My Lords, I have the honour to present to your Lordships a Message from Her Majesty the Queen, signed by her own hand. The Message is as follows:

My Lords, I think it right that before we begin today's business we should pause to associate ourselves with the tributes paid yesterday in another place to the Reverend Robert Bradford. I know that noble Lords on all Benches will join with me in expressing horror and revulsion at the assassination, and extend sympathy to Mrs. Bradford, to her family, to Robert Bradford's constituents in Belfast and to his friends and colleagues in another place. Perhaps I could also echo the words spoken by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister later, last night, when she stressed that reconciliation is the path to peace.

My Lords, in the solemnity of this House I rise to share with the noble Baroness the Leader of the House in this tribute to the memory of the MP for South Belfast, Robert Bradford, and with the expressions of sympathy with his family concerning his brutal assassination. Today is yet another day of darkness and grief in Ulster, but I am very conscious that any words of mine here today will fail to express the terrible sense of outrage, fear and concern throughout Northern Ireland at the continuing cold, calculating acts of murder and revenge killings. Such crimes are the evil product of bigotry, vile sectarianism and blind hatred. As long as these evils exist there can be no peace or reconciliation. I would join with the noble Baroness and invite the support of this House for the words of the Prime Minister last evening, that there must be community commitment and determined action, but such action must not be violent nor indiscriminate; it must be within the law and in accordance with representative parliamentary democracy.

My Lords, from these Benches we would also wish to be associated with the many tributes paid to the Reverend Robert Bradford, and we offer our most sincere sympathies to his widow and his family. We also join with all those who have condemned this appalling killing and with those who have made the pleas for restraint.

My Lords, I am sure that those sitting on the Cross-Benches would also like to be associated with yesterday's tributes and with the message of sympathy to Mrs. Bradford and her family as expressed by the noble Baroness the Leader of the House.

My Lords, the Lords Spiritual, I am sure, would wish to be associated with the tributes that have been paid to the Reverend Robert Bradford, and to deplore, as has already been deplored from different parts of your Lordships' House, the appalling action which brought about his death. We, too, would wish to be associated with the expression of condolences to his widow and to his family.

My Lords, may I be permitted to add a word as a Methodist Minister. Robert Bradford was a Methodist Minister, and he carries, and has carried, the sympathy and understanding of all Methodists, and I would like to be associated with what has already been said.

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

My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade has just received detailed proposals from British Airways which he is now considering in the light of both British Airways' commercial interest and the longer-term implications for airports policy. It was in fact British Airways themselves who volunteered to move their Iberian services to Gatwick, subject to the negotiation of capacity limits at Heathrow for the Spanish and Portuguese airlines.

My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that modestly encouraging reply, may I take it from this that Her Majesty's Government do not intend to maintain a situation in which the authority of Government is used to give a strong competitive advantage to foreign airlines in competition with the state-owned British one?

My Lords, of course the Government would not deliberately wish to do as the noble Lord suggests, but I ought perhaps to make it clear that, although the Spanish and Portuguese airlines continue to operate their services from Heathrow, those services are subject to strict capacity limits.

My Lords, are we to understand from the noble Lord that when these botches occur it is incompetence and not malevolence?

My Lords, the noble Lord is not correct in that assertion. The fact of the matter is, of course, that Heathrow is approaching the capacity limit which it can accept and for that reason the Government have maintained the policy which was originally initiated, indeed, by the previous Administration to impose restraint upon the growth of services from Heathrow.

My Lords, in addition to the very important points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, is there not another aspect of British Airways' Reports and Accounts; namely, that because of their financial losses, which might be exacerbated in view of the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, all the staff will have their pensions reduced as it is now proposed that there should be a reduction on the employers' side of the contribution? Will the noble Lord please look at that as well?

My Lords, that is, I think, another question; but in any event it is a matter for British Airways themselves.

My Lords, will the noble Lord bear in mind when it comes to transferring traffic from Heathrow that Stansted already has some capacity which might very well be used?

My Lords, it is certainly the case that Stansted has certain capacity available at present, but there is no existing policy of directing traffic to move to that airport.

My Lords, is the noble Lord certain that the figures given by British Airways are correct and not exaggerated?—because the facilities at Gatwick are so much better than at Heathrow and the labour relations are so much better.

My Lords, there is certainly room for argument about such figures, although I have no reason to quarrel with the figures that British Airways have put forward. But the fact remains, as I said earlier, that Spanish and Portuguese airlines will themselves be subject to some restraints and hence doubtless financial penalties as and when the traffic approaches the maximum that they are permitted to carry.

My Lords, in the light of my noble friend's comments about overcrowding at Heathrow, would not a very simple and quick way of dealing with the problem be to inform Iberia and TAP that they would be most welcome at Gatwick, but not at Heathrow?

My Lords, TAP and Iberian Airlines—the Spanish carrier—would even now certainly be welcome to operate from Gatwick, but they prefer to operate from Heathrow.

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

My Lords, my noble friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary went to Saudi Arabia in his capacity as President of the Ten in order to talk with Saudi leaders about Crown Prince Fahd's eight principles, and other issues of mutual interest. The Ten have welcomed the principles as a positive contribution to the search for Middle East peace. He was encouraged by his constructive discussions with the Saudis, who are committed to the search for progress towards a peaceful settlement.

My Lords, is the Minister aware how deeply many of us admire the initiative and statesmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, in his visit to the Middle East? Would he confirm that, following his visit, and largely because of it, Jordan, the Gulf States and even the Soviet Union have now endorsed the proposals of Saudi Arabia for a peace plan and, according to The Times this morning, not only the PLO but the Syrian Government have agreed on recognition of Israel with the establishment of a Palestinian state? In view of that consensus of opinion, is it not desirable that an international conference should be called, if the Arab summit also endorses these proposals, in order to bring about a settlement?

My Lords, the noble Lord is right to suggest that these principles have received widespread acceptance, not only among the Arab world but also elsewhere. As for a conference, it may well be that a conference will be appropriate at some stage, but I would say that it is a little early to be thinking in those terms at this moment, not least because it is so necessary that any such conference should be properly prepared.

My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord can clear up a point. It was reported in The Times this morning that the Saudi Government had officially said that Israel is not included in those states which were entitled to live in peace in the region. If that is correct, does it not mean that Israel will be under a very serious threat in the future, and how can we possibly welcome this plan if that is correct?

My Lords, the seventh of the eight principles says that all the states in the region should be able to live in peace, and we most certainly regard that as including Israel. We have no reason to believe that this is not the Saudi point of view as well.

My Lords, can the noble Lord comment on the disavowal by the Saudi Government of their representative at the United Nations when they have said that he was in no position to make a statement that Israel was included in that list?

My Lords, I can only reflect the discussions of my noble friend when he was in Riyadh recently and repeat the words that I used just now—that we have no reason to believe that the Saudi point of view is not as I described it.

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, although one would not wish to place any obstacle in the path of any peace proposal whether it emanates from Saudi Arabia or from any other quarter, there is, nevertheless, something that must not be disregarded; namely, that although the Camp David agreement in April developed merely into the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Sinai, that agreement also provides for continuing negotiations? Those negotiations are of supreme importance. Will those who are talking about Camp David being finished say no more about that and allow Israel, Egypt and any other nation to sit down at a conference or in any fashion and try to work out a proposal which can produce peace?

My Lords, nothing in the Saudi eight points, or for that matter in the European Venice Declaration, is intended to cut across the Camp David process. The Camp David process has a number of important achievements to its credit, not least the institution of peace between Israel and Egypt, the forthcoming withdrawal from Sinai by the Israelis, and the talks to which the noble Lord referred. But one needs to look ahead a stage further than the Camp David process, and I think that the various initiatives to which I have referred—the Saudi initiative and the European initiative—can be seen in that light.

My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that the Saudi régime has invested a great deal in this plan, which has received wide and well-deserved support, and that nothing could unsettle the Gulf more seriously or help the Russians more than if this plan were simply brushed aside by the Israelis or by any other Government?

My Lords, it is unhappily the case that the Israelis have not so far felt able to accept the main thrust of the Saudi points, but I hope that on reflection they will be able to reconsider their position.

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware—as, indeed, he must be—that there is no chance whatever, either now or at any time in the future, of Israel agreeing to give up East Jerusalem, which this plan requires? Would it not be as well to accept this instead of raising false hopes about the Saudi plan? Secondly, will the noble Lord confirm or deny press reports last week from an unnamed British official in the Middle East who said, "Of course, we are having continuing discussions with the PLO"? Is it now the policy of the Government to have negotiations with this international terrorist organisation before they agree to the existence of Israel?—because, if so, this represents a change from assurances which the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary has given us and which, indeed, the noble Lord has given us.

My Lords, perhaps I may just deal with those two points. First, on the question of Jerusalem, I suggest that it is "unconducive", if that is good English, to taking forward the peace process in the Middle East if one side or the other takes up some position set in concrete on some point which they know very well is unacceptable to the other side. That most certainly applies to both sides in this discussion. As for the position of the PLO, as my noble friend has said on several occasions, it is unrealistic to imagine that progress will be made in the Middle East without some acknowledgment of the position of the PLO as representing a very important segment of Palestinian opinion. But certainly it is essential for the PLO to recognise the existence of the state of Israel and the right of the state of Israel to exist, and we hope that they will do so.

My Lords, with respect, that is not good enough. Is it a fact that the Government are negotiating with the PLO before that organisation has agreed to the existence of Israel?—because, if they are, this is going back on what the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary has said. Have the Government changed their view on this?

My Lords, it is inevitably the case that the PLO at various levels come to hear of the various proposals that we have to make in these matters, but we most certainly do not have formal discussions with the PLO in the way that the noble Lord is suggesting.

My Lords, I should like to ask the Minister another question which was raised during the visit of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. Has any agreement been reached regarding the participation by Britain and European nations in the peace-keeping force in Sinai?

My Lords, no agreement has yet been reached on this matter.

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

My Lords, we are still considering the many comments which have been received on these proposals. These will be taken into account in the announcement on training which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment hopes to make by the turn of the year.

My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend for that reply upon this important Government initiative concerning adult training. Can my noble friend comment upon the mention in the consultative document of an intention to establish some 15 major open learning schemes over an initial period of three to five years? Does he think that parts of this at least could become operational more quickly than this, particularly bearing in mind the need to try to equip ourselves more quickly for the next trade upturn?

My Lords, the immediate aim of the programme will be to fund a range of perhaps 12 to 20 projects leading to open learning schemes of different types being developed, and these would be introduced and evaluated over the next three to five years. Of course, they will not all come into operation at once, and some will become operational earlier than others.

My Lords, will the noble Earl agree that, at the rate at which the present Government are producing the next trade upturn, five years will be ample?

My Lords, the noble Lord has clearly not realised what is going on in the world, and that, in fact, the trough of the recession is likely to be over.

My Lords, quite seriously, does the noble Earl realise that, before we have further colleges of technology, we should have the necessary equipment in the primary and secondary schools which are preparing our future technologists and adults for the kind of world in which we shall live, and that the sad result of the cuts in education is making this country educationally one of the worst in Europe?

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, for acknowledging that his noble friend's question was not serious. However, I would say to the noble Lord that there are causes for having proper equipment in schools just as there are causes for having proper training facilities. The purpose of this objective is to try to encourage more technical expertise in those who are adults, who are not yet employed, or who are unemployed.

My Lords, I was not castigating my noble friend; I was just saying that the position is such that something should be done.

My Lords, can my noble friend be more specific on the general reaction in this matter? Can he say whether the trade unions have exhibited any interest in the proposal?

My Lords, yes, they have. They have answered the proposals and have said that they welcome these constructive measures to increase the supply of technicians and to improve training facilities for adults. They have made some very useful comments, which we shall take into account before framing the Open Tech programme.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, and indeed other noble Lords can, at this very moment in this very building, see an excellent exhibition of the educational application of computer hardware being demonstrated by primary and secondary schoolchildren?

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for passing that information to me to pass on to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek.

My Lords, can my noble friend say whether a slightly greater sense of urgency should not be put behind this project? Here is an imaginative proposition—is that not true? Is it not equally true that it is costing over £3,000 for every temporary job supplied by the MSC and more than £4,000 to keep a person who is unemployed? Surely there should not be a lack of funds in setting up opportunities for the young and for the mature to gain some knowledge of technical and technological work, which will be immeasurably useful not only to them but to the nation at large?

My Lords, I absolutely accept my noble friend's requirement that there should be speed on this. However, I would only say to him that it is important that we should get the facts right before we act upon them. That is why 30,000 copies of this document went out; and 400 replies have been received. We want to be quick with this, but we must get it right.

My Lords, how can the noble Earl square all this with what the Government are doing, with the savage cuts in technology throughout the country? What is the policy of the Government?

My Lords, in a tine of recession, as the noble Lord, Lord Peart, knows full well, there are bound to be cuts and there are bound to be hardships. What we are trying to do in this particular exercise is to encourage people to learn technical skills so that when the upturn comes they will be fully equipped to take part in the work which they will have to do.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware in that context that the Government economies, cutting the universities, arc having the effect on one advanced technological university, the University of Surrey, of obliging them to close down some of their courses just at a time when I should have thought they would be most useful?

My Lords, I think that these points cover different things. What the Question is about is the Open Tech, and it is this which is a new concept and which we wish to see get off the ground.

My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether it is true that we are well behind our industrial competitors in this field, and therefore that there is a considerable need to redeploy the resources we are using as well as to increase them? Noting the statement in the consultative document, A New Training Initiative, that over 60 per cent. of the active German labour force hold vocational training qualifications, I assume that compatible United Kingdom figures would be much lower. If one assumes that these qualifications are meaningful—an important point—is this one of the reasons why German industry is in fact more successful?

My Lords, I agree that our training programmes have not always been as good as those of our competitors, and that is the reason why we are trying to do our best to ensure that they are improved as quickly as possible.

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

My Lords, the report by the Supplementary Benefit Policy Inspectorate of their inquiry into the operation of the supplementary benefit capital rule should be received by Ministers shortly. In the light of that report, and of the many views which have been expressed on this subject, the Government will consider what changes, if any, may be desirable.

My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask him whether he agrees that we are now dealing with a new group of people for whom supplementary benefit was not originally intended; namely, the long-term unemployed: people who forfeit their right to national insurance unemployment pay after 12 months, and must then fall back on their savings until those are reduced below the figure of £2,000? Does the noble Lord think that it is right that prudent people, who have become unemployed through no fault of their own, should be forced to spend the minimal surrender values of I their insurance policies before qualifying for supplementary benefit, despite the fact that others who own valuable unmortgaged properties do not have to sell those before qualifying?

My Lords, the supplementary benefit scheme was not designed for any specific category but for all who fell to a certain level of need. As to the specific questions about mortgages and life insurance policies, I can tell the noble Lord that when we have the report we will certainly look at those questions. But I must say that to distinguish between different kinds of investment would of course be an important change in principle.

My Lords, does the Minister not agree that the supplementary benefit scheme was designed for conditions quite different from those which obtain today? When it was arranged it was extremely likely that anybody out of work could get a job, but nobody can say that the 3 million who are unemployed can get jobs. Is not that the difference in the situation?

The difference, my Lords, is that there are more people who qualify now than there were formerly.

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there are, to my certain knowledge, unemployed people whose life savings of a little over £2,000 are tied up in building society share schemes which cannot be touched under any circumstances for five years? They are, therefore, in the appalling position (a) of being unemployed, (b) of not being able to get at their modest savings, and (c) of being ineligible for supplementary benefit under the Government's rules.

My Lords, when the Government have the report they will consider particular issues such as that brought by the noble Lord to the Government's attention.

My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to repeal Section 21 of the Opticians Act 1958. I beg to move that this Bill he now read a first time.

My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to provide disqualification of persons with criminal records from practising as security officers. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.

My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. The amendments to the Private Business Standing Orders Nos. 4 and 11 are to ensure that newspaper notices which are published referring to a Private Bill contain reference to the opportunity to deposit a petition against the Bill. The amendment to Standing Order No. 39 is for administrative convenience as a result of the fact that the Forestry Commission no longer have a permanent office in London, having moved to Edinburgh. This amendment will allow Bills to be deposited with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Similar amendments were agreed to the Private Business Standing Orders of another place last week. I beg to move.

My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. think your Lordships are by now very familiar with this type of Motion which is to enable the Bill to continue in this Session of Parliament. I beg to move.

My Lords, I beg to move the third Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, I beg to move the fourth Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, I beg to move that the Hops Marketing Bill be read a second time. This is not a lengthy Bill. It is relatively simple in intent, but, in order to understand it, it is necessary to touch upon some of the intricacies of the system of hops marketing. For those who are directly affected by it, it is an important piece of legislation even though its relevance may not be fully appreciated by the many millions whose only contact with hops is when they drink some beer.

The Hops Marketing Board was originally set up in 1932. It was the first marketing board to be set up under the Agricultural Marketing Act 1931, which has since been superseded by the Agricultural Marketing Act 1958. In setting up the board, the aim was to construct an orderly system for marketing hops. At that time, individual hop producers were in some considerable disarray in disposing of their crops, and it is not, therefore, surprising that over two-thirds of hop producers supported the proposal to establish the marketing board. The board has done a remarkable job over the years in achieving the orderly marketing of hops and safeguarding the position of growers vis-à-vis the buyers of hops. Producers and buyers have been happy with the marketing arrangements, and all parties have been reluctant to alter the system. Indeed, over the last few years the Hops Marketing Board has had the privilege of the services of my noble friend Lord Selborne and I know that we are all grateful to him for the work he has put in to the board in his years of tenure as chairman.

Since the United Kingdom joined the EEC in 1973, we have been aware that questions could be raised about certain aspects of some of our marketing boards. It gradually became clear that, in the view of the European Commission, we would not be entitled, once our transitional period ended on 31st December 1977, to maintain compulsory marketing through a board in a sector which is covered by a Community régime. This presented problems in three areas; pigs in Northern Ireland, hops in England and milk throughout the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland pigs became the subject of an action in the European Court. Milk was very much a special case; we were able to establish that the United Kingdom milk market had certain characteristics which distinguished it fundamentally from other member states. It was, therefore, legally possible to obtain an amendment to the Community's milk régime permitting the continued operation of the milk marketing boards. The United Kingdom hops market has no such distinguishing features and, after detailed examination, it became clear that it would not be legally possible to amend the Community hops régime in order to make a special provision for the Hops Marketing Board.

In 1979 the judgment against the Northern Ireland Pigs Board by the European Court upheld the Commission's view that where there is a Community régime for a particular product, it is not permissible for an individual member state to retain legislation requiring producers to sell their produce through a particular body such as a marketing board. So, although the Hops Marketing Board has similar objectives to producers' groups, which are encouraged under the hops régime—that is, to achieve orderly marketing and strengthening of the position of growers on the market—there is the fundamental difference, in Community eyes, that the membership of a producer group must be voluntary. Yet it is obligatory in this country for hops producers who wish to sell their hops to do so to or through the agency of the hoard. That is the difference and that is the cause of the Bill.

The Commission suggested to us that our hops marketing scheme was contrary to Community law and indicated that if we did not make appropriate changes they would find it necessary to start proceedings against us in the European Court. The threat of such proceedings is still with us, and it is only our preparations for the introduction of this Bill to rectify the situation which have delayed action being taken against us.

Following extensive discussions with all interested parties, including the Commission, it was concluded that legislation should be introduced which would end the present system of compulsory marketing. To maintain continuity and stability of the hops market, provision should be included for the transfer of the board's forward contract commitments and assets to a voluntary successor body meeting Community requirements. The hoard has almost completed the preparatory work necessary to establish such a body, which would be the Hops Marketing Board Limited, as a co-operative society under the Industrial and Provident Society Acts.

My right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture mentioned in another place that legislation would be introduced as soon as time permitted. Although severe congestion in the legislative timetable has unfortunately meant some delay in finding a slot in the programme, that time has now come. It might be helpful if I explained briefly the various clauses of the Bill. The Bill seeks, first of all, in Clause 1, to revoke the Hops Marketing Scheme 1932; this will be done on an appointed day made by the Minister. Clause 2 provides for a poll of registered producers to be held to decide how the property, rights and liabilities of the board are to be disposed of. If two-thirds of producers (by number and by area) are in favour of the proposals set out on the ballot paper, and if the board subsequently passes a resolution incorporating the terms of the proposal, then the assets and liabilities of the board will be transferred on the appointed day to the successor body or bodies specified on the ballot paper.

Clause 3 is a very technical clause and deals with contracts which have already been made between hop producers and the board for the forward sale of their 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1984 crops. Clause 3 transfers these forward offers of hops, made under the hoard's forward contract plan—which sets out the terms and conditions of the agreement—to the successor body or bodies inheriting the board's assets and liabilities. The clause also specifies the extent of a producer's commitment under the wording of the contract.

Clause 4 requires the board to prepare and present to the Minister audited accounts down to the day before the appointed day. When the Minister has received the accounts and has been notified by the board that they have wound up their affairs, he is required to make an order dissolving the board. Clause 4 also provides that, if no resolution is passed under Clause 2(2), then the Minister is empowered to present a petition for the winding up of the board under the Agricultural Marketing Act 1958, in which event the surplus assets of the board will be divided between registered hop producers.

I would only add that we have sought to retain as much as possible of the current system of marketing hops as producers have indicated that they would wish. In effect, producers will, if they so vote on the poll, be able to market their hops through the society in the same way as they have in the past through the board. At the same time, any individual who does not wish to join the society will be free to market his hops as an individual. With that explanation, my Lords, I beg to move.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which he moved the Second Reading and for providing the background, which I am sure will be most helpful in assisting us to get a perspective of events which led up to the need to bring forward this measure and which, as he said, replaces a proved system of nearly half a century, the hoard having been formed in 1932. As we know, the Hops Marketing Board has been one of the number of boards and organisations which over the years have made a significant contribution to the prosperity of agriculture, our most productive industry, and the industry has benefited from the work of the board's chairman, now the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, the members of the board and all associated with it in the organisation of the hops industry.

As the Minister said, the Government have been required by the EEC to review the position, and that has taken a considerable time. That of course does not matter much if the outcome will be welcomed in years to come. There have been protracted negotiations with the EEC and the subject has engaged the attention and concern of several Select Committees of this House and another place, meetings attended by successive Ministers of Agriculture and officials, to which of course members of organisations concerned with the industry have made their contributions, so there has been a fair amount of consultation.

There was the EEC Council regulation of July 1971, another in 1973 and yet another in 1976, brought forward by the Commission because the 1971 regulation had proved insufficient in the surplus situation on Community and world markets which had occurred since 1973; so the legislation then thought desirable was not all that foolproof in the national interest. The 1976 regulation was introduced to amend the earlier rules of 1971 so as to discourage what I think was excessive production, to stabilise the market and ensure a fair income for producers.

When the Select Committee of this House on the European Communities considered the matter in 1976, it was claimed that there was nothing in the instrument then drafted to stop the board continuing to operate, but growers would qualify for financial aid only if they belonged to a recognised and registered group. In the Thirty-second Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the European Communities, of 5th May 1976, in a section on policy implications, the committee stated, in paragraph 10:

"The Committee see no merit in the proliferation of bodies to perform the functions presently carried out by the Hops Marketing Board. Moreover, the Committee see no reason why the marketing of hops would be improved by moving away from the concept of a marketing hoard set up at the wish of producers and terminable by a vote of those same producers (but with an obligatory membership once established) towards that of a voluntary producer group with exclusive marketing rights.".

In paragraph 12 the committee stated, briefly:

"The Committee therefore consider that the best procedure would be to amend the draft Regulation to allow the payment of Community aid through 'existing marketing organisations in Member States which carry out the objectives of recognised producer groups '.".

Therefore, if I read it aright, it appears that a few years ago the Select Committee of this House felt that the present system was satisfactory, and there was hardly any justification for change. Clearly, a fair amount of consultation and discussion has taken place since then in order to see how our own hops industry could come into line with the EEC requirements.

I note from the current annual report of the board that the change proposed for the transfer of assets and liabilities of the Hops Marketing Board to a voluntary producer group was not the solution originally sought by the board or by the National Farmers' Union. The two bodies sought to amend the EEC regulation for the common organisation of hops so that the hoard could continue to operate with its powers and functions largely unaltered.

While I am pleased that the board is able to assure us that arrangements are now well advanced for formulating the rules, contracts and marketing arrangements for the new society, the chairman, the noble Lord, Earl Selborne, warns us in the annual report that,

"the Community's inability to accommodate within the EEC hops régime the most successful hop producers' organisation in Europe only increases the risk of an unstable hops market".

So as we go into this new scheme there are some misgivings about the future, and this is so very important. The annual report of the board was issued as recently as the annual meeting held on 24th June 1981, so there can hardly have been time for more recent events to have given any greater assurance on this important matter, which vitally affects our industry. As the noble Earl the Minister has said, this is an important issue, and certainly to my mind it is not by any means small beer.

But whatever our views about the Community might be there will be no dispute that if we are members of a common market, it is absolutely essential that any changes considered necessary should take into account the experience and the record of the policies pursued by member countries, especially those where their industries are best organised. It would be interesting to know to what extent the regulations have been amended to take into account any representations that we have put forward in recent times. I believe it also essential that the Community should relate change to the highest common denominator, if future success is to be assured. It is no wonder that the common agricultural policy comes in for sustained criticism, and as the CAP budget represents a major part of the overall budget, the public quite naturally equates the success of the Community as a whole with the success or otherwise of the common agricultural policy.

I should like to conclude by asking the Minister a number of questions, answers to which would be helpful to the industry. I wonder whether he can tell us what percentage of hops produced in the EEC as a whole are produced in this country. I understand that in 1976 about 25 per cent. of the total of hops produced in the Community were produced in this country, so clearly we then had a major interest. It would be helpful to have the current figures. Furthermore, if the figure is considerable in relation to the production of other member countries, can the Minister say whether the production was of general interest to Community members, or whether it was to satisfy our own, or any other particular need, in respect of varieties? The need of varieties is an important factor.

I understand that for some years for us there has been a record of no surpluses and no bankruptcies, which means that demand and supply have been very desirably evenly matched. Can the Minister say what confidence he has that our future hop market is likely to be one of stability and continued confidence? Is the Minister satisfied that in the new arrangement protection of the interests of our growers will continue and that the home market will not be undercut, maybe unfairly, by supplies from other countries? As I say, confidence is so essential.

Can the Minister tell the House what aid, both financial and in other ways, is at present available from Government sources, and say whether this will continue? Can we be told what present aid comes from the Community to the hops industry, and whether, as a result of our complying with the regulations, any further help might be expected from those sources? It would be useful to know more about the position of other Community countries where there has not been the mature organisation that we have had for half a century, since I understand that there has been a history in the EEC of chronic surpluses? That might be well for them, though of course it creates an enormous problem, but we certainly do not want that kind of situation to apply here.

It has been the practice for EEC aid to go to those producers in the Community who had an article which was least desired by the market. This was making a bad situation much worse because people who otherwise would have been forced by economic restraints to remove those hops, felt that they could go on because they were being bailed out by the EEC. We have seen this happen in relation to other commodities, and if it continues to happen in regard to hops, it would mean that the most efficient and most important producers in this country would be at a grave disadvantage compared with the less efficient people elsewhere within Europe.

If we are to have a voluntary organisation, instead of a statutory one, as we now have, I should like to know what contact there will be with the Government, what areas of accountability will continue in force, and how the industry can in other ways be monitored in the interests of the producers and the consumers? What control will there be in place of the present statutory organisation?

I shall end my speech by making a few comments which I think the House will accept. British agriculture is among the most efficient of such industries in the world, and this has been due in no small part to the partnership of successive Governments, organisations and individuals whose interests have been in tune with the needs of producers and consumers. I am sure that this must continue, and I believe that the Minister can do much for future confidence if he not only gives assurances now, but can go on to assure us that the Government will continue to be the champion of our national interests within the perspective of the wider Community. Bearing in mind that the changes are about to take place, I believe that replies to some of my questions will give the assurances which the industry and the country seek.

My Lords, I rise to regret the passing of the Flops Marketing Board. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson—I mean, Bishopston—though somewhat more briefly perhaps, I should like to say what an excellent thing it has been. One can call the Hops Marketing Board all kinds of names. One can call it a cartel, a monopoly, or many other things, but the fact is that it worked extraordinarily well. Your Lordships got your beer laced with the right sort of hop, the producers got a decent living, and the brewers, funnily enough, could well afford the price that they had to pay for hops. It was a most excellent arrangement in theory. Speaking as a Liberal, and bearing in mind the views of Adam Smith and such things, I dare say I should disapprove of it, but I am fairly sure that Mr. Friedman and the other gurus of the Tory Party would think that it was absolutely appalling. But the thing is that it worked extraordinarily well: the brewers got their hops, the people got their beer and the farmers got decently, but not over, rewarded. This is a state of affairs which I trust and hope the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, will see continues with the new body.

I think it is a great pity that we could not "fiddle" the Commission to accept the Hops Marketing Board, but on the whole it is probably a good thing that we are changing to be in line with the rest of Europe. What I should like to ask the noble Earl about it is this: Is he satisfied that, as at present constituted, we can hope for a satisfactory poll, and that the producers will accept it? Also, is he satisfied that the ordinary marketing in Europe will continue, or will be expanded, and that our hop marketing body, be it a co-operative or whatever it may be, will have proper liaison with Europe and be able to continue ordinary marketing? Because really, this is not a case for a free-for-all; it is a case where we should take as a practical example how well the organisation has worked with the Hops Marketing Board.

I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, will be able to answer the questions posed by the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston; and If look forward with great interest to hearing what the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, has to say. He certainly knows far more about hops than the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, or Lord Mackie, put together.

My Lords, I certainly would not claim to know more than the Minister; that would be a most unwise assumption to make on this matter. It occurs to me that many noble Lords in the Chamber today will take only a passing interest in this Bill, and will not consider it totally central to legislation of this Session. I look at it rather differently, as of great importance; but then, as my noble friend has explained, I am a hop grower and, indeed, I am chairman of the Hops Marketing Board. I recollect, as the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, has already reminded us, that from time to time over the years we in your Lordships' House have taken a passing interest in the Hops Marketing Board, and have tended to say that the Hops Marketing Board is a force for good in the marketing of hops in Europe and there is no earthly reason to change it. Quite frankly, that has remained the attitude of myself as a hop grower and, indeed, of the board to this very day.

However, hops is a minority crop, and the EEC apparently takes an extremely severe view of a statutory organisation which is involved in the marketing of agricultural crops. We know that in the case of the Milk Marketing Board—the Minister has explained this—an exception was made. A reason was found why milk could be an exception to the apparently otherwise incontrovertible rule that statutory powers breach the Treaty of Rome; and the reason, as we have heard, was that there was something which differentiated English milk from European milk.

I give great credit to the Milk Marketing Board and to the Government of the day for having negotiated that extremely important concession, because, quite frankly, the milk marketing boards in this country have demonstrated that in an extreme situation of over-supply it was most important to keep a stable influence in the marketing of milk in Europe. That was provided, and still is provided, by the four milk marketing boards in Great Britain. In fact, in its own small way that is precisely the case of the Hops Marketing Board. The difference, of course, is that hops is a minority crop. The cost of support (there is a small cost of support for hops in Europe) is really totally insignificant, and you will not get people in Brussels prepared to make another exception for something which is financially and economically insignificant. That is the difference.

The Hops Marketing Board was started, as we have heard, in 1932. It was the first marketing board brought in on that extremely enlightened legislation the Agricultural Marketing Act 1931, and I claim by descent a great interest in that legislation. In July 1932 it was my great-grandfather who, in this House, pushed it through a rather reluctant House, if I hear the story aright—reluctant on this side but not, of course, on the other side, and I give credit to the Labour Administration of that day for having brought it into being. In another place it was my grandfather who pushed it through there; so I am aware that over my shoulder there are no less than two of my ancestors wondering why on earth I am not prepared to defend to the last breath the Hops Marketing Board at this moment.

I think it is sad that the last two Governments were not able to persuade the Commission and the Council of Ministers that the Hops Marketing Board was a case where an exception could be made or an extension could be made of the principle of producer groups with statutory powers. As I have said already, quite frankly there was no one who was prepared to criticise in any respect the standards of hop marketing in this country. Indeed, we have been held out by the Commission themselves and by others as an example of how a reasonable supply and demand has kept the market here in equilibrium, to the great advantage of the brewers and also to the stability of the hop producers. As the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, has reminded us, that has not been the case overseas, in Europe in particular. It has not been the case because they have far less sophisticated marketing organisations. The hop producer tends to be very much in the control or under the influence of hop merchants, and such producer groups as exist, encouraged by the EEC with grant-aid and income support, have really not yet been able to make anything like the influence on the market, to the benefit of the producer and, indeed, of the consumer, as is the case with the Hops Marketing Board in this country.

So what we have is the EEC recognising that hops, with only one customer, the brewer, is a classic commodity where there is a totally inelastic demand. You cannot create a greater demand for hops—at least, not until you have managed to increase the consumption of beer. We find, therefore, that the EEC are going out of their way to try to strengthen producer groups, to increase their membership and increase their influence in the market, but at the same time are turning round to the one proven and efficient producer marketing organisation, which happens to be the Hops Marketing Board in Great Britain, and saying, "You are doing a wonderful job, but you have got to stop, or at least change your ways, because you happen to breach the Treaty of Rome".

I repeat that it is a great sadness that we have not been able to put enough political clout behind this rather small but effective organisation in order to win the day, but the fact is that we have not won it and the help which your Lordships gave in 1976, about which the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, reminded us, has proved to no avail because in the end we were threatened with proceedings in the European Court. For many reasons the producers did not want to be involved in that, not least because we did not think we were going to win—we have already had the Redman judgment on the Northern Ireland Pig Marketing Board, which I gather was a great expense to the producers in Northern Ireland—and also because, as your Lordships will have gathered from my noble friend's exposition on this Bill, we sell our crop forward. We sell it forward in order to create this very stability which we so welcome; and we sell it on an indexed contract, which is an important principle which I commend to the attention of those concerned with other commodities. It is a great help to a producer to know what, in rough terms, he is going to sell his crop for, with an indexed inflation clause.

The very last thing we wanted was a European Court case which would have run the risk of creating total consternation among our customers—that is, in the main, the British brewer—who would face the prospect of not being able to be supplied with the hops which he had already brought; or, at least, he might think that was to be the implication if the Hops Marketing Board was to be declared illegal. Moreover, if as the result of such a judgment, it had to be wound up and its assets dissipated or returned to the Ministry, even, this would have been a total disaster.

So having accepted, albeit reluctantly—and I hope I have made it quite clear that it was not by our wish that we accepted that the statutory powers could not continue—we were then most concerned that if there was to be a transition to a society, to a producers' co-operative, with voluntary powers, then it should be done by the means that we would wish rather than have them imposed on us by the European Court, with all the risks that are implied in that. Here I must give credit to the Ministry of Agriculture and to the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation for the assistance that they gave in setting up a society which, once this Bill becomes enacted, producers registered with the Hops Marketing Board will determine should take over the assets of the board. This will have the effect that producers will have the opportunity to continue in an organisation which effectively continues in the same way. However, this organisation will no longer derive its status from the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1958; it will become one of the Industrial Provident Society enactments. This is not totally as we would wish because any voluntary group has the potential of divisiveness being created among its membership—the lack of which has been the great strength of the marketing board. But we are confident that a high proportion of producers will wish to join the society; and, if this is so, we will have an organisation which continues to set an example in the marketing of hops in Europe.

There is discussion going on formally, or informally—I do not know which—within the Commission as to whether the existing producer groups should be entitled to extend their rules in certain respects to non-members. It is an interesting principle. It brings one back to the concept of producers group with statutory powers. I hope that that principle will one day find more favour—not perhaps because of a parochial interest in hops, but because we cannot continue to support agriculture in Europe by the expensive and politically unacceptable means of withdrawals and the destroying of materials and so on. Once you can get a system of controlling and keeping production and supply in balance within your organisation you have an extremely sophisticated and efficient means of supporting the producers and the customer.

It is true—and I take Lord Mackie's point—that the Hops Marketing Board was once described as a cartel and was looked at enviously by those who were not involved in hop production. But that was before we entered the EEC and when there were also import restrictions which were not imposed by the board itself. This had the result of the board issuing quotas in order to keep production in line with demand; and these quotas became saleable products. In recent years this has not been the case. In the EEC import restraints have been removed and there has been no point in being the only country in Europe which imposes restraint on production in that way. As we have one market, if only one body within that market tries to restrain its production then others simply will take advantage of it. What the marketing hoard has been recently is a producer group with statutory powers which is demonstrated by the fact that it has made indexed contracts, unavailable to other producers throughout Europe, and sells forward a high proportion of its crop in this way. Because of the strength derived from its statutory powers it has been an extremely efficient and flexible producer marketing group.

It was set up 50 years ago for this purpose and has adapted successfully to this new role. However, it is not to continue as such, but I hope that your Lordships will give this Bill your support for we could not afford to find ourselves in the position of being a football in the middle of expensive litigation and we wish to assure our customers that, in spite of this small difficulty, we will continue to market as before

My Lords, I should like to put a simple question to the Minister in charge of this Bill. The Bill provides for an organisation scheme to control the marketing of hops. Hops are a constituent of beer, although in varying quantities according to the kind of beer that you drink. I want to know whether this will put up the price of hops and, therefore, the price of beer. I ought to explain that I have never touched a drop of beer in my life, although, when I came out of the Army early in 1919, I nearly became a brewer. My colonel, who had a high opinion of me, was a big brewer in the Home Counties. He said on the day of my demobilisation, "Leatherland, if you ever want a job, come to my brewery". Unfortunately, I had another job to go to; otherwise I might have become a brewer and I might, therefore, automatically have become chairman of the Conservative Party in my county; but that was never the case. I simply want to know whether this will put up the price of beer.

My Lords, may I congratulate my noble friend on the Front Bench for bringing forward this Bill right at the start of the Session, and also the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, who did so much for the Hops Marketing Board and the industry. He has set the facts before us in a cogent and clear fashion. I hope that this Bill will have a swift and easy passage through your Lordships' House and another place. As my noble friend has said, the aim of this Bill is to end the 1932 Hops Marketing Board and to transfer its assets and objectives to a hops marketing society, the grower-controlled co-operative, to satisfy the law under the Treaty of Rome.

I should like to declare an interest here, because I have grown this compelling crop for 25 years but alas! grow it no longer because I do not have the time to give attention to it—and it is an industry that demands attention—but I have a number of doughty hop tenants who are most interested in this Bill. I welcome the Bill, if somewhat reluctantly, first because it has the blessing of the Hops Marketing Board, who know the problems of the industry so well. It puts an end to the doubts of people who are very committed to the EEC and who have the feeling that it will be bad for morale. It will not have much effect, I understand, on the present position of the growers, although it does away with the compulsory provision that they must sell to the board.

This last board was crowned with success in the early 1930s in putting together a stable system of selling, with room for exports, for a product subject to gluts and shortages from year to year. I have no reason to disbelieve what I had been told—that in the blitz in London hops which had been in store before the setting up of the board in 1932 went up in flames. This is some measure of the difficulty caused by the over-supply of one product with only one use. I hope that this new society, like the old board, will be a great encouragement to research. If one talks to a hop grower about verticillium, he will wince at the memory or fear of his hop hills wilting and dying in a geometrical progression—it works like that. Large acreages were saved by the breeding of new strains and varieties under the aegis of the old board, particularly at Wye College in Kent, strains which were tolerant of and resistant to the disease and had the added bonus of better qualities—the noble Lot d, Lord Leatherland, will be pleased to hear that.

Large amounts of fixed equipment have to be furnished and maintained on these hop farms, in the shape of oasthouses, drying floors, furnace units, hop-picking sheds and machines, wire work at £2,000 an acre and the plant itself. Faith in a continuation of orderly marketing must be present if growers are to have confidence to continue growing the crop. The signs are, as we have heard this afternoon, that the hops marketing co-operative society will bring this confidence with it as the old HMB has done since 1932 with its system of forward contracts.

Rightly—if I may make a personal note—Kent holds the headquarters of the board as it will the society. It was an Edwardian poet who wrote in a somewhat overwrought idiom:

"Fair soil of Kent,

(Parent alike of fruit and flock and kind)

What hops, what cherries, can compare with thine?

Whose fertile earth (if patriot cares were first)

Almost alone might quench the nation's thirst".

Fortunately, there are those other patriots under the board—and now one hopes through the society—in those famous hop growing counties of Worcester shire, Hereford and, I am glad to say, Hampshire who will continue growing and—if it has not been mentioned before—much to the benefit of Her Majesty's Treasury. My Lords, I warmly support this Bill.

My Lords, I speak as advised by the Brewers Society who, under the circumstances welcome this Bill, if only to make sure that we are not at loggerheads with the EEC Commission. All that they would ask is that the Bill has a speedy passage and is not amended. In its present form, it seems just about right.

My Lords, I hope the House will bear with me for one minute. I voted for this country to go into the Common Market (a) to stop European wars and (b) to have a ring fence round 200 million people which would stop the Far Eastern imports coming in free, because I knew from experience that we could never compete with the Far East.

These "antics" that emanate from Brussels add fuel to the Wedgwood Benns of this world and it is a great pity that we have to put up with them. Before the marketing board was created—I am talking now about 60 or 70 years ago—a great friend of mine told me a story of how marketing was carried out in those days. He had a relation who was an estate agent for one of the biggest hop merchants. The agent was instructed to create a very fine pheasant shoot. The brewers were invited to the pheasant shoot and the agent had instructions to place them according to the amount of hops that they had bought during the course of the year. The one who bought the most hops had the place where most pheasants were supposed to arrive.

It seems possible, reverting from a statutory body to a voluntary body, that some of my noble friends—perhaps my noble friend Lord Selborne—will be expected to provide a great pheasant shoot in order to reincarnate the system of marketing hops which prevailed before the board came into being. I hope he views that with equanimity; I am sure that the brewers will.

My Lords, I am sorry that, owing to some hitch in the arrangements, my name was not put down on the list of speakers. I hope that your Lordships will bear with me if I speak from the Benches of the Social Democrats on this matter. As a very old supporter of the whole concept of marketing boards, I support this Bill. The farming industry and the consumers of this country owe a very great debt of gratitude to those two great benefactors of agriculture—Dr. Addison and Walter Elliot—for their successful efforts in creating marketing boards. Alas! there are few of them left at the present time.

In praising their vision and the actual implementation of the marketing boards, one must not forget that at least in the case of hops a producer's monopoly was created which at times gave very great financial benefits to those relatively few people who on the relevant date were growing hops. When they came to sell their land, the fact that there was a hop quota added very considerably to the value of the land.

I mention that not because I am in any way opposed to the concept of marketing boards—I believe them to be essential and I should like to see more of them—but because I think that it is right that we should realise that when we create something of this sort we are at the same time in danger of creating a privileged position for a relatively small number of people and the consumers' interests must above all be safeguarded. Safeguards were built into the original marketing boards for the consumers. It is a matter for historical discussion whether those were adequate and whether they were adequately enforced at different periods.

So far as hops are concerned I think, as one or two other speakers have already said, that the chances are that the brewers can look after themselves. Even if they may sometimes have to pay somewhat more for the essential ingredients of their brew—and hops obviously is one of those—it does not seriously reflect in the price that the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, were he to be a beer drinker, would have to pay for his beverage.

The observations of the noble Lord who has just sat down concerning where hops were bought and the rewards that sometimes went to the buyers of hops, reminded me of a comment made to me by a very large maltster several years ago when we were discussing malting barley (of which at that time I was a grower) and the different qualities and prices that he paid. He confessed to me that he bought his barley where the pheasants were best. It was undoubtedly the belief of a good many barley merchants that by inviting maltsters to come and shoot with them, and giving them a good day's sport, they would find it rather easier to dispose of the barley that they had bought from farmers. That is an indication that the free market does not always work quite so freely as some people would have us believe.

In general, it is absolutely right that in all agricultural commodities in these days it is necessary for there to be long-term security for the producer. It is a very long term operation. The ultimate consumer—as well as the intermediate consumers—will benefit from that even though at times they may forego the immediate advantages of being able to buy at a lower price.

There is one question that I should like to ask the noble Earl, if he could answer it in his reply, and it is this: Assuming that this Bill becomes the law of the land, will it then be open for new people to become members of what in effect is a co-operative? Will there be any restrictions on new membership, and will there be any restrictions on the acreage that they may plant, whether as members of the co-operative or, indeed, as private individuals farming and growing their hops on their own? I know that in practice, since it is the very reasonable habit of the brewers to buy their hops forward, they would much rather operate their forward contracts through the successor to the Hops Marketing Board and it would be a very rash individual farmer who would attempt to grow hops in the hope that he might be able to sell them. But it is a point of principle on which it would be interesting to get the noble Earl's comments and his assurances, one way or the other, as to what will be the position of new entrants to the industry. My Lords, I believe the Bill is a good one and I support it.

My Lords, as my name was mentioned, however inadvertently, at the beginning, that perhaps gives me the right to say a very brief word. I cannot believe that the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, is as flattered as I was at the confusion of the noble Lord, Lord Mackie; but I should like to make one point, if I may, to the noble Lord, Lord Hawke. He and I, with most Members opposite and indeed I believe most Members here, in spite of their present view, all voted with eyes open to join the Common Market. Anybody who thought that the closed shop and the restrictive practices of the Hops Marketing Board, which had worked so well for so long, could be tolerated under the Treaty of Rome had not given the matter very much thought.

I should like to agree with my noble friend regarding the virtue and value of marketing boards and to point out that the only reason the Hops Marketing Board is different from other boards is that hops represents a minimal part of the price of beer and even if we reduced the price of hops through better production the brewers would certainly not reduce the price of beer. So it has done nobody any harm and everybody good. But that is not the case with other marketing boards, which are far more difficult, and we have got to fight to keep them.

My Lords, I am grateful to your Lordships for the welcome you have given to this Bill, because one recognises that the Hops Marketing Board has done a great job of work and everyone was content with it. In so far as it is necessary to change this, I suppose it is inevitable that there is a certain degree of regret. If I may say so, I think that my noble friend Lord Selbourne, who is after all chairman of the board, put his case not only extraordinarily clearly and well but without any sense of bitterness and rancour at seeing the board over which he presides being changed, mostly in nomenclature but also with a few other differences.

I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, for what he said about the European Community. When we joined the European Community we knew there would be occasions like this where it would be necessary to make changes; but I suggest that this is a change not of substance but of degree, and of course it would be quite wrong if we were to put a change like this against the total advantages of the European Community, which are very substantial.

The noble Lord, Lord Mackie, also regretted the passing of the board. He said it had always ensured that the beer was laced with the right sort of hops. I must say I thought that was rather curious coming from a Scotsman, because I have always thought they were mostly concerned to make sure that their beer should be laced with the right sort of whisky. Be that as it may, the noble Lord expressed his regret over the passing of the board and he asked whether the poll would be satisfactory and whether the producers would accept it. My noble friend Lord Selborne gave the answer to that, and of course he is really in a much better position to do so than I, in view of his position. I would merely confirm our understanding that the majority of producers want this and will turn to the new society. There may be one or two who will wish to do otherwise, but I hope there would be a minimum of such people.

My noble friend Lord Selbourne was absolutely right when he said that although he regretted the passing of the board and the necessity for the Bill, he thought there would be one thing that would cause more trouble than anything else: that would be to have a European judgment made against us. That would have thrown the whole industry into total confusion. It is precisely to avoid such a situation that this Bill is being introduced.

The noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, asked one simple question: is it likely to put up the price of hops and the price of beer? It seemed to me when he asked that question that it was very much like asking whether one has stopped beating one's wife—because if I were to say "yes", that would delight the farmers and upset the consumers. If the answer were "no", it would be acceptable to the consumers but disappointing to the producers. On the whole, I think the answer is that it will be unlikely to have any effect, because the new arrangements will virtually follow the existing ones and therefore the difference is likely to be absolutely minimal.

I was sorry to hear that the noble Lord almost said he had never drunk a drop of beer in his life. I would suggest that it would be helpful if he were to do so, because, if he did so in sufficient quantity, he would, by increasing consumption, help to keep the price of beer down and, by increasing demand, help to put up the demand for hops—in which case everybody would be satisfied, including the noble Lord's friends.

My noble friend Lord Falmouth paid a tribute to Wye College for the work and the breeding done there. It is a tribute which I would endorse, because they have done a very great deal of work on hops and on the plants which are used. The noble Lord, Lord Walston, asked one question: he said that marketing boards were on the whole good and that he welcomed the Bill. I would subscribe to that. Marketing hoards are good, and have provided great service in the past. I think that in the change we are about to see one must recognise that what was suitable and right in earlier days may possibly have to be modified under the new arrangements. The noble Lord asked whether it would be possible for new people to join the co-operative. The answer is that new people can join the co-operative and new producers can plant what they like. A quota merely affects the method of payment for hops.

The noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, asked a number of questions which, if I can remember them, I shall try to answer as succinctly as possible, because in fact he put his finger on a number of important points. He asked what the area of hops grown in the United Kingdom was as a percentage of the whole European Community area. The answer is 22 per cent., not 25 per cent., as he thought. Belgium and France each grow about 3 per cent. of the Community area. West Germany has about 70 per cent. of the production, and so in fact we are the second largest grower in the Community. The United Kingdom is self-sufficient in hops, except those which are required for brewing certain types of beer, for which we have to import the hops. About 10 per cent. of the total United Kingdom requirement is imported. The demand for United Kingdom hops abroad in fact varies. It depends on the yields in the Community and the rest of the world. In some years we have quite a significant volume of exports.

The noble Lord said, quite rightly, that in the past there have been no surpluses and no bankruptcies. I think that this is largely true. We have sought to retain in this new society as much as possible of the current marketing system for hops. I have every confidence that these arrangements will provide for a continuation of the market stability, which will be to the great benefit of the producers and the brewers alike. I do not think that there should be a great threat from imports, because the Bill makes no change in the arrangements for inter-Community trade.

The noble Lord also asked about Community aid and aid which is given to the Hops Marketing Board. There is no financial aid which is available to the Hops Marketing Board at present, but there is income aid payable from the European Community which is paid to individual producers via the board. This amounts to about £¾ million. We are satisfied—and we have discussed this with the Commission—that the new society will qualify for recognition as a producer group under the terms of the EEC hops régime. We shall then be able to ask the Commission to propose a regulation defining England as one of the regions in which the income aid can be paid through a producer group.

The noble Lord referred to Community surpluses. In the past there have been fluctuations in supply which have caused problems. But the Community's policy of encouraging marketing through producer groups, and the mechanisms available in the European Community hops régime, should help to ensure a more orderly marketing of hops as the years go by. The Bill has no impact on the payment of income aid. There is no differentiation as to the quality of hope, but the Community operates quality controls and these appear to work quite well. It is, of course, essential that producers never forget the market for which they are producing.

The noble Lord also asked: as this is to be a voluntary society, what contact will it have with the Government? The new voluntary society will be formally recognised by the Government as a producer group under the Community hops régime. I am sure that there will continue to be regular contacts between the society and the Ministry, which we have found to be very useful in the past. But the Government will have no special control over the society. Its legal status will be exactly the same as that of other farmers' co-operatives. The noble Lord asked whether or not new people will be able to join the society, and the noble Lord, Lord Walston, asked the same question. I have explained that there will be plenty of possibilities for new producers to join the society, if they and the society so wish.

I am grateful to your Lordships for having received this Bill in the way that you have. Hops are not an industry—if one may so call it—which covers a vast section of the countryside or a vast section of agriculture. But they are extremely important in that section which they do cover, and our only concern is to ensure that those who produce hops will be able to do so with the same security and the same stability as in the past. I hope that when this Bill becomes law, it will be shown that the basic arrangements which hop producers have in the past enjoyed will, for the most part, continue in the future.

; My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, may I apologise to him for having put so many questions? Yet I am sure that the industry and the House will be grateful for the extra information which he has now given to us.

rose to move, That this House takes note of the Report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology on Hazardous Waste Disposal (1st Report, 1980–81, H.L. 273). The noble Lord said: My Lords, when this subject was chosen for inquiry by Sub-Committee II of the Select Committee, I was asked by a number of people whether I realised the complexity of the subject and the emotive reaction to the problems. I frankly admit that I did not, but the overwhelming response following our request for evidence very quickly convinced me, and by the time we had completed our review none of your committee doubted the importance of the inquiry.

My Lords, I am sure all Members of your Lordships' House are extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, and his committee for bringing this report to the attention of your Lordships' House and giving us the opportunity to debate a subject which is of such deep concern to the average citizen in our country. The noble Lord apologised for the length of his report and for the number of recommendations contained in it. He need not apologise for that: it is a problem which concerns us all deeply and which needs to be dealt with in great depth in order to allay the fears of the population. Many eminent speakers are taking part in this debate, some of them qualified by their connections with industry, others qualified by their connections with science, but as neither a scientist nor an industrialist I want to confine myself to just a few of the recommendations that I feel are of great concern.

First, as has been mentioned, landfill is without doubt the cheapest disposal method, as well as being, in many cases, the best one. But there is a great danger, and we have experienced the great dangers inherent in landfill if segregation of waste material is not adequate. Some waste products decompose more quickly when exposed to the air, others require burial; then again we have the problem of the interaction on each other of different materials which, although in themselves not hazardous, when put together become hazardous. I believe that up to now not enough segregation has been practised on many sites, and therefore we welcome the committee's recommendations for better informed manpower on the site and for improved management of the sites themselves.

Secondly, the report recommends heavier penalties for fly-tipping, or the "cowboy", and that is very much welcomed. However, I believe that as long as the penalties are purely financial the practice will continue, because the occasional fine, set at whatever level, that one might have to pay when one is caught rarely comes up to the cost of properly treating the waste that is being deposited on the site. I believe that we must have an ultimate penalty of imprisonment for contravention of the law.

The recommendation for regional planning of waste disposal, as the noble Lord has said, is of the utmost importance, despite the fact that we acknowledge, as the noble Lord did, that the Association of County Councils believe it is unnecessary because there is already voluntary co-operation between some councils. But without a regional plan, in particular for the most difficult waste disposal problems, we shall inevitably dissipate the expertise and manpower that is available to us. Also I believe that we shall increase the cost of the disposal unless it is done on a regional basis.

Coupled with the regional plan, an improved advisory machinery to industry, as the report suggests, is of great importance. One does not have to go very far back in time to realise that there have been managers in industry who out of desperation have called on the "cowboys" to dispose of material because they were unable to find out where they should take their waste. I believe that regional planning, with a proper advisory service for industry attached to it, would go a long way to help solve our problems.

The committee's comments on incineration of waste, in paragraph 24 of the report, are particularly welcome, so long as emission problems are carefully monitored. It has three advantages. Ninety per cent. of the waste is destroyed, and by the use of relatively small in cinerators, maybe on factory sites, transport costs of waste would be reduced and the risk of waste moving along our roads would be less. Thirdly, and not least importantly, the generation of heat in the incineration process can be exploited for energy uses. In Stockholm there is a waste disposal plant which has been functioning since long before the war and which in fact produces the central heating for a whole district of Stockholm. So using incineration would also help our energy problems. But, as I said, the control and the monitoring of the emission must be very strict.

We also welcome the committee's recommendation that the Health and Safety Executive should set up a hazardous waste inspectorate, particularly with a view to strengthening the safeguards, for which they are already responsible, for the people working on sites. Minimum facilities exist on many sites at present for the workers' safety, and these must inevitably be improved. But we believe that it is quite right that the research responsibility should remain with the Department of the Environment. In particular, research on the reclamation of waste land should be increased so that calamities such as that concerning the Ealing housing estate are avoided. It was built on a former refuse pit; the plan was to create 1,600 homes on what had previously been a highly poisonous pit. Scientists recommended that sealing with 500 mm of top soil would be an adequate safeguard. As it proved, families, children, became ill, and it obviously was not an adequate safeguard.

I believe much more research should go into how we can reclaim these pits that have been mismanaged in the past. It may be that we shall have to go to the length of actually physically removing some of the material in these pits to safer places, although this would he very costly. But I believe we need a lot more research in this field.

The statement made by the noble Lord, and by the report, that the cost of the control and management of waste cannot justifiably be levelled at the ratepayer is welcomed, particularly in view of the recommendation for regional planning. We should emphasise to industry that the industrial process is not complete until the cost of the disposal of waste has been taken into account. The cost of the disposal of waste is part of the production cost of any product. I think this might help to concentrate industry's mind and encourage them in the use of the waste productively. But there has to be a balance and we must not penalise industry; they have to remain competitive. Nevertheless, they will have to carry a large part of the burden.

For the future, therefore, the cost of reclamation of sites should be part of the cost of the licences. It was estimated in 1978 by a scientific committee that the cost of reclaiming contaminated land in that year was £40,000 an acre. No doubt in future, if we implement the recommendations of this report and the sites are better managed, the cost will be less, but it will still be there. Land which is a hole in the ground and therefore becomes a place for waste disposal has very little value, and the cost of licences would be very small unless the cost of reclamation was taken into account. The additional cost for licences that this would entail could then be used by the local authority to set up a contingency plan for reclamation which would be self-financing.

Finally, if, as expected, the chemical industry doubles its production in the next 10 years, the future demand for disposal facilities will increase enormously. We therefore need, as the report points out, a national geological survey of suitable sites, linked with present areas of already contaminated land, created largely prior to the 1972 Act. I do not believe it would be as costly to produce a plan or a national survey as some people fear. The National Institute of Geological Sciences have a lot of the information already at their disposal. The Department of the Environment already have knowledge of environmental wasteland, of which there are thousands of acres. Some effort at reclamation has been made, but the cost to local authorities is out of proportion. Land is our most precious national heritage, and the cost of reclamation, the need for which has been created by past mistakes, must be a national responsibility. We look forward to the Government's response to this very informed and thoughtful report which takes such a balanced view of the problems that face us.

My Lords, may I, too, welcome the Committee's report, and also the way in which my noble friend Lord Gregson provided such a clear exposition. The report, which has been referred to as a long one, was, I thought, considering the size of the problem with which it was concerned, succinct and really comparatively short, and—what was really a joy—written with simplicity and with clarity. In a world where so many millions are living in dire need and poverty it is a terrible irony that we should have the problem of waste, even if it is hazardous waste, disposal. Technological advance increases our problems all the time, and we are always having to try to keep a balance between the needs of industry and science and the protection of the health and environment of our community. I so agreed with my noble friend when he referred to the complacency which has acted as a cloud over this subject for so long. I welcome the recommendations and certainly would not dream of going through all of them. However, I should like to pick out a few which struck me.

I am very glad that the committee rejected the idea of a national agency. I think that the disposal being left primarily at local level with rigorous Government control is the right balance for this type of problem. The special waste regulations were debated, as my noble friend pointed out, on 19th January this year and, as someone who spoke from these Benches, I remember how annoyed and shocked we all were as it all appeared to have arisen very suddenly. It is true, as my noble friend has pointed out, that if the Department of the Environment had issued an explanatory paper rather sooner there would have been more acceptance of what those regulations were all about. However, I am delighted in view of those special regulations that the committee have recommended an annual review—this is a matter which worried many of us—so that there will be an annual list of special waste materials and any more that are classified as dangerous can be added to that list. Therefore, one hopes that the Government will be prepared, in the light of that, to make amendments to the regulations as they are needed.

I also think that the recommendation that the burden of proof must be transferred from the waste disposal authority to the producer, is absolutely right. Now it will be up to the producer to prove that a material is not dangerous rather than the waste disposal authority having to prove that it is dangerous. The proposal that the toxicity assessment should refer not to the 20 kilogram "child" body weight but to "human" body weight is certainly a very good move in the right direction, as I think noble Lords who were present or who read the debate on the regulations will remember the mixture of mirth and despair with which that comparison was greeted during that debate.

The proposal that some waste-creating long-term exposure hazards should be classed as special is an important addition to what we have at present. The review of the regulations themselves by the Government, the local associations and industry which I think was set up in the summer, is obviously something which we welcome. I wonder when the Minister replies whether he could say when that review will be completed.

I am delighted that the select committee's view that there needs to be more control on imported wastes is being taken up by the Government, and I hope that they will act in their review with as much speed as did the Select Committee. It is essential that this country should not be a dumping ground for other countries' toxic wastes, as we know what a big industry the waste industry has now become.

I turn now to points which are concerned more with resources. The basic one seems to me to be that the polluter should pay, and should pay for site licences, and that would enable the local authority to cover the costs of processing the licences. As my noble friend pointed out, why should people pay through their rates for the privilege of having the waste almost in their backyard? The site operator also should have to insure against damage to the environment. I think that that is absolutely essential.

Also, the penalties for illegal dumping should be substantially increased, and I entirely agree with the noble Baroness on that matter. The penalty must be high enough to act as a deterrent. If it were sufficiently high, it still could act as a deterrent before we reached the question of imprisonment, although with any fine, however low or high, there is always the alternative of imprisonment. That would mean that, if such cases are to continue to be heard in magistrates' courts, then the magistrates' courts limit of a fine of £1,000 would have to be increased.

It has also occurred to me that there may be a possibility of being able to take away a site licence from somebody who offends in that way and to that extent. I am not sure whether this side of the matter is mentioned in the report and, if it is, I must apologise for having missed it, but I do not remember seeing it. However, that might be a way in which offenders in this area could be dealt with. It is really equivalent to taking a driving licence away from somebody who has caused destruction on the road. In this case it is destruction to the environment and to the community.

One of the very major points of concern which I think will have to be discussed and which the Government—any Government—will have to take on to a very considerable extent is that so many of the recommendations involve, as they must, more public expenditure. For example, there is the greater inspection of waste dumped at sea. There is the maintenance of research at Harwell which was mentioned by my noble friend, and the view that this should not be reduced in real terms but should be enough to meet the needs spelt out in the report. That means that there would have to be an increase in the finance for Harwell. To ensure the provision of specialist facilities, the public sector will either have to provide facilities or support them financially—for example, where disposal in an incinerator is considered absolutely essential or environmentally safer than infill, with the danger of leakage and the tying up of land, that will have to be paid for, and I cannot see that money coming from industry. The Waste Advisory Service will also have to be provided from the waste disposal authorities, who again will have to find the money. It is urgent that the Government should discuss resource demands with the waste disposal authorities to ensure adequate qualified staffing. I also agree that Section 1 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, which for so long many of us have wanted to see implemented both under the last Government and under this Government, should now be implemented.

The small inspectorate set up within the Health and Safety Executive is at first glance certainly an attractive proposition. I would only raise the question: Is there a danger of getting too fragmented a control unless we are very careful as regards the way in which it is worked out? The Department of the Environment has a land waste division. The Association of County Councils believes that that should be strengthened with the separation of advisory and appellate functions. The Association of Metropolitan Authorities has not yet formed a firm view. What I think is probably agreed among us all is that there should be an annual report to Parliament; that it is important that there should be an inspectorate and that, whether it comes from one source or another, it should be independent of the waste disposal authority. It should have advisory functions, but it should not he another quango and it should not duplicate what is already being done. There must be a clear division of responsibility. However, if there is an inspectorate—it might be the Health and Safety Executive, and I can see why the Committee plumped for that, because it ties up with so many of the other responsibilities of that executive—I should like to know whether, apart from being advisory, it will have any teeth. I do not know whether it is fair to put the question now and whether my noble friend will be able to answer in his reply or whether it is something which is being thought about.

One of the problems which we are finding, certainly with the local government ombudsman, is that he can make a report and even say that he thinks that there has been maladministration, but, if the local authority—in this case it may be the waste disposal authority—turns it down or refuses to accept what he or she has said, then there is nothing that can be done. Whatever solution is accepted in this area there must be some power somewhere in order to implement the recommendations.

The question of waste disposal regions is another slightly controversial issue, where again the local authority associations have somewhat different views from those of the committee. I believe there is a fear that, if it is put on a formal basis, there could be a duplication of scientific services and that there would have to be a division of the quite small number of public analyst laboratories—I believe that local authorities have 50 spread over the country—in order to service the regions. Again, it would be costly to have another at regional level, because we should still need the scientific services at waste disposal authority level. If it were formal, it would, of course, require new legislation. At the moment I find the thought of new legislation on anything rather distasteful anyhow, but, if it is necessary, that is another matter. If it were informal, it could be like the London Regional Planning Committee, which is a small group with a small staff in the social services field.

But I raise these more as questions to be thought about and debated, and I hope that when the Government produce their White Paper or their Green Paper on this it will be discussed further and more thoroughly. I do not believe that there are any rights or wrongs about the subject. We are simply trying to find the most effective and most economical procedure without being too loose and too negligent about what needs to be done.

Therefore, if there is an essential problem of resources, one wants to know what will be done about it. If industry wants the local authorities to pay, where can they get the money except by way of site licences? If site licences are to cover not only the cost of the site but also all the monitoring, care and maintenance, then the cost can be quite high. It is perfectly true that people's interest flags into apathy until a disaster occurs. Therefore, unless one conducts a very long and fairly constant educational and propaganda exercise, it is very difficult to expect the public to take a long-term view of this.

In this particular climate, where local authority expenditure is being very severely cut and where there is talk—the Bill has been published—of having a referendum on local authority expenditure, it seems to me that this is something which will inhibit action on the whole of this excellent report, unless the Government are prepared to take this as a very, very high priority.

I assure noble Lords that I am not trying to make a party political point, but, if you ask people whether they want their rates to increase or services to be cut, how can you explain, in a question which requires a simple "yes" or "no" answer, that you are not only talking about the social services, but about taking measures to protect them against some disaster, which may or may not happen in the future, in order not only to dispose of waste in the most economical manner but in the safest possible manner?

One can argue that money put into sites is a capital investment, as is the training of skilled men and women who will be needed to monitor sites—and we shall need more than we have at the moment—and who need to combine the skill of chemists with a variety of other skills in order to see what has been dumped.

I certainly agree with my noble friend Lord Gregson that public relations are absolutely essential. One can see what is happening in other countries. If you get a run of disasters, people become so scared that they do not even want to know about anything being dumped within hundreds of miles of where they themselves live. This is not something that can be left to market forces. One cannot expect industry to take over the largest burden of what, if it is to be dealt with properly, is an enormous national undertaking.

The Government have a responsibility to produce a strategy for waste disposal that takes into account changing public attitudes to landfill and the dangers generally of hazardous waste disposal, and at the same time to provide a framework which will not fetter industry to an extent which will hinder its growth and, therefore, that of the United Kingdom. This requires a partnership; a proper balance of public and private resources that reconciles society's aspirations with industry's needs. Above all, it needs a very high sense of priority; a realisation that this is not just a good report that can be buried for a time, but that it is something that is very urgent that will grow into a monstrous being in our society if wed? not do something about it. We need not only to give more thought to it, using this excellent report as a starting point, but action needs to be taken as soon as possible.

My Lords, in making my first speech in your Lordships' House, I ask your indulgence for what I shall endeavour to make a brief and relevant contribution to this debate. I hasten to say that I am not a scientist, nor a specialist in these complex, technical matters; nor do I have any financial interest whatever to declare in this subject. It is, therefore, with a sense of some foreboding that I trespass into this field, and I hope that my trespassing will not be considered to be impertinent.

The wide terms of reference given to the Select Committee make it quite impossible for me to do justice to their report or to deal with all the matters that I would like to cover in this speech. I propose to consider two matters in some detail, neither being of a technical or scientific nature. I am concerned about the use of the words "waste" and "hazardous". Both enjoy a wide range of meanings; both are emotive and both can arouse passion, especially when the waste is to be deposited in close proximity to any person's property. I intend to show that the definition adopted for "waste" is unduly restrictive and too negative, whereas for "hazardous" it is technically unfortunate and far too wide.

The definition adopted is contained in paragraph 8 of the report. I shall not read it because I am sure that your Lordships are all familiar with it. Two pages later a further definition appears. It reads:

"Since matter is indestructible, all raw materials and manufactured products, when they have no further value for use or recovery, become waste".

Without exception it is almost true to say that "what is one man's waste is another man's raw material". For instance, once these Order Papers have fulfilled their use here, they will be sent by barge down the Thames and will help to recover derelict marshland in Essex. In the course of time that derelict marshland will become agricultural land, recreational land or, indeed, an ecological habitat up to SSI level.

That is not all, for this paper may alternatively be used for engineering purposes by the Anglian Water Authority to protect the environment against flooding of the River Thames—when I read this speech through the first time I unfortunately put a "c" between the "i" and "a" of Anglian and I am very glad to have avoided doing so now—and to assist in the construction of the barrage. This is a more positive use of the word "waste". It is one which goes beyond both definitions adopted by the Select Committee. Modestly, therefore, I submit that if the word "waste" is to be used its definition should give weight to such a positive effect. I would also submit that all waste is matter residing in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that definition helped me to formulate in very simplistic—perhaps over-simplistic—terms the problems as I saw them.

I read of course in great detail and with great respect this excellent and comprehensive report which, as has been said earlier on, was written with such clarity. The points are these: first, that the alleged detriment to the environment be identified; secondly, that all possible solutions be researched; thirdly, that an assessment should be made of the alternative strategies; fourthly, that an estimate be made of the proposed benefits to society and to the environment accruing from the particular strategy chosen; fifthly, that the cost of obtaining the best solution should be accurately estimated; and sixthly, that the cost should be weighed against the benefit. It is only then that a valid decision can be made. The report concentrated also on ways to obtain tighter control to increase the safety factor in disposing of potentially hazardous wastes. No estimate of the cost or the benefits that could arise from that expenditure were considered or even suggested in the 186 paragraphs and seven appendices of that excellent report.

I return to the use of the word "hazardous". It has caused considerable difficulty to all the experts to define it satisfactorily. An accurate and comprehensive definition, I submit, is important. One considerable difficulty I see arising if no such definition is forthcoming is, that if the recommendation of that committee is adopted requiring all producers of hazardous waste to register with their waste disposal authorities, this will, in my submission, cause the test of who should, or who should not, register to be a veritable legal minefield. This would lead in its course to increased costs through increased bureaucracy, increased documents to be filed, which would prevent the relevant statutory officers from overseeing the actual sites in the field, which is where and how the environment needs protection.

The report commended a formula used by the World Health Organisation to define "hazardous". It is contained in paragraph 12 of the report, but I shall not repeat it here. This definition is based, first, on the effect of material on the human body, and, secondly, on the long-term hazards. It would be more than presumptuous of me to say that such a definition is not entirely right coming from such an eminent body, but with great respect it seems to me to apply the wrong test. It is so general that inherently it is not entirely accurate. I submit that the better test is to define precisely the environment into which the material is going to enter. This is surely better than saying that the effect of the material should be judged solely by its own characteristics; for, my Lords, this takes no account of the fact that a substance can be hazardous in one circumstance but not perhaps in another. That is the correct criterion, I would submit, that should be applied.

Before leaving the word "hazardous" I would submit that it is an unfortunate word to use as well, at least technically. For instance, I am sure that no one in your Lordships' House would disagree that petrol carried in a bottle is extremely hazardous and has unfortunately, as we have witnessed, an explosive power in our urban streets. But petrol and hydrocarbons if carried in a tanker are accepted as being safe even at the point of sale. It is, I understand, an accepted fact that approximately 90 per cent. of the materials and substances which are transported are less potentially hazardous than the refining and transportation of petrol or sulphuric acid wastes, yet the statutory requirements for construction of large tankers to transport these substances are more exacting than the requirements for construction of tankers for transporting petrol and sulphuric acid. Naturally, if follows that the higher specification demanded leads to higher costs of disposal.

Another consequence of using such a word is that when planning permission is sought the issues become more emotive than they need be. The consents are held up, frequently because there is a chronic misconception as to the nature of the hazardous waste in question. May I submit that the word" potential"should be added and should precede the word" hazardous", on the basis that if the disposal is properly carried out the land is not unfit for subsequent redevelopment? In other words, once the material is engineered satisfactorily to sea, to land or to air, the hazard from it becomes insignificant.

My final point is that the Select Committee's recommendations are aimed at making the risks still lower. On their findings, they consider that the present situation is satisfactory to a degree. My concern is simply that the recommendations should be costed so that it becomes possible to evaluate the reduction of the risk which it is hoped that the proposed measures will bring about. In this way it will become possible to measure the cost benefit which could provide the basis for appropriate legislative action. Finally, I consider that your Lordships' House should always bear in mind that there is always a point at which any further expenditure on pollution abatement will exceed the value to the community of the resultant environmental improvement.

My Lords, it is a great privilege to find one's name on the list next to a maiden speaker. It gives me the opportunity to be the first to congratulate the noble Viscount on making a valuable and charming—if charm can be applied to hazardous wastes—introductory speech. The noble Viscount observed that circumspection which is traditionally expected of maiden speakers, but I am sure your Lordships will have, so to speak, caught enough of a glint in his eye to realise that when he is freed from these restraints he will be able to speak even more forcibly and with great influence in this House. I know I am echoing the view of all your Lordships in this Chamber in welcoming that maiden speech and in hoping that we shall hear him many more times in this House.

It is also a great pleasure to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, for so clearly introducing this complex report. He made one feel that it was not complex. I should like to add also tribute to the masterly way in which he managed the committee which has produced the report. This report is, I can assure your Lordships, one without a rival among reports on hazardous waste in both Britain and America. In speaking to one aspect of it, I am really underlining some of the points already made by the noble Lord, Lord Gregson. The Motion is to take note of the report. I hope the Minister will assure us that the Government will do much more than take note of it; that they will act on it and will not do as previous Governments have done with other hazardous waste reports—namely, let them lie on the shelf until some crisis has arisen which has obliged them to act—and I shall spend a few minutes of your Lordships' time elaborating why I make that point.

For anyone who is familiar with environmental policy there is in this report a surge of déjà vu. It is exactly 10 years ago since there was a great crisis brewing over the dumping of hazardous waste. Back in the 1960s there was adequate legislation to cover the environmental protection of the air and water, but there was no proper statutory restraint on the dumping of hazardous or toxic wastes on land. The only safeguard was the conscience of the contractor, and there was plenty of evidence that many contractors had no conscience in this regard.

Then in 1963 there was an incident, when some sheep and cattle and a foxhound died because there was leaking of fluoroacetamide which had come from rusty drums from a pesticide factory. That prompted the then Minister for Housing and Local Government to set up the Key Committee. The committee was set up in 1964 and it worked in a leisurely, not to say glacial, manner, and it did not report for six years, not until 1970, and it had only 20 meetings in that long interval. So obviously no pressure was being put on it by the Government to produce a quick result. Yet many of its findings were disquieting. It gave a list of 17 serious incidents of the dumping of toxic wastes and damage that had been done by them and it made a number of recommendations which—this is the ominous fact—reappear in the report before your Lordships today.

The Key Report got little attention from the press and no attention whatever from the Government. That was in 1970—a time when public opinion was beginning to be aroused about the environment. The Standing Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution was set up. It produced its first report one year later, in 1971, and in that report it expressed its great disquiet that nothing had been done to implement the recommendations in the Key Report. The Government's reason for delay was that they were preparing to reorganise local government, but that did not seem to the Royal Commission a proper reason for delaying action on what was a very dangerous practice.

Throughout 1971 the Royal Commission kept on bringing to the attention of the Secretary of State the urgent need for some kind of legislation to curb the dumping of toxic wastes and to give some kind of control similar to that available to keep the air and water from being polluted. All that the commission was told was that more information was wanted by the Department of the Environment. The Royal Commission provided that information; it gave seven more examples of the dangerous handling of toxic wastes—and those, I emphasise, not by fly-by-night cowboy tippers but by employees of a nationally known wastage contractor firm. There was still no response from the Government.

Then, in November 1971, 10 years ago, the Royal Commission drafted a second report, strongly criticising the Government for the lack of action and making various recommendations, another one of which appears in the report before your Lordships today. The reply was that there was no parliamentary time for bringing in any more legislation. Then in January 1972 the news broke in the Birmingham Sunday Mercury that employees of that same nationally known firm of waste contractors were dumping wet waste and drums containing cyanide, chromic acid, phenol, caustic soda and other nasty things, some of them accompanied by delivery tickets describing them as innocuous. It was the Conservation Society which disclosed that.

On 22nd February 1972, a representative of the Conservation Society came to Parliament to see MPs to try to get something done. However, fate overtook him. Two days later, on 24th February, there was no more need for the Royal Commission or the Conservation Society to take any trouble, because that was the day when there were headlines about drums of cyanide—with the labels scratched off—being found on a waste piece of ground at Nuneaton where children played. A week after that disclosure, a Bill was hurried through Parliament; that was the Deposit of Poisonous Waste Act. The relevance of that story to this debate lies in a comment which appeared in an editorial in The Times under the headline "How to move a Government", and this was the comment:

"It is instructive to note what did and what did not prompt the Government to squeeze a Bill…into an already crowded legislative programme. The urgent representations of an official commission…moved by the 'disturbing cases which have come to our knowledge', did not".

That was a quotation from the commission's report—

"Headlines about drums of cyanide waste on derelict land in the Midlands did".

I hope we can prevent a repetition of that humiliating censure, and that is why I tell this story.

Today we have before us a report which is incomparably better than the Key Report. It contains far more information and comes to much crisper conclusions. It was written in one-ninth of the time, an argument perhaps for the services which this House gives to the nation which might be used for people who think this House might be abolished.

Much has been done since that hurried legislation 10 years ago, but much remains to be done before this dangerous gap in legislation can be closed. Your Lordships' committee makes recommendations which I believe it would be foolish to disregard. We all realise that to put before the Government at this time anything which would increase public expenditure would be unwise and unpopular, but there must be some exceptions. I would, however, pick on three of the recommendations, two of which the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, mentioned, because I believe that two of them would not have involved expense, although one of them does not meet entirely with the approval of the noble Viscount, Lord Dilhorne; I imagine it is as unconventional for anyone to differ from somebody's maiden speech as it is to make a controversial maiden speech. However, I propose to differ.

Paragraph 185.10 says that producers of hazardous waste must register with the waste disposal authority. That seems to be a very simple provision which would not involve a great deal of expenditure and would enable us to know at any rate where the sources of hazardous waste were in the country. Paragraph 185.13, as the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, said, refers to the licensing of waste disposal contractors who deal with hazardous waste, with provision to revoke such licences if they are abused. That may mean a certain amount more documentary work, but I believe that the results of it would be enormously worthwhile. Disposing of some kinds of hazardous waste is still expensive, and there is a temptation to the contractor to do it more cheaply, even though that might now be illegal.

There is no doubt that the integrity of contractors has greatly improved since 1971—heaven knows! there was room for improvement—and this has been due to a code of practice drawn up by the National Association of Waste Disposal Contractors, but even it admits that its membership covers only 75 per cent. of the total activity. The association went on to say—and this is an extract from its evidence—that,

"there are hundreds of little people we do not have in our organisation and we could not tell you how many they are".

Another responsible body, the Road Haulage Association, wrote in evidence over fly-tipping that,

"certain legislative and local authority arrangements are clearly inadequate …Consequently there are considerable hazards to the public".

That is surely an irrefutable case for licensing all handlers of hazardous waste outside the place of production. Indeed, it is the neglect of such measures that costs money. In order to give your Lordships one example, I would point out that to decontaminate the notorious Ravenfield tip in Yorkshire cost over a quarter of a million pounds. If proper controls had been current before 1972, the cost would certainly have been far less, and might have been totally unnecessary. Then there is the far worse case in America of the Love Canal, near Niagara. It has been estimated by the Council for Environmental Quality that the whole of that waste could have been safely disposed of at a cost of 2 million dollars. The cost of remedial work has already exceeded 125 million dollars.

Finally, I turn to paragraph 185.15, which recommends a small hazardous waste inspectorate. That would of course cost a little money, but I believe that the money would be recouped quickly by the beneficial results of the scientific advice that would be available. Indeed, if the Government had not neglected yet another report, the Fifth Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, the recommendation in the report now before your Lordships would not have been necessary. I say that because, in the fifth report, the Royal Commission recommended a very imaginative and important extension of the successful policy of using the "best practicable means". The commission recommended the use of the "best practicable environmental option"; that is, a policy of deciding whether to dispose of wastes on land, in water, or in the air, under the guidance of a unified pollution inspectorate. The inspectorate would not be an enormous body, because it would really subsume officials who are already working in the Alkali Inspectorate and for regional water authorities. Next January, it will be six years since that important fifth report of the Royal Commission was published. Nothing has been done about its recommendations.

So I return to my opening statement. May we have at the end of the debate an assurance that this report from your Lordships' Science and Technology Committee will receive prompt consideration and adequate and public response?—I hope through a White Paper. We are already being criticised by our Common Market partners for failure to implement parts of the Control of Pollution Act, which is now eight years old. In this country we have every reason to be proud of our past record in the protection of the environment. But we shall weaken our influence in Europe if successive Governments do not consider, and sometimes seem not even to listen to, the advice given to them by the committees and commissions that are appointed to serve them. I believe that the report before your Lordships now presents an opportunity to repair this story of neglect.

My Lords, it is with pleasure that I rise to support the recommendations of the report of the Select Committee of the noble Lord, Lord Gregson. As the noble Lord remarked, the inquiry originated as a result of an approach by Basildon District Council with regard to the Pitsea landfill site in Essex. We in Essex are very grateful for the objectivity of Lord Gregson's Select Committee and for its appreciation of the urgency of the problem of hazardous waste.

I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Dilhorne on his felicitous maiden speech and on painting such an attractive picture of land reclamation on Essex marshland by using your Lordships' waste paper. I look forward to hearing my noble friend speaking again about other attractive schemes for beautifying our county.

Essex has been involved in hazardous waste disposal for many years, and we endorse the Select Committee's first conclusion that:

"public hostility to hazardous waste disposal facilities is common and is too important to be ignored".

We were pleased to see that the Committee agreed with Basildon District Council and Essex County Council that:

"Pitsea takes more than its fair share of hazardous waste".

The question is: What needs to be done now? As the committee states, there is an opportunity to rationalise waste disposal patterns, but it,

"does not expect much rationalisation to take place as things stand".

As the report states, the Control of Pollution Act 1974 provides the right framework for the close supervision of hazardous waste disposal and monitoring which is required. The difficulty is that this legislation has been brought into force only in part. A waste disposal authority is at present under a duty to prepare a waste disposal plan under Section 2 of the Act, but because Section 1 is not yet in force it is under no duty to carry out its plan. The committee has recommended that Section 1 be brought into force. This is a most serious and urgent recommendation.

The Select Committee states that waste disposal responsibilities should continue to be the responsibility of county government, which I endorse wholeheartedly, and that in Wales and Scotland the responsibilities should follow the English model. The Association of County Councils pressed strongly for the transfer of the waste disposal function to the Welsh counties. The powers should be transferred as soon as possible, as the committee recommends.

A regional structure has been suggested by the Committee to co-ordinate waste disposal plans and the provision of facilities and to provide scientific services. The ACC has reservations about this suggestion, and I agree that it requires very careful thought. So long as the site licensing functions and the planning responsibilities stay with the counties, the idea of regional co-operation is worth exploring further. It is undeniable that waste disposal plans will have to be co-ordinated, and the committee puts forward a very attractive presumption that each region should be,

"self-supporting in the provision of disposal facilities".

I hope that the Government will accept the regional structure in principle and that they will work closely with the counties and industry to see that this can be achieved at a minimum of cost and with minimum interference to the existing legal responsibilities. Perhaps one county in each region might be chosen as the "lead" county to co-ordinate the preparation of the individual counties' waste disposal plans, and something on the lines of the statutory children's regional planning committees might be investigated. The argument that regions should be self-sufficient stands up only if they can find sites for disposal. Obviously the ideal situation is that industry should have its own methods of disposal on the factory site, and this arrangement is becoming increasingly common. It reduces transportation costs to a minimum and reduces risks of disposal elsewhere.

An especially valuable finding of the Select Committee is,

"that for many liquid industrial wastes co-disposal with domestic waste is a valid disposal method, from which waste disposal authorities shy away unnecessarily".

The committee were impressed by the evidence of Essex County Council and Redland Purle, which showed strong similarities between leachates from domestic refuse and hazardous waste combined. What this means is that a policy of sensible landfill is capable of exploitation over wide areas of the country, making the prospect of self-sufficient regions a practical proposition.

Much of the report talks about monitoring of sites, and this is absolutely essential to avoid mistakes. But monitoring costs money, and yet a site licence costs nothing. Essex spends £50,000 a year on monitoring sites, and well-qualified industrial chemists are appointed for the purpose. The Select Committee recommend charges for the service, and it would be a most valuable advance if these were introduced. The ACC have expressed deep concern about the avail ability of adequate financial resources to strengthen the control of hazardous waste disposal in these difficult times, and charges for licences and for the monitoring services required as recommended by the committee are essential to ensure progress.

The suggestion that there should be a hazardous wastes inspectorate at the Health and Safety Executive is another point on which the ACC have sounded a warning note. They would prefer to see this inspectorate in a strengthened land wastes division at the Department of the Environment. The idea of an inspectorate makes excellent sense as it is an economic use of high-powered technical advice, and it would be a pity if the suggestion foundered on what could prove to be an academic argument as to what place in the administration is the best for it. Perhaps the placing of the unit could be looked at again.

In the area of imported wastes, where a potential conflict appears between a legitimate international trade in imported wastes and the prior conditions to make it acceptable, there have been serious problems. Serious difficulties can arise for a waste disposal authority if an importing company collapses, and it is, as the committee says, unacceptable in any event for the United Kingdom to be a dumping ground for the EEC. There will be need for further co-ordination of the tightening of regulations, and consultation with the counties involved is essential if the practical implications are to be fully taken into account. I await the publication of the Government review, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, with interest.

In conclusion, the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, and his committee have completed their difficult task in a most objective manner. It is important that no time should be lost in the implementation of their recommendations, particularly the bringing into force of Section 1 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, and equally important legislation to allow waste disposal authorities to charge for monitoring and site licences to ensure the necessary financial resources are available. A few problems need further study, but their early solution is vital as the problem will not go away. It is a time for a positive lead from the Government, and the major recommendations should be implemented without delay.

My Lords, I should like to add my congratulations to those extended to my noble friend Lord Dilhorne on his rather witty and instructive speech, and I am sure he will be able to improve on that, even, when he has full range. I should also like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, and his committee on an excellent report, although I do not understand it all because I am not a scientist. I should like to apologise and ask your Lordships' indulgence, if I may have it, for having to leave before the end of this debate due to a long-standing engagement.

I have said that I am not a chemist in any way, and I rise to my feet to speak to your Lordships tonight only to give some first-hand knowledge of a toxic waste tip which is near my home. I have not in fact suffered from it myself, but there are about eight people in the Galleries of your Lordships' House who have personally suffered from this tip in Buckinghamshire; and I hope that the report from this committee may help others and may prevent another area from suffering the same sort of fate.

The tip that I am talking about is known as Woodham Tip in Buckinghamshire. It is an 11-acre clay pit, the site of an old brickworks, with farmland all round it and some houses dotted about. In 1973 they began to dump domestic rubbish, and between 1974 and 1979 they started putting in liquid chemicals. By about 1975 there was an enormous mixture of rainwater, domestic waste, hospital waste and chemical waste; and it was about that time that the Thames Water Authority decided to stop the operator from pumping the liquid into the streams because it was extremely toxic and very dangerous. The pit itself was flooded, and there was a disgusting mixture of toxic liquids seeping into the nearby areas because it was too full and the site was a sloping one. So we now have a large pit full of rather unpleasant liquid which cannot be covered properly, as can be done in the case of domestic waste.

So it was decided to cut trenches into it, to try to get rid of some of the chemical liquid. They poured in the chemicals, and the problems of all the nearby people continued. The local residents suffered from enormous flies, in their thousands, which it was very difficult indeed to destroy; they got rashes, headaches, sore eyes, depression and giddiness; and, of course, they had this awful smell the whole time. There were three families who were advised to move; they were placed on the district housing list for council houses, and they moved.

I do not wish to exaggerate the problems here. Any normal tip has some smells, some gases and some fires, and we all know about that sort of thing; but in this particular case there was, in my opinion, gross inefficiency. I have no doubt at all that it was badly managed and badly supervised; and although there is no direct proof as to the results caused by the smells and the chemicals, there were some dogs which died in very strange circumstances, many more sheep than usual aborted and some women lost babies. I in fact saw and smelt what was going on, and in my opinion it was an absolute disgrace. What went wrong? We all know that in 1972 there was some emergency legislation to stop indiscriminate dumping, so this old clay pit was thought to be an ideal site. Sites had to be found quickly.

I should like to make just three points. The first point is that there was in my opinion very poor and inadequate supervision of the site. There was an apparent (and I am not an expert) lack of expertise in the knowledge of reactions of different chemicals with one another and of the reaction of chemicals with domestic and other waste. Absolutely everything seems to have been thrown into this large hole, which also filled with rainwater, which caused its own problems.

The second point is that there was a continuous ping-pong match between the district council and the county council, and within the county council committees, so delaying urgent action. There was the odd inspection and the odd report, but the residents continued to suffer over this long period of time. The third point is that there does not seem to have been any firm decision as to what to do now. There are still some fires and there are still many gases, some of which are poisonous. Pressures are building up; and one expert has said that these processes will continue for several decades.

I have here a report from the environmental safety group of the Environmental and Medical Sciences Division of Harwell, written 18 months ago, and here the expert says about this tip that the liquids appear to be polluted; the crude gas venting system is inadequate; and there are safety hazards here, especially the fencing round the site, which does not prevent children from entering. Finally, he emphasised that remedial actions at the site were likely to be expensive and cannot ever be guaranteed to be completely successful, and that there is little experience to draw on of the effectiveness of restoration of flooded containment sites.

This has been going on for a long while, and I suggest that it is time these things were put to an end completely. Anybody who has read about the Love Canal, the story of an American city in book form, will know of the problems that can happen, and it is just as well that this tip was in an open area. Written evidence from the local residents was submitted in the committee, and I think it was appreciated because such evidence is sometimes not easily available. Normally only evidence from councils is available. I hope that noble Lords will read about this tip in Buckinghamshire. The suffering has been severe, and here again it is very difficult to get proof of all the problems. We must hope that action will be taken to restore the site. I wish it were an isolated case, but I fear that it is not.

My Lords, I should like to begin by adding the congratulations of these Benches to the noble Viscount on his maiden speech. I think that the best tribute I can pay to him is to say that I am sorry it was a maiden speech because I should have loved to join in the arguments he raised. But I will follow convention and postpone those discussions for another day. As a member of the committee, I should like also to thank the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, for the way he guided our deliberations. I do not know whether we should have got through that enormous pile of evidence—and on one occasion my wife measured it; it was a stack two and a half feet high—that we were then wading through without his guidance.

I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I stir up a little the waters of this placid debate and try to make out a case for the phasing out of the landfill operations of disposal of hazardous wastes. There is no difficulty, I can assure the noble Viscount, about definitions. The noble Lords, Lord Ashby and Lord Newall, have given us evidence of the kind of tipping that goes on, the kind of tip mismanagement that causes difficulties and is objectionable to local residents, and so on. I think that there is implicit in the report and in the statement from the County Councils Association an understanding, a logical end to all this discussion. The logical end is that we have got to phase out the landfill operations.

The report says—and the County Councils Association supports it—that public hostility to hazardous waste disposal is too important to be ignored. If it is not to be ignored, I would suggest that the objections must prevail and that there is an obligation, either upon the Government or upon the county councils, to make sure that if public opinion is against having a hazardous waste tip on their doorsteps, that public opinion prevails and that they do not get the tip. This is going to be very important if the kind of information produced in this report—because the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, has given us many examples of mismanaged tips, and there are other examples—goes around the country because then, I think, the opportunities that the disposal contractors will have for getting new sites into operation will diminish. But it will not apply to new sites. If public opinion is to prevail, it will prevail on the closing down of existing sites.

This is going on now. The Derbyshire County Council only two weeks ago decided that one of the most notorious tips in their county should be taken over by the county council and closed, that there shall be no more tipping there. I understand that the West Midlands County Council are contemplating similar action on some of their worst tips. I think this action will grow because, although we are getting information in this House today, about some of the worst tips, normally the information that we get comes only in local newspapers. Nobody is keeping a national register of complaints, of prosecutions for illegal tipping, of public protests. There is no national register and no national picture of all this. My local newspaper reading is restricted to the Sheffield Morning Telegraph and the Bucks Free Press. If the stories which appear in those newspapers are anything to go by, then I am sure there is a rising tide of public protest against the tipping of hazardous waste by landfill throughout the country. I do not think that those stories can be isolated ones.

This raises important issues. It has been mentioned already that the output of the chemical industry, according to the chairman of ICI, is going to double over the next 10 years. For the sake of this argument, I will assume that what the Government say about the economic revival coming, and that they can see the light at the end of the tunnel, is correct. Therefore, I will assume that the expansion of the chemical industry will go ahead and this means that we have got double the amount of waste to get rid of. This will mean new sites, because many of the existing sites have only a short life. This is unlike Pitsea which, we are told, has another 18 years—if the public will allow that site to continue for another 18 years. But most will close down within five or 10 years and perhaps less, so that double the amount of waste will mean that we must open more and more tips. It will be difficult to find them and to get the geological circumstances right. This also means overcoming public opposition. I do not think that sites can be found on the scale that they will be needed if one must rely upon landfill.

But there is no reason why we should rely upon landfill. There are alternative methods of dealing with waste. All chemical waste—we had the technical information in front of us in the committee—can be treated, can be incinerated, can be made inert, leaving a small residue, perhaps of low toxicity or perhaps not poisonous at all, that can be disposed of easily. Or waste can be recovered, recycled. A waste exchange was set up, not a very good one—it was ill-conceived and not well managed—but in the bulletin that they put out of wastes that were available presented by firms for processing, there were about 1,000 chemical wastes mentioned in each bulletin; so that firms producing the wastes, and informing the waste exchange that they had them, knew that the waste could be processed. I am quite sure, from the information we received and from the questions that we asked and got answered, that a great deal of toxic waste, and the hazardous waste that we are talking about, can be recovered and recycled.

The argument against doing it is an economic one. We are told that landfill is the cheapest method of disposal and that, if market forces are going to prevail in a free economy, then landfill will continue. When talking about market forces operating in a free economy, one assumes that it is a fair economy, that there is no unfair competition. But in this market, it is unfair; it is a distorted market. It is distorted by an element of public subsidy that comes in for the landfill operations. If that element of public subsidy were removed, if the disposal contractors had to pay the full cost of the monitoring, the planning, the licensing and of the looking after of the site after it has been recovered for a period of 10 or 12 years to make sure that nothing goes wrong, then the difference in cost between landfill and other forms of treatment or recycling would be reduced.

Let us take it a stage further. The financial question that we are considering is not the difference between landfill and other methods, but what difference would be made to the final products of the manufacturers if they had to pay for the cost of treatment instead of landfill? The committee had the greatest difficulty in getting any information about costs. One would have thought that the chemical industries and the other industries producing waste who wanted to make out a case for the continuation of landfill would provide us with the information about comparative costs.

When we did get some information from the large chemical manufacturers, the conclusion that I came to was that if they had to pay the full costs of landfill on the one hand or went in for recycling, processing or treatment—whatever the chemical required—on the other, the effect on the price of the finished products that the manufacturers were going to sell if they disposed of landfill and went for treatment and processing, would be insignificant.

Obviously I have to boast about South Yorkshire, and my local patriotism can be discounted, but that area is mentioned in the report as doing a first-class job. It has an advisory service for its smaller manufacturers and it runs a waste exchange, not on the scale that is needed, but a waste exchange is there. I am convinced from the information that I have that if that kind of county council advisory service and the local waste exchange operation went on all over the country it would be profitable to many of the companies to get their wastes recycled.

I do not accept the argument that because landfill at the moment is apparently cheaper this is something that we ought to continue. In any case, as I said, we are going to have difficulty in finding new sites if we carry on with landfill. The sooner that we look at the alternatives, inquiring into them, getting all the facts and information about comparative costs and everything else, the better it will be. We shall get a picture that will give us a national policy to work on. Therefore, I plead with the Science and Technology Committee to take this further inquiry on board. It is a natural follow up, if I may put it like that, of the inquiry that we have undertaken into the most difficult job: the depositing in landfill of hazardous wastes. I fully support all the conclusions and recommendations in that report, obviously. But it is an incomplete report. It was not within our terms of reference to take it further into the alternative methods. This is something that I think should be done and I hope that it will be taken over. I hope that a new inquiry will take place.

However, here I had better venture a word of warning. If it became known that the Science and Technology Committee were going to go on with this further inquiry into waste disposal, I am quite sure that the Department of the Environment would suggest that the job would be better done by a departmental committee. That should be rejected. It would be the kiss of death. They would set up a representative committee which would produce the usual thing: a lowest common denominator report with reservations from the independent members—no unaminity, therefore no action.

I speak from experience. Like the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, I should like to refer the House to a report. I was a member of the Waste Management Advisory Council from its beginning until its death. For the first year I was chairman of its policy committee. We sat down to produce an outline policy for the development of making use of waste of our resources. It was a very good report, although I say it myself.

There were 35 recommendations made in it. Although I am not going to go through them all, I should like to refer to the first one, which says that more information is needed about the volume, nature and distribution of waste and that sections of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 should be brought into force as soon as possible. This is dated January 1976. Nothing has happened. This report had very little publicity and then it received what the two departments, Environment and Industry wanted. They killed it. This is what would happen if there was a departmental inquiry along the lines that I have suggested.

I have one more point to make if the House will forgive me. We have said in the report that landfill disposal is acceptable if it is properly controlled. We are talking about co-disposal with domestic waste. In effect what we are saying is in order to get an acceptable method of landfill disposal, we must pour into holes in the ground to provide the sponge for the hazardous waste enormous quantities of valuable raw materials: steel, tin, aluminium and other metals—all the other things that we can extract from domestic waste, the material that is being extracted unfortunately by only two plants in this country: the one at Doncaster and the one at Byker by mechanical means.

We are also depriving ourselves of a large supply of cheap, low-grade fuel, which we need. Enormous quantities of it could be produced by the kind of plants that we have at Doncaster and Byker if we had domestic refuse separation plants of that kind all over the country, I want a further inquiry to look into this. I hope that the result of this report and our discussions on it will lead to that desirable end.

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Darling, I too was a member of Lord Gregson's committee. I should like to pay a tribute to him for his energy and persistence in keeping us at the particular task. I should also like to pay tribute to our two specialist advisers, Professor Isaac and Professor Warner, and our clerk who did so much to help us.

At the outset of the report it is stated that the committee did not like what they found. I suspect that some nine or 10 months later there can be few members of that committee who feel any happier about what they found out during the course of the inquiry. Harwell said in evidence that they did not know what hazardous waste was being produced; they did not know how much there was, where it was from or what happens to it. Indeed, in so much of the evidence that we heard there was a degree of complacency that was almost indescribable. On the first occasion the Department of the Environment gave evidence in December 1980 the complacency was so marked that I and another noble Lord on the committee were obliged to comment upon it. Happily, in contrast, when the department was represented by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Mr. Shaw, in May, the position was somewhat reversed. Perhaps his appearance on that occasion made good the deficiencies on the first occasion.

But it was not only the department whose attitudes were complacent: so indeed were those of a number of the professional witnesses and of the not so professional witnesses. I believe that at the beginning there was something hidden. I do not believe very much is now hidden. I believe the committee managed to uncover most of what there was and it gives rise therefore to the 34 recommendations contained in the report.

In that report we set down in paragraph 119 a number of incidents which have occurred in recent years. Indeed, it was the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, who gave a fair chronicle and my noble friend Lord Newall who detailed quite expertly one particular incident. I refer to these matters in terms of "incidents" rather than "accidents" because, happily, in the waste disposal industry there has been only one fatal accident though there have been a great number of quite serious incidents. The fears of the members of the public are increased by these incidents and by mistakes which happen. The fears are seldom allayed by any story of success, and I wonder quite what the industry and the local authority are going to do about those incidents prior to the 1972 Act, which will emerge more and more. We had a report which was referred to earlier this afternoon with regard to the site at Ealing.

I believe that one of the most important recommendations is number 24—that of forming the whole of the waste disposal authorities into a regional organisation. There are currently 165 waste disposal authorities—some good and others patently indifferent. We had quite a lot of evidence about that, which is set down in the report. Many of these waste disposal authorities have totally different interpretations, but there are few who can claim to have sufficient resources to enable them to discharge their responsibilities in the manner in which they would like to.

I believe the real objection of the Association of County Councils is that they are unwilling to give up any of their controlling interest. I believe they have a voracious appetite for keeping control and can see something slipping away if waste disposal decisions go into a regional set-up. We heard information to the effect that the informal liaison between one authority and another is good so far as it goes, but in my view it does not go very far. Therefore, I believe it would be far better if we concentrated what little skills there are into larger units, where those skills can be far better deployed. Make no mistake about it, my Lords: there is a dearth of knowledge and skill in this business. There is not yet any diploma, any career structure, or anything that is going to encourage people to come into this business.

We comment about the amount of notifiable waste, three-quarters of which goes to landfill. This is variously estimated—nobody really knows—at about 5 or 6 million tonnes per annum. The bulk of it is handled in the private sector and, as we have heard this afternoon, the NAWDC have in membership about 75 per cent. of those engaged in this work. I have to say I am not totally satisfied with the evidence I heard about the control that body can exercise over its members. After all, they rest largely on a code of practice, with no sanction at all. I do not believe that is good enough.

Therefore, I would refer to Recommendation No. 13, which sets out an area of licensing. To me there is no doubt that licensing of all people involved in the train of disposal of hazardous waste is necessary. I do not believe there was any noble Lord who spoke on this subject who disagreed. But, even so, I wonder whether the public would be totally satisfied, because they will not need an annual report to Parliament to keep their interest alive. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Newall said that for some time the sights, sounds and smells of the tip near where he lives will keep the public's mind concentrated on the problem.

It surprised me to learn during the course of the inquiry that the Department of the Environment set up a co-operative programme of research in 1973. It took five years for the report to be published and at the end of it they say:

"Sensible landfill is realistic and an ultra cautious approach to landfill of hazardous and other types of waste is unjustified".

That may be what the Department of the Environment thought at that time, but it is certainly not what the public think at this time; and it is those people who have to be considered. I was appalled—absolutely appalled—at the degree of insensibility by the operators at Pitsea with regard to the public concern. Three times I asked a simple layman's question of the company. I did not understand a word of what they told me in response; but then I am not a scientist or a waste disposal technologist. How the people could understand I do not know. They did not, and the acrimony, the bitterness and ill-feeling that has grown up in Essex is well understood. It will take many, many waste disposal site operators years of work and a great deal of effort to make good that deficiency.

We have the recommendation in No. 16 that publicity should be given to the results of monitoring, which we consider to be essential. It may be that if the cards are laid uppermost on the table sooner or later people will believe. But that takes me to the role of the independent inspectorate which we recommend, because with such an independent inspectorate there can be a greater surety of those cards being laid face up on the table when they are laid.

I have a note here:

"Landfill is more widely used in the United Kingdom than in other industrialised countries".

Why? It is because it is the cheapest method. I can do no more than agree with all that the noble Lord, Lord Darling, had to say on this matter. I shall not repeat it, but he must be right. I do not often agree with the noble Lord, but I must on this occasion.

There must be also a continuing responsibility by site operators. It was the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, who referred to Ravenfield's £¼ million-plus cost of restoration. I draw your Lordships' attention to what Thurrock Borough Council said, which supported what the noble Lord, Lord Darling, said. They said that the social costs of landfill have been totally ignored. I say, as the noble Lord does, that if those costs were brought in, the huge cost-advantage of landfill would soon fade away. That may be desirable but a far greater benefit would accrue, and that is that the alternatives would be further investigated and used.

We have an almost totally inflexible mind over waste disposal. Because it has already gone on for so many years and nothing really serious has happened, and because we now have the 1974 Act and the 1980 special waste regulations, everything must be OK. That attitude is not good enough and it has to be changed by Government—by central Government, at the top, and then by local government. People can no longer cocoon themselves in city, borough and council engineers' departments, saying It is all OK. We have it in mind", because we have evidence that some of the waste disposal authorities' monitoring and inspection falls far below what is desirable.

At the end of the day, it will cost more. We just have to decide where the balance of cost should be. It will fall on the waste disposal authorities and, to an extent, the ratepayers. It will fall on the site operators, which is where I believe it should fall. That they will pass it on, as the noble Lord, Lord Darling, suggested, there is little doubt. But their profits may well have to be contained. I believe that alternatives from other sources will emerge, which will enable a producer to choose his role, so prices may be slightly more competitive. Indeed, on that score the producers themselves may be induced into in-house disposals which, over the long term, will greatly reduce their costs. One was surprised to learn how much foul water is carried around the country, the expense of which we attempted to set down in the report.

I could not possibly end a speech on this matter without referring to transport. Although we have a small number of sites, they are fairly big and that encourages long transportation. It was said by witnesses that the average is 50 miles distance, but we know that very much longer hauls are involved and they are all by road. It is a sad thing that British Rail have not found this to be the kind of business in which they should engage, and I suggest that they should look at that. However, having said that, Harwell's emergency service confirm that with the Hazchem system of marking, and other precautions which are taken, there is no record of serious incident, or indeed accident, in the carriage of hazardous waste by road.

Perhaps I might close by saying that, at the end of the day, I believe that this is a Government responsibility. It was the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, who said that he hoped that my noble friend Lord Avon would not just take note and that there might be some action. Perhaps I might remind my noble friend of what his right honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department of the Environment said to the Committee in his absolutely closing remarks in May 1981. He said:

"The review of the regulations we have in hand will, l am sure, be helped by the observations your Committee sees fit to make".

I hope that those observations which are contained in the report, and the observations made by noble Lords this afternoon, will, indeed, be taken into account when regulations are framed and when they are brought before Parliament quite quickly for approval.

My Lords, I, too, wish to commence by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, on the able way in which he produced this report. I should also like to pay my compliments to the noble Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, on his maiden speech, which I thought was both informative and extremely interesting to listen to and—what I always welcome—was spiced with humour.

I want to turn to the quintessentials of what I wish to say, by pointing out that there are many useful suggestions in the Select Committee's report and much of the evidence is very well worth reading. The terrible tragedy is that its major contribution is in pointing out that, despite the millions of pounds that are spent in educating our clever men, our scientists have poisoned the rivers, have poisoned the seas and have poisoned the oceans. Now that they have finished doing that, they are poisoning the earth. as well as cluttering up the atmosphere with vulgar and misguided missiles, in addition to the evil form of fall-out which will shower down on us one day. So mankind seems to be intent—indeed, to be hell-bent, rather than Heaven-bent, which is where we shall all arrive one day unless sanity prevails—on poisoning the earth. We must stop what we are doing in horrendous ways, and we must prevent the other forms of hazardous waste which is floating around this earth.

Quite suddenly, one comes down to earth when one reads this report. I refer your Lordships to the opening phrase on page 40. It is not a massive statement from the United Nations. It is a little phrase which reads:

"The Committee's inquiry originated with representations from Basildon District Council".

In my judgment, that is the level that counts. The report goes on in paragraph 115:

"Secondly Basildon cast doubt on the scientific adequacy of landfill disposal and stress the degree of hazard involved".

In short, in spite of all the wonderful things that science can do in polluting the earth and the heavens, no one is really confident that we can defend ourselves! That is not only a truthful comment to make; it is a frightening one.

I want to concentrate for a while on the level of ordinary people; that is, the problems that afflict a number of council tenants in the London Borough of Ealing. It is a matter of equal importance to the one that we are discussing. There is a road known as Willow Tree Lane—a beautiful name—which is part of a council estate. It is in Northolt, Middlesex, and the problem involves both the London Borough of Ealing and the London Borough of Hillingdon. It is particularly relevant to what we are discussing today.

As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, the tragedy is, perhaps, that we do not yet have adequate science or discipline even to tell us whether or not dangers really exist, let alone how to cure them. I agree with the noble Lord: that is how serious the issue is. Scientists, medical people—folk with letters after their name—have assured ordinary people that there is nothing to worry about. I do not take their word for granted. I am reminded of when we in this country disgraced ourselves—the first atom bomb test over Christmas Island. Months later the fall-out came on to the Welsh hills and affected cows and sheep. The distribution of milk had to be stopped. Then it continued. It was stopped because the scientists said that the radiation and the iodine levels had reached their limit. Why, then, did it continue? Because the scientists raised those levels. They put them up a little higher. I do not believe that scientists are to be entirely trusted.

Let me carry on with my factual account of what has been taking place in the London Borough of Ealing on one council estate. All this is relevant. In 1975–76 there was a condition of soil examination. This was carried out because the site had previously been used for making bricks, for tipping household refuse, for the incineration of refuse and for the disposal of residues. That examination was carried out by a joint working party consisting of officers from both councils, as well as analysts and consultants. In 1977 they reported that the ground water was acceptable—though they did not say why—and that it was free from significant toxic metals. What are insignificant toxic metals? That is what ordinary people ask themselves. There may be a very good answer, or they may not know what the answer is. This phraseology does not frighten people but it causes them concern. There was no evidence, either, of methane generation. None was detected. However, a limited area of soil contaminated by heavy metals was removed. They removed six inches of the top soil. No remedial treatment was required other than the provision of six inches of good top soil to replace the six inches which had been removed. I do not believe that you could convince a bunch of junior caps that that was a totally scientific answer, let alone your Lordships' House or any serious minded scientist. I hope to demonstrate why later.

Before the construction of the estate the then existing thin layer of top soil was removed by the contractors. The digging for drains, sewers and foundations went down seven feet. To be fair, I have to say that there is no record of workmen having suffered any form of illness. In March 1979 the plan to build the 2,000 homes which were urgently needed was proceeded with. The agony is that we have hundreds of families in the queen of the suburbs, the London Borough of Ealing, living in the backs of motor-cars and that they might be safer living there than in modern council houses.

The estate was completed. Then in July of this year the chief officer of health for Ealing learned that two families were suffering from rashes and sores which those families attributed to the soil. In the public interest the matter was pursued by our local newspaper, the Ealing Gazette. Local authorities are like all politicians. When local or national newspapers say something nice about us they are wonderful journals, but when they say something nasty about us they are horrid "rags". However, we all know, deep down inside us, that it is a good job that newspapers exist in order to lay open, even if they exaggerate, certain serious issues. The Ealing Gazette has not been backward in coming forward. I knew from my own observation that there was anxiety among the residents. People wore concerned about rashes and headaches which they had never had before. They knew a little about the history of the land. They wanted to try to find out if they could add to that history.

The local authority countered, not unjustly, that they had received no reports from local general practitioners. This seems to be a very strong point. I do not believe, though, that it is totally infallible. There were no reports from general practitioners in Wales when the iodine fell but when a report was eventually produced it was, as we all know, very frightening. It was some years later that the iodine had an effect on human beings. So we cannot believe the general practitioners. If doctors had examined those people there a couple of weeks after the fall-out they would have found there was nothing wrong with them, but if they had examined them 18 months later they might have found that there was something very seriously wrong with them. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, and my noble friend Lord Darling of Hillsborough have said, it is this aspect which is of concern.

It is also true that at this moment there is an outpatient at Ealing Hospital who is suffering from a skin condition. However, it has not been confirmed that this is attributable to contact with the soil. Yet this individual had nothing wrong with him previous to living on this estate. In the case of all the other people, both young and old, the rashes and the irritation did not occur until they went to live on this estate. So I believe that it is reasonable for people to be concerned, on the simple, sane, common-sense ground that prevention is better than cure. If there have been just a few skin rashes which might he trivial, we ought not to ignore them and wait until something deadly serious occurs. That is the kind of arrogance which sometimes sweeps over all forms of bureaucratic investigation.

The result of later analysis of the soil shows that the levels of heavy metal are normal and acceptable. I should have thought that the only thing that is normal and acceptable is that there is no evidence of heavy metal, methane or anything else. That ought to be the norm—not trying to find out what degree of poison human beings can sustain. Despite that analysis, there has been an increase in diarrhoea and skin rashes. These problems are persisting. There are still cases of people with rashes on this estate in Northolt, in the London Borough of Ealing. One resident has spoken of a most peculiar thing happening while he was digging in his garden: there was a sudden emission of a white power out of the ground which went into his face. He had a coughing fit for a number of minutes. Naturally enough, he was disturbed.

I believe that the local authority have taken every possible step to reassure both themselves and the tenants that all is well. They are concerned about a panic. I, too, am concerned about a panic. The only way to stop a panic is to make sure that people understand that there is no need to panic. But they will not accept that there are certain acceptable levels of poison, as they are told by people who would not dream of living on a council estate. That is a form of arrogance which is not going to be tolerated much longer. Therefore, I say to the noble Earl who will be replying to the debate that people on this estate have seen things which nobody could have made up better if it were an apocryphal story to underwrite this report. It would be hailed as a touch of literary genius to underline this report in an apocryphal manner. My Lords, it has actually happened.

I believe the local authority have done their level best to give the assurances and have gone through every piece of correct procedure that exists. I believe that the Ealing Gazette has done an extraordinarily good job in bringing to light—I do not think they would have been brought to light otherwise—the fears and the apprehensions of ordinary people. But, despite all these reports, the folk that I speak of are not satisfied, are apprehensive and are unhappy. I hope that the noble Earl may find it possible to let the Department of the Environment know of the grave apprehensions that exist, and that perhaps then they will make their investigations, if only on the simple basis that they accept the dictum that it is far better to be sure than sorry.

My Lords, I, too, should like to open my remarks by extending my warmest congratulations to my noble friend Lord Dilhorne. Humour, certainly, and perhaps he will let himself go a bit more next time because there is a lot of humour there. Profundity, very much, and I trust that my noble friend on the Front Bench will take some note of what my noble friend Lord Dilhorne had to say.

I am advised on what I have to say by the Confederation of British Industry and I shall attempt to convey to your Lordships the views of industry in relation to this excellent report. Perhaps I may start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, and his committee most warmly on this very thorough report. There are some points which industry particularly support and which I shall briefly tell your Lordships about, and there are some points on which you will no doubt expect me to say that they have some reservations. I shall touch on them, but in the main the report is both thorough and fair, and that is first class.

The recommendations that are strongly supported include the proposal for a national policy, which is in Recommendation No. 34. I am speaking of the recommendations as numbers and they are sub-paragraphs too, of paragraph No. 185. The acceptance that landfill and, where appropriate, co-disposal of industrial with domestic waste are appropriate methods for dealing with hazardous waste is in Recommendation No. 6. The third point is the call for the early implementation of Section 1 of the Control of Pollution Act of 1974 and for the acceleration of production of plans under Section 2 of that Act, in Recommendation No. 31.

These strategic responsibilities are an essential balance to the regulatory controls on waste disposal authorities. Full implementation will stimulate closer working links between industry and local authorities and will give industry much-needed assurance that there will be means available in the future for the safe and effectively monitored disposal of its wastes. When I say that, of course, it is mentioned in the report that about half the hazardous wastes are looked after by industry itself, so we are only talking about the half which needs to be disposed of external to its own properties. The recommendations of the committee on which industry has reservations include—in order of importance three particular ones, all of which have been strongly supported by the members of the committee who have spoken on this matter, but I have reasons for opposing them.

The first is Recommendation No. 15 proposing a hazardous waste inspectorate within the Health and Safety Executive. The second is Recommendation No. 10, proposing registration of hazardous waste producers, and the third one is Recommendation No. 27, recommending charges for site licences and bonding. With regard to the proposed hazardous waste inspectorate, industry can see merit in a technically proficient unit to advise on difficult hazardous waste questions but for the reasons so clearly set out in paragraphs 254 to 257 of the Fifth Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, it believes that such a unit should be part of a comprehensive central advisory group, itself part of the Department of the Environment. The CBI will be writing shortly to my right honourable friend Mr. Tom King to recommend this.

I was interested in the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, in this respect, because it struck me that what she was saying was not dissimilar from what I have just said. She agreed that there should be this technically qualified body but was not entirely sure whether it should be part of the Health and Safety Executive, and it is that point that we question and that point which is so clearly dealt with in the Fifth Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution.

With regard to the proposed registration of hazardous waste producers, such a register would not provide the waste disposal authority with any more information than they can obtain by other means. Indeed, the compilation of such a register would tend to give a false sense of security to the public that something had been done. As is made clear by the committee itself in its paragraph 139, what is required of the officials of waste disposal authorities is supervisory action rather than extra paperwork, and I should have thought that this particular suggestion of registration would really turn out to be paperwork. Industry would strongly agree that we want action from officials rather than that.

With regard to what I suspect, from what other noble Lords have said, are the most contentious of our doubts—namely, the proposed charges for site licences and bonding—industry would question the fairness of this proposal in an otherwise very fair report. Notwithstanding the remarks of other noble Lords, including in particular the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, the licence system has been introduced for the benefit of the community as a whole. As the committee itself makes clear in its paragraph 71.g, there is scope for waste disposal authorities to cover their costs commercially rather than by a form of additional taxation, and perhaps we could expand somewhat on paragraph 71.g, which makes interesting reading, particularly when one reads the detail to which it refers. It would seem to me that West Yorkshire has been very enterprising in this area, and perhaps other local authorities should take note of that.

My Lords, would my noble friend allow me? Before he leaves the question of licensing, does he really think it is fair that a waste producer, many of whom are in the Midlands, should be able to take advantage of the ratepayers in a totally different area from that in which that producer pays rates, to look after and monitor the effects of his waste, without paying anything towards the costs other than the transportation costs?

My Lords, what I am really saying is that it is paying for a licence to which one is taking exception. Paying for the cost of disposal, or paying a reasonable share of the cost of disposal, is perfectly reasonable. What I am suggesting is that there is no need for the local authority to make its money by collecting money from the licences, which is a form of indirect and rather broad-brushed taxation rather than being precise. It can probably be very well dealt with by the waste disposal authority itself tackling the problem commercially, as has been done by West Yorkshire.

My Lords, with due respect, South Yorkshire.

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Darling. I was not quite sure whether South Yorkshire was an independent authority these days; since 1972 it has all changed. As to bonding, this is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Adequate protection of the environment and restoration is provided in the site licences and modern planning permissions without resorting to bonding.

Finally, to conclude, there is much value in the Select Committee's report, which is welcomed as making an important contribution to the study of how the handling of hazardous waste should best be administered. I would add my own remarks to those of other noble Lords. I think this excellent report will be very much wasted if the Government do not take much earlier action on it than is normally the case with Government departments, which seem to take their own terribly slow pace to react regardless of the party in power. I am sure the noble Baroness would feel as strongly on this point as does, I hope, my noble friend on the Front Bench. I think that when you get an excellent report like this, and it is based on legislation which clearly needs bringing up to date, there is really no reason not to go ahead and do something, if only produce a White Paper, and then get weaving on the next stage.

I think a particularly encouraging factor is the low accident rate, reported in paragraph 120. One is very sympathetic to the attitude of the general public in this area, though I suspect that it varies around the country and some areas are more conscious of the apparent hazards than others. But however that may be, if the accident rate is low that is encouraging, and I hope it can be kept that way. As has been pointed out, the only important criticisms of the report relate to the few recommendations for unnecessary additions to the bureaucratic processes, which will hinder rather than help the development of safe methods of handling hazardous waste.

My Lords, I probably know a great deal less about this subject than any noble Lord who has already spoken. My only personal experience came as chairman of my planning committee when I was referred to the ombudsman over an application to deal with hazardous waste. During the very courteous but inquisitorial methods of the ombudsman I learned a great deal about him but not very much more about hazardous wastes. I should perhaps add that I was totally acquitted on all counts afterwards.

I want to welcome very sincerely this report of the sub-committee on behalf of the Association of County Councils, who are the waste disposal authorities in England and who feel very strongly that this is an excellent report and would like to see it adopted by the Government. I will not go over ground which has been covered so well by your Lordships this afternoon, in view of the time. But I want to draw attention to one or two of the matters which have already been discussed, particularly the conclusions, which are repeated several times, that the control of hazardous waste disposal by waste disposal authorities needs to be strengthened, and that adequate resources are necessary for this to be done.

This goes together with implementation of Section 1 of the Control of Pollution Act, mentioned so many times this afternoon. Waste disposal authorities would, I think, very much welcome this implementation and this necessary strengthening, but I must make the point that it will require quite a lot of extra expenditure and that the Government must help with this. It is no good, as I have said before in your Lordships' House, putting further duties on local authorities and then complaining that they are overspending and are unable to manage their affairs.

It is important that the extra requirements are recognised. New qualified staff will be needed to monitor all these sites. I quite agree with the Select Committee that it is quite wrong that the local ratepayers should pay for this. The cost of this, I am certain, should fall on the polluter, whoever he may be. I hope the Government will be able in due course to introduce economic charges for applications for site licences and recurring charges to cover the monitoring costs. And unlike my noble friend Lord Mottistone, with whom I very seldom disagree, I feel very strongly that a bond should be taken out, as indeed the Select Committee has recommended, so that site developers should cover any damage after the site has closed.

There are so many examples of companies going bankrupt and being unable to meet the cost of pollution arising many years afterwards. Indeed, I have heard of a case which would not be covered by this or any legislation, in which a borehole was sunk into chalk in Norwich to provide a water supply. After a period the water became unusable. It was subsequently discovered that this bore had been sunk on the site of a gasworks built in 1815 to produce gas from whale oil; the gasworks closed down in 1830 but the pollution remained active until 1950. Although I do not suppose Lord Mottistone's CBI would be prepared to wait that long, or even to pay for it, it does not seem to me unreasonable, as in the ACC submission, that a 10-year after-care period should be suggested and agreed to.

I must refer to the regional aspects of the recommendations, which are perhaps the ones where I most seriously disagree with the sub-committee. The new regions which are suggested in recommendations 23 and 24, and Appendix 6, seem to me to have several disadvantages. It is imposing rather too rigid a structure on the country, on England particularly, and I think it ignores two important facts. Quite a number of counties wish for good sound technical reasons to belong to more than one region. I think, for example, of Cumbria which is very much involved with waste disposal matters in the North-East of England and again in the North-West of England. I think also of Lincolnshire, which is connected with the Humberside problem as well as East Anglia.

To divide the country into a rigid regional system would be wrong. Furthermore, I think the report rather ignores what a lot has been done in regional groupings already throughout the country. Far more than the 11 suggested by the sub-committee are already in existence, and in some cases have done a great deal towards identifying sites and planning. In other cases, no doubt, it is less good; it is always better in the area for which one speaks. It is indeed, I believe, much better in the North than elsewhere. But even so, think time should be given for those regional bodies to get together in their own interests, rather than to impose a new Quango on them at this stage. I hope the Government will move rather slowly on this aspect.

One can see the new regional waste disposal authority setting up its office, with a chairman, a chairman's secretary, a chief executive and a whole new tier of bureaucracy, to which will be added, I am afraid, the Health and Safety Executive inspectorate, further suggested in this report. Like other noble Lords, I believe that this matter will be best left with the Department of the Environment. I agree with the necessity of having it, but I think it wrong to put another spoke in the wheel and create a tangled bureaucracy on top of what I have already mentioned. I hope again the Government will move cautiously on this Health and Safety inspectorate suggestion. With those few criticisms, my Lords, I very warmly welcome the report of the sub-committee. I hope your Lordships' House will give me some credit for reducing the average length of speeches in this debate.

My Lords, I should like to begin by welcoming the report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology and the opportunity for this House to have a full debate on a subject of very considerable significance as we have discovered this evening in the environmental field. Any industrial country produces a wide range and a large volume of wastes. Those wastes must be managed with the same rigorous attention that characterises the manufacture of the goods that give rise to them. The Government are most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, and to his sub-committee for preparing a report of the highest standards and also to the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, for introducing it today so clearly and in such detail. The Government recognise the work and thought that have gone into it and that it makes important and challenging recommendations.

It is my happy duty also to congratulate my noble friend Lord Dilhorne on his entertaining speech and to say how much we hope to hear him more often in this House from now onwards. I do not believe that he confessed to his legal leaning although it came out fairly forcefully in his remarks. I hesitate, therefore, to take up his description of "hazardous", but I feel it does call for some small comment. He referred both to the use and abuse of the terms "hazardous" and "waste". So in this debate and for want of a better definition of "hazardous waste" my remarks are addressed to what used to be called "notifiable waste" when the Deposit of Poisonous Waste Act was in force. I am sure that my noble friend will be following me if nobody else is.

The crucial point is what is done with the waste. Strictly we are talking about waste which is potentially hazardous—and I am using the same word as my noble friend did—to public health or the environment if it is mishandled or disposed of in a wrong way or in a wrong place. Incidentally, I note that a better working definition of "hazardous waste "—a matter which has bedevilled this subject and foxed international experts for some years—is the one item which the Select Committee did not in fact offer us, although to be quite fair it did spend some time on the subject and endorsed the World Health Organisations' description, although I had some vague feeling that the noble Lord, Lord Darling of Hillsborough, may have slightly differed in some of those tantalising remarks which he made a few moments ago.

The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, in her excellent analysis said that she found the report very easy to read and knowledgeable and she said that she understood it very well. I, too, found it readable, but I confess only with the aid of a dictionary beside me. Even the dictionary which I had was fooled once or twice and I had to go to some more learned source. When you discover words like "matrix" in the middle of it and you pick up a dictionary and discover that it means "a womb" it gets you on very speedily towards the end product.

It is now 11 years since the last thorough report on this subject was produced by the Key Committee. We have seen some significant developments since then: in particular, the introduction of explicit controls in the Deposit of Poisonous Waste Act of 1972, to which the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, has already referred. Then there followed their development in the Control of Pollution Act through the licensing system which covers all sites where industrial, commercial or domestic waste is deposited. Then there was the introduction of the special waste regulations which this House debated in January.

The noble Lord, Lord Darling, slightly pulled our legs, I think, as regards the slowness between the 1976 report and the ultimate laying of the egg. But of course not only was there a lot of consultation to do during this period, but there was also much changing of the scenes of waste itself and, finally, of course, the change of Government. None the less, it was time for an authoritative appraisal of what had been achieved. And, as others have done today, I should like to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, and his committee for providing such clear, authoritative and wide-ranging recommendations for the control of an activity where the protection of public health and the environment must continue to improve.

I have listened with great care and interest to what has been said. The debate is an important opportunity to reflect on the position we have reached and the impact of the changes over the past decade, also to consider what still needs to be done. I propose this evening to outline the Government's initial views on several of the report's recommendations and at the same time I hope to answer some of the points that have been made in this debate.

The report's main general recommendation is that the people of this country must be able to feel confident that there is real control over hazardous waste and that the best practical means, not the cheapest tolerable means, is the overriding principle governing its disposal. That is the conclusion in paragraph 186. As a consequence of this, the committee endorses the case-by-case approach, which may be defined as "each site, and each waste, on its individual merits". The committee pulled no punches when it saw good reason to draw attention to the need for improvement, whether in the control system, or in the practices or performance of central government, local authorities or private operators. At the same time it took care to conduct a close examination of the basis of the control system and came to the conclusion that:

"The Control of Pollution Act 1974 provides the right framework for the close supervision of hazardous waste disposal and monitoring which are required".

That appears in paragraph 185.9. The committee also examined the special waste regulations, whose introduction earlier this year aroused some controversy. While I realise that the Department of the Environment might have acted rather swiftly with these special waste regulations, I do hope that the House might be slightly more generous in future in trusting the Department of the Environment not to pull the wool over anybody's eyes.

The Select Committee made some valuable comments and felt that the joint review now in progress should result in some modifications and they approved the basic approach and the record-keeping requirements. That appears in paragraph 185.19 and 185.22. I cannot preempt the results of the joint review. We are only two-thirds of the way through the period it is to cover. But I have yet to hear evidence that the gloomy prognostications which were made in this House have as yet been substantiated in any way. The committee also looked hard at landfill as a disposal route for hazardous wastes. They found that on the basis of present knowledge landfill—including co-disposal—is an acceptable method for a wide range of wastes provided that the suitability of the site is judged on its own merits in each case, and that appears in paragraph 185.6. They had many other comments on the importance of the management and research aspects of landfill and the Government will be considering those in detail with the local authorities, the disposal industry and waste producers.

But I believe that the committee's findings on the framework for controls, the approach to the most difficult and dangerous wastes and on what is, in terms of volume, the major disposal route used in the United Kingdom, provide in themselves a significant degree of reassurance for the public that we now have, in operation, the right system of controls across the United Kingdom. Not all industrialised nations can make that claim or can produce an independent authoritative examination to support it.

It is at this point—the point where we know we have good grounds for continuing with the current system—that I must stress as strongly as I can that the Government see no grounds for complacency with leaving things exactly as they arc. I had the word "complacency" in my brief before the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, produced it himself. The committee has come to a similar conclusion about the adequacy of our system. That is only as it should be. Our position today must be treated as a springboard point. We are fortunate that the last 10 years have given us a firm foundation and all in the public and private sectors who have been associated with the achievement can be congratulated. We must now look to the future and the committee's recommendations on it.

At present, as we have heard, about 75 per cent. of so-called hazardous waste, in the broadest sense of the term, is disposed of to landfill sites. The Department of the Environment has commissioned and conducted considerable research into landfill—over £3 million has been spent to date—and the programme is planned to continue at about £½ million per annum. The Government are very much aware of the need, emphasised by the committee, for continuing research in this area and the dissemination and application of the results to ensure the knowledge gained is applied in practice. This is necessarily a scientific subject but it has a very real practical application. I should like to describe briefly the aims and objectives of the department's landfill research programme and the further use that it is proposed to make of its results.

The objective since 1973 has been to identify and describe the mechanisms controlling the generation, movement and attenuation of leachate within the landfill itself and beneath the site. A major survey of some 3,000 sites found in 1972 that only about 50 were worthy of further investigation. Nineteen were chosen and some of the guidance in waste management papers has been based on the results of the continuing—and I emphasise the word—work. It is important to note that to date the research has not confirmed a serious threat to any exploitable aquifer. The guidance we have developed has already covered a number of problems.

A significant part of the research programme has concerned landfill management techniques, which include the co-disposal of domestic and suitable industrial wastes; the collection and treatment of leachate; the use of permeable attenuating lining materials in order to widen and improve the use of some landfill sites, and many other factors.

In order to make the results of these research programmes more readily available to interested bodies such as the waste disposal authorities, water authorities and waste disposal contractors, the department is preparing concurrently two new documents in its series of waste management papers, which deal largely with industrial wastes. The first will he concerned with basic landfill management techniques including hydro-geological appraisal of sites and attenuating mechanisms; the second paper will provide advice on the co-disposal of certain industrial wastes with domestic wastes; it will be based on results obtained from the investigation of landfill sites, and backed up by laboratory-based research. I believe that this information will please the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, who spoke along these lines.

The department has taken steps to diversify further its sponsored research activities among contractors in the private sector in addition to those carried out by Harwell, the Institution of Geological Sciences and the Water Research Centre. It is appropriate here to recognise the committee's views that the landfill method of disposal is only one way, and that it should not be allowed to blight the development of other technical means of waste disposal. The committee makes some fairly wide-ranging recommendations for arrangements which would sustain the development of those other means.

Some of these would involve Government interference in what is at the moment a fairly free market, although strictly controlled. These recommendations will require a good deal of study, and the House will not expect me to respond to them tonight. While the Government recognise the importance of other, non-landfill, means of disposal, they also recognise the advantages of landfill and the possibilities of continued landfill based on the research which I have just described.

The committee has also commented on two aspects of hazardous waste disposal which are currently under separate review. I have already mentioned that the committee approved the approach and record-keeping requirements of the special waste regulations. The Government welcome their conclusion that they are a valuable supplement to site licensing control. The Select Committee addressed its comments on the special waste regulations to the review and the points that they made will be carefully considered in that context. The review is being carried out by a joint committee of the Government, local authority associations, industry and environmental interests.

Detailed information has been sought from all waste disposal authorities, and a sample of waste producers, carriers and disposers. A general invitation to submit evidence by 31st January 1982 has been issued. Therefore, in a definite response to my noble friend Lord Lucas, the special waste regulations were introduced this January and will be reviewed early next year, together with a recommendation in this report. So the Government are actively progressing.

Another area under review is the importation of waste. My department's examination of the need for new controls in this field is nearing completion and its results will be announced shortly. Again, the views of the Select Committee were addressed to the Department of the Environment's review. While this is not yet completed, as it was raised in particular by the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, perhaps I should say something today about this. In principle, the international trade in industrial waste is acceptable to the Government, provided that it is properly controlled and undertaken in the full knowledge of the proper authorities. There has to be a legitimate reason for its export and, as we have seen, the commercial basis for traffic has to be sound. There has to be full and proper information available to the authorities to enable them to exercise proper control. We are not prepared to he a dumping ground for anybody's waste, and this includes our own. That means that in practice there shall be no direct line from the port of entry to landfill unless circumstances are very unusual indeed.

The position in practice remains much as it is now. A very small trade takes place. It is under the eye of the waste disposal authorities, who have full details and advance warning. It is imported for treatment and/or disposal at the more specialised facilities. In that way the traffic benefits the international community and our interests, with no harm to health or the environment.

I should like now to move on to a number of the substantive recommendations in the Gregson Committee Report for strengthening the present system of controls on hazardous waste disposal. The basic control on hazardous waste disposal is site licensing, and it is here that I shall start. The site licensing system is designed to be a comprehensive control. All sites taking industrial, commercial or domestic waste, whether hazardous or not, must have both planning permission and a licence drawn up to suit the nature of the site. The nature and quantities of the waste they may or may not take w e set out in conditions set by waste disposal authorities—as we have heard, they are the county councils in England—and it is an offence to dispose of any controlled waste anywhere other than at a site licensed for the purpose. This reflects our basic principle that all these kinds of waste need to be controlled. Any waste can be hazardous if wrongly disposed of. Even builder's rubble can create a hazard. This licensing system is so comprehensive, and so responsive in its operation, that it does much of the job which, with any other system, might require a multitude of additional regulations.

The Select Committee have endorsed that system of control. But they have also expressed concern that its enforcement by waste disposal authorities is not always as effective as it might be. The committee have therefore suggested that a small hazardous waste inspectorate should be established,

"to encourage adequate and consistent standards of control throughout the country".

The Government accept the principle of a stronger central advisory function to support local authorities in their duty of control—and here I speak with some confidence though I must choose my words carefully. I am not able today to set out in detail how this should best be achieved in the machinery of Government or how the job should be defined, or who should do it. I am sorry at this stage that I cannot satisfy either the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, who said at first glance that she agreed with it but it had no teeth, or my noble friend Lord Mottistone, or the noble Lord, Lord Ashby. But I hope that the sub-committee will recognise in those remarks that I am going as far as I can. The department will wish to hear the views of others concerned, and awaits the letter from my noble friend Lord Mottistone. There are, of course, constraints which prevent us blithely accepting at once that this is an additional job which can be taken on tomorrow. How ever, we recognise the weight of the report's recommendation, and regard this as a point for action.

Closely linked with the proposal for an inspectorate in central government is the committee's major recommendations on the machinery for ensuring that planning for hazardous waste disposal is adequate. This suggests that waste disposal authorities should be formally grouped into waste disposal regions. As the committee recognised, there are already considerable informal links between WDAs at regional level. This system is developing, although it has some way to go and needs some encouragement. In the North-West, for instance, the WDA officers meet together regularly. Following a report published in 1979 by their regional body anticipating a shortfall in liquid waste treatment capacity, three new treatment plants have recently been commissioned in the region. I give that as an example. This is the sort of practice which needs to be better developed across the country to meet the gap in the planning at the regional level that the committee rightly identified. I hope that to some extent that will act as a reply to my noble friend Lady Platt of Writtle.

The Government favour a continuation and development of such informal links rather than the setting up of any formal new regional structure. Both the co-ordination of facilities and plans and the pooling of expertise can be, and in many cases is being, done through the existing links between authorities. Another layer of bureaucracy is going to put a strain on resources at a time when they are already stretched.

So it is clear that we must obtain the benefits that will come from more systematic co-operation between waste disposal authorities and waste producers' bodies such as the regional branches of the Confederation of British Industry, without imposing the burden of another tier of authorities. The Government believe that this can be achieved with the aid and adaptation of the existing regional machinery based broadly on the standard Government regions. Working out the details will, again, require discussion with the local and water authorities and the waste producers' representative organisations. The Government accept, however, that the committee has laid stress on a point that must be met.

The committee's other recommendation on planning suggests that Section 1 of the Control of Pollution Act, which would give waste disposal authorities the responsibility for ensuring that the arrangements for disposing of waste in their areas are adequate, should be brought into force at the earliest possible opportunity. The Government appreciate the reasons for this view. The Government, however, take the opposite view on a question which admittedly has something of the chicken and the egg about it but which also has a rather indeterminate financial commitment. I think it is important, given the progress that is being made, that WDAs progress further with the preparation of their waste disposal plans before bringing in Section 1.

WDAs will need to have their plans available before they can properly assess whether facilities in their areas are adequate. All the indications are that at the current rate of progress reasonable coverage of the country with plans will be achieved by about the end of next year. The department will discuss the matter further with the local authorities and industry, including the question of expediting completion of these plans, and of course bearing in mind Lord Gregson's remarks today and also those of my noble friend Lady Platt.

I turn now to two participants in the waste disposal industry, the producers of waste and the handlers of waste. The committee has recommended that all producers of hazardous waste should have to register with their disposal authority, that they should identify the person within the company responsible for hazardous waste management and should make a quarterly return on the disposal of their hazardous waste to the WDA. A similar proposal is made for the handlers of hazardous waste. The committee recommends that

"All professional handlers of hazardous waste should have to be licensed by their waste disposal authorities".

The aim of this recommendation is to tighten up on the so-called "cowboys" of the waste disposal trade. These are people who contravene the law, for example, by dumping waste on unlicensed sites. These proposals would represent a significant additional element of control and their introduction would mean an extra burden on public funds to administer, plus additional costs for the private sector to comply with them. The Government are not announcing a conclusion on them today. There will he consultation with all concerned before we do.

I think that both the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, raised the point of penalties for fly-tipping. Perhaps I should say a word on that. We are sympathetic to this point but penalties perhaps are not the whole answer. Already the worst offence carried the possibility of an unlimited fine and a period of imprisonment. There are three other strands to ensure that the disincentives are as strong as they can be. The first is the nature of a defence. Is it arrestable? Is there a requirement to give names and addresses, et cetera? The Home Office is looking at this generally in its consideration of the report on criminal procedure.

The second is policing and the willingness of witnesses to lay information. There is also scope for improvements here, and I do not deny that it is not always easy to achieve results. The third point is the nature of a legitimate option. It must be as simple and flexible as possible, and while economics must not override environmental considerations, costs must be kept down by avoiding the burdensome requirements of the perfect system which will simply encourage abuse. A strengthening of the disincentive in all four areas is what we shall be aiming to achieve in responding to this report.

I have endeavoured today to cover what the Government consider to be the main recommendations in the report of the Select Committee, and I have set out the initial response which I hope is indicative of the Government's determination to build the current system of control into a more comprehensive vehicle for ensuring that the United Kingdom is able to deal effectively with its disposal needs as they develop. The House will understand that I have not discussed each of the many recommendations, but I hope it is very clear that in the discussions to come we shall be seeking ways and means to implement most of them.

Of the 34 conclusions the Government are able to agree unreservedly with 19 of them, in part with eight of them, and four will be the subject of further consideration and consultation. For anybody whose arithmetic is quick, even on the three remaining ones the Government are able to say that they disagree with it today but that that disagreement is qualified. While formal regional authorities are not accepted, the principle behind the recommendation certainly is. Whereas we do not yet feel it is time to implement Section 1 of the Control of Pollution Act, as I have described, we have it in mind. And Recommendation 33 is concerned with a possible need in the future to protect specialist disposal facilities through intervention in the market. It is couched in tentative terms. We must therefore wait for the results of our other work, especially on the economic side.

My noble friend Lord Ridley produced a point about bonds. This is a complex subject although the idea has its attractions. It has to he considered in the context of ensuring proper operations and monitoring responsibilities after a site is closed. It is relevant to the storage of waste, particularly of imported waste. It is another of the economic and financial matters that need careful examination. It may be of interest to the House to know that something called environmental impairment insurance is available in this country already.

Remarks were made about Pitsea. The committee of course heard a great deal of evidence about it, and I gather also visited the site. The report conies to two conclusions. That it was responsibly operated with due regard to public concern and safety; that there was cause for concern at the quantity and proportion of the national hazardous waste arising disposed of at Pitsea. The Government consider that the second conclusion has some validity in general terms. There is scope for endless argument about the precise amounts of waste that can be taken at a suitable site, constrained of course by the site's capacity and judgments about the optimum operating life and other factors such as traffic on the local roads.

The licensing system and planning requirements already provide for these questions to be resolved at county level. As to Pitsea itself, I understand that the latest figures from the company indicate that it is only taking about 100,000 tonnes of so-called hazardous waste, which is under half its licensed rate.

My noble friend Lord Newell produced the subject of Woodham. The Government are aware of the complaints about the Woodham site from its own work and from evidence provided to the committee. My department provided advice on the operational problems in recent years, and the operation has, I understand, been virtually completed. However, there are matters outstanding relating to the restoration conditions which prevent me from commenting further in detail.

The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, gave me notice that he was going to raise the question of the Willow Tree Lane estate, although he did not tell me that he was going to talk about missiles and atoms as well, so I hope he will forgive me if I stick to the site itself. He also called that delightful place the Ealing Borough Council the queen of the suburbs, but I feel as a Lord in Waiting and a resident of a Royal borough that I might call that slightly lèse-majesté.

Contamination problems at Willow Tree Lane estate: the Department of the Environment was consulted in 1976 on the contamination found then at the Willow Tree site. At that time the conclusion was that the Ealing site could not be described as seriously polluted, and the remedial measures being proposed were considered appropriate and adequate. I am using these words. I know that the noble Lord used "acceptable". I am not quibbling. The Government are taking the current concern over the site very seriously. We are aware of the steps Ealing Borough Council are taking to establish the extent and nature of the pollution, and officials of the Department of the Environment are ready to help by providing professional advice at any time.

We are also aware of Harwell's recent investigations carried out for Ealing, and the results of the tests so far have confirmed that there is no significant contamination of the soil. We shall of course study too the remarks of the noble Lord this evening which he has so cogently expressed. My remarks today are not, therefore, a complete Government response to the report, although I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, will find encouragement in my speech. But it is clear that this is an authoritative report which marks a new stage in the development of the United Kingdom disposal policy and practice. I am sure that the influence of the report will he felt in future environmental protection work, and in legislation—for instance, on charging for disposal licences which the Government are already committed to—the local and central administration of controls, and the research effort that underpins the system. That influence will not be limited to hazardous waste alone, for reasons which the committee itself noted. The Government will therefore be promoting a series of steps in response to the report.

We shall need to work out the implications of each step, consult with those concerned, and consider in what way we can best move forward. Some steps will call for a technical publication, usually in the series of waste management papers. Some will call for regulations under the powers we have in the Control of Pollution Act. Some may have to await an opportunity for new primary legislation. In the context of a White Paper, it is too soon for the Government to commit themselves, and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, will agree that, if progress is good, a White Paper could be counter-productive.

From all the remarks I have made, I hope noble Lords will see that there is no intention on the part of the Government to let the report lie on the shelf. Indeed, when a matter of this sort comes to your Lordships' House, that moves the Government to action. In all steps that are taken in the Department of the Environment, we shall often find ourselves returning to the report; I am told that the copies of it in the department are already well read, and I am sure that the Official Report of today's debate will be similarly studied.

The constructive speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, and the forthright and authoritative speeches—if there was perhaps a slight ring of dissension—of the noble Lords, Lord Darling and Lord Lucas, will be read with interest, along with the views put forward by my noble friend Lord Mottistone. We are also happy to have general support from the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, and the Association of County Councils. I apologise for keeping the House so long, hut this has been a very good debate and I would end as I started, by saying that the Government welcome the report and this constructive debate today.

My Lords, it would be easy to start another debate in the light of the many points that have been raised, but I have no intention of doing so. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part. This has been a wide-ranging, helpful and authoritative debate; in fact, this has been your Lordships' House at its best, and that is an important aspect which is not fully understood by the general public.

I wish also to congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, on his maiden speech. In view of some of the technical problems we discovered from our inquiries, I would only comment that if all the paper from the Houses of Parliament was sent to the Essex site, I am afraid there would be disaster on the way. The GLC dispatch their domestic and commercial waste down the river in open barges, the result of which noble Lords will have seen in the newspapers; it spreads along the banks of the Thames on its way down. When it arrives at Pitsea, it is lifted out of the open barges by grabs and is distributed all over the Basildon area. I would suggest to the noble Viscount, therefore, that he could be encouraging further degradation of the environment in that area by shipping paper there from this House. We have in the report made a comment on the point, criticising the GLC for this archaic method of shipping waste around the country. Nevertheless, he made an amusing and helpful contribution.

I would only say in closing that I hope that on this occasion the Government will seriously consider publishing a White Paper because it would be a useful reply to your Lordships' Select Committee and would give the opportunity for even further examination of the problems in this extremely important area.

rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will review the functions and accountability of internal drainage boards and consider what legislation is required to ensure objective assessment of their drainage proposals.

My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Buxton, started his speech I felt we could live side by side peacefully. When he had finished, I was not quite so sure; but I am certain that we should try very hard to do so. As a member of an internal drainage board I can invite him to attend any of our meetings, just like any member of the public. He can scrutinise any of our books, and can take them away so far as I am concerned. But I would emphasise that there is nothing undercover.

On these boards—and I have served on one for a considerable time—you get somebody who is a keen angler, and he thinks that the whole thing is in aid of fish. Then you get somebody else who is a farmer, who is at the top end of the district and who suffers from drought. He thinks that irrigation is the main object of the board. Or, again, as the noble Lord, Lord Buxton, mentioned, there are those who think that environmental matters are not only the chief function but are the most important aspect on which emphasis should be placed. They are all wrong. The emphasis should be placed on getting rid of surplus water, so that plants can achieve their maximum potential. That is where they should place the emphasis. These other matters should he given their due consideration, as one neighbour would give to another. But, make no mistake, that is where the emphasis should lie if you do not wish ever to suffer hunger or starvation.

Going on further, I should like to give an example of where the Council of Nature Conservancy and an internal drainage board can co-operate. There is a nature reserve in the Fens called Woodwalton, the home of the great copper and the fen violet. The great copper is dependent on a certain dock, and that, in turn, is dependent on a high water table. The two bodies put their heads together, and they raised the water level by over two feet. They are surrounded by some of the richest land in the country, and there was a great danger, of course, that if proper provision was not made that would suffer. But by co-operation this was prevented. And how?—by clay coring the whole of the boundary banks and by raising the freeboard. In so doing they dug the clay and created two meres. This was a very satisfactory solution. I would say that it could he and is the norm. If the noble Lord has suffered, then that is the exception and he is unfortunate; and there are other unfortunates in this world.

I will not keep your Lordships long. I hope I have not been too informative but there are just one or two points. The internal draining hoard is the place where those who eventually take a prominent part in water conservation and land draining learn their jobs. The Ministry have often expressed appreciation of the cooperation between the Association of Drainage Authorities and themselves. T believe the noble Lord and I, even if we have had the occasional "up and downer", would resolve our difficulties.

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Buxton did the House, and, I think, the whole community, a service by putting down this Unstarred Question. Like him, I am a farmer and landowner and certainly have applied for and received drainage grants. Last year, I drained five acres of land which was very satisfactorily done—and I say, "Thank you, dear taxpayer" for the grant.

I should like to concentrate on two or perhaps three points: certainly the technical factors, land values and pollution. On the Surrey Weald near Gatwick Airport many of the fields were drained in the early years of the last century when corn prices were very high owing to the Napoleonic wars and there were large numbers of French prisoners of war. It was therefore economic to drain the fields because the French prisoners of war did not have to he paid. They used 2-inch clay pipes which are now going out of fashion and the land drainage they put in is still working. Nowadays the common agricultural policy takes the place of the Emperor Napoleon and Ministry of Agriculture grants take the place of the French prisoners who were taken at Trafalgar and Salamanca.

Nowadays we use large machinery like High Macs for ditching. The High Mac has a bucket on it which lifts one ton or a yard of clay at a time. It does this and digs it out of the ground, batters the ditch and puts the spoil on to the side in about one minute. As my noble friend Lord Buxton said, there are now new pipe-laying machines which set the levels with laser beams. This was not possible 25 years ago. The new plastic pipes now in existence do not have to be handled in the same way as the old clay pipes. They come on rolls and they do not slip apart—which the clay ones do—with a slight land subsidence. The new Archimedean screw pump shifts water at a rate which was inconceivable in 1948. The large four-wheeled drive tractor pulls a heavy load of chippings necessary to overfill the drainage pipes fast and efficiently. This technical advance underlies the real fall in the price of drainage in recent years. This is an excellent thing. Nobody is criticising that but what one does criticise, as my noble friend Lord Buxton has said, are the independent drainage boards who, I think, have got a little out of control.

I come now to land values. I checked on land values this afternoon with a land agent in Norfolk who is connected with some of the land drainage schemes. I will not name him. He was obviously slightly on the defensive. He told me that no reclaimed, improved Broadland marsh land has been sold recently. But (and this is an independent drainage board figure) the value of land for which they hoped to have a gross margin of £298 per hectare must be in the region of £1,900 to £2,200 per acre. Those are conservative estimates. The present gross margin for unimproved grazing marsh (again an IDB figure) is £67 per acre. This Norfolk agent suggested that the values would be between £800 and £1,700 an acre. The £1,700 an acre was an exceptional case sold last year. Since then there has been a slight fall in land values. I have heard from other sources the figure of £500 an acre mentioned for these land values.

These increases are solely due to public money. Of course, I do not suggest that improvement grants must not allow private gain. That, in a way, is their object and their necessity. Grants for capital buildings, for factories and housing and other subsidies, all end up ultimately, and should do so, as private gain. All I am saying is that when proposals that have this effect are acted upon they should he subject to real public scrutiny and that furthermore the reasons should be substantial and very visible for that improvement and that public gain.

At the moment too many people's views are ignored. For instance, the Yorkshire Water Authority's officials privately admitted that they rushed through the Barnsley Tidal Barrage Order so as to avoid the public ruckus over another of the schemes to flood Farndale. This is the English habit of trying to govern in secrecy. It is something to which all Governments of all parties are prone. It is much easier not to have boring people like me trying to point out the errors of their ways. It is a matter of anything for a quiet life. That is not democracy. Democracy is a matter of plans and projects publicly and visibly accountable.

In this tidal barrage scheme, no one studied the environmental aspects beforehand. The Ouse and Derwent Internal Drainage Board took up an offer of the Yorkshire Water authority for money for a drainage pilot scheme but refused to allow the cost benefit analysis to be seen by the Nature Conservancy Council or the Yorkshire Naturalists' Trust. The NCC is a Quango and so is the internal drainage board. They seem to regard each other as did Marlborough and Boufflers. They treat each other with the courtesy due to a noble enemy. That is wrong. They are all public servants.

Pollution is best illustrated by what has happened at Horsey Mere. This matter I raised earlier in a Question in this House. The Happisburgh to Winterton Internal Drainage Board drained Horsey Mere by deep dyking. This released sulphuric acid and ferric hydroxide into the stream, killing and choking aquatic life. The Smallburgh IDB, who incidentally entered Hickling Broad without notifying its owner, the Norfolk Naturalist Trust, has for the past 18 months discharged the same lethal ochre into Martham Broad, a site worthy of special protection under the international Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. Incidentally, both IDBs have the same clerk. This is a release of ochre into the stream according to the Broads authority. This definition is important because I received a letter from my noble friend Lord Avon after I raised this point at Question Time in July. The water authority, who are the parent body of the IDB concerned, thinks:

"That to succeed in a prosecution it would not be sufficient to show that there had been a pollution of the stream to which the discharge is made, but that it must be proved that the matter was itself poisonous, noxious or polluting before the point of discharge".

The Broads authority have shown that it is discharged into the stream and it is known by practically every third-form science student that sulphuric acid and ferric hydroxide is not something you give to your great-aunt for tea.

The Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act 1951, Section 22, states:

"(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, a person commits an offence punishable under this section—

(a) if he causes or knowingly permits to enter a stream any poisonous, noxious or polluting matter''.

The IDBs concerned caused the release of ferric hydroxide into the stream. That is unanswerably true. Having read Lord Avon's letter, and having re-read the Act, I can see no reason to believe that both the Small-burgh and the Happisburgh to Winterton IDBs have committed an offence. I think that the water authority's advice to my noble friend should be looked at again and referred back to them for further consideration.

For all these reasons and above all to protect the honourable and decent people on the IDBs—and they are as my noble friend Lord Buxton said honourable, decent men doing a public duty to the best of their ability, but I think their constitution and their methods and their composition are in the light of modern needs archaic—I would ask Her Majesty's Government to look again at this constitution, these methods and this composition.

The details of the Halvergate proposals are well known to my noble friend Lord Ferrers who is to answer tonight. The arguments have been expressed forcefully by all sides. At Halvergate I think it would be better either to do no improved drainage or to drain it all. The compromise would be expensive and unsatisfactory. Of course, I prefer the pumps to be replaced by pumps of similar capacity.

Now it looks as if the Broads authority is not happy on the so-called compromise proposals. Surely there must be a public inquiry. This would be of enormous help in a general look at the IDBs, their function and composition. We can get ourselves out of this muddle. I sincerely hope that my noble friend will take this advice which is given to him in the friendliest possible way.

My Lords, I think that all noble Lords will agree that internal drainage boards have an important job to do and that they do it efficiently. If this job was not done some of our most productive land would revert to marsh and would result in a loss of wealth both to the farmer and indeed to the nation. The result would be indirectly more unemployment. Your Lordships may not all agree with me but I believe that unemployment is our nation's worst evil and I am sorry to say that I would sacrifice a bird or two for a job or two. My noble friends Lord Buxton and Lord Onslow called attention in their speeches to modern methods of drainage and farming. As a result, the countryside can he changed dramatically overnight and things now are different than they were. So we should look at things again and maybe call a halt.

Men have been saying that since before the spinning jenny. Such a philosophy I do not think has done us a great deal of good or is viable. However, if we can accommodate both jobs and birds, I would be happier. I put it to your Lordships that, although internal drainage boards put their duty to maintain and indeed improve good agricultural land as their top priority, they are conservation-minded and indeed have to be under our new Act, the Wildlife and Countryside Act, which demands that they further conserve as opposed to have regard for conservation.

My noble friend Lord Buxton said that IDBs were not responsible to anyone. I hope that my noble friend Lord Ferrers will confirm that they are—they are responsible to their ratepayers; they are responsible to the water authority under Section 1 of the Land Drainage Act; and, indeed, they are responsible to the Ministry of Agriculture.

The noble Lord also brought up the question of how much farmers pay as opposed to others. My figures show—and no doubt my noble friend Lord Ferrers has the same figures—that on average the farmers pay 64 per cent. of all the costs. My noble friend quoted one particular case of only 7 per cent. being paid by the farmers. If he looks at that particular case—if it is the same one as I have considered—there were two power stations and a factory that were causing quite considerable drainage problems. So the fact that there was quite a large area of land did not reflect the true position on that particular site. I would remind your Lordships that it is 64 per cent. on average, if you can believe an average.

Both my noble friends Lord Buxton and Lord Onslow seemed to have tremendous faith in economists, ecologists and bureaucracy in general. That somewhat surprised me coming from them. If one queries, as did my noble friend Lord Onslow, the preponderance of farmers on internal drainage boards, I would remind your Lordships that under Section 81 of the Land Drainage Act the local authority has the opportunity to have members on those boards. Sadly, I am told that they are inclined not to exercise this right. The solution lies in the hands of the local authority to take this responsibility seriously and I am sure that everybody would welcome such representation.

There is also the new code of practice which we discussed during the passing of the Wildlife and Countryside Act. I hope that my noble friend Lord Ferrers will be able to say a word or two about that. Countryside responsibility has been discussed ad nauseam over the past 12 months by your Lordships, as the noble Lord, Lord Buxton, stated. One view is that farmers are destroyers of all that is beautiful in the country, and the other is that we very much care for where we work. If noble Lords subscribe to the first view, I suggest that the only remedy is to get rid of us all and substitute cardboard cows as I notice they have done at Milton Keynes.

Needless to say, I subscribe to the second view, and in evidence I submit the British countryside. This question has been fuelled by the recent passing of the Wildlife and Countryside Act. May I say that there are quite a few parts of that Act that do not please the farming community; but both major farming organisations are pledged and are doing everything to make it work. I hope and believe that I carry noble Lords with me in saying that such an attitude is correct. All of us who are involved with the countryside should try to stop turning our ploughshares into swords, which the noble Lord, Lord Buxton, has done admirably the other way, and give the countryside, and in particular the internal drainage boards, the space to work out their new responsibilities—and they have new responsibilities—under this Act.

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, has said, we are discussing the activities of internal drainage boards following very shortly upon the passing of the Wildlife and Countryside Act and the imposition of new duties on 1DBs. Like him, I very much hope that the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, will be able to say something about that when he comes to reply. I think it is fair to say that the Act, partly because of the amendments that were very narrowly defeated in your Lordships' House and also because of those which were carried in your Lordships' House but not in another place, leaves a great deal of uncertainty regarding questions of interpretation and attitude and, above all, probably of resources being made available by the Government which are going to be crucial as to whether, when the Act is implemented, it is effective or not. Nowhere is that current uncertainty clearer than when we come to look at the actions of IDBs.

Perhaps before going on to IDBs I may take up one point which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley. It is not fair or true of him to say that there are two attitudes towards farmers—either that they are responsible for destroying everything or, alternatively, that they are the true conservationists (I am paraphrasing roughly what he said). As he knows, the overwhelming majority of those of us who took part in the debates on the Wildlife and Countryside Bill took the view that farmers, by their actions, have been responsible for a great deal of destruction but very often they have done that unwillingly. They would much have preferred to take different courses of action were it not for the system in which they are forced to operate. We took on the real culprits as the Ministry of Agriculture and its policies and those of successive Governments towards the agricultural industry. That is also true, and it has also been clear from remarks made by various noble Lords about the actions of internal drainage boards. Nobody is suggesting that the members of these boards are villians setting about the destruction of the countryside; but it is also clear that the framework within which, very often, the Ministry of Agriculture forces them to operate makes them destroy the countryside.

Perhaps I may turn first to the question of who pays the rates. This was something which was taken up in our debates on the Wildlife and Countryside Bill, and the noble Earl, Lord Avon, wrote to me about it. First, the case of the IDB where farmers were contributing about 7 per cent. and which may have a factory or power station on its land is by no means unique. The noble Earl has told me that about 6 per cent. of IDBs are in that position, and their farmers contribute less than 10 per cent. of the total rates. According to the figures I have been given, in about 33 per cent. of all IDBs farmers pay one half, or less, of all the rates. I do not know whether my figures tie up with those of the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, but, according to the Government, in about one-third of the IDBs farmers pay half or less than half of the rates. That would be all right if in a third of the IDBs farmers made up a half or less than half of the membership, but of course they do not. Even if we took the figures of the noble Lord, Lord Stanley—I think he said 64 or 67 per cent. roughly of the total rate bill was paid by farmers—if they represented that proportion of the total membership of IDBs it would be difficult to complain, but of course they do not. They make up very nearly, if not totally, 100 per cent. of the membership. That is where the problem is. There is a great contribution of finance to IDBs by the general public, with absolutely no representation on the internal drainage boards which are spending that money. I agree with the noble Lord that there ought to be local authority representation on them, and I shall refer to that later when I ask the Government what they intend to do as a result of this debate.

Incidentally, I do not think that that would be nearly enough. Representation on IDBs, I think, ought to be either entirely open and democratic or be via a local authority which is itself elected by the whole community or, as a very minimum, in proportion to the percentage of the rates which farmers and the rest of the community pay; so that on some IDBs farmers would have 7 per cent. of the seats and the local authority or the general public would have the other 93 per cent.

Underlying a lot of the problems faced by IDBs in some of the particular cases which have been quoted is the rationale which MAFF imposes on them. What is happening in a number of areas of the country is that existing drainage pumps are becoming out of date, obsolete and in need of replacement. The IDBs can only get the substantial grants which are available from the Government if they can meet the economic criteria which MAFF itself has to face when it discusses its money with the Treasury. That means that the IDB has to convince MAFF that it will get an economic return on its investment. That means it is impossible for most IDBs to look simply to replace pumps with others of the same capacity. There is no additional economic return from that and MAFF will not grant-aid it. The IDBs have to meet the whole cost. They are not prepared to do that, particularly when it is very simple—especially, as the noble Lord, Lord Buxton, said, the figures are very rarely subjected to public scrutiny—for the IDB to pump up the capacity of the pump a bit and say: "This is going to lead to such and such a degree of agricultural improvement and of increased return to the nation in the form of increased food production, and therefore, oh MAFF, give us a grant"—which they do, of course.

The consequence is that areas which have not previously been capable of being converted to arable are, and a huge loss of wildlife and landscape amenity interest takes place. I think that is almost entirely because of the conditions under which MAFF grant-aid internal drainage boards, and I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Buxton, has said, that the replacement of existing pump systems should be grant-aided by MAFF. If that happened I think the internal drainage boards would not be under the scrutiny which no doubt many of them find unpleasant at the moment.

Just to finish that point, I said that very few cases were subject to public scrutiny. Of course the odd one about land drainage proposals has been, and the Ribble estuary is the best-known example. My own feeling is that the whole approach adopted by the farming interests and the TDB in the case of the Halvergate Marshes has been a desperate attempt to avoid such public scrutiny, because I very much doubt whether the scheme really would stand up to an independent economic analysis. This is very embarrassing for the Ministry of Agriculture, which only gets its money from the Treasury on that basis. It seems to me, as noble Lords have said, that the strategy committee, at least of the Broads authority, have decided that they are not in favour of index-linking the com pensation that is to be paid at Halvergate, and the whole issue has become extremely muddled and confused—not least because new legislation has come on to the statute book while the whole so-called compromise which would have led, from a conservation point of view, to the destruction of most of the area has been patched up by those working locally.

It seems to me that the only reasonable thing for anybody involved now to be in favour of is a public inquiry so that the whole thing can be thrashed out openly and sensibly. The only serious argument I have heard against that, apart from the fact that the IDB would lose, is the extra delay that would be caused to the landowners and farmers involved. The implication is that what would be delayed is the new drainage. Of course that is not the case. What the public inquiry is investigating is whether public money should be spent on the scheme, and that would be delayed while the public inquiry was held. There is still nothing over most of the area of Halvergate to stop landowners and farmers doing what they will with their own money to the area. It is not subjected to any statutory designation, except for a small part of an SSSI which is, anyhow, excluded from the scheme. All that would be delayed by a public inquiry is the decision of whether or not to spend taxpayers' money. I think, given the confusion, the difficulty and the change in the law since the Wildlife and Countryside Act came on to the statute book, that would be a sensible course to take. I hope the noble Earl will be able to tell us that is one the Government will seriously consider once the Broads authority have endorsed, as many of us hope they will, the decision taken by their strategy committee.

I should also like to say a word about Horsey Mere, Martham Broad, which the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, in particular, mentioned. I had a copy of the letter which he was sent on 30th October, by the noble Earl, Lord Avon, when both he and a number of others of us at Question Time in the House questioned whether the IDB was, in fact, in breach of the law and should be sued by the Anglian Water Authority for breaching the Control of Pollution Act. In part of that letter, the noble Earl said that the Anglian Water Authority's

"engineers and scientists are well aware of local concern and, as you will know, measures are being taken to minimise any cause for complaint by local people and conservationists. In fact they "—

that is, the Anglian Water Authority—

"believe that any attempt to undertake a prosecution could be counter-productive by undermining their credibility with the IDB, if it were to fail on insufficient grounds".

I believe that the Anglian Water Authority has taken a responsible attitude with rather a difficult IDB in this case. Unfortunately, since that letter was written, when a compromise was, indeed, agreed, the IDB have up-ended it. The compromise involved a new positioning for the new pump and a new dyke being dug, so that the water which is causing the problem could go downstream of the broad into the River Thurn. The repositioning of the pump would have cost an extra £11,500, half of which the Ministry of Agriculture agreed to pay, and half of which the Nature Conservancy Council and the Broads Authority would have paid. The extra dyke would have been paid for by the Anglian Water Authority who, being very statesmanlike and reasonable, had adopted it as a mainwater course. That would have been paid for 72 per cent. by the Ministry of Agriculture in grant aid, and 28 per cent. by conservationists; in practice, probably, the Norfolk Naturalists' Trust.

What has thrown all this reasonable compromise up in the air is that the IDB have very recently turned round and said that they want conservation interests to meet the extra annual maintenance costs. These have not been specified, except for the extra £600 which they say would be spent on the maintenance of the road, extra man-hours visiting the second pump and various other things. There are a number of other items which are not enumerated, including the payment of extra wayleave to the landowner whose land is benefiting from the whole new drainage scheme, in any event, and the extra electricity to run the pump—again, not itemised.

That is an example of just how irresponsible an internal drainage board is capable of being, even when its parent authority, the Anglian Water Authority, has been doing its best with, obviously, a good deal of encouragement from the Government, to reach a reasonable compromise with conservation interests. I hope that the noble Earl, if he cannot answer tonight—I have not given him notice of this—will, at least, be able to write to me and say that the Government are doing something to get this internal drainage board back into line.

I should like to come to a conclusion, because I know that many noble Lords have been in the House a long time waiting for this debate. I hope that the Government will be issuing a circular to internal drainage boards, as a result of the new duties imposed on them by the Wildlife and Countryside Act. I think it is unlikely, although I hope I shall be proved wrong by the noble Earl, that the Government are prepared to undertake a major review of the workings of internal drainage boards and, in particular, of the representation of those who pay for their work.

But even if they will not do that, as the noble Lord, Lord Buxton, has asked them, I hope they will consider issuing a circular which will say something about the local authority representation on IDBs, which will clearly represent a minor improvement within the existing framework. I hope they will ensure that IDBs have available to them conservation advice, and that this will be made an obligation on IDBs in the circular.

It would be an improvement, incidentally, if IDBs were prepared to ensure that, where a conservation landowner owned land within their area of operation, that conservation organisation was voted on to the IDB. My information is that conservation bodies, many of whom are very large landowners, have, in practice, found it impossible to get representation on IDBs, although every other local landowner and farmer in the district appears to find very little difficulty in that.

I hope that such a circular would, as the noble Lord, Lord Buxton, suggested, make it an obligation on IDBs to warn owners and occupiers before they enter on to land. Even routine maintenance works can now be extremely disruptive and destructive of conservation interests and, indeed, can involve individual landowners—as I know from personal experience—in considerable expense. Very large amounts of spoil can be dumped on one's land, without any warning or notice being given, and if one is farming properly it is necessary to work all that spoil down and reseed it with grass, unless one wants to be landed with a large amount of thistles and ragworms.

I hope that such a circular could make clear to IDBs that, as well as their duties to consult the NCC about operations which are likely to damage SSSIs, they should also consult the NCC about routine maintenance works on SSSIs, for the kind of reasons I have suggested. And, of course, the circular should draw the strongest possible attention to the new duties placed on IDBs under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.

These problems which we have been discussing this evening, associated with land drainage, are not by any means the only ones. I am aware that we have been talking a lot about the Broads. On the other side of Norfolk, there are at least two current proposals for embankments on the Wash and for a major land drainage scheme on the Upper Wensum—one of the few rivers in Norfolk that still have otters on it. That one is promoted by the Anglian Water Authority. The embankments on the Wash are, on the whole, proposed by local landowners, which would also he extremely serious.

We have been concentrating on one part of land drainage, but I believe that the general problem of needing to persuade MAFF—because this is what MAFF gets its money as a result of—that a particular scheme will produce an economic return lies at the heart of a lot of these problems. I believe that that is, in the long-term, not in the interests of the farming community, because in the long-term MAFF are going to get caught more and more frequently with their pants down at public inquiries, where their cost-benefit analyses simply do not stand up to independent scrutiny and, in the long run, grant aid to the whole of the farming industry will be put in jeopardy. I very much hope that we can persuade MAFF to alter course before that happens.

My Lords, we have certainly had a most interesting debate on the subject of internal drainage boards. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Buxton for having introduced this debate, because this is a subject which does not often find the light of day and yet it is one which is very important. I could not help being a little amused because, when he started off, I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord de Ramsey, who said that he felt he could go along with him. But by the time my noble friend had come to the end of his speech, I thought he had virtually put a torpedo right through the internal drainage boards, and he then said, in that charming way of his, "Of course, there is little left to argue about. It is merely a question of what has to be done". At the end of his speech, I thought there was a great deal to argue about. He said that the boards are undemocratic, and the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, followed along in the same tune, asking "Who are the culprits? MAFF, the Ministry of Agriculture, forces the IDBs to do things which they do not wish to do and they destroy the countryside. "

I want to start with one basic philosophy, that it is wrong to say that it is wrong to drain. I reject the premise that by improving land you are necessarily destroying the countryside. I reject the philosophy that it is shaming to take action which encourages food production in a country which produces only 70 per cent. of the food which we could grow, and in a world which is having its population increased by 50 per cent. in 30 years. Therefore, on those counts, I reject the philosophy that it is bad to drain or that by improving you are in fact destroying. Having said that, I entirely accept that work must be done and care must be taken, by draining and improving the countryside, not to destroy that which ought to be conserved.

But there is a feeling nowadays that if you improve something you arc not improving it; you are doing a disservice to the community. It ought to be made clear that it is not a disservice to encourage food production. If one looks back to the days of 1927, the Royal Commission said some very pertinent words:

"Originally the lowlands were in many cases swamps. The ingenuity of the lowlander has reclaimed them, and from being vast, unhealthy wastes they have in many instances been converted into some of the richest and most valuable lands in the Kingdom".

That is something which we ought to take pride in and which we should not regret or he ashamed of.

May I say one thing about Halvergate. My noble friend Lord Buxton has repeated his oft-praised tune that there should be a public inquiry. That tune was followed by my noble friend Lord Onslow, and chimed in with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Melchett. There is a problem at Halveragte. There are statutory bodies. There is the Broads Authority, the internal drainage boards, the Countryside Commission, all of which have been set up by Parliament to deal with problems on the ground when they occur. When my noble friends say, "Will the Minister hold a public inquiry?" I tell them that it would be churlish of the Minister to hold a public inquiry before these bodies have even decided whether or not they can come to an agreement. The first thing to do is to let the people on the ground try to come to an agreement. That is what my right honourable friend wants to do. I would go further and say that there is no point in having these bodies if my right honourable friend is obliged to hold a public inquiry before they have even pontificated and said what they think.

My Lords, does that mean that if they do not come to an agreement he will recommend that there should be a public inquiry?

My Lords, it does not mean that. It means exactly what I said: that both my right honourable friend and I want the bodies on the ground to come to an agreement if that is possible. If that is not possible we are then involved in a new position. But I very much hope that agreement will be possible. The land for which the internal drainage boards are now responsible and which, as my noble friend Lord Buxton has pointed out, contain same valuable conservation sites is in its present condition simply because of the efforts of the boards and their predecessors. These are not natural landscapes or habitats. In most cases they represent areas which have been reclaimed for agricultural purposes. The main function of the board and the board members is to decide what work should be done on the drainage system during the next year, how much it should spend and therefore what the drainage rates should be. I suggest that it would be quite unreasonable for these decisions to be taken by members who are not themselves ratepayers, or who have not been nominated by ratepayers.

I accept that contested elections may not be held by some boards. The point, however, is that the statutory procedure is laid down and must be followed. Each elected member holds office for three years. At the end of that period the clerk must advertise the vacancies and call for nominations. Any ratepayer who owns or occupies property with a rateable value of more than £30, or who owns four hectares of land or occupies eight hectares in the district may stand for election or may nominate somebody else to stand. If only sufficient nominations are received to fill the required number of vacancies there is no need for an election. I see nothing wrong with that. If the same board members are re-elected time after time without challenge one is entitled to assume that the ratepayers are content with their administration. For my noble friend Lord Buxton to say that that is undemocratic is, with respect, nonsense. The system is there which makes it democratic. If people do not choose to avail themselves of that system, that is their fault.

The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, referred to the membership of internal drainage boards. Where an internal drainage board has an agreement with a local authority whereby the local authority pays the drainage rates on behalf of the owners of urban property, the local authority is entitled to up to two-fifths of the seats on the board. But it is up to the local authority to enter into such an agreement.

Like any other public body, drainage boards are not only accountable to their electors or ratepayers. They are accountable to the district auditor, in that their financial accounts are examined by him annually. They are also accountable to the responsible Minister for many of their functions—the bylaws, the differential rating orders and so on—and they have to submit an abbreviated account to the Ministry every year. They are accountable to individual landowners and tenants when they want to enter on to their land to carry out work on the drainage system. I am bound not to agree with my noble friend if he says that these boards are not accountable.

My noble friend Lord Buxton said that internal drainage boards could enter land without the permission or the knowledge of the owner. It is true that, like many public authorities, internal drainage boards have the right to enter land in order to carry out their functions, but perhaps I could tell him that Section 39 (3) of the Land Drainage Act 1976 says:

"Except in an emergency, admission to any land shall not be demanded as of right under this section, unless notice in writing of the intended entry has been given to the occupier and, if the land is used for residential purposes or the demand is for admission with heavy equipment, has been given not less than seven days before the demand is made".

My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Earl could take steps to remind internal drainage boards of that section because my experience, and that of the Norfolk Naturalist Trust, is that that does not happen. The first one knows that works are taking place is when one finds one morning that a High Mac is scooping the mud out of the river.

My Lords, if that irritates the noble Lord, then he ought to take out a writ against his local drainage board. I daresay that then it would not happen again. What I think is behind the question of my noble friend Lord Onslow is that the boards are run by people who have a loaded interest—in other words, those who farm or own the land or who live in the area. In a sense, this is perfectly correct because it is the land which they own or farm which will be affected by the work of the internal drainage boards. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with that and with having a body elected from those whose property is to be affected.

What my noble friend did not quite say but which I think he insinuated was that others also are affected—that conservation, environmental or other interests are affected by the work of the drainage boards, even though they possess no legal right of tenure over the land, and that therefore they ought maybe to be represented on those bodies. But the lives of all of us are affected by the actions which others take and in which we have no specific rights or influence. One only has to look at those who come to London every day. They find that they are affected by the one-way streets and the office buildings. All these decisions are taken by a local authority which is elected by the ratepayers of the land affected.

The main criticism made by my noble friend Lord Buxton is about the way in which the activities of the drainage boards may have adverse effects on conservation. I should be the last to deny that there have been some instances where individual drainage boards have carried out work which has caused damage to important wildlife habitats. But when one considers that there are no fewer than 263 internal drainage boards in England and Wales which cover 3 million acres of land, it is remarkable that the number of cases which have evoked public controversy over the last five years in which internal drainage boards have been involved is so small that they can almost be counted on the fingers of one hand. It is perfectly true, as my noble friend Lord Buxton said, that vast machines can do in a matter of days what previously it would have taken men many weeks to do. That is the advantage, or may be the price of progress. Anybody who wields this capability of altering the landscape without sensitivity invokes, quite understandably, the wrath and indeed the fear of others. I say "fear" because one detects, especially from these figures which I have just given, not so much concern that a lot of damage has been done but a fear that the advance of technology may make progress the master of man and not his servant.

This fear does not relate only to internal drainage boards; it relates to all facets of life where people feel: Where is this new technology taking us? Indeed, I would even suggest that that fear is what lies behind the campaign for nuclear disarmament. It is not a fear of what has been done; it is a fear of what might be done. The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, made this fear quite plain and I sympathise with him in regard to that point. I do not think that that in itself is a justification for altering the nature of the drainage boards, although it may well be a justification for the drainage boards to take even greater care over what they do.

My noble friend, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, and my noble friend Lord Onslow, as well, said that much of the internal drainage boards' expenditure is in the form of public funds, and that therefore a greater control should be exercised over the use of those funds. While I acknowledge my noble friend's reasoning, I do not agree with it. The whole nature of grants, whether they are grants to agriculture, to industry or to the regions is to assist work and to stimulate it. Of course it is the duty of Ministers to sanction this expenditure of public funds, to ensure that they are spent wisely and prudently. This the Minister does because a grant is not an automatic entitlement; it is subject to the approval of the Minister.

My noble friend said that grants for damage schemes had escalated since 1978. He referred, I think, to the "Ministry millions". If I may say so, without rebuking my noble friend, I thought that was an extravagant use of language. He asked me how many schemes have been made over a million pounds. Only one scheme in recent years has been of the order of over a million pounds. Of course, the total amount of grants goes up year by year because of inflation, but in real terms there has been virtually no change in the payments to drainage boards for at least 10 years. When the actual payments are expressed in terms of 1981 cash it can be seen that they have averaged £3 million a year during this period. In the financial year ending March 1972 the adjusted value of the grant was £3¼ million and in the year ending March 1981 it was £2¾ million. The estimate for expenditure in 1982 is about the same level as this year; in other words a total of about £6 million, of which the grant will be about £3 million. As my noble friend Lord Buxton rightly said, the number of schemes has gone up but the total expenditure in real terms has not.

The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, referred to the Wildlife and Countryside Act and I believe this will greatly improve the position. The Nature Consercancy Council has not in the past notified the internal drainage boards of the existence of SSSIs and where damage has been caused to such a site it will often have been due to ignorance on the part of the drainage board rather than to anydeliberate lack of care for the environment. The Act will now bring drainage boards within the ambit of Section 22 of the Water Act 1973, which itself is amended and strenghtened. It will first require the drainage boards to exercise their functions in such a way as to further the interests of conservation and amenity, so long as that is consistent with the purposes of the Land Drainage Act of 1976. It will place upon drainage boards the obligation to consult the Nature Conservancy Council if any of their works or operations seem likely to damage an SSSI of which details have been notified to the drainage board. The officials of the Nature Conservancy Council are at this moment engaged on a special exercise with the help of my Ministry and the water authorities in order to identify those SSSIs which fall within, or are close to, internal drainage districts. When such sites are identified, notification will be sent to the clerk of the drainage board concerned, so when the exercise has been completed there should be no reason why internal drainage boards should unwittingly have caused damage to those sites.

In addition—this will please the noble Lord, Lord Melchett—my department and the Department of the Environment are drawing up notes for the guidance of the Nature Conservancy Council, the water authorities and then internal drainage boards in operating the consultation procedure which is required by the Act. These will then he sent to the organisations for comment so that within a few weeks I hope that every drainage board will be apprised of what is required of them under the Act.

Before any grant is paid on an internal drainage scheme, it is necessary to determine the benefits of it. This is a complex subject and I would not wish to go into too much detail. I will confine myself mostly to saying that the purpose of such an appraisal is to satisfy ourselves that there will be an adequate economic return on our investment, either in terms of the flood damage to property which will be avoided or by the way of increased production from the land. It is indeed a test of economic viability.

My noble friend Lord Buxton complained that these economic appraisals are not published—and I think the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, did, too. There are two reasons for this. First, the cost/benefit analysis which internal drainage boards, and indeed all drainage authorities, are required to submit are an integral part of their application for grant aid. The application also contains details of the scheme design and the estimated costs and so forth. The purpose of the application is to enable the Ministry or the Treasury to judge whether the scheme satisfies the requirements of technical and economic viability. That is a decision which they must make on behalf of the taxpayer. I do not believe that my noble friend could really be suggesting that all these applications—and we have over 200 of them per year—should be published for public debate. If so, one wonders why it is just drainage applications. Why not apply the same rule to all other applications from public bodies for Government grants? The problem would in fact be enormous.

The second reason for not publishing them is that the estimates of potential benefit are often based on information which is given confidentially by the farmers in the benefit areas and we should be in breach of that confidentiality if we were to publish all the data. But I can assure my noble friend that for every agricultural drainage scheme in which there are allegations that the Ministry has over-estimated the benefit there is an urban flood protection scheme where the ratepayers complain that the benefit to them has been underestimated.

When we receive an application for grant aid towards the cost of a drainage scheme we look carefully to see whether there is economic justification for the payment of grant aid. If the scheme fails this test no grant will be paid and that is the end of the matter. If there is justification for grant on economic grounds, we then have to consider whether there are any environmental reasons for not paying grant and here we look to the statutory bodies for expert advice. If they advise that the scheme will cause unacceptable damage, we then have to consider whether its design can be changed so as to avoid or to reduce the damage. If a change in the design results in a scheme which is acceptable to the conservation interests (which is often the case) the scheme can usually be approved for grant aid even if the design adds to the cost. But if that proves impossible then a judgment has to be made by the responsible Ministers. I do not pretend that this is easy, but at the end of the day when all the assessments have been made a balance must be struck. I hope that your Lordships will accept that the Wildlife and Countryside Act on the statute book as it now is will have the effect of giving us the policies and the procedures for handling these very difficult problems.

should like to refer to one item which was referred to earlier, and that is the paying of drainage rates, on which my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley had some comments to make. In fact 64 per cent. of all drainage rates are paid by farmers. In 67 per cent. of internal drainage boards farmers pay more than half the rate bill. The article in the New Scientist which was referred to did in fact highlight the Dun internal drainage board. This, of course, is quite exceptional; it is one of only 15 in which farmers paid less than 10 per cent. of the rate. That is because that particular TDB contained five coalmines and two power stations and a lot of urban development. It was not, therefore, representative of the norm.

My Lords, if the noble Earl is leaving that point may I ask him whether the Ministry have figures to show what sort of representation there is from non-farming interests on the 33 per cent. of IDBs where farmers pay less than half the rate? That is really the point I think a number of us were trying to get at.

My Lords, I have not got those figures. I will see if I can find them and if I succeed I will let the noble Lord know. I was grateful to the noble Lord for the information he gave about the demands of the Happisburgh IDB for the Nature Conservancy Council to contribute towards the maintenance cost. This is a recent development and I shall look into this and see whether a compromise settlement is possible.

My noble friend Lord Onslow referred to Martham Broad and pollution. The matter of pollution is a matter for one particular department. My noble friend Lord Avon wrote to Lord Onslow and my noble friend Lord Onslow disputed what my noble friend Lord Avon wrote. Rather than join in that particular discussion myself, I will see that my noble friend Lord Avon has the remarks of my noble friend Lord Onslow drawn to his attention.

We have today had a debate on an important issue over which I think there is very genuine concern. I should like to tell your Lordships that there are three points of criticism which the Government are quite ready to accept. First, we accept that drainage boards should have the power to put money into reserve to cover the costs of replacing old equipment. That at the moment is not done. We accept that the electoral arrangements under which those owners of highly rated properties have more than one vote are out of date. And we accept that the way in which urban property is rated is not satisfactory. There are some aspects of the law relating to drainage boards which need to be reviewed. The question is therefore not so much whether we should review the legislation, but when. As your Lordships will be aware, resources and manpower are scarce, but I assure your Lordships that we shall put a review in hand as soon as resources can be made available.

I thank your Lordships for what you have said. Concern has been expressed and in expressing that concern I think your Lordships have reflected a view which is not confined just to this House. We are all conscious of, and indeed apprehensive of, our own responsibilities, whether they be as a farmer, as a member of a drainage board, or indeed as a Minister. We all have to chart a very difficult route between progress and preservation and between economics and aesthetics. I hope I have been able to show that the Department over which I happen at present to have a responsibility is no less conscious of these responsibilities and of the importance of the way in which they are exercised than are others. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Buxton for having introduced this Question.