is built into the plans. Half the problem of this £500 million the noble Earl mentioned arises because nobody has thought about this in the original design for the house for the last 50 or 60 years. I think this amendment has at least focused attention on a small minor point, one that has created a disproportionate amount of worry and inconvenience. Perhaps something will be done to clarify this.

There is a final point. Perhaps the noble Earl could say, or perhaps the Gas Board could say, what is the cost to the gas and electricity boards of second calls and failures to get agreement on a bill because of inability to gain access. I am going to add up the totals too. If you add up over the last 20 or 30 years the cost of all those extra calls, and all those postcards going in the post, you are beginning to get quite close to the figure given as a maximum for re-siting meters. I can argue and use maximum figures in the same way as the noble Earl. Perhaps we can look at this again.

If the noble Earl is giving the assurance that this has been fully discussed and taken up with the electricity and gas boards, let us hope this is a matter that will not have to be raised again from these Benches or in this House as a matter of general concern to the public; and that members of the public approaching their gas or electricity boards will be treated with patience and courtesy and with some generosity when it comes to those in lower income groups, in that a small adjustment can be made to solve their problem. In view of what the noble Earl has said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 4:

After Clause 15, insert the following new clause:

My Lords, before the Minister replies, I should like to say that it is always being pointed out to us that there is liable, by the end of this century, to be a very serious shortfall in the energy supplies to this country. I think that every encouragement should be given to small, individual producers of energy in any form whatever—whether it be hydro-energy, solar power, wind or whatever. So far as I can see, every difficulty is being put in their way not just on the part of the water authorities, but on the part of planners and many other people as well.

We must bear in mind that with improving technology not only will present methods of producing hydro-power be improved, but the time may well come when small units could supply not just a farm but a complete village and there is the possibility in the foreseeable future that they could be adding power to the national electrical networks instead of only meeting an individual's requirement.

My Lords, I should like to support very strongly what the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, has said. He said that every encouragement should be given particularly to small producers who can use water power in this way. I approach this matter somewhat in a spirit of nostalgia, because I remember going, as a boy, to a small farm in Wales where an uncle of mine was using the waters of a stream to produce electricity for his cowshed. He was considered in that local area—the depths of West Wales—to be something of a witch doctor in being able to produce light out of water with a little bit of iron in between. Therefore, I, too, should like briefly to support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal.

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Strathcona for giving the House an opportunity to consider this matter again. When we discussed the issue during the Committee stage, I explained that the Government believed that a defensible case can be made for making only a minimal charge for abstraction for hydro-power, instead of charging on a volume-related basis. So there is absolute common ground between my noble friend and myself on that matter. I also went on to explain that, in our view, the right way to proceed is by way of discussion with the water authorities, and that the Department of the Environment was looking carefully at the possible use of the powers of the Secretary of State for the Environment under Section 60(3) of the Water Resources Act 1963, as I thought that those powers might provide a means of alleviating the charges made to the hydro-power users.

Since then we have considered the matter carefully and in more depth, as well as having had discussions with the National Water Council and with representatives of three of the main water authorities. As a result of those discussions, we have concluded that it would, in fact, not be satisfactory to make use of the powers of direction in the 1963 Act.

Instead, therefore, we intend to proceed by using this very Energy Conservation Bill to amend Section 60 of the Water Resources Act 1963. Section 60 of that Act empowers the water authority to make an agreement waiving or abating charges for the abstraction of water. Subsection (2) sets out the matters which the water authorities shall have regard to in making such waivers or agreements. What we intend to do, therefore, is to add a new item to the list in subsection (2) which will require water authorities to take into account the extent to which, in the interests of energy conservation, they should abate their charges for hydro-power abstractions, to prevent the charges from inhibiting abstractions of this kind. That is to meet not only my noble friend's point, but the point which I want to bring to the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen—namely, that of course we do not want to inhibit abstractions for turbo-generation: indeed, we want to encourage it wherever possible.

I think that the way in which we are seeking to do that has an additional advantage. Subsection (4) of the 1963 Act provides that if someone applies to a water authority for an agreement exempting him from charges or an agreement reducing his charges, and if the water authority refuses, or proposes terms for an agreement which he, the applicant, objects to, then the applicant or the water authority may refer the matter in dispute to the Secretary of State. Amending Section 60 of the 1963 Act in the way which we should like to would, therefore, give a small-scale hydro-power user an important new argument for a reduction of charge which, in the event of a disagreement between himself and the water authority—and I think that would be unlikely—he could take to the Secretary of State for decision. I think that such a Government amendment would go a very long way towards meeting the entirely legitimate grievances of water power users in England and Wales.

It is not a simple matter of abolishing all charges for all water power users in all circumstances, though undoubtedly there will be cases where water power users will be able to get charges waived completely. Indeed, the amendment of my noble friend would itself not abolish all charges in all circumstances; and I think that this reflects a broad agreement in this House and elsewhere that it would not be reasonable to do so. Perhaps I could give an example of why it would not be reasonable.

Our researches since this matter was raised during the Committee stage have revealed that the Central Electricity Generating Board is paying over £140,000 in the current year to the Welsh Water Authority for hydro-power abstractions. As far as we are aware, the CEGB does not challenge the need to pay these charges, which are a reflection of the very considerable burden which the board imposes on the Welsh Water Authority and the resources of the area. Therefore, I do not think that it is necessarily always reasonable to abolish any charge.

But what is reasonable and what we intend to do by an amendment of our own is to require water authorities to take into account the need to prevent charges from inhibiting the use of hydro-power. The charges, if any, will not therefore be such as to make the use of hydro-power uneconomic. It seems to me that that is the nub of the problem and the Government's amendment will go straight to it.

Therefore, we plan to move such an amendment on Third Reading. Perhaps I may apologise in advance because I shall not, in the nature of things, be able to table this amendment before Monday. The Government do this because they agree with the general intention of the amendment of my noble friend. But in technical and legal terms, it does not seem to us that subsection (2) of my noble friend's amendment is altogether satisfactory. It is not clear whether—and, if so, in what sense—it overrides the existing provisions of Section 30 of the Water Act 1973. Section 30 is drafted with considerable care and balance. For instance, it contains an important provision which requires the water authorities not to give undue preference to one category of user as against another, and we could be caught in that difficulty in taking the needs of the hydro-power user into account.

As I explained during the Committee stage, the Government believe that it would not be right to tamper with this principle, or to appear to be tampering with it, without very careful consideration and justification. So it seems to the Government that there are many fewer legal and practical difficulties in leaving the 1973 Act alone, and in amending the power to reduce or waive charges in the 1963 Act instead, in the way in which the Government propose. In the light of what we have said, and in the light of our acknowledgment of the very useful action which my noble friend Lord Strathcona has suggested—and we are very grateful to him for his work here—I hope that he will feel able to withdraw his present amendment.

My Lords, I joined my noble friend Lord Strathcona during the Committee stage and I am very glad to hear my noble friend the Minister say that the Government intend to table an amendment while the Bill is in this House. It sounds as though the amendment will go a considerable way in the direction which my noble friend Lord Strathcona seeks. However, in the intervention which I made on Committee I asked my noble friend Lord Gowrie whether he would look at the position in Scotland. When speaking just now he said that these changes were to take place for England and Wales. If the House will give him permission to speak again, perhaps he would confirm that the amendment which he proposes will be restricted to England and Wales.

During the Committee stage my noble friend Lord Strathcona had down a consequential amendment, which was not to extend the changes to Scotland. The reason I raised this matter at the earlier stage was that it seemed to me that the position in this area was already satisfactory in Scotland. Hydro-power is generated in Scotland from private sources. For many years one large company from at least two sites has generated electricity, and over the years it has no doubt made sense that any surplus electricity should go into the grid. Furthermore, as I understand it, Scottish legislation does not discourage small generators from using hydro-power or indeed other sources.

The legislation and practice is different in Scotland and, indeed, both generation and distribution of electricity in Scotland comes under the Secretary of State for Scotland and not the Secretary of State for Energy or, indeed, the Secretary of State for the Environment. As he has not mentioned it today, I would ask my noble friend whether he looked into the situation in Scotland, as I suggested, and whether he thinks that the situation there is already satisfactory and that, therefore, changes are not needed, because that was the sense in which I spoke on the last occasion.

My Lords, briefly, I should like to answer the point raised by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy. I did not mention it because, as is so often the case in so many matters, they order things better in Scotland and apparently, as my noble friend suggests, it is not necessary to provide licensing in this way. That is my advice. If my noble friend cares to look into it, and as long as he is satisfied that Scotland would not be affected in this way, I think that we could leave it at that.

My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, replies, as I took part in the debate on the noble Lord's amendment in Committee and supported it—indeed, I still support him although I did not speak today—may I say how grateful we are to the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, for going into this matter, and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, on securing this amendment from the Government. We shall look forward to seeing it on Third Reading.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for his support. I am, of course, particularly grateful to my noble friend for what he has said. There is no way in which we could refuse his offer of examining the amendment which the Government intend to table for Third Reading. From what he has said, I think we have every reason to believe that it will be satisfactory in covering the point that we seek to make. I confess to a very slight sense of nervousness when the Government talk about abating charges. This is a fairly good Government approach to a problem such as this, saying, "Provided you recognise our right to be unreasonable, we are prepared to say that we will, after all, be reasonable"; whereas we are seeking to ensure that someone contemplating installing a hydro-electricity plant can go to the local authority and be sure that he will not get clobbered after he has spent his money in the hope of collecting economies later. I am sure that my noble friend and I are as one on this purpose. However, I think that he will understand my slight nervousness when I hear him talking about agreements to abate charges.

I do not think that the water power users have been claiming that they should be absolved from all charges—not at all. Clearly, they accept that some kind of small charge may be legitimate. But they also believe that the onus should be upon the water authority to demonstrate that either it is losing something or is having to go to some expense to provide an amenity for which it can legitimately be expected to charge.

Finally, may I pull my noble friend's leg slightly and say that it is curious that when Mr. Marcus Fox wrote his letter from the Department of the Environment to the water authorities back in December, he was then talking about total charges of £20,000, which I mentioned during the Committee stage. Is it not remarkable that in the interval somebody has discovered another charge of no less than an extra £120,000, which of course rather alters the argument when we were saying that the water authorities do not stand to lose very much. It is a slightly unfair point to make. I do not think it is particularly relevant. I am sure that the noble Earl wants to do what we want to do, and we look forward very much to satisfying ourselves that the terminology he is going to produce will be another victory for good sense for the House of Lords. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 5:

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

moved Amendment No. 1:

Page 3, line 38, leave out ("and").

Unless there are arguments from the Government of which we have not thought, we on these Benches would tend to support the amendment.

The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, has drawn our attention to an enormously important aspect of deep sea mining operations dealt with in the Bill. Safety provisions are included in a number of places in the Bill, notably in the powers to make regulations and revoke or vary licences. The noble Lord has now proposed, and he is supported by the official Opposition, that we should include an additional specific reference to safety in the list of possible terms and conditions of licences in Clause 2. The power to do that is already covered by the general power to include such terms and conditions as the Secretary of State thinks fit.

It may, however, be beneficial to have a specific reference to safety as the noble Lord proposes and therefore I should like to consider the matter further. At first look it seems to me that the term "safety" is general enough to cover any physical or mental danger that personnel might have to face, but I will consider carefully what the noble Lord said. I should like to look at the precedents in this field, especially the interpretation of "safety", and consider what precise wording might be appropriate, or whether we have the wording about right now. With that undertaking, I hope the noble Lord will not press the amendment at this time.

I am obliged to the noble Earl. When, with the leave of the Committee, I spoke to Amendment No. 2, I would have spoken to No. 12 as well, but on the Marshalled List I have the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, down to more that amendment. I do not know whether the noble Earl wishes to clarify the position on that now. In any event, having regard to what he said, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 1.

moved Amendment No. 4:

Page 6, line 16, leave out ("3·75 per cent.") and insert ("a percentage").

Unless there are views held by the Government about which I have not thought, I support the amendment. It seems inappropriate, to say the least, that into a Bill of this kind a levy should be introduced which is half that proposed by the United Nations. The attitudes on this, particularly on the part of developing countries, is quite understandable in the circumstances and I therefore support the amendment.

I, too, support the amendment because we are pre-empting the future, something we should not be doing.

I fear I must be rather fiercer towards this series of amendments than I have been, not only on this Bill but on the previous one we debated. I have had a good run for a Government Minister in the way of concessions—it has lasted for about an hour—and I suppose all good things must come to an end. Seriously, however, these amendments would create considerable financial uncertainty for potential licensees if the percentage levy arrangements were left as flexible as the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and others who support him would like.

The scientific percentages included in Clause 9(1)(a) and (b) reflect the percentages included in the deep sea mining laws of other countries, and since United Kingdom licensees will have to compete with companies operating under those other laws, we do not wish them to suffer from substantially different terms or to face greater uncertainty than others. These amendments would increase that uncertainty. I agree that the interests of developing countries must be safeguarded, and that is the motive behind the levy existing at all; but these amendments would expose us to pressure from developing countries to impose higher rates under our legislation than currently envisaged, and we would have to resist any increased rate in order to protect our competitive position and our potential national licensees.

I cannot see that such an exchange would be to our advantage compared with a fixed provision, and certainly it would be against our national interest. It is appropriate that companies should be required to pay lower levies during the interim period than under the convention which will offer more favourable operating conditions in terms of long-term security. These amendments would have a number of actual and potential adverse effects for the companies as well as for the general national interest, and I must therefore ask the Committee to reject them.

The argument that we have to keep the levy low because the Americans have pitched it low is strong and one can only say how regrettable it is that the Americans have pitched it low. Mark the effects that will flow from that. If they say 3·75 and 0·75, Germany cannot say anything higher, because it would put German-led consortia at a disadvantage compared with American-led consortia; and we cannot say anything higher because it would put British-led consortia at a disadvantage compared with both American and German-led consortia. At Second Reading the Minister told us that two other countries—I think they were Belgium and France—were preparing legislation, and they will, of course, have to accept the same levels in order not to put Belgian and French-led consortia at a disadvantage compared with American, German, and British-led consortia, and so on down the line.

If one accepts that argument, it is an open and shut defence, or justification, of the fact that the powerful and developed nations are going to get all they can at half the rate before the poor nations get their whack. I do not think that that is justifiable, and I am not yet convinced that the Government have seriously enough weighed that argument on the one hand against the world political and economic argument on the other hand, that the developed countries are scoffing the wealth while the going is good. Obviously it is not practicable at five o'clock on a Thursday to divide the Committee on this issue. I do not think that there are enough noble Lords present on either side of the Chamber for that to be a realistic procedure—

Would the noble Lord like to adjourn while he consults his Whips?

I am receiving conflicting messages. Upon reflection, if the noble Earl is able to say to me that he will consider the matter again between now and Report, that would seem to me the best answer. Then, on Report, we could have a perhaps slightly fuller debate on the matter with more noble Lords present. If, on the other hand, he says, "No, there is not a hope; we are going to follow the Americans and Germans, and damn the third and fourth worlds", perhaps it would be wise to divide even at this stage.

While my noble friend is considering that point, I should like to take up something that the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, has said. My understanding is—and I should be grateful if my noble friend Lord Gowrie can confirm it—that, like the Americans, the Germans in their legislation have already adopted the 0·75 figure. I am not sure whether they have put in the alternative option which the Americans have put in and which is in this Bill as well, hut they have certainly adopted the same level.

The argument which is contained in the amendments, and which the noble Lord, Lord Kennet put very concisely, is quite clear—that the only objective in changing the system (as the amendments would) to a system of orders introduced into Parliament by a Minister, is to ensure that the percentage should be higher than the figures here. That is really the point that the noble Lord has made, quite clearly. He thinks that the effect on the less developed world at the United Nations' Conference on the Law of the Sea will be an unfortunate one. The American legislation went through last June—some time ago—and the German legislation has gone through. I feel that it would put the British industry at a considerable disadvantage if we were then to adopt a higher percentage for the reasons that my noble friend has given.

Perhaps we should have moved first and done something different. My guess is that the British Government have been talking to the Governments of those countries with companies which have the expertise and are getting together in coscortia to carry out this very difficult operation. After all, the world needs these minerals, and will need them even more later this century.

My noble friend Lord Erroll of Hale, speaking at Second Reading as the chairman of one of the three British companies which have embarked on this new industry, pointed out that it would be some years before they could be in a position to bring the nodules to the surface and then to make use of and exploit the minerals. I shall not repeat some of the points that were made on Second Reading, including those in my own speech, but I would point out that the United Nations' conference has a considerable number of years in which to reach agreement and to bring into effect the new international regime for the ocean floor. In the meantime, the companies from the industrial countries which can do this work need to prepare and be encouraged to get started.

I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and those who have supported his amendment, to consider the adverse position in which would be placed British companies which are ready to engage at present in the undertaking if we were to be out of line and to expect a much higher percentage to be contributed at this stage. Once United Nations' agreement has been reached, then of course all the countries involved will be contributing at the rate which has been internationally decided.

I should like to say a few words before the Minister contributes his last word. Would not the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, agree that the fact that the American legislation—which was passed last June, as he correctly said—named the low figures, has already had a very deleterious effect on the attitude of the third world countries to the draft convention, and that this is evidenced in the declaration of the legal position of the Group of 77, which simply says that they will not recognise any such legislation as we have before us now? It has already had that effect. They deny the validity of the American, German, British, et cetera national laws and will continue to do so until the United Nations' convention itself comes into effect. That point was mentioned at Second Reading, and I should like to hear what the Government think about it.

I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy, who pointed out to the Committee—which I had failed to do, though I did so at the earlier stage—that this is something of an interim measure, to try to get the show off the ground and that of course we would have to come into line with whatever is agreed from the United Nations' Conference on the Law of the Sea.

I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, that I really do not accept that this is a simple matter of the devil take the hindermost where the developing nations are concerned. After all, there is no need in international law, or in any other kind of law, for the various developed nations to introduce legislation of this kind. They are introducing legislation of this kind as an earnest of their goodwill, as well as an earnest that they recognise the interests of the developing nations and the fact that resources beyond natural or national boundaries are to some extent a common wealth. That is a relatively new concept. It is one that I would certainly applaud, and it should not be subject to too much in the way of attack.

The other point that I would make—it is perhaps a more general economic point—is that in my respectful contention it is an absolute myth that the interests of the developed and the developing nations are diametrically opposed. One of the great difficulties in which we are placed on this planet is that that concept has a firm political hold. If the developed world does not continue to use its industrial and technical know-how to develop, if it remains in recession or slump, the chances of development of the less-advanced nations, in industrial and technical terms, will not be served.

It seems to me that this kind of legislation is a genuine move by a national Government to take into account international interests, which in fact they are not in any way obliged to take into account. Therefore, I want to contest the noble Lord's view. He very fairly said, "Well, I understand the competitive point, but the fact is we are all going hell for leather and the devil take the hindermost in the case of the developing nations". That is not something that I, nor indeed the Government, accept. Therefore I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment. If he feels unable to do so, I would advise the Committee to resist it.

The argument that it is a mistake to believe that the political interests of the developed and developing worlds are contrary is one which we fully accept. Of course they are not contrary; they are complimentary, and they must work together and serve each other. But it seems to me that that argument would tend towards supporting the passing of the amendment and not having an artificially low rate of levy on national legislation in the meantime. It is not an argument for antagonising the third world, which is what this Bill is going to do, and what the American legislation has already done. I listened hopefully to hear whether the Minister was going to say that he would give it another thought or talk to anyone else about it, but he was quite categorical that he was not. That being so, I think I will ask my noble friends to join with me in opposing what is proposed by the Government and in passing this amendment if we can.

moved Amendment No. 7:

Page 9, line 13, leave out ("to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or").

I wonder whether it might be helpful to the Government if I were to make a few observations on a matter which, I believe, is under consideration by the Law Commission at the present time in an area of law which is well known to some; that is, the law relating to confidential information. There is quite a jurisdiction now in regard to the kinds of action which can be taken against people who disclose information which is confidential. I have experience of that only in the cases where the information is of a technical nature; that is, of scientific and technological nature or where the confidential information constitutes know-how. I wonder whether the Government wish to be quite so severe in an Act of this kind—which cannot come into force for years—as would appear from the somewhat stern terms of Clause 14. Therefore, I would support the general theme put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, in his amendment.

I do not quite accept, as the House would not expect me to accept, that my reasoning was simply because that is the way things had been done always and, anyway, no one wants to upset the Home Office. Although he is supporting the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, the answer was made for me by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran. It is that information is a sensitive and complex affair. It is not simply a matter of open government or of being a nice extrovert fellow. A great deal of commercial and competitive possibilities and success may depend on what information is disclosed or not disclosed, or when it is disclosed or not disclosed. Therefore, what I had in mind was that penalties for disclosure of information and the rest in this Bill were common to several Acts of Parliament. I am thinking of the Companies Act 1967 and the Iron and Steel Act 1975. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, was a Minister during the passing of the first Act. I think there has been quite a common tradition here.

Nevertheless, while I want to underline that some of the information that applicants and licensees will be required to divulge under this Bill is extremely sensitive and could therefore be exploited, and must therefore be adequately safeguarded, and while I think it is defensible, therefore, to include the same penalties as are to be found in the Companies Act, I take the point that the provision for imprisonment is rather more drastic than the other penalties which exist in the Bill, and I am therefore prepared to consider how to bring the various penalties into line. But I must warn the Committee that I think there could be disclosure of highly confidential information here for, let us say, personal gain in certain circumstances, and I am not altogether convinced that the kinds of activities with which this Bill deals are so different from the kinds of activities covered by provisions in other legislation followed by successive Governments—and I would need a bit of convincing on this. But I will consider it and take it away, and with that assurance perhaps the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

I think it both wise and charming of the Minister to revert to his usual ways on this one. Will he remember, while he is thinking about it and talking about it to his colleagues, that the prisons are bursting at the seams, and will he resist all temptation to rectify the balance by making the directors of the companies liable to imprisonment so that both parties can spend the rest of their lives burrowing holes through the physical fabric of the "prison estate," as the Home Secretary calls it, and may get off with a fine if they do wrong? With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 11:

Page 9, line 35, leave out first ("or") and insert ("and").

Having regard to the observations of the Minister on my Amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 3, he said that he would consider whether conditions should be set down by the Secretary of State in granting exploration or exploitation licences to applicants; he said also that he would look into the question of the definition of "safety" and also the definition of "personal injury". It may be helpful to the Minister if I say that this is the clause which appears to give some difficulty, because in subsection (4) it defines "personal injury" to include "any impairment of a person's physical or mental condition…". In subsection (1) of the same clause it refers to the Fatal Accidents Acts and also uses the words "personal injury".

Those who practise in the field relating to industrial actions know how difficult it is to operate some of these Acts. Many of the actions are now sent to tribunals to be dealt with. My intention in my previous amendments, which the noble Lord the Minister said that he would consider, was to obviate the problems which may arise as a result of personal injury to personnel operating in the field of underwater technology, which is a new field in which industry is operating at the present time.

If the noble Lord will forgive me, I was not clear about what amendment he was talking to. Is it an amendment to the schedule? I think it was my mistake; but I was not clear what he wanted from me.

The noble Lord was speaking to the Motion that Clause 15 shall stand part of the Bill.

I was speaking to Clause 15 standing part of the Bill. I said earlier, in withdrawing my amendment, having regard to what the noble Earl has said, that in the Marshalled List there is an amendment which I put down to the schedule but which does not have my name above it. I think it is a minor and unnecessary point to belabour. In view of what the Minister has said, I shall not be moving the amendment to the schedule. At this stage I do not require anything further from the Minister.

I have the rather rattled look of a servant of the House who did not know what his masters were requiring him to do. If it is the case that the noble Lord is simply referring us back to some of the points made on the debate in his original amendments, then the guarantees that I gave then would hold now.

I am very much obliged to the noble Earl. That is all I was commenting about.

Before the noble Lord decides whether he is going, to speak to or not move the amendment he has referred to, which is No. 12, it would be of assistance to Members of the Committee if it could be clarified whether this is a printing mistake. I imagined when I first saw it on a list—not the Marshalled List—that it was one of Lord Lloyd's amendments because it seemed to go with Amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 3. When it appeared on the Marshalled List below the name of my noble friend Lord Gowrie, after Amendment No. 11, I was thinking he was coming forward to meet the noble Lord's point and had put the amendment down on the same day. These amendments appear with an asterisk and therefore were put down yesterday and appeared only today. I presume Amendment No.12 was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, as a supplementary amendment to his Amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 3. It will be helpful if that could be made clear.

If I may speak again, I am very much obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell. There is a misprint in the Marshalled List as published today. I put down an amendment in the terms of Amendment No. 12, and I apologise—if it is necessary to do so—that my amendments came in late. I had notified the Minister of my intention to raise these matters. He has written to me fully about it. There is a misprint on this Marshalled List and Amendment No. 12 should have been printed in my name.

I have to cover myself in that I am advised to resist Amendment No. 12. I do not know whether the noble Lord feels unhappy about that.

I am a little surprised that while we are still, as I understand it, talking on whether Clause 15 shall stand part of the Bill the Minister should be kind enough to advise me in advance that he will resist Amendment No. 12. Having regard to the undertakings and the assurances that he gave earlier, I do not propose to press this matter at this stage but will wait until a later time in order to raise it.

Before we leave this matter, and as the noble Lord is not going to move Amendment No. 12, but has clarified the position, I should like to thank him. He does not need to apologise to the Committee because his amendments were very clear. The confusion has been caused by the Marshalled List being printed incorrectly. We thought it was a Government amendment. My noble friend Lord Gowrie has indicated that he will look at this question generally and at whether there is need for an amendment in the schedule as well as any other changes that he may bring forward which we can consider at a later stage.

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

moved Amendment No. 1:

Page 1, line 13, at end insert ("other than in connection with a current operation for the winning and working of minerals").

At the beginning of this Committee stage I think I should say that I shall be resisting many of Lord Mottistone's amendments. I owe him a brief word of explanation. I fully share his desire, that of the CBI, and other interested bodies, to get this technical and specialised Bill right in detail. I am indeed grateful for the time and effort which they have given to help us to achieve this. However, by the time the Bill was introduced these discussions had been going on for a considerable time. As I am sure my noble friend knows, many of their comments have already been incorporated in the Bill. Of course, there is inevitably still room for improvement. I have put down a number of Government amendments, most of which arise out of our continuing consultations.

There are other places where there may be room for debate about the balance which we have struck between the needs of the minerals industry and environmental considerations. I am bound to say that I believe that the balance in the Bill is a fair one. There are some amendments which I think are not necessary and I hope that we shall be able to show that. There are some amendments which are harmful to the Bill and I shall be bound to ask the Committee to reject them. I know that my noble friend understands this and the spirit in which I say it.

Coming to this specific amendment, I accept at once that the provisions of Clause 1 are wider than we should like. Stevens recommended that we should bring under control the working of waste heaps but not stockpiles. For the past 12 months we have been seeking a definition which seeks to distinguish between them. Frankly, no one has found one. We have been told that any waste heap is a potential stockpile.

This is why we have gone for this very wide provision with the intention of covering specific cases such as raw materials at industrial premises in the General Development Order. While we are still ready to consider a better approach if one can be found, I cannot advise your Lordships to accept this particular amendment. Mineral working is a long-term activity, as we are often reminded, and there are plenty of tips which are related to a current working such as coalmining or china working, which have nevertheless been restored and become naturally revegetated. It is precisely those cases where we consider there should be some control over reworking. In view of that, I wonder whether my noble friend will feel able not to press this amendment.

I should like to support my noble friend over this. Where it is a question of shifting over these temporary piles, it seems common sense that a company should be allowed to do that without planning permission, particularly in view of the fact that there will be this very high cost of applying for planning permission each time it is needed. I wonder whether this could be linked to the fact that there is no vegetation. There is a difference between a pile which has vegetation and has become camouflaged and one which is without vegetation, so that it therefore makes no odds whether it is moved or not.

I do not know that there is much that I can add to what I have already said. I indicated that I had some sympathy with the objective of the amendment, because the provision is a very wide one, but I think that in the circumstances I would want to stick with the position as I have already outlined it.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Bellwin, not only for his remarks now but for the great help he has given to me during the past three or four weeks and which he gave earlier to the Confederation of British Industry, who have been advising me. On this specific amendment, I take a certain amount of heart from the fact that my noble friend agrees there is room for finding some better phraseology. We are not altogether happy about a GDO coverage, in the same way as one is not happy about regulations. One wants to see something in the Bill itself which is a bit clearer to cover the point which I think we are all agreed is a reasonable one. Perhaps I might take this away and see if we cannot find a form of wording which would satisfy your Lordships on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 2:

Page 1 line 13, at end insert ("other than the removal of a mineral-working deposit for the purposes of the improvement of agricultural land or for the construction or maintenance of farm access roads within the boundaries of the adjacent land owned by the owner of the mineral working site").

I should like to support my noble friend Lord Gisborough in his amendment. There is all the difference in the world between developments which are on a commercial basis or which involve other interests and other people and the farmer or landowner being allowed to move a small proportion of gravel, or whatever it may be, for the sole purpose of mending a hole in the road or doing some other improvement which is important to him but which has no significance for a planning authority.

I am not suggesting for a moment that anybody should not have to get planning authority for something which affects a fairly large area or which in any way affects the public, but this amendment is simply concerned with the private convenience of a farmer or landowner. I myself have an amendment down (No. 5) which applies to Scotland and which has the same effect. I think there is quite a considerable difference between planning permission for something which is (a) possibly commercial or (b) a very big enterprise, and doing something which is quite small which you can do on your own or with your own men and which has no significance from the planning point of view.

For instance, if you dig up some gravel from a river or burn in order to fill up a pothole in the road, that has no significance at all and, as the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, says, it would probably be filled in by the next flood. If you want to mend a hill road so that a tractor can go across it because there may be some damp or boggy places which need tilling in, that has nothing to do with planning permission. It is simply a practical thing; and I hope very much that the Government will look at this and recognise the quite considerable difference between a commercial enterprise concerned with digging on mineral workings of any kind and a matter which concerns nobody except the farmer or the landowner and which affects his work.

As I said in opening the Second Reading debate, I fully recognise that Clause 1 encompasses rather more than is necessary. However, as I said then, I think the best way of narrowing this down is through amendments to the General Development Order. There is already a class of permitted development in the GDO which deals with the winning and working of minerals for the purposes of agriculture, and, if my noble friends would agree, I think the neatest way of covering the point raised in this amendment would be by amending this class of the GDO. I have already given an assurance, which I gladly repeat, that this clause will not be brought into operstion before the General Development Order has been amended. I hope this assurance will assuage any fears my noble friends might have.

May I just say that I should like to support the Minister in what he has just said. It seems to me that the best way is to amend the GDO: I would certainly support that.

With that assurance, and as I understand—I hope correctly—that the point will be met, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 3:

I wonder whether it would be helpful to the Committee if I spoke to my amendment now, because, as the noble Viscount said, our two amendments are rather similar and are trying to achieve the same end by different means. I think we are at one in feeling that there needs to be an extension of the definition of "minerals" and the Association of County Councils and the AMA have made representations about this. Together they represent all the mineral planning authorities in England and Wales and they wish to see the definition extended.

The difference between the two amendments is that the amendment moved by the noble Viscount includes disused road and railway embankments. I am not too sure about that. I think we are getting away from the area of minerals, and more into the area of waste, so this needs thinking about. On the other hand, whereas ours is a rather "chatty" paragraph, which includes materials, the noble Viscount's amendment lists them and that may be a more precise method. I hope the Government will agree to have further discussions on these points. That will be quite acceptable to me, as long as the Minister is able to give us some indication of the Government's general attitude to the proposal. In other words, perhaps the Minister could say, "Yes, the Government agree in principle that there should be an extension of the definition", because I do not think it will be possible in the Committee this evening to draft something suitable.

I should like to support the second amendment, but to oppose the first, simply on the basis of the disused road and railway embankment. On farms and so on, there arc many old roads and railways which were put there for old mining works. Very often they need digging out, in order that a field can be ploughed right to the edge, and it is rather silly for that to be subject to planning permission. Also, there is the peculiar situation that nobody wants to see a new embankment put across the countryside, but if there is already an embankment there and you want to remove it, nobody wants that to be done away with because everyone likes it and has known it for years. It is an absurd conservation situation. If you have an embankment which nobody wants, then the sooner somebody pulls it down the better, and it should not need planning permission to do so.

I shall have to get used at this early stage to finding myself in agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Birk. It is quite a novel experience for me and it makes a difference. May I say at once that I am glad to be able to tell my noble friend, and, indeed, the noble Baroness, that I accept in principle the extension of planning, control to the removal of material from some of the matters listed in my noble friend's amendment, although I wonder whether—and this is a point to which my noble friend Lord Gisborough referred—the reference to disused road embankments is really necessary, since I should have thought that the very few cases which exist would hence become part of the land.

However, I do not think it would be right to extend this to the removal of material from tips of domestic, industrial and commercial waste. Where such material is covered over with soil or subsoil, it is already subject to planning control since it is once again land. On the other hand, this amendment would bring under planning control, for example, the removal of old cars from unsightly areas—surely something which town and country planning is trying to encourage, rather than prevent. In addition, I do not think the amendment is quite right, particularly in relation to its position in the Bill.

I, too, am dealing with both amendments together, and may I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, that, again, I accept in principle this extension of planning control to the removal of material from some types of deposits, including those listed in her amendment. If my noble friend would agree to withdraw his amendment and the noble Baroness would agree not to move her amendment, I will certainly bring forward on Report an amendment to deal with this matter, which is perhaps more narrowly drawn. In doing so, as I have said, we will certainly take into account the point which has been made by my noble friend Lord Gisborough, and will try to cover that as well.

I must confess that I am absolutely horrified to hear my noble friend on the Front Bench say that he is in agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, because I think that both amendments go much too far in the way of narrowing down the definitions. I hope very much that, when my noble friend puts together some alternative, he does not narrow it down to the point where it identifies each and every item that is covered in both amendments. I also hope very much that freedom in this direction is maintained, and the sense of my earlier amendment, which I withdrew, is one which I would recommend to my noble friend as being much more in the direction in which this total clause should move.

I had better get used at once to the feeling that the table tennis ball must have of being in between the parties. I am sure that this will not take me too long. I hear what my noble friend says and I am aware of his general concern and of his position in these matters.

I quite frequently find that I am in agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and I look forward to being in agreement with her once or twice more before we are through. But in view of my noble friend's undertaking to look at this matter, I shall be happy to withdraw the amendment. But I would say that it is not a frivolous amendment, as this matter is causing serious concern to some county councils. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 5:

Page 22, line 16, at end insert ("except minerals extracted by an occupier from a mineral working deposit on his land and used for the purposes of his occupation of that land.").

I support this amendment for one additional reason. In Scotland there are vast distances, with farms way out in the outback—either on the hills or on the West coast. The practical effect will be that farmers will certainly dig up nearby rather than try to get planning permission from somebody 100 miles away in Inverness.

The Government are in sympathy with the intention of the amendment. We are conscious that this clause is wide. This is necessary because of the difficulties involved in drafting the clause so as to distinguish between things we want to bring under control—for example, the reworking of large waste heaps—and those which we do not, such as the movement of stockpiles around a quarry site, or the use by farmers of minerals on their own land for their own purposes.

My noble friend has illustrated our difficulties. The amendment which she has moved would go further than the Government's policy intention. It appears to exempt from planning control any working of minerals taken from a mineral waste heap and used anywhere on the land occupied by the person who extracts them. While we have no intention of bringing purely agricultural uses under planning control, the amendment as drafted would allow a landowner to quarry minerals from a waste heap on his land for roadmaking or for building anywhere else on his land. This quarrying could in itself have an adverse environmental impact. We do not think that it should be exempt from planning control.

Following the enactment of the Bill, we intend to amend the general development orders to extend the existing permitted development rights of farmers to win and work minerals to include the removal of material from deposits and to take account of the needs of mineral operators to move stockpiles and waste within their sites. In the light of this assurance which I am happy to give, I hope that my noble friend will feel prepared to withdraw her amendment.

I thank the Minister for his reply. I am very much reassured. He spoke about the use of minerals for roadmaking. I was thinking about roads over the hills and the use of these minerals to fill up bog holes so that tractors can get across the hills instead of disappearing into the mud. My amendment has nothing to do with making roads to be used by the public. One would of course need planning permission for that. When the clause is redrafted I hope that will be made clear. I am concerned about the private use of private material. It has got nothing at all to do with the public. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 8:

We have considered the point raised by my noble friend's amendment, but in our view we think that it is unnecessary. It is considered that in Scottish law any interest in minerals is an interest in the land containing the minerals. For that reason, the Bill contains no Scottish equivalents to Clauses 11 and 13 which set out in the compensation context that an interest in minerals shall be treated in the same way as an interest in land. We feel that the amendment is unnecessary. I hope that my noble friend will accept this.

At this stage, I accept the points which my noble friend has made and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 9:

Perhaps it would be for the convenience of the Committee, as was suggested by my noble friend Lord Boardman, if we dealt with my Amendments Nos. 11 and 15 at the same time. They are in all but extreme detail exactly the same as his amendment. I would not seek to add to what my noble friend Lord Boardman has just told the Committee because it seemed to me to put the case very well indeed. Furthermore, on Second Reading (at col. 412) I made a point on this same issue as being one of the fundamental things which I took as an example to put to the House at that stage.

Perhaps I may suggest to the Committee and to my noble friend that the problem about this Bill, and indeed several of the amendments which have been tabled by noble Lords, is that whereas in general terms I think we would all agree that the Stevens Committee struck a remarkable balance of interests, some of the features of this Bill and some of the amendments which we shall come to later on, unbalance Stevens and where that happens I do not say that changes to the Stevens Report's recommendations should not be made but that it is necessary, if they are made, for them to be balanced by other changes to match them.

In this particular case I would suggest that is much more in keeping with what might be called the Stevens overall proposal to accept the amendment either of the noble Lord, Lord Boardman, or my own, whichever my noble friend the Minister prefers. This would allow a mineral planning permission to be started at any time unless an actual starting time was specified by the planning authority when it was granted. I suggest to your Lordships that that is a very reasonable approach but the important thing is that it takes account of the fact that mining is a very long-term operation and that being nagged at in between does not help, either economically or in the sense of getting the best out of the land when one is seeking to exploit it. So I very much support the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Boardman, and I commend my own to the Minister if he prefers that way of tackling the problem.

I very much hope that the Government will resist this series of amendments. I am rather amused when the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, brings in Stevens in aid because he has a number of amendments running through this Bill which are way out from Stevens and are so different that one would think it was an entirely different Bill.

The point here is that under our general planning legislation if a detailed planning permission is not taken up within five years it lapses. There is no reason—it works perfectly well in other areas—why applications cannot be made for the renewal of such permissions, and current procedures allow and in fact encourage local authorities to plan ahead systematically. But this is without what I would submit would be a total confusion that would follow if planning permissions lasted for ever, with no certainty that they would be taken up.

The two noble Lords opposite who have just spoken in support of their amendments wish to exempt minerals permissions from this proposal and that proposal is something which both the ACC and the AMA—the local authority associations which are responsible for the mineral authorities which will deal with this—strongly object to. I believe it would undermine long-term mineral planning, it would generate uncertainty in the community at large, and it would cause grave problems and individual mineral operators would be unsure as to jut what competing developments would take place in an area where they intended to sell their material.

I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Boardman, and with his knowledge and experience of the industry I can understand why he feels as he does, but if everything else goes ahead it is in the interests of an area for the productivity to continue, so it is in their interests to extend the planning permissions.

To accept this amendment would seem to me to be a retrograde step in the whole of our planning organisation. It was for that reason, guessing that such moves would be made, that at Second Reading, at col. 505, I said:

"If they are not resisted then, as the number of planning permissions for mineral extraction build up, any hope of orderly development and everything that goes with it will disappear. The basis of long-term mineral planning will be totally undermined … and we shall be left with an increasingly random set of permissions to extract minerals, which may be valuable capital assets for the operators but which will become a series of time bombs in the environment which could explode at any time and with devastating effect".—[Official Report, 22/1/81; col. 505.]

I believe it is the purpose of this Bill—and on the whole it achieves it very well—to try to get the balance right between the very real and important industrial needs of the operators and the environmental needs. In this area this is exactly what the Bill will do, but I think that to do away with the five-year planning permission would be an unfortunate step; not only would it be bad environmentally but also in the long run I do not think it would work out satisfactorily even for the operators.

As I promised, I am again finding myself entirely on the side of the noble Baroness, Lady Birk. I am quite sure she is right, and she has said everything very much better than I could. This does seem to me to be wrecking the whole planning process and making the very thing my noble friend Lord Boardman wants, proper future planning of mineral extraction, that much more difficult. If you have a lot of untaken-up planning permissions it is impossible to plan for the future. I hope very much the Government will resist this series of amendments.

May I join the increasing number of noble Lords who are agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, this evening and say that we on these Benches support her. I must apologise that I was not present at the Second Reading, and I am only here by proxy of Lord Beaumont of Whitley who was unable to attend the Committee longer. May I say that on this occasion I must agree with the noble Baroness.

I should like to say a word on these amendments. I very much sympathise with the needs of industry, and it would be a mistake to think that local authorities do not understand the needs of industry. Certainly in the South-Eastern region, where we work very closely with the extractive industry, we understand the needs very well and I think they understand the needs of the local authorities very well. I should say to my noble friends that local opinion is very sensitive now about opening any new pit for the getting of aggregates, which I am speaking about particularly here. In the South-East there are very few areas left which have not been worked.

As I said at Second Reading, almost all of them are now under good farmland, some of them under exceptionally beautiful land alongside the river and so on. Public opinion needs great deal of persuading that this should be opened up at all. It really is very difficult for local authorities to give these consents, and their only prospect of being able to carry local opinion with them at all is that the restoration is going of be really satisfactory—this is the absolute guts of the whole problem—and that the timing of it is going to be as acceptable as possible. Whenever it comes it is going to be unpleasant.

The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, is right; if you have a large number of consents over an area waiting to be developed at any time, they really are like environmental time bombs. It is not in the interests of the industry to think that they can have complete flexibility, because public opinion becomes so hostile that areas which are rich in aggregates simply will not be worked because of the strength of public opinion objecting. This really is the position in the South-East now, and it is going to get worse as we proceed over the next couple of decades in order to meet the needs of the construction industry.

This is a very nice balance. While I sympathise with my noble friends in putting the needs of industry, I think they are well understood now by local authorities and the balance in this Bill is just about right. As the point has been well made, a five-year condition, which is normal, can always be renewed if there is a good enough case, and if there is not a good enough case then it should not be renewed. I am sure my noble friend would be right to stand firm on this and trust the local authorities to be reasonable. I am sure they will be.

I would like to support my noble friend Lord Boardman, for another reason which I think should be considered, that a company might well get planning permission for five years and then a political turn either way could result in a political refusal of planning permission, perhaps from public pressure. It would be very difficult for industry to know just where it stood.

There is just one point I might suggest, in view of what has been said. I appreciate very much particularly what my noble friend Lord Nugent has said, because he speaks with such wisdom and experience. It is just possible that in the place of a five-year limit industry might consider, within the confines of a specific long-term permission, conditions made after full consultation with the authorities concerned, conditions as to the phasing of particular developments. A working programme sequence would provide a more equitable and practicable solution than the present arbitrary time limit system. That might be a way to get over this hurdle. I put that to my noble friend as a possible way out.

Before my noble friend replies, may I put this point to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, who obviously understands the needs of the industry well. Again I am speaking about aggregates. The normal practice, as he knows, is for the industry to acquire areas of gravel-bearing land wherever they can get it, to give themselves a "bank", as it were, for the future. They have a rough plan in their minds of how they might work these in the future, long before they have got consents. Is that not sufficient for them to work on, along with the kind of assurances given that authorities will renew consents where they ought to be renewed? Everybody knows that at the end of the day this material has got to be got in order to build the houses, roads or anything else you want. The industry has got a very strong argument in the end, that we all want this stuff, although we do not want it taken from the places we like. Is not that the right way for the industry to continue dealing with it, by acquiring areas of land where they know there is gravel and phasing that accordingly.

It being a Committee stage, perhaps I could take the point made by my noble friend Lord Nugent. It is precisely the point he has just made that I made at Second Reading in order to justify the very amendment we are seeking to put forward. It is because in the end the minerals have to be worked, and in the end the local authority knows this is going to happen, that it is not so necessary to have relatively narrow time limits for checking up on the process. This is really the nub of my argument. I hope my noble friend will see that he has actually supported me, though perhaps he did not want to.

Before my noble friend replies, may I add two further points? I should not like my noble friend Lord Nugent to think I was being critical of planning staffs and their ability. The Stevens Committee commented very strongly on the lack of experience of mining and quarrying activities within the planning authorities, and it is understandable that it should be so. The noble Baroness who put forward the arguments against the amendment did so, I think, more in the context of minerals which are plentiful and minerals which you can work shortly after getting permission. All these arguments were considered very fully by the Stevens Committee. I am sure that, if the Committee would bear with me while I read Chapter 7 of the report of the Stevens Committee, there would be no one left in this Committee to oppose the amendment. The arguments there are very formidable; I believe they are impeccable. They refer to the specific difficulties of not being able to have long-term planning for the development of particular types of minerals which are essential to our industrial base. I hope that my noble friend, without my having to read Chapter 7, will take account of the points formidably made there and be able to give some sympathetic response to the amendment which I have moved.

As I suspected, a, Solomon-like posture is clearly called for on this issue, and I suspect on many others before we are finished with this Bill. Quite clearly, there are important points of view on both sides. When experts like my noble friend Lord Boardman and others speak on the interests of the industry their considerable experience must be listened to very carefully. At the same time, they would be the first to acknowledge that the concerns of those who are interested in the environmental aspects also are very important. I think it is very gratifying in many ways that the Government have finally come forward with a Bill which is trying to strike a balance, to grasp the nettle, and to take on board these differences and try to get somewhere.

It is so easy to sit back and say: "If you put this forward the industry would not like it and if you put the industry's point of view forward the environmentalists would have so much to say. Therefore, let us take the middle line of masterly inactivity and do nothing". That would be the easy way out and we are trying not to do that. I readily accept what my noble friend Lord Boardman has said. This clause is one of the most important clauses in the Bill, because for the first time mineral planning authorities will be under a statutory duty to undertake periodic reviews of mineral working in their areas.

Let me stress for a moment why we think that this is necessary. As has been said, mineral working is a long-term activity. It is often undertaken on the basis of a planning permission granted many years ago. Planning permissions granted years ago may have conditions upon them which are no longer regarded as adequate. Indeed, our grandchildren may not regard the conditions being placed upon minerals permissions today as adequate at sometime in the future. I should think that my grandchildren would certainly not so consider them. Circumstances and environmental standards change and with such a long-term activity as minerals working it is important that it is reviewed from time to time.

My noble friend Lord Boardman said that the concept of a review is unacceptable to the industry unless, in return, something is done to recognise its long-term needs. As I said on Second Reading, the implementation of Stevens should be looked at as a package which will bring benefits to the industry to balance the additional environmental constraints envisaged by the Bill. However, I cannot accept that the particular quid pro quo which my noble friend is seeking is the right answer. We believe that the right way to meet the long-term needs of the industry is through the development plan system and not by enabling the industry to obtain permissions now for implementation at some indeterminate time in the future. We are developing guidelines for sand and gravel to provide precisely the long-term planning needed by this section of the industry, and similar work is now under way in relation to industrial sand and chalk. At the same time, we have been considering how development plans can best be used to provide positive long-term guidance and we hope, shortly, to be issuing an advice note on that.

We are also revising the Memorandum on the Control of Mineral Working—the Green Book—to provide an up-to-date best practice manual which gives a framework for the developing relationship between the industry and local authorities. That will stress the long-term nature of the industry's operations. I, therefore, consider that we are keeping our side of the bargain on the Stevens package and I think that the industry should recognise that when we consider Clause 3 and the amendments that we have before us in connection with it.

Two other points have been made on this clause generally, both on Second Reading and in other places. I hope that your Lordships will think it relevant that I should refer to them now. Doubt has been raised about the need to extend Section 51 to cover cases where mineral working is being carried out without a specific grant of planning permission. I have explained our position as regards this and if noble Lords wish to press the point, it might best be done when we come to discuss Clause 8.

Secondly, I have said that we shall consider points about how far back the review should go. So the whole of Clause 3 places a duty on mineral planning authorities periodically to review mineral workings in their area and then to consider whether or not to make one of the four types of order referred to in the Bill. The Government believe that it should be possible for these authorities to be able to do that by utilising the staff already working in county planning departments and that the frequency of reviews will depend to some extent on the number of staff available. Therefore, this duty will not impose an additional financial burden on the ratepayer and taxpayer, but at the same time it will mean that the environmental effects of mineral working will be carefully watched. I think that the periodic review of mineral working, together with the new powers provided elsewhere in the Bill, will herald a new era in which the creation of the dereliction which is such a vivid illustration of our past insensitivity towards the environment can be avoided.

I could try to pick up more of the points that were made previously in the main by my noble friends, although in most cases they supported the points which the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, had mentioned. However, I think that we would still come back at the end of the discussion to the following conclusion. If the Bill is looked at in isolation, then there is justification, without question, for the industry's view on this. It is only when one looks at the package as a whole that I think one can see mitigation of its concerns. I am hoping that my noble friends who are so anxious about this matter will feel that their cause for concern may not be quite as great as perhaps they had originally feared. Certainly I take the view as my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford said—and I am grateful to him for his observations on this point—that the local authorities are concerned about what industry's needs are in this as in any other connection. They have to be concerned. They cannot be in isolation. I am confident that they are concerned and indeed I feel in the light of my own experience that they will be more concerned about this aspect in the future than they may ever have been in the past. So with those observations, I hope that my noble friends may feel slightly less apprehensive than they have done hitherto and that perhaps they will not press the amendment.

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that full answer. I shall certainly happily wait to see the full package as it develops during the course of this Committee stage and beyond. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 10:

After Clause 18, insert the following new clause:

Briefly, I should like to support my noble friend on this amendment. I referred to the long-term needs when I spoke to the previous amendment, and I shall not repeat the arguments. Enormous capital investment has to go in to dealing with the processing of more sophisticated metals. Some noble Lords may have knowledge of the smaller sand and gravel, and readimixed plants. In many cases we are talking of what is vital to this country. It can cost £20 million, £30 million or £40 million to erect processing plant to deal with many of these sophisticated metals. Therefore, it is important that those who are planning such projects should be able to do so on the basis of long-term planning permissions. I support the four reasons which my noble friend has given as to why this would not only be in the interests of the industry but in the interests of the environment as well. I strongly support this amendment.

As the amendment stands, I am afraid that I cannot accept it. Where, for example, is the provision referred to to be made? In the development plan? Are planning authorities to cater only for their own needs and not for wider requirements? This latter point would go against so much of the good which has happened in recent years in the regional co-operation between the industry, local authorities and central Government. As drafted, the amendment is also defective in its reference to mineral planning authorities, as these are not defined in the Scottish part of the Bill. But even if these points were corrected, I wonder whether this amendment is really necessary. Do planning authorities need to have this additional duty placed on them when they already have a duty to make proper planning provision for their area—including housing, employment and mineral working?

Having said that, I think there is a point here which we ought to look at more closely. I am willing to consider this matter once again. I think that the points made have a certain relevance, and I am particularly concerned with the point made by my noble friend Lord Boardman. Certainly, as it stands, the amendment would not do, and I am sure that my noble friend Lord Mottistone accepts that. But the subject is one which perhaps at least we ought to consider again. If my noble friend would withdraw the amendment, I would give him the assurance that we would do that.

I am indeed grateful to my noble friend the Minister for those remarks. Perhaps I could apologise to your Lordships for not saying that I wish to take Amendment No. 14 in conjunction with this, which is the Scottish amendment. I apologise for having left "minerals" in Amendment No. 14; I tried hard to get them out and in some cases I succeeded, but I failed in this amendment. With the very splendid assurances of my noble friend, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.

had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 11:

After Clause 18, insert the following new clause:

moved Amendment No. 13:

After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:

This may be the only occasion when I find myself able to support my noble friend Lord Mottistone. Therefore, I have great pleasure in taking the opportinity to do so. I am sure that what he proposes is logical; it tidies up the 1980 Act, and I am all for trying to get it agreed to. I hope that the Government will approve.

I do not have anything against the amendment in principle, but I thought that it was covered by the existing development system anyhow, and, therefore, while worthy, was not necessary.

This re-opens a debate that we had before, and I hope that it comes as no surprise to my noble friend Lord Mottistone that, in fact, I cannot accept the amendment. I suspect that it does not come as a surprise to him because he will recall the extent to which we debated this at the time and how the Government went to such great lengths in this part of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act to draw a balance yet again between the functions of the counties and those of the districts. That was another "no-win" situation, if I may so call it, where we could not satisfy everyone; we were bound to be wrong somewhere.

At the end of the day I know that the districts felt rather let down when they had expected so much, because of all the alterations that took place the only one in fact was planning, albeit the important one that it is. On the other hand, the counties felt very anxious and, to some extent, aggrieved that this aspect of local planning was going out of their hands in the way it was. So they, too, were not happy. Yet the Government had to strike a balance. I think that we struck the right balance then. I think that the point on brickworks was well talked through; it was ably presented, as always, by my noble friend Lord Mottistone.

I do not think that he would thank me if I were to read column 264 of the debate that took place at that time. I am tempted to do so because the case, if I may immodestly say so, was put very clearly. I really could not do any better if I were to have another shot at it now, so I will not. I will only say that I understand the point he makes. I even more understand the support he received from my noble friend Lord Ridley. I always respect his views, but in turn I know that he understands why we cannot proceed to accept this amendment on this occasion.

I should like to rise and console the noble Baroness, if it is a consolation, that if she has now lost the support of my noble friend Lord Ridley and my noble friend Lord Mottistone, she has now gained mine.

I am really rather sad. Perhaps it is too short a time since last October. A sign, I always think, of a great Minister is one who is prepared to adjust his attitude, particularly when, as he himself said, the matter is so finely balanced. However, I appreciate that he has not. We shall consider this at a later stage of the Bill and keep our eyes sharply open for other Bills in the future into which one can insert amendments of this sort without upsetting anyone at all. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 16:

Page 2, line 35, after ("of") insert ("all").

moved Amendment No. 17:

Page 2, line 35, leave out ("sites") and insert ("every site").

moved Amendment No. 18:

There may be cases where mineral working is being carried out without an express grant of planning permission, including cases where working began before the onset of planning control. It is clearly necessary in our view to review these workings so that the possibility of imposing up-to-date environmental or restoration conditions can be considered. I accept that in some, but not all, of these cases enforcement action could provide an alternative procedure, but we think that even in these cases the review procedure envisaged in the Bill is to be preferred.

I am not sure that at this stage there is more that I can add to that. I shall certainly discuss the points made by my noble friend Lord Sandford and look carefully at what he has said, but at the moment I cannot accept the amendment and would have to leave it at that. However, I shall look carefully in case there may be another view when we have considered it again.

I thank my noble friend. I appreciate that one of the reasons for referring to sites and not to permissions under which the sites are being worked is in order to catch those sites on which minerals are being worked without permission. I appreciate that point. But in adopting the wording they have used the Government failed to capture the permissions which have been given and on which work has not yet started. Those permissions will normally, unless something else is specified, last for five years before they lapse.

It is possible that there is provision in the 1971 Act for the mineral planning authorities to allow a period of 10 years to elapse, for instance—and this is recommended by Stevens in some cases—before the permission need be taken up. Surely in any review that is being undertaken of all the permissions outstanding, and all the sites being worked, it ought to be possible for the mineral planning authority to review a permission on which work has not yet started. That is the point on which I want elucidation.

I think that my noble friend Lord Sandford made a good case. I hope that this could be looked at again before we leave it.

I said that I think that we ought to consider what my noble friend has said, and that I gladly undertake to do.

I am most grateful. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 20:

Page 2, line 41, leave out ("site") and insert ("planning permissions").