asked Her Majesty's Government:

Yes, my Lords, the recently published HMI interim report on the GCSE provides reassuring evidence that the new examination is being successfully introduced. It is also already leading to better teaching and learning in many schools. We will of course continue to monitor progress carefully.

My Lords, perhaps I may say to the Minister how pleased I am to have that Answer to my Question. Will she take this opportunity to utter a word of criticism to that small minority of people who seem to be going out of their way to undermine this important educational development?

My Lords, indeed. Considerable time and effort over the past decade have gone into the planning of the GCSE, probably more than for any other examination or curriculum change of which we are aware. We believe that people should support the change by using their best efforts to make it a success.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the criticism that has been directed against the teaching of history for the GCSE, especially in East Sussex? Will she ensure that history is taught in a way which leads children to know about the past and not just to sympathise with the so-called empathy of their teachers?

My Lords, the debate over empathy goes wider than the GCSE, which merely seeks to reflect different approaches to history and not to dictate them. Empathy has not been introduced into history by the GCSE; it is an approach that has been developed by some teachers over quite a few years. Those seeking to damn all GCSE history because of disagreement with the approach of a particular syllabus should examine the full range of syllabuses. Freedom of choice of syllabuses exists to cater for different views.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the most important aspect of this examination is that it is a different kind of examination? In those circumstances, having regard to what some people have said about the shortage of time, quite apart from materials, is she satisfied with the kind of teaching that is being carried out for this exam? Some of us think that it is being done in a rather short time. Are the necessary criteria being met?

My Lords, as I said in my original Answer, the interim report that we have received from HMI is reassuring. It informed us that the introduction of the GCSE is already leading to better teaching and learning in many schools. That must be my answer.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, the Mercury Communications network has already reached Edinburgh and Glasgow two years ahead of schedule and will shortly be extended farther to Dundee and Aberdeen. Scottish consumers are also benefiting from competition in the supply of equipment for attachment to the telecommunications network, of value added and data services provided over it and in the provision of mobile telecommunications services.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that ray of hope. Does he mean that the extension to Dundee will also mean an extension to the country areas, which are important? Does he appreciate that at the moment the Scottish countryside is suffering from all the classic evils of a private monopoly to the extent that charges are being imposed where none was imposed before? For example, an extra £15 is being charged to transfer a telephone which is already in place, which means a book entry. Surely that is not part of government policy?

My Lords, I think that credit should be given where credit is due. The terms of Mercury's licence were that it should provide services to Edinburgh and Glasgow by November 1989. It provided a service by October 1987. When it provides services in August this year in Aberdeen and Dundee, an estimated 50 per cent. of BT subscribers in Scotland will be able to access Mercury's network directly. The problems of those who live in the rural areas are no different in Scotland from those in England or the rest of the United Kingdom. If there are particular areas in which the noble Lord feels that British Telecom is abusing its position, then I am sure that the director general of Oftel will be only too happy to look into the matter.

My Lords, can the noble Lord tell the House what share of the market in Scotland Mercury is expecting to have when the network is completed?

My Lords, the share of the market which it will have when the network is complete is in the hands of the customers, not of the Government.

My Lords, Oftel recently published a report censuring British Telecom for the great delay in providing the services for which Mercury had asked. Can the Minister give us any information about that? What steps, if any, is the department taking to accelerate this matter?

My Lords, that is entirely another matter. But I am happy to say that I believe that a report published by Oftel has been properly received by British Telecom and those difficulties are now being put right.

My Lords, on two occasions the Minister used the expression "give credit". Do the Scots give credit?

My Lords, that is a matter which I shall refer to the noble Lord, Lord Mackie.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, over the years we have made numerous representations. Most recently my honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development took the matter up with the Ethiopian deputy Prime Minister during a visit to Ethiopia in January. We shall continue to raise the subject at every suitable opportunity.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Can I ask whether the Government are co-operating with other European countries in putting pressure on the Ethiopian Government? The question of human rights is very important in all our affairs. At a time when Ethiopia is getting a great deal of help surely it is right to increase the pressure. The noble Lord will know that the royal family including the ladies of that family—many of them educated here—have been confined in a smallish room for about 14 years, sleeping on the floor on mattresses which have to be backed by frequently-changed cardboard because of the damp. Surely the maximum pressure should be applied.

My Lords, yes. I can tell the noble Lord that we are discussing with our European partners how together we might take action to secure the release of these people. My honourable friend was told in January that many political prisoners had been released and that the position of the imprisoned members of the former royal family was under review. We continue to hear hints of their possible early release—but only hints.

My Lords, is it not the case that there are about 1,000 political prisoners in Addis Ababa at this time and many more in other parts of Ethiopia? Will the Minister say what the possibilities are of a human rights inquiry possibly under the aegis of the United Nations or in concert with some of our allies? Is it possible to bring pressure on this inefficient and barbaric government to change their course?

My Lords, I can confirm that there are estimated to be several thousand political prisoners in Ethiopia. As regards further pressure, in his statement in Geneva on 18th February my honourable friend, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State drew attention to the problem of long-term prisoners in Ethiopia. The United Kingdom representative reiterated our concern in a subsequent statement under the agenda item dealing with human rights violations in any part of the world. I cannot say that an inquiry of the sort that the noble Lord suggests is entirely ruled out. It is perhaps something which I could look at.

My Lords, is the Minister aware—I am sure he is—that the conditions under which these prisoners are kept are apparently appalling, even by the most primitive standards of this kind of behaviour? In the light of the questions which have already been put to the Minister, will he give the House an assurance that Her Majesty's Government will collaborate not only with the United Nations but with the European Commission and the organs of the EC in applying whatever pressure is possible upon the Government of Ethiopia in respect of the barbaric procedures being followed in the case of these prisoners?

My Lords, I share entirely the noble Lord's concerns about the conditions in which these prisoners have been detained. Of course, they have not had a trial. As I said in answer to an earlier question, we are discussing with our European partners how we can take this forward together. The noble Lord might be interested to know that one member of the European Parliament plans to visit Ethiopia soon in her capacity as vice-president of the European Parliament's overseas aid committee at the invitation of the Ethiopian Government. She is taking up the case of the royal prisoners and hopes to see them. We certainly wish her well in her humanitarian endeavour. Perhaps I may assure the noble Lord that we shall not in any sense diminish our own efforts.

My Lords, will my noble friend say whether the Government have the support of the Eastern bloc and Russia in this matter? Or are those countries accepting the position? If the Russians have the same view about this imprisonment then their support would be quite relevant.

My Lords, I do not think that I can very well comment on the Soviet Union's efforts on human rights.

My Lords, does the Minister's reply mean that Her Majesty's Government intend to raise the question of gross abuse of human rights in Ethiopia in the very near future at the United Nations? Is it not the case that Ethiopia maintains the largest army in Africa? Is it not time for an inquiry into the use made by that government of the aid provided to them?

My Lords, if I have understood the noble Lord, he is inquiring about representations we have made at the United Nations. If that is not so, will the noble Lord repeat the first part of his question?

My Lords, in the light of the Minister's favourable replies, is it the intention of Her Majesty's Government once again to raise this question of human rights, either immediately, or in the very near future, at the United Nations?

My Lords, at further suitable opportunities I am sure that we shall. I am not sure whether or not immediately is quite the right word to use. Certainly, we shall endeavour strongly to do what we can. The aid that we supply to Ethiopia is humanitarian and for rehabilitation purposes. I do not think that the noble Lord would want to see that particular work cut down.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, yes. There have indeed been discussions with the Commission about the designs provisions in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Bill, both at ministerial and official level. However, I should perhaps add that the Commission's primary interest has been with the unregistered design right proposed in Part III of the Bill. There has been no discussion of the provisions in Part IV of the Bill concerning registered designs.

My Lords, do I gather from my noble friend—I am most grateful for his Answer—that perhaps the consultations with the Commission partly account for the inadequacy of the protection given by the Bill? Notwithstanding the valiant efforts of the Government to accept several amendments, the basic structure of the Bill is still sadly inadequate. Is my noble friend aware, for example, that in Hong Kong the Bill is described as being suitable only for a third world country?

My Lords, I am not too sure about the attitude in Hong Kong, but certainly the Commission is broadly in favour of the views which the Government have taken and which the Bill now contains. The Commission feels very strongly that the law must not be too protective. It felt originally that the White Paper was out of line. But when we explained the must-fit and must-match exceptions, it expressed its satisfaction. Although we have not specifically discussed the term of protection with the Commission, our proposal was for 10 years and the Commission accepted that. Our view is that a longer term might well be struck down by the European Court.

My Lords, can the noble Lord assure us that now that your Lordships have passed the Copyright, Designs and Patents Bill after long debates we shall not be faced with another measure in the near future that results in European intervention?

My Lords, I can give my heartfelt assurance that at least for this Session there will not be another.

My Lords, is it normal for your Lordships' House to be discussing a Bill that is not yet on the statute book?

My Lords, it is not for me to say what is normal. But the noble Lord did put down the Question.

My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lord Arran will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement on prisons that is to be made in another place.

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Brabazon of Tara on the Order Paper.

rose to move, That this House takes note of the report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology on United Kingdom Space Policy (2nd Report, 1987–88, HL Paper 41).

My Lords, I am sure that the House will be extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for so ably and comprehensively introducing the report of his committee on United Kingdom space policy. I believe that it is a most valuable report indicating how we may make the best use of our opportunities in space. I shall not go through all the recommendations with which broadly I agree.

The exploitation of space, with its very special environment, creates extreme difficulties. It is a very awkward issue to deal with. The technology is expensive, effective international collaboration is highly desirable but extremely difficult to achieve and the return on investment is long-term and uncertain. I welcome very much this comprehensive report on United Kingdom space policy. It is particularly important in helping us to assess the optimum level of expenditure in this field.

There are two main divisions of space policy. First, there is research. The objective of research in any field is to increase knowledge, for example in astronomy, microgravity and the like. But in this kind of research there is no clear indication of the practical value that will result.

It can therefore be argued, as some have done, that it should receive extremely low priority in present circumstances because the British problem principally concerns how to use existing knowledge more effectively rather than how to add to it. On the other hand, if effort in this field is too low, experienced teams break up, the best research workers go abroad and the long-term advantage is lost. I am told that when the decisions which led to the virtual break-up of the British National Space Centre were taken last year, advertisements immediately appeared around the country, particularly near the works of such companies as British Aerospace, Marconi and the like, tempting people who had been working on our programmes to go and work in France, Germany or Italy.

I shall not pursue further the issue of research. There are other noble Lords who are more competent to do so and I shall leave it to those experts to argue the case relating to the research effort. I should like to concentrate on opportunities in space for its commercial exploitation.

Space is a new environment with many special features but there is no doubt at all in my mind that there will be major commercial developments there over the next 50 years. Some 25 years ago when I was working in the British Aircraft Corporation a lot of work was being undertaken on research satellites. The company produced for instance the Skylark rocket, which was very successful. It was purely a research tool. At that time it was realised that it was very important to get into the commercial exploitation of space.

I remember very well that the company, together with the Society of British Aircraft Constructors, sent a deputation to the Government which made a case to the then Postmaster General and the Minister of Aviation that we should enter the field of communication satellites. The then Minister of Aviation turned to the Postmaster General and asked, "If we put up a communication satellite will you take any interest in it?", and the reply was, "We might take one or two lines". As we all know, tremendous advances have taken place in communication satellites, but as a result of that attitude and the decision by the government of the day, we lost 10 to 15 years of exploiting opportunities to develop telecommunications through satellites.

I believe that it is very important to make sure that we do not take the same kind of damaging decisions now and that we do not miss opportunities as we did then through lack of government support and a wrong, or perhaps vacillating, policy for this new industry. If we can get ahead in this field it will be of great benefit to manufacturing industry and consequently to our national prosperity.

I understand that in the field of satellite communications British Telecom and Mercury enjoy a protected position and a monopoly until 1990. After that date the position is not clear because then they may not still enjoy that monopoly. On the other hand they may do so. Naturally they and other customers such as clients for the direct broadcasting satellites buy their satellites in the cheapest market where they can get the best value for money. There are many manufacturers and suppliers of satellites in the world but very few contracts. It is therefore a highly competitive business.

The profit from putting up such satellites for communications ultimately accrues almost entirely to the operators and therefore there is very little flow of profit available to industry to support further development. It is impossible for manufacturers such as British Aerospace, Marconi, Logica and the like to justify a substantial investment on such a poor risk-reward ratio.

However, the situation would be transformed if an assurance could be given that after 1990 the British Telcom-Mercury monopoly would be restricted to telecommunication satellites giving access to the public service network. That would allow British industry to form consortia with operators and financial institutions for point-to-point private service networks, which would enable companies that take communications on the satellite networks to provide their own point-to-point services. Many companies would have to take those services on one satellite in order to make it a commercial proposition. I understand that at the moment that is not possible because of the monopoly.

I ask Her Majesty's Government through the noble Lord the Secretary of State who is to reply to tell us at least that they are seriously considering removing the monopoly position that now exists so that British industry can plan ahead. If planning started today a satellite could probably not be put up until 1992 or 1993, but if industry were given a clear indication that there were opportunities and that it would not be kept out by a monopoly, I have not the slightest doubt that it would take those great opportunities, consortia would be formed and money would be forthcoming from the City, just as has happened in the case of the Channel Tunnel, which is also a very long-term investment.

In the United States the experience of de-regulation has been quite remarkable. The expansion of the services available to the public has been considerable and they have been greatly improved. That has led to a great expansion of the industry itself, with considerable benefit to the national prosperity and the strength of its economy.

An important aspect of working in space is the requirement for reliability of components. In an aircraft the vital elements can be triplicated and if one goes wrong it can be put right when the aircraft lands. However, if something goes wrong in a satellite, to put it right, even if that is possible at all, is a very expensive undertaking. There is therefore an enormous premium placed on reliability. The big space programme undertaken by the United States some years ago gave a great impetus to the design and production of very reliable components, which is of the greatest importance particularly in the electronics industry.

The other area of great opportunity lies in earth observation and remote sensing and surveying satellites, to which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, referred. We must accept that there has been some change of circumstances since the report of the Select Committee was published. Her Majesty's Government have made clear that they believe that £200 million is too large a sum to spend on research and development in this field. They plan to spend £120 million. Since that decision was taken further work has been done by industry and it is now clear that the UK could participate effectively in the European Space Agency-USA collaborative programme Columbus—in the polar orbit satellite platform in particular—and in the Canadian RADARSAT programme, which was also mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and on which, as he indicated, a decision is very urgently needed. The United Kingdom could take part in those two programmes effectively with a total UK contribution of something like £10 million to £15 million per annum of new money in 1989 rising to about £30 million per annum from 1990 onwards, thus making a relatively modest increase to the £120 million that the Government are already proposing to spend.

With firm commitments for the industry over perhaps four years for a programme of that kind I have not the slightest doubt that industry itself will also be prepared to put money into such a programme and reduce the figures even further so far as the government contribution is concerned. Industry indeed supports that kind of investment. Over the past year it has invested just over £1 million in order to support the polar platform and the RADARSAT programmes and to maintain a UK option for participation in those very important projects. If that private venture initiative and expenditure had not been undertaken, we should already have lost the possibility of participating in those important programmes.

There are great opportunities for industry. There is also an urgent need to show our European partners that we really are Europeans and that we want to take part in the collaborative programmes that are going ahead in Europe. If we do not do that how can we expect them to believe that we are serious about our commitment to the Europe of 1992? I urge Her Majesty's Government—and I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to reassure us on this point—to continue negotiations to ensure UK participation in the Columbus programme in an appropriate way, and I hope that they will take a decision to go ahead with the RADARSAT project in co-operation with Canada.

Finally, perhaps I may return to one point to which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, referred—the chaotic situation in the British National Space Centre. The director and the assistant director have both left. There is no leadership. The BNSC was intended to form a focus for space R&D expenditure activity and it showed every indication of succeeding in doing that until the sharp reversal of policy in 1987—less than two years after BNSC was set up.

I believe that investment in space should be concentrated mainly where opportunities for commercial return exist. But some research on a longer-term basis must continue. Above all, for success there must be stability of policy, including, but not exclusively, international co-operation, particularly in Europe. I am sure that activity in space will grow and become of increasing importance in the 21st century. UK industry must be in a position to participate effectively. Government must give support in pump-priming investment in research and the like. It is not solely for government; it is for industry also to take the initiative, as it has done. However, we must be in a position to co-operate and participate in European programmes as well as carrying out our own programme and where possible to take the lead in international co-operation.

My Lords, the House will certainly be grateful to my noble friend for introducing this debate on United Kingdom space policy, not least because it gives us a chance to find out what United Kingdom space policy is. We all look forward to the intervention of the Secretary of State, in the hope that we shall be clearer at the end of his intervention about what direction the Government are taking. I am sorry to observe that he shakes his head, but we always live in hope.

One of the most depressing and, if I may say so, slightly annoying features of the Government attitudes towards space policy is the manner in which policy changes seem to dribble out. It is depressing because British Ministers frequently behave at international meetings as though they wished that they were somewhere else; and changes are apparently announced by the Prime Minister, as my noble friend Lord Shackleton said, in answer to Questions in another place. It is somewhat annoying because, as my noble friend has said, the signals that are sent out to other governments are generally negative and create doubts in their minds about the seriousness of our intentions. It is annoying because of the effect that such signals can have on governments who look to the United Kingdom to give a lead. Lectures on the internal problems of the European Space Agency—which is perhaps a coded way of saying that the French call too many of the shots—and the vague hope that private industry will pick up the tab, are no substitute for a clear and straightforward statement of policy. We hope that we shall have this from the Secretary of State at the end of the debate.

In order to help stimulate such a statement let me say as clearly as I can that the Opposition support the conclusions of your Lordships' Select Committee, and we urge the Government to do so. Britain cannot credibly maintain membership of the Euro space club by paying a bare minimum subscription to ESA. We cannot make any claim to change its priorities unless we are prepared to make a larger contribution. As my noble friend said, we must remain a member of ESA. There is no realistic option, as the committee pointed out. We can then argue about individual items in the ESA programme and quite possibly modify them. But we have in parallel to be prepared to co-operate in some projects that we do not like.

At the same time as an increased contribution to the ESA programme there must be a more effective national programme alongside. Without this parallel, fuller role in ESA the major benefits to the British aerospace industry, which the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, mentioned, will be lost. If our Government do not support British industry it is frankly absurd to expect other governments to do so. It must be the Government who take the lead. Even if a consortium of private sector British companies could be put together to make the massive investment in space that is required, the philosophy is wrong, as the noble Viscount explained very clearly.

There will be benefits to come from space research. They will be extremely long-term and hard to predict precisely when and where they will come. After all, one profitable spin-off of the space programme of the 1960s was the non-stick frying pan, but it is easy to imagine what manufacturers of kitchen equipment would have said if one had invited them to take part in the space programme of the 1960s. It is easy for Oppositions to argue that the Government should spend money on almost anything because by nature Oppositions are not in government. If the funding requirements that the committee recommend were enormous then we should have to look carefully to see that we did not fall into that trap. However, they are not enormous compared with the sums that the Secretary of State announced in his Statement yesterday. The optimum level is believed to be around £200 million per annum, with spending through ESA accounting for about £130 million and the rest going to national and bilateral programmes. This seems to us to be relatively modest when compared with some of the major programmes that are going forward in France, Germany, the United States and Canada.

Not only is the target relatively modest, but if ever there was a suitable application of the proceeds of privatisation I should have thought that that was it. If we privatise industries, then it makes sense to invest the proceeds in the future of the nation. It is clearly in the national interest that the proceeds should be so invested. The Government will receive several billion pounds over the next few years from their privatisation programme, if we believe what we are told. Therefore, is the financial problem a real constraint? That does not seem to me to be an argument that can be fully sustained.

My noble friend drew our attention to two deadlines for decision that will have to be met within the next few days: that on RADARSAT and the polar platform. Participation in both projects would have direct and clear benefits for British industry as well as sending out a clear signal that we are still seriously in business. Participation in neither would signify that we are prepared to drop out of the race. I believe that these discussions will be the litmus test of the Government's intentions and we must hope that they do not fail us.

Nothing that I have said means that we would support indiscriminate expenditure. We share the doubts about programmes designed solely to put man, or for that matter woman, into space. But each programme has to be examined against a series of criteria, not simply against the criterion of whether participation in it will overrun an apparently fixed financial platform.

What will the programme do by way of spin-off for British industry? That is the point that the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, made. How will it help or hinder international collaboration, whether in Europe or bilaterally, with the United States or Canada? Will it help to raise the general level of civil research and development in British industry which we all recognise to be far too low? Will it add to the efficiency of our defence effort? These are the criteria by which space programmes should be judged—and perhaps by one other to which I shall refer in a moment. We must be able to pick and choose from the menu that is set in front of us. But to be able to pick and choose from the menu one has first to sit down at the table, be prepared to order a meal and accept that the restaurant may not be able to produce exactly what is wanted in exactly the way one wants it, and there may have to be a compromise. But in all events one has to participate, and participate with enthusiasm.

We contrast this with the somewhat dry language of the DTI White Paper of last January—on spending: "No increase is proposed". The DTI is taking a fresh look at the distribution of support for individual European and domestic programmes. There is not much excitement to be found there. And this would be the last criterion that I would add—excitement. From the evidence given to your Lordships' Committee there is one project which commanded tremendous enthusiasm—the HOTOL programme. One witness described it as the touchstone to a range of new technologies for Britain in the 21st century. Another witness, no less than the chairman of Rolls-Royce, said that it would require substantial government funding and a positive and long-term United Kingdom commitment to space vehicle development.

That is what we want and need—enthusiasm, excitement and long-term commitment—for even if there is no detectable and tangible commercial justification for Government to make long-term commitments to space research spending, there are other reasons. Simply put, we believe that it is exciting to extend the sum of human knowledge and push out the frontiers of our experience. I know that will be dismissed in some quarters as being old-fashioned romanticism, but I do not think it is the worse for that. That is the kind of message that needs to go out from your Lordships' House today if the supporters of space research are to mobilise, outside the scientific and political establishments, those constituencies which will really shift public opinion.

We must stress the benefits of being able to watch our own planet from satellites: how we can monitor pollution, agricultural development, find new water resources, discover new mineral deposits, learn to manufacture in gravity-free environments and develop new drugs. It is the excitement of it all that must be conveyed to the public. Then they will want to be part of it. If they want to be part of it, Britain will be part of it. That is the message. The message is very simple and I only hope that the Government have got it.

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat the Statement on prisons which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The Statement is as follows:

"In July last year I announced a package of measures designed to secure a better balance between the rapidly rising prison population and the prison accommodation available. Those measures eased the position, but only temporarily. The prison population has continued to grow apace. After falling to 47,500 in early September, it rose to 50,600 at the end of last week. This is some 1,200 more than at the same time last year. Taking into account the July measures, there has been an underlying increase over the same period of some 4,200. Projecting recent trends forward, we could be faced with a population of some 52,000 by the summer of this year.

"This sharper rise has not come about because of any acceleration in crime—indeed the figures I announced last week show a much smaller increase than the average rate of increases for the last 30 years. The causes of the growth in the population are four-fold. First, the substantial increase in the number of criminals being brought before the Crown Court, where the rate of custodial sentencing is higher. Secondly, a substantial lengthening in sentences imposed by the Crown Court for offences involving violence, including robbery and rape and for offences of criminal damage and drug offences. Thirdly, as a result of a tighter policy on parole, the numbers are some 2,000 higher. Finally, there has been an unwelcome increase in the remand population, which has almost doubled since 1980; some 700 have been added since the end of November last year alone.

"The uncrowded capacity of the prison system is some 7,000 below last week's population figure. This means that there is severe overcrowding, particularly in remand prisons and, most unacceptably, 1,400 prisoners are being accommodated in police cells all over south-east England and beyond. Those cells are wholly unsuited for the long term accommodation of prisoners. Their use is expensive and can be dangerous. It diverts police officers from their job of preventing and detecting crime and keeping the peace.

"Part—almost one half—of the police cells problem results from industrial action in some London prisons by members of the Prison Officers' Association. Such action is irresponsible and places additional burdens upon the police and the rest of the system. Prison service management are working hard to try to resolve it. I met POA leaders earlier today and appealed to them to use their influence to bring this action to a speedy end.

"It is not my role to decide who and how many convicted offenders should be sentenced to imprisonment: that is for the courts. It is my role to see that the courts have a satisfactory range of sentencing options open to them, and that when they do commit someone to custody there is suitable accommodation available for him or her. This dual responsibility is reflected in the measures I announce today.

"First, work is already in hand to make community service orders more demanding and more strictly administered through, for example, the introduction of national standards. Secondly, I have already announced a substantial expansion of the programme for providing bail hostels, involving an additional nine hostels at a cost of some £3·8 million. Thirdly, I propose to issue next month a circular designed to help the courts in taking decisions on bail. Finally, and in the slightly longer term, I am considering how to build up forms of punishment in the community which are seen by all to present a firm and fair way of dealing with those offenders who do not merit a custodial sentence.

"But the most serious crimes are rightly punished by imprisonment. Our existing prison building programme involves investment of almost £1 billion. I am announcing today a number of measures, additional to those I have already taken, to ensure that there is accommodation available to hold prisoners in conditions of proper security.

"First, army camps will be opened at Rollestone and Camberley to house a total of about 700 prisoners. Because of the existing pressures on the police and prison services these will be manned by military police and other personnel acting under the direction of prison management grades. This will be a strictly temporary measure, to bridge us through the summer until more permanent prison accommodation is available.

"Secondly, through the building programme and other measures, just short of 3,000 additional permanent prison places will be created by this time next year. Of these over 1,300 will come on stream in the South-East from now into this summer because of the particular need to relieve pressure on the remand system in and around London.

"Thirdly, I am planning to reinstate Ashford remand centre in Middlesex, which would otherwise close permanently in April in expectation of rebuilding, as a temporary remand holding centre of some 400 prisoners from the late autumn.

"Fourthly, I have reviewed the existing prison estate for ways of creating additional places by using system-built accommodation and by other means. I plan to add some 800 extra places in this way from the beginning of 1989. I shall be recruiting the prison staff necessary to man these places.

"Fifthly, by readjusting the existing building programme, I shall provide a further 1,000 places from the beginning of 1990. These will be created in purpose built blocks on existing prison sites.

"The combined effect of the measures I have announced and those which I had already put in hand will be to provide just over 4,000 permanent extra places, with the necessary staff, by the end of the financial year 1988–89, with a further 1,000 starting to come on stream from the very end of 1989.

"This is an energetic response to the massive growth in the prison population. I shall not hesitate to take further measures should these seem desirable. We must be ready to think imaginatively to ensure that the prison service can meet its obligations. In this context, I believe that the possibility of involving the private sector more closely in aspects of the prison system should be urgently considered. I have already moved in this direction by establishing the Prison Building Board which includes substantial private sector representation. The board is inviting the private sector to make proposals for building remand or open facilities faster than has been done in the past. I propose in addition to publish a Green Paper on private sector involvement in all aspects of the remand system, and at the same time to engage consultants to help in working out the practical implications. I also propose to explore whether there might be room for developing privately-managed bail hostels, providing more secure conditions than the current range of hostels provide.

"This Government's record of commitment to the prison service is unparalleled. The further measures which I have announced today underline that commitment and the Government's determination to ensure that public safety and security, as well as decent conditions for prison service staff and prison inmates, are attained.".

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Arran, for repeating the Statement made by the Home Secretary in another place. It must be one of the most sombre statements ever made to Parliament. It discloses that, in spite of certain measures introduced in July last year (and throughout the House there were indications that they were wholly inadequate):

"The prison population has continued to grow apace. After falling to 47,500 in early September it rose to 50,600 at the end of last week".

I believe that to be a record for this country and it is far higher than that of any equivalent country in Europe. The Statement continues:

"This is some 1,200 more than at the same time last year".

I should like to know whether the 50,600 includes 1,400 prisoners held in police cells at the relevant time.

The Statement then says:

"Projecting recent trends forward, we could be faced with a population of some 52,000 by the summer of this year".

Those figures must be considered against the fact that the prison system was designed to hold only 42,800 people. The prisons were never intended to hold more than that which is about 8,000 less than they hold today. Even after the measures now proposed take effect, as we hear from the Statement made by the Home Secretary, the combined effect of the measures announced today will provide just over 4,000 extra permanent places. Noble Lords will note that it is only 4,000 with a further 1,000 starting to come on stream from the end of 1989. Therefore, after the changes have been made there will still be thousands more people in custody than the prison system was ever intended to hold. I fail to follow how that can be described as an:

"energetic response to the massive growth in the prison population".

This may be a criticism more of the detail than of the substance, but the Statement does not indicate the fact that in some prisons conditions are far worse than in others. The NACRO study on the subject pointed out that, for example, Leeds Prison has 1,357 prisoners but only 642 certified places —that was the intended maximum. Leicester Prison has 400 prisoners but only 200 certified places and Birmingham Prison has 1,115 prisoners against 592 certified places.

What is depressing about the Statement is the fact that it gives no real indication of an attack on such vast numbers. We welcome the expansion of bail hostels, as has always been urged from various parts of the House, and we also welcome the building of new prisons. However, they will take years to complete. As Vivien Stern, the director of NACRO, pointed out, catering properly for a prison population rising at the present rate would mean opening a new prison the size of Wormwood Scrubs every three weeks.

What is lacking is a real indication of doing more than tackling the symptoms; namely, providing more accommodation. I do not know whether there will be any great confidence in the use of army camps manned by military police on grounds of security or on other grounds. What consideration has been given to the need for remedies to reduce the size of the prison population? Has the option of early release for prisoners serving less than 12 months been abandoned for political reasons because of the fear of a hostile political response? That suggestion was made at one stage and surely something along those lines is required.

Are there proposals to reduce the large number of prisoners serving sentences for debt, sometimes for comparatively minor offences? Is there not time for a review of the time taken to bring cases to trial and to diminish the number of prisoners on remand? As has been said in different parts of the House, one of the most deplorable features of the present system is that there are still over 1,200 prisoners on remand. We heard in a recent debate on the Adjournment that some are kept in appalling conditions in police cells which were never intended to house prisoners, thus imposing dreadful burdens on the police. In the Statement there is no indication of that problem being tackled. The Criminal Justice Bill proposes to increase to 28 the number of days being spent on remand and if that is agreed the number of prisoners on remand will increase.

There is not time to discuss all the issues at this stage. The Statement is seriously disappointing and falls short of what is required by a failure to tackle more fundamentally the continuing and appalling rise in our prison population. It is a disgrace to our society.

My Lords, I should like to join the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, in thanking the noble Earl for repeating the Statement. I also join with him in saying that it must be one of the most remarkable Statements made by a Home Secretary. It is approximately nine months since the last series of emergency measures announced in the remission Statement last July. We are now faced with this series of proposals which have been introduced in order to deal with a situation in which the prison population is spiralling out of control. That is the reality of the situation which we face.

Perhaps I may say to the noble Earl that many of us will accept the need for the use of army camps in the situation that he described. If army camps are not used, the situation inevitably will deteriorate still more sharply for the many thousands of prisoners who are being kept in grossly overcrowded conditions. However, when the noble Earl said that this was a strictly temporary measure, how temporary is "strictly temporary"? Is he able to give a guarantee that within 12 months these army camps will not be used? I should be surprised if he would go as far as that in the light of what he said in the Statement.

Perhaps I may ask the noble Earl whether he is aware of the grave consequences for the police of the continuing responsibility placed on them by the Government to hold something between 1,400 and 1,600 people in cells which are intended to be used for a period of five or six hours preceding and following a court appearance and which are now being used sometimes to hold three men, sometimes mentally disturbed men, for a period of up to three weeks? Is he aware that this is a truly disgraceful situation? Can he say whether, as a result of the measures he has announced this afternoon, he will be able to give some guarantee that there will now be a substantial limitation on the use of police cells?

Can he also say whether the issues which we debated on 4th March; namely, the remand of mentally ill people in police custody, will be brought to an end as a result of the measures he has announced? Perhaps I may ask him to give a specific undertaking that, as a result of the use of these army camps, which presumably will have full-time medical officers—and no doubt he will confirm whether that is true—when a court remands a man or woman in custody for psychiatric reports, it will not find out weeks later than during the intervening period that person has spent his time in a police station, perhaps 200 miles from London in conditions which make it impossible for the court to be given a psychiatric report? Can he say whether or not that will now be possible?

Can I also ask the noble Earl whether he is aware that we join the Home Secretary in deploring the industrial action which has been taken by some branches of the Prison Officers' Association in London? That is a long-standing problem. No doubt, as always, there are faults on both sides but the fact is that there has been far too much of this year after year after year. Can the noble Earl give us an assurance that, as a result of the meeting which the Home Secretary has had today with members of the Prison Officers' Association, there is any likelihood of these problems being resolved?

Perhaps I may ask him two different questions. First, is he aware that we welcome the fact that the Home Secretary is to issue a circular to magistrates concerning bail? One of the principal problems in the crisis that we are now facing is the massive increase in the remand population. Is he aware that when many of us visit prisons we are constantly told by senior members of prison management that a substantial number of the remand population could quite easily be accommodated in bail hostels and outside the prison system as a whole? I ask the Minister what progress is being made concerning recommendations made by the Vera Institute of Criminal Justice on the bail situation? I understand that if the report has not been submitted to the Home Secretary, its arrival is now imminent. What action is likely to be taken on its recommendations of which I am sure the Home Office is well aware?

Finally, is the Minister aware that many of us welcome the fact that there is to be a Green Paper although inevitably we shall want to look carefully at its contents? When will it be published? Can the Minister indicate that he will agree to have talks with his noble friend the Leader of the House to see whether we can have an early debate on the Green Paper proposals and also the wider issues which are involved in this extremely sombre Statement today?

My Lords, no one would pretend that this is other than a sombre and serious situation. That is precisely the reason for my right honourable friend the Home Secretary announcing this package of measures which he intends to bring about as a result of the serious overcrowding and lack of prison availability. Quite a few questions have been asked this afternoon and I shall attempt to answer as many as I can. I hope that noble Lords opposite will forgive me if I cannot answer them all but they have my assurance that I shall write to them as soon as I possibly can on this important matter.

Perhaps I may take the questions raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones. As we have indicated, one of the causes of the increase in the prison population which has happened over the last few years is the longer sentences being given by the courts for the most serious offences. The noble and learned Lord also asked about the number of 50,600. It includes those held in police cells.

The noble and learned Lord went on to ask what is being done to reduce the remand population. While we cannot advise magistrates on individual decisions on bail which they take under the Bail Act 1976, we have called attention to the desirability of reducing the remand population and of providing proper support to magistrates so that they are able to make the best possible decisions on bail. Work has been done to provide better information on defendants through bail information schemes. We are also providing resources for about nine new bail hostels. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor is preparing improved training on bail decisions for magistrates. We have decided to bring together the threads of these developments in a circular to magistrates' courts which will be issued in the next few weeks.

As regards the time limits, on 1st April last year we introduced, on an experimental basis, limits on the length of time a person can be kept on remand. We have monitored the effect of these time limits and the initial results have been encouraging. We are extending the time limits to a total of 14 police areas as from 1st April. We hope to have time limits operating throughout the whole of England and Wales which could lead to a fall of up to 600 in the remand population.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris, asked for how long the army camps will be required. If the prison population continues to rise at its recent rate, we estimate that we shall need to retain the camps until towards Christmas, by which time the other steps we are taking will provide both accommodation and prison service staff to enable the camps to be replaced.

In reply to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Harris about whether or not the opening of camps will clear police cells, the answer is that by itself, it will not. We also need to see an end to the damaging industrial action which is losing us some 600 places in London. When that happens the opening of camps will make dramatic inroads into the numbers in police cells. The prison and police services should be able to cope with the increase expected in the numbers committed to prison during the summer, until the other steps we have announced to increase prison places takes effect.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris, was rightly concerned about prisoners remanded for medical and psychiatric reasons. The prison service management will do its utmost to use the facility of the camps to create space in local prisons, which will thereby reduce reliance on police cells. The requirements of prisoners remanded for medical and psychiatric reports will be given top priority.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Harris, referred to industrial action. Industrial action by the POA in two London prisons seriously aggravates the position. It accounts for 500 to 600 prisoners being denied admission to prison and enforces custody in wholly unsatisfactory police cells, with the diversion of police manpower to look after them. As I said, those questions from the Opposition Benches which I have not answered I shall gladly deal with in writing.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that your Lordships' House is very grateful to him for repeating this—as it was rightly described—sombre and difficult Statement, and that many in your Lordships' House echo the hope that, in view of its very great importance, it may be the subject matter of debate in here before long.

Is my noble friend further aware that although the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, from his great experience, suggested that one of the expedients for dealing with the situation might be early release, there are many of us in this House who have the gravest doubt as to whether the undermining of the deterrent effect of sentences by the courts in this way might not have very serious counter-productive effects? Many of us hope that my noble friend's right honourable friend will be very cautious in taking that way out.

May I also ask whether my noble friend is aware that many of us in all quarters of the House are deeply concerned at the delay in bringing cases to trial, which is the cause of the build-up of the large number of prisoners on remand? Is he aware that our court system seems to work unduly slowly? Although it is not a matter for my noble friend, but perhaps for the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to deal with, it is necessary that a degree of urgency in bringing cases to trial should be injected into the somewhat leisurely procedures of many of our courts. I ask my noble friend to take that suggestion on board.

Finally, while saying how glad I am that his right honourable friend has accepted the suggestion of using army camps as a temporary expedient for dealing with the matter, is my noble friend also considering the other suggestion made, for the use of spare passenger ships? These could perhaps give a higher degree of security and accommodate, to reasonable standards of comfort, a considerable number of prisoners. There are very many unused ferries which could well be used for that purpose if the Government so wish.

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for the points that he makes and I shall deal with them briefly. First, my noble friend asked about a debate but I think he will understand that that is for the normal channels.

They are here, my Lords.

My Lords, I understand that they are here, but perhaps this is not the appropriate time to raise the matter.

Secondly, I take the point that my noble friend makes concerning his worries about early release. Thirdly, as my noble friend rightly says, there is a problem in regard to bringing cases to trial. I shall pass on that concern to my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor.

Fourthly, in referring to army camps my noble friend suggested the use of passenger ships. My noble friend has floored me with what is obviously a serious suggestion. I cannot comment now but I should like to take advice and will certainly write to my noble friend on that very valid point.

My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that what most worries many of us who have read this depressing report is that it states clearly that the terrifying prison population figure of 50,600, which is shortly expected to rise to 52,000, is not the result of an increase in the annual rate of crime but of a number of factors listed in the report. First, there is the increased use of custodial sentences by the Crown courts. Secondly, longer sentences are imposed by the Crown courts. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, will think that to be right, but he knows that I think it is wrong. Thirdly, there is less tight parole. Finally, and a point not affected by what I am saying, there is the doubling of remand.

I should like to ask one further question. The report describes one of the solutions as,

"changes in systems built accommodation",

and by other means. I do not know what that means and I do not suppose that the noble Earl does, but I should like to have some information, perhaps by letter. I should also like an assurance that this does not mean shifting extra prisoners to such places as Grendon where the regime, which is just beginning to recover from having been treated in that way, will again be seriously affected.

My final question is to ask the noble Earl to inform me—again, in writing if necessary—when it was first suggested from this side (I think it was five years ago) that camps should be used for such emergencies, and why it has taken so long to get them ready?

My Lords, perhaps I may first reply to the penultimate question of the noble Lord concerning Grendon. While we keep the whole prison estate under review we currently have no plans to change the role of Grendon.

As regards parole, the noble Lord probably is aware that my noble friend Lord Carlisle has a committee which is reviewing that situation at the moment. I understand that the committee is to report in the latter half of this year.

The noble Lord referred to system built accommodation. I think that in modern day terminology it is called Portakabin. It is intended for accessories in the camps such as storage and other facilities which are needed on hand.

My Lords, does the noble Earl recollect that the Statement is predicated on announcing a remarkable increase of 10 per cent. in the prison population over the past year? The Statement then points out that this is in no way related to any increase in the rate of crime.

Clearly such a change in the ratio stems partly from individual decisions—and no one can suggest a great Executive interference in that—but also from government policies and attitudes. In so far as it stems from government policies and attitudes, can the noble Earl tell the House whether the Government regard this as an achievement or a misfortune? If the Government take the former view, that it is an achievement, what evidence is there from the dreary history of an ever-mounting prison population and failing to cope with crime, or from comparisons with other countries with far lower prison populations, that this is the sensible direction in which to go?

My Lords, when I first spoke in response to the Statement I said that this was a sombre and serious occasion. I repeat that. This Statement has come about because all forms of crime are on the increase. Something has to be done in order to accommodate the people who commit those crimes. It happens in the society in which we live and it is very unfortunate. Regrettably, it is a fact of life. It is the responsibility of the government of the day to see that in these circumstances something is done to alleviate the situation. That is precisely what my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is endeavouring to do.

My Lords, does the—

My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will forgive me for just half a minute. I know that he has been trying to speak for a long time. We have now taken 29 minutes. The recommendation of the Procedure Committee, accepted by your Lordships' House, was that we should take no longer than 20 minutes on these Statements. I suggest that perhaps the House might feel it right that after the noble Lord, Lord Graham, has asked his question we should move back to the other business.

My Lords, the Minister concluded his repeat of the Statement by saying that the Government's record of commitment to the prison service is unparalleled. Is it not also a fact that the crime record under this Government is also unparalleled? When the Minister told us in the Statement that there was an underlying increase in the prison population of more than 4,000, with the projection for this year being 52,000, does that mean that next year the prison population could be 56,000?

When the Minister seeks to put some of the blame for the intolerable conditions in prison cells on the industrial action in London, perhaps he would reflect that many Members of your Lordships' House have visited those prisons and found the conditions absolutely disgraceful. Does the projection mean that the statistics given by my noble friend from the Front Bench will be made worse and conditions that much more intolerable? How can we expect prison officers at Wormwood Scrubs, Brixton and Wandsworth to aid and abet the worsening of conditions not only for themselves but also for the prisoners at those places? Is this not another example of the Government simply looking at the symptoms and not getting down to the causes of the problem?

My Lords, I cannot wear the accusation from the noble Lord that the crime record under this Government is worse than it would have been under any other government. It does not matter which government are in power. It is the responsibility of that government to do what they consider best. That is precisely what my right honourable friend is doing at this moment.

As regards the prison officers, I know that the noble Lord appreciates that that matter is being kept fully under review as each day goes by. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary is constantly attempting to bring this question to a final solution.

My Lords, if we can now return to the debate upon your Lordships' Select Committee report on space, perhaps I may first join in the thanks of those of us who served on the committee and those noble Lords in the House today to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. I should also like to thank our specialist advisers, the clerks and, if I may say so on this occasion, the shorthand writers. This is not an easy subject for anybody. It must be frightfully difficult for shorthand writers to have to listen to people on the Select Committee who tend to start sentences and then to go on to something else, and then produce a coherent report. We are intensely grateful to all those people.

After five years on your Lordships' Select Committee, to me this was one of the most difficult investigations in which I have been involved, even having had the benefit of serving on the sub-committee that looked at remote sensing and digital mapping way back in 1983. It took a long time for many of us to get the feel of the problems before us. This was partly because the subject is such an immense and expanding one whether or not one believes in the Big Bang theory.

The problem was undoubtedly compounded by the uncertainty that has already been referred to as a result of the BNSC report, which never saw the light of day as far as we were concerned. We expected it to be published right at the beginning. Indeed it is possible that the committee was set up at that time because that report was expected to be published at that time. I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, nods in agreement. It was not published. We were certainly not alone in expecting it to be published. If your Lordships care to look at the evidence of Sir Geoffrey Pattie who, after all, was the Minister who called for the report in the first place, it can be seen that he himself expected it to be published in some form or other.

In answer to Question 730 from the Lord Chairman the Minister said:

"But as it was no secret the plan was being prepared by a body established with a fair degree of publicity, it was always tacitly understood that the plan would be published in a reasonably unexpurgated form at some stage".

In answer to the next question:

"Do you think it should now be published?",

the clear answer came from Sir Geoffrey Pattie: "Yes, I do". So did we. There is no doubt that this report should be published if we are to have a sensible national debate on the subject.

If we compare the evidence of Sir Geoffrey Pattie with that of his successor, the present Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, it shows quite clearly that there was a complete change of direction of government policy between, on the one hand, the ESA Council in The Hague and the appointment of Mr. Roy Gibson as Director General of BNSC in 1985 and, on the other hand, the reply which has already been referred to and which was given by the Prime Minister in another place on the last day before the Summer Recess of last year. There was a complete change of direction.

The Government may well reply that there had been a change of direction or a change of emphasis by ESA. I do not deny that. There was a cranking up of the ESA programme which may not have been acceptable to the committee, let alone the Government. I believe that we would agree that on the balance of evidence presented to us the pursuit of a European-manned programme is a grotesque waste of resources. Apart from one witness who had a slightly Boy's Own Paper approach to the whole problem, it was difficult to find anyone in this country prepared to support the French in their insistence on a manned programme.

The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said that the scientists are against this and that they regard men in space as a contaminant. The Select Committee would have supported the Government if it was only a question of objecting to Hermes and to the man-rating of Ariane. We believe that the Government are correct in rejecting the more grandiose French plans in this direction. However, as has already been said, there comes a point where one has to participate in some things that one does not like in order to be able to participate at all. I think that the general conclusion of the committee was that we should still participate in Ariane 5, even if it had to be man-rated, in order to have some contact with the project.

The Government went beyond that point to a situation where the new cash limits, in my view and I believe that of most of the members of the committee, ensured the worst possible option. There is a danger that we may pay for the infrastructure but we may not be able to afford to invest any more money in order to obtain the fruits of the investment we have already made.

Perhaps I may quote from the evidence given by Mr. Roy Gibson at page 169 of Volume II of the report in answer to Question 588 which was:

"Do you, therefore, accept … that at this level we are in fact subsidising other countries and not getting equal benefit ourselves?"

he replied:

"Yes, I think we are getting a bad deal for our investment at the moment, yes. I think it would be possible over … two or three years, if we were to get more money, then to start re-adjusting even where we put our original £100 million. The difficulty is re-arranging it when we do not have any room for manoeuvre."

He was then asked:

"So we are locked in subsidising other people's programmes?"

To which he replied:

"Certainly for two years we have no headroom at all."

That is what I mean when I say that we are getting the worst of all worlds as a result of the amount of money that the Government have assessed as being the cash limit.

At present we are unable to sustain any further national programme of any significance. If we cannot do that, we cannot give industry the chance to play a full part. The consequences of that lack of competitiveness and the shortage of trained manpower for the future in this area, and in a variety of associated industries, are very serious. I believe it is foolish to throw out the British baby with the French bathwater.

However, the Government seem to expect industry to play an ever-increasing role in this sphere. We do not disagree with that; industry should be encouraged to play an increasing role. Indeed, it may well be that industry has not been as forthcoming as it should have been in this general area. Nonetheless, I suspect that we mean slightly different things and that in any case government expectations are unrealistic. They give the impression—this came through I believe very clearly from Mr. Clarke—that they see a greedy industry waiting for Government handouts for hardware contracts.

As I have already said, the committee is not uncritical of industry; industry may well be shortsighted, especially those companies superficially remote from space. However, many projects as the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, has already said, are essentially speculative; they are not attractive to shareholders or the City and the pay-off is really very long indeed. As your Lordships' Select Committee suggested, in its deliberations last year on the subject of R&D and surface transport, there is a great need for demonstration projects. If that is true of surface transport, I believe it is also true of space.

The real pay-off in industry will only come from the long-term exploitation of space projects by user companies, as is the case with communications. However, in the meantime, it is quite clear from the evidence we received that an absolute maximum, not more than £30 million, will come forward from industry and the Government will apparently not make good the shortfall in the short term.

Of course it takes time for industry to realise just what is happening and we have seen in the interim between our report in 1983 and that of the present day, that there is a shallow learning curve as regards industry. I looked at the evidence that Shell International gave to the committee in 1983. It stated:

"For hydrocarbon exploration the use of such techniques"—

referring to remote sensing—

"is limited to 'quick-look' cartography and to interpretation of surface geology in a few suitable areas."

Some four years later a letter, written a year ago today from my old friend and former colleague Dick Longfield in Shell UK, shows that much has happened to its awareness in the interval. In addition to an extended list of direct and indirect benefits—for example, weather and metoocean data; navigation; detection of oil spills and pipeline leakages—he also makes the following significant comment:

"The experience of space research and policy within a company such as ours is as yet limited, although we hope that as the commercial utilisation of outer space increases so will our 'space awareness'."

Therefore, if that is true of a great international company like Shell UK, how much more true must it be of smaller companies in this country? So there is a danger of an investment gap which can only be filled by public funds, until industry has a greater sense of space awareness.

If what I have said, together with that which has already been said in the House, appears to be critical of the Government and their policy, I hope that this will not be taken as a party political speech. In so far as the report is critical, I believe that it is critical across the whole party spectrum. It is clear from the committee's view that the Government do not have a stable policy and that they ought to have one.

Industry must believe in the stability of government policy, perhaps more than anything else. The report tries to fill that gap and suggests a policy to the Government which they could adopt as stated on page 61 at paragraph 5.111.

I do not intend to deal with much more detail on the subject, as many other noble Lords will no doubt mention Columbus and the polar platform, which indeed have already been referred to. I have already stated my views on Hermes in that I am against it, and my distaste for a man-rated Ariane 3 rocket.

Although I was originally sceptical about HOTOL I have now come round to the view that here is an opportunity that we cannot allow to go by default. It may be that it is our historic role to bring this concept to actuality; I believe it is unlikely that any other country will do so. We are already ahead of the Germans. HOTOL has the benefit that it is intended to be an unmanned artefact, and competitors from Germany and France who came into this business as a result of the initial HOTOL breakthrough have much more ambitious performance goals which will undoubtedly be more expensive. It is also unlikely that any nation with an expendable launcher system would take the project up because of the trauma it would cause to the lucrative business which its manufacturers already enjoy. Since we have no such industry to replace, it should indeed be easier for us.

It should also be borne in mind that the lower launch costs in the end will lead to lower spacecraft cost. With relaunch costs being lower following failure, a lower standard of space qualification and less demanding construction become possible. Therefore I hope the Government will not be too dismissive of HOTOL. They could, as the report says:

"win back for Britain in the 21st century a place in launcher technology even more important than that abandoned in the seventies".

Finally I should like to reinforce what I said on remote sensing. This is an area in which we already have considerable expertise. Therefore by concentrating our activities in those areas where we have such expertise—namely, radar, data processing and interpretation—we can begin to build up a commanding market position. That will keep us in a strong bargaining position for access to data. It will also put us in a complementary position as regards the French Spot satellites and the American Landsats working in the visible and infra-red frequencies.

I shall also draw your Lordships' attention to paragraph 5.96 of the report. It concerns a point raised in committee by the noble Baroness, Lady White, relating to the commercialisation of meteorological data. Privatising meteorological satellites would be a terrible mistake; we should avoid privatisation. Weather data should be available to all countries, especially third world countries, where it could be a matter of life and death. Should it be privatised, many of those countries would not be able to obtain such data.

I believe the report offers a way forward in space. I hope that the Government will therefore be prepared to accept it in the spirit in which it is offered and will work on it. We are in danger, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said, of opting out of space, and the cost of such action to this country would be extremely serious.

My Lords, I propose to base my remarks on the committee's recommendations that:

The UK needs a clear policy for space which is adhered to firmly and consistently. [that] The Government should formulate a positive space policy and make a full statement of that policy. [and that] this should be supported by a national space plan which should be published and updated regularly".

Any objective observer who was ignorant of the events of the past three years, especially the contents of the three brief government announcements during the past nine months, might well be surprised that it was necessary to set out such a simple, self-evident set of propositions. Indeed, it is surprising that we should have considered it necessary to address those remarks to an administration who in other risk areas have quite rightly sought to inject a more businesslike approach into government. However, the fact of the matter is that it has been almost impossible to discern exactly what the Government's policy on space is. Certain decisions have been taken—and with some one can readily agree—but, taken together, they are perceived by our colleagues in Europe, by industry in the United Kingdom and indeed by almost everyone who speaks on the matter as a massive U-turn. The explanation for the change has been cursory, and that is no sense of strategy at all.

The Government seem to be looking for greater commercialisation and the involvement of the private sector. That is good; it reinforces incipient trends in Europe and America. However, one is bound to say that the business has not been handled well. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, referred to firms that had invested in space and then have now been left high and dry. He mentioned some names One could add others. Considerable damage has been done. For example, ESA has had to cancel contracts with Logica and other United Kingdom firms. As a result, commercially valuable know-how has had to be passed across to our competitors, who have taken on those contracts. That surely must be damaging. It is hardly surprising in those circumstances that firms are now reluctant to invest in space.

It would be only too easy to score points on the Government's handling of space in a debate of this nature. In my view it is better to draw a line under what has happened and turn to the future. We should accept the current level of spend, or thereabouts, and see how best we can get good value for money from it and secure fruitful collaboration with ESA or with our own private sector. However, collaboration will be successful only if there is clarity of intention, reasoned explanation and a certainty of commitment.

This picture of muddle, and one has to say that it is muddle muddle, in my view is not helped by—indeed, to some extent it may reflect—the hyperbole of the space enthusiasts. Here I am bound to say that I have a certain amount of sympathy with the Government. Much of the evidence of the committee is long on assertion and short on reasoned argument.

I do not deny that space is exciting. I am currently President of the Royal Geographical Society. Space is, I suppose, a form of exploration, and I can share in the excitement. However, we need to be hard-nosed about it because it is very expensive and absorbs a lot of resources. Here I very much regret the honourable necessity of the resignation of Mr. Roy Gibson. In my view he certainly has his feet on the ground.

Worse still are the apparently sophisticated exercises attempting to quantify things that are inherently unmeasurable, for example, estimates of amazing rates of return alleged to have been generated by NASA's investment in space research and development. I have examined most of these studies. There are some honourable exceptions, but most could be rubbished with great ease by any junior Treasury official. They damage their case and they do not help the very real problem of deciding how much we should spend on space as compared with other competing claims for resources—a difficult decision, goodness knows!

It has been said that the case for space has many ingredients, not all of them economic. I do not intend to go over the ground already covered in the debate. I should like to sketch the kind of argument that seems to me to be relevant in one currently important field, that of earth observation. I do so against a background of having recently chaired a government committee on a closely related subject: the application of information technology to the handling of geographic information. The two subjects overlap.

Before I turn to earth observation, I wish briefly to refer to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, on ESA's Horizon 2000 programme, the basic science programme. It is an important programme and rather well thought through. The problem that has arisen is quite a small one, but it is having disproportionate knock-on effects. We have used our veto, which I suggest, is not always a sensible thing to do in a partnership, and it had the most unfortunate and unforeseen effects. I therefore very much hope that the Science and Engineering Research Council will sort out the problem.

I turn to earth observation. It may be helpful if I start by describing briefly the three programmes that have been on the table. First is the ERS II satellite programme to follow on ERS I. This is due to fly in 1990 and to have a three-year life. Then there is RADARSAT. This is a bilateral programme with the Canadians and therefore not part of ESA as such. Finally, there is the major programme, polar platform. This is an ESA programme designed to pair with the Americans' polar platform so that together they give morning and afternoon global coverage. The two platforms will fly in the late 1990s. They will be the first operational remote sensing satellites. By operational, I mean that they will be designed to give commercial reliability in a sense of data continuity —an important point.

The programmes are linked. In effect they are a continuing development although, as I said, Radarsat is not as closely linked as the other two. Together, in terms of operations, they take us well into the next century. The programmes have already been agreed in principle although in the last few days the status of ERS II has become unclear: it is difficult to know what is going on—there seems to be some politicking. The necessary agreements with NASA have now been settled. This has resulted in a new configuration that I think is also important. I shall come to that later. The programmes are not enormously costly in contrast to some of the other ESA programmes. There is little doubt that in some shape or form they will happen.

That is the background. The first question is do we want to be part of them and, if so, in what manner. If we say no, it is difficult to see how we can be usefully involved in this field—a field in which, as has been rightly said, we have considerable expertise—for the next 20 or 30 years, and it is as long as that. In my view it would be naive to believe that we could set up alternative bilateral programmes because all the major players—the United States, ESA, the ESA countries and Japan—will be involved in this single international polar platform system. They would in any case be more expensive. So much, to me at any rate, is clear.

Nevertheless, if we enter the programmes we need to be satisfied that we can achieve value for money. The question is whether there are likely to be sufficient end-users of benefits. In the nature of things, one cannot be certain about that. Experience from existing satellites in the fields of meteorology, aircraft and ship navigation, crop management and natural resources suggests that there are sufficient benefits. There are other important benefits of a scientific nature. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, referred to the popular but nontheless important one of the ozone hole in the Antarctic. That is one example in my view of the need to understand much more effectively the whole business of global physical processes.

There seem to me to be two important caveats. First, developing the right products and services, using both remotely sensed and other data, is likely to be most successfully carried out if it is undertaken by private sector companies. Secondly, the majority of end-users, especially government agencies, are used to being provided with data at prices that are not commensurate with the value of the data. A lot of education and market development will therefore be required. It will take at least 10 years.

I should like to inject a parallel here. I referred a few minutes ago to the committee on information technology and geographical information with which I was involved. The commercial applications of IT in that field have been a long time gestating. This afternoon I have come from a conference in Nottingham which attracted 500 people representing local government, the utilities, a great range of industry and so forth. It is hard to see how such a conference could have taken place with those numbers several years ago. Considerable sums of industrial money, some from the private sector and some from nationalised industries, are now being injected into that new field. It is a parallel example, not to be pushed too far, of how we spend a great deal of money developing a market, and how finally there is a breakthrough and the applications come through.

Be that as it may, if that analysis, which emphasises the importance of the ground segment, is right, we should welcome the Government's announcement that they intend to spend £4 million a year to develop the data centre which has been referred to. It is an important first step towards the polar platform; to obtaining operational use from it from the day it becomes operational. ERS II is an essential link in the chain of experimentation leading to fully operational development.

The ground segment is of course only one aspect of commercialisation. Just as important in the realms of earth observation is the space segment. It is important because, again properly handled, it will mean better value for money. In the nature of things, the private sector is better able to manage the technical risks and hence to inject upfront money, provided—this is the important point—the objectives and commitment are clearly defined. It means that instrumentation development must be user-driven. And it probably means that commercial risks are intitially underwritten by the Government. Eventually one would like to see a progressive sloughing off of that underwriting.

I am aware that I have oversimplified a complex set of relationships. Nevertheless, I believe that progressive commercialisation is important and can be achieved, but it will need imaginative procurement policies.

I have no doubt that achieving cost-effective solutions will depend upon who is in the driving seat. The country which takes the lead on the polar platform will have a dominating influence on how the programme is developed and operated and how costs are controlled. That is all too obvious from previous experience in ESA. It is therefore the best way of ensuring commercialisation and of ensuring that the programme is user-driven and properly tied into the value-added industry.

Furthermore, it ensures that the United Kingdom obtains the full technology benefits and—this is an important point—that the programme mounts radar as well as optical sensors. It is an important point for the United Kingdom because of cloud cover. We need the capability to see through cloud at all times. It is already clear that if we do not lead on the polar platform, there will be no radar on it. It will be dominated, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said, by the Spot Series II system. It has been mentioned that the Olympus platform could be modified for the purposes of the polar platform. The latest information is that, partly as a result of the agreement with NASA, and the reduction of the proposed weight of the polar platform from, I think, 3.5 tonnes to 2 tonnes, or something like that, it would now be possible to use the Olympus platform. That would result in a considerable saving in cost, which should be attractive to the ESA countries. The point is that it is a British design and would therefore only be used under ESA rules if the United Kingdom led the programme. That is an important practical and industrial reason for being in the polar platform.

Finally, there is of course the question of costs. The Government will know more about the detailed costings. My information is broadly similar to that of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. The run-off of existing programmes—the building up of headroom—should provide some headroom in a year or two. But there may be some initial expenditure above the current budget level in the first couple of years. Nevertheless, even if the costs prove to be rather more, my conclusion is that it would be a reasonable premium to pay in order to stay in the one area of space which holds out a reasonable promise or exploitable results over the next 20 to 30 years.

If the ESA programme and RADARSAT cannot both be met within the present budget constraints, then I say that we should regrettably have to abandon RADARSAT and go for the polar platform as being the more important in the long run. I see little point in joining the programme unless we lead it. It would be difficult to control and the technology know-how benefits would be minimal.

The Government have said that they believe that earth observation from space could have significant potential. That was part of the February announcement. I happen to agree with that. But we have to come to a decision. As the House has been told, ESA has left the door open. I think we should be grateful to the director general of ESA, Herr Reimar Lüst, for his helpful influence. But the ESA countries want to come to a decision. They will do so in two weeks' time. The Government should react positively and with determination. I believe that our European partners would welcome that. But let us be in no doubt that if we say no, the programme will still go ahead; and if we prevaricate, we shall be unable to climb back on again.

At the beginning of my remarks I said that I had some sympathy with the Government, although not for the way in which they have handled the matter. I know the feeling of climbing on to a cost escalator. And the space business has all the hallmarks of such an escalator. But decisions have been taken. Some were not rational, but it so happens that one element can be put right. It happens to be the least costly element. If we reject it and say no, I would agree with other noble Lords. It might be better to bow out of the whole space business.

My Lords, I, too, should like to signify our debt of gratitude not only to the chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, who introduced the debate, but to the many other people who took infinite pains through a long hearing. One has only to read the reports to see the trouble that people took. Those of us who did not sit on the committee are deeply in their debt.

It is an appropriate time to be debating this matter. Two decisions need shortly to be taken. Two windows are being kept open. One is the opportunity to join the polar platform with the ground control station; the second is the possibility of joining RADARSAT, the Canadian-led project. The second decision must be made by tomorrow night and the other by mid-April. This is almost the last moment—almost born in the vestry—to have the debate.

It is sad that Britain, which played such a tremendous part in launching the European Space Agency, now seems to be phasing out its interest, enthusiasm and contribution in real terms. I urge the Government to think again at this late stage. It is surely not right to take the rigid line that the private sector must provide most of the money. The money for these long drawn-out research programmes does not come back quickly; it may take five or even 10 years.

Governments in all capitalist countries would not have succeeded in the breakthroughs in so many fields—lasers, the biotechnology that is now coming—if it had not been for government participation. After all, perhaps the greatest capitalist country is the United States of America. But where would its space programme be without NASA, a carefully planned long-term programme and long-term budgeting? We owe it to our national space centre to announce our plan and our contributions to ESA.

There is not much chance of recruiting the right director of the British National Space Centre let alone his deputy—since both the director and his deputy have now gone—if we do not have a plan, new terms of reference and a budget, as well as, I hope, the independence recommended in this report. I am puzzled, as many other people must be. I ask myself why, in the last two years, the Government have gone so cold on space. After all, we have just had a very confident Budget. We are told in forecasts from the CBI and everywhere else that the industrial growth of our country is good and will be sustained. Everything seems good and bursting with energy and confidence. Yet the one place where we are not prepared to invest is space.

I believe that the space centre itself and such firms as British Aerospace and Marconi are strongly recommending to the Government two essential short-term projects. The first priority is the reentering of the portion of the Columbus project—not the whole but a portion of it—which deals with the polar platform. We visualise being offered the chance to undertake it as the prime contractor. The control and the data processing for that earth station would rest with Farnborough. Secondly, they suggest a short, holding operation whilst the Government sort out whether the UK will go ahead with the Canadian RADARSAT or possibly the ERS-2. If we do not go with the ERS-2 then Spot will be sold by the French in its place.

The extra cost of these two projects might be in the area of between £10 million and £15 million. I understand that the industry itself is prepared to rake through its coffers and contribute £3 million or £4 million towards that sum. It is not big money in a huge budget. After all, we were reminded only last week that we were paying £21·75 billion on health. Here we are asking for a small increase in investment of new money, immediately or fairly soon, of £10 million to £15 million.

What is the cost of not going ahead? That is something which one can never judge completely accurately. People say, "Oh, we can't afford yet another project of this sort." French nationalism, as a result of de Gaulle's leadership, has certainly succeeded in funding a tremendous amount of venturesome, high technology projects. One only has to think—it was many years ago now—of the train de grande vitesse, TGV, which was a world leader and still is. The nuclear power stations are now taking between 70 and 80 per cent. of the electricity load in their country.

There is half of Concorde, which, incidentally, we tried to get out of but the French kept us to our obligations in the contract. Every time Concorde flies over me I feel proud of it, and I think most Brits do. Whenever they see it in the air or on the ground, they feel an extra sense of pride in something which we have taken part in building and launching. The French have their own independent nuclear deterrent, not only the land-based one but the submarine-based ones. They have more submarines operational at sea than we have. Then there is the airbus with all its variants, the A310 and A320 and coming along now the A330 and A340. In our own area which is under debate today, we have Ariane 3, 4 and 5 to come.

A noble friend of mine on these Benches who has just returned from Latin America said, "You have no idea what the French salesmen are doing, going round putting on a tremendous display of what they can offer with their space programme and space launches. They are not going to be held back, they are going on." When the French are so confident, why are we so pussy-footed in space in general? True, we have agreed to keep things ticking over, as has been rightly said by so many speakers, at about £120 million a year. The proposal is that this programme might cost a minimum of the £10 million or £15 million which I mentioned, but it is more likely to be between £20 million and £30 million, to undertake what industry believes is essential.

I think we want to go on. I know the DTI has launched a very big, expensive advertising programme to create new jobs. But let us also remember to create confidence in our country at the same time and in the future of high technology jobs.

Finally, I should like to remind my noble friend of an assurance which I hope will give him the let-out when he comes to wind up this debate. It was made by the Leader of the House, Mr. John Wakeham:

"We are reconsidering our position … before any final decision is made." [Official Report, Commons, 25/3/88: col. 670.]

I hope therefore very sincerely that my noble friend the Secretary of State will say that we shall grab these two windows of opportunities which I have mentioned. That will bridge the gap whilst we are working out our space policy and its budget. I would urge my noble friend, in persuading his colleagues to go along with him on this, that national pride, prestige and confidence are essential for the success of any country in a competitive world. If we do not grab our opportunities in space, France will.

My Lords, as a member of the Select Committee responsible for this report, I rise this evening to support the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, who had a particularly difficult task in this case in leading the committee through some pretty choppy waters to what I believe is a sound and well-balanced report, firmly anchored in the evidence. The Government appeared to reject the main conclusions of the report out of hand almost before the print was dry on it. But we shall learn later this evening whether they have been saved by any second thoughts.

First of all I want to support the plea of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and some subsequent speakers for a clear statement of policy on space, backed by a national space plan. So far, all we have had is the flat statement in the White Paper on the future of the DTI which was quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel. By way of contrast, it is perhaps worth looking at what has been happening on the other side of the Atlantic. On 11th February last, President Reagan announced in a major state document:

"A comprehensive space policy and commercial space initiative to begin the next century."

It is a very long document, but I should like to quote a few sentences from it:

"The United States civil space sector activities shall contribute significantly to enhancing the nation's science, technology, economy, pride, sense of wellbeing and direction, as well as United States world prestige and leadership. Civil sector activities shall comprise a balanced strategy of research, development, operations and technology for science exploration and appropriate applications."

I have one more quotation:

"The objectives of the United States civil space activities shall be (1) to expand knowledge of the Earth, its environment, the solar system and the universe; (2) to create new opportunities for use of the space environment through the conduct of appropriate research and experimentation in advanced technology and systems; (3) to develop space technology for civil applications and, wherever appropriate, make such technology available to the commercial sector; (4) to preserve the United States pre-eminence in critical aspects of space science, applications, technology, and manned space flight; (5) to establish a permanently manned presence in space; and (6) to engage in international co-operative efforts that further United States space goals".

I am not one of those who think that we should seek to emulate United States policies. For one thing we do not have the resources and I fear that in many cases we also lack the motivation. But in this case a great deal of what the President said could be quite easily transferred into the kind of statement of policy which the committee has asked the Government to make.

So far really all we have is the application of an arbitrary cash limit coupled with an exhortation to the private sector to do more. That really is not good enough. I do hope that at least when the Government come to make their response to the committee's recommendations they will produce a reasoned and coherent justification for the policy which they intend to pursue.

I turn for a moment to support what the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, and the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, said about the situation in the British National Space Centre. The decision to create that entity in 1985 was warmly welcomed by the Select Committee. It appeared to be just what was needed to carry out what then was thought to be the policy of the Government on space. But it has never got off the ground. It now appears to be little more than an inter-departmental committee, the members of which have to rely on their own departments for finance for the centre. That is a recipe for failure.

Moreover it is at present headless, as other speakers have pointed out. Indeed we have seen the somewhat bizarre situation of the United Kingdom being represented at an ESA meeting by resigned and retired directors of the centre.

I know that Ministers and departments dislike receiving, still less accepting, advice from outside the machinery of government. But as the committee recommended, this centre must be given the status and the means to function effectively under strong leadership. The appointment of a new director must be a matter of urgency.

Now a word about Europe. I cannot resist a general comment about the Government's treatment of our European partners throughout the long drawn out negotiations. It is surely possible to disagree on policy with them, as indeed the committee disagrees with them on important points, without insulting them or using the rule book to block scientific research which they all wish to undertake and from which of course we ourselves would benefit. No doubt this will be regarded as a typically wet remark by a retired diplomat. But I nevertheless draw the attention of your Lordships to the committee's opinion on the ESA programmes and the moderate language in which it is expressed.

In this context I shall only make one specific point. It relates to Ariane 5. The Government originally welcomed this project at the Rome Conference in 1985. Some British companies invested money in securing contracts under it. Now the Government appear to have backtracked and this investment threatens to be lost. The excuse is that Ariane 5 has been, in technical jargon, man-rated, and will therefore be somewhat more expensive. But it will also ensure that the UK will have access to a more dependable and sturdy rocket for lesser loads. I understand that this aspect of the new project will be given priority.

For these and other reasons the committee recommended that the United Kingdom should keep a foothold in launcher development by supporting Ariane 5 at the same level as it is supporting Ariane 4. I urge the Government to think again about this if it is not already too late.

Unless we participate in this and more importantly in at least part of the Columbus programme, our influence in ESA will soon vanish with the result that British industry will be virtually excluded from sharing in the European space market. Can the Secretary of State be happy about handing to the French on a plate a quasi-monopoly of the industrial space market in Europe, because that I fear is likely to be the result? The recent French decision, at least for the time being, to block the ERS 2 project is a red light which should not be ignored.

The committee's views on the merits of specific projects in the international space plan are certainly different from those of the Government. But I urge the Secretary of State to agree with nearly all the speakers who have so far spoken that two positive decisions are needed now. The first is to join the Canadians in RADARSAT and the second is to take a prime contractor role for the polar platform. Our reputation in Europe and indeed in the United States and our credibility as a partner in high technology are both at stake on this issue.

My last point this afternoon concerns the light which the space controversy has shone upon the Government's attitude to the system which was set up for co-ordinating and offering advice on science policy as a result of the Select Committee's report on research and development. The Government's response was warmly welcomed by the committee, but there was a potential catch in the situation, namely that the Government would simply ignore the advice which they received under the new arrangements. It is a great deal gained when these matters are assured of attention at the highest level, but cold comfort if the highest level uniformly rejects the advice.

It is fair to say that when the crunch came in space policy the new system was barely in place. I at least have no hard evidence regarding the ACOST advice and whether, whatever it was, it was completely ignored. But enough uncertainty has been created to justify asking for an assurance that the Government are serious in their determination to make the new system work, and that they do not regard it as so much cosmetic powder which can be puffed away at will.

My Lords, I became accustomed in another place to the high quality of Select Committee reports from your Lordships' House. But I have known none which is more worthy of attention and indeed action than the one we are discussing today. The Government's White Paper DTI—the department for Enterprise, which we debated last month, had one short and, I found, dreary and dismal, little paragraph on the subject of space. It stated bluntly that the Government were only prepared to spend about £120 million a year and had no proposals for any increase. In those circumstances I think that the Select Committee is right to conclude that the present level of spending is wrong and gets the worst of all worlds, to pick up an intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, in the course of the very interesting and important evidence which the committee heard.

Having reached that inescapable conclusion that we are getting the worst of all worlds, I think the modest suggestion of the committee that expenditure should be raised to £200 million is somewhat less than what is required and dictated by the evidence and the conclusions and recommendations of the committee. We have a budget of over £130 billion. We can apparently give without difficulty a dowry of £800 million to Rover and we can spend £5 billion on the Channel Tunnel. I wholly approve of the expenditure on the Channel Tunnel. However, I believe that it puts the sums which we are discussing into proportion.

I share to the full the views which were expressed by Sir Geoffrey Pattie who, as has been pointed out, was the Minister responsible for United Kingdom space policy before he left the Government. In a report in The Times of 31st January 1988 he said:

"The Government by deciding not to join our European partners in advanced space programmes has opted out of the key future technologies and handed over the high technology leadership of Europe to France and Germany".

We have fallen so far behind France that France now has an annual spend of over five times that of the United Kingdom. Germany and even Italy now spend more than we do. In the words of another witness before the committee, Dr. Geoffrey Pardoe, who spent a lifetime in these fields and was in charge of the Blue Streak project in the 1960s, this is:

"a ridiculous and untenable situation which demands rectification".

I agree with Sir Geoffrey Pattie that we are witnessing a great betrayal of our scientific and industrial heritage. Of course, this is not the first betrayal. My noble friend Lord Caldecote reminisced a little today, as I might in a moment. We can look back on a sorry history of vacillations, cancellations, missed opportunity, lack of purpose and Treasury obduracy. As Sir Geoffrey said in his evidence, in answer to Question 764:

"We start on certain programmes, then we get in a great panic about them, start saying 'We can't see where they are taking us' or, 'What's going to happen? The costs are going to be terrible', and we come out of them".

He continued:

"There are plenty people around who were actually involved in Blue Streak and who have an awful déjà-vu sense about what is going on now".

I am one of those people who were actually involved in the Blue Streak project. I can hardly find words to convey the dismay I feel at the present situation. That is only mitigated by the admirable speeches which we have heard today. If the Government have ears as well as guts, they will listen to those speeches.

As a junior Minister in the Government of Mr. Macmillan, as he then was, I told the other place on 29th July 1960, and again on 21st December, that we had the capacity—using Blue Streak as the first stage, modifying Black Knight for the second stage and with a new third stage, Black Arrow—to put our own satellites into orbit within the following five or six years. We were looking forward to using satellites for telecommunications and television channels.

I cannot honestly say that all my colleagues shared my enthusiasm. As my noble friend Lord Caldecote said, the Post Office did not share it, and inevitably the Treasury did not. However, I recall sending Mr. Macmillan a report from a United States Congressional committee to the President of the United States. It started by saying: "this is no astronautic boondoggle", and it continued to say that the programmes would produce a number of highly valuable pay-offs. If we look at the list today, we shall see that that was right, although people laughed at the time. I got the approval of the Prime Minister. But of course there were those who refused to believe that the projects had any practical or commercial future.

We see the same shortsightedness today. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, referred to the development of the aircraft 80 years ago. There are Members of this House who can remember Louis Blériot crossing the Channel. The general view was that aircraft had no practical or commercial future. I said in 1960, and I say again today, that those are the sort of people who, if they had their way, would allow Britain to degenerate in the 21st century into a nation flogging hand-knitted Union Jacks to tourists.

We may not have gone forward in the 1960s as far as I and many others would have wished. However, we had Ministers of Aviation in the Cabinet at that time. I was fortunate enough to serve under the late Lord Duncan-Sandys and my noble friend Lord Thorneycroft. We remained in the forefront of development until the Labour Government in 1967 abandoned Blue Streak, shut down the facility at Spadeadam, which was one of the most advanced installations in the world, and turned away 900 skilled people working there. Far from keeping the pledge to forge the new Britain in the white heat of the technological revolution, all they left was a flickering ember. It is that flickering ember which we are trying to keep alive today.

We do not want to compete with the United States and the Soviet Union in being the first to hit Mars or, as the Select Committee said, put a family into orbit. However, the conclusion is clear. There is no finishing line, but there are plenty of prizes. The major technological powers in the world are making up their teams for the race. The United Kingdom has a chance to join in. Unless we do so now, we shall never be in the running.

That is the conclusion of a powerful Select Committee that the Government and the nation should not disregard. I said in 1960, and I say again today, that of course we must go ahead in international collaboration, particularly in Europe. In 1960 we were in the process of establishing the European space research organisation. We were leaders in that organisation. Now we find ourselves almost at the bottom of the list.

That we are holding on today by our fingertips in space technology is, as was said by Sir Geoffrey Pattie in answer to Question 279, largely due to the investment made in the 1960s. We have been coasting for some time with the engine virtually turned off. The fact that British satellite technology is so widely acclaimed is again directly due to up-front Government support via the ESA. As my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing has said, in the United States the Government back NASA. Whatever private industry does—and I agree that it ought to do a great deal—it cannot do anything without the underpinning of Government support.

I make no apology for drawing particular attention to the evidence given by Sir Geoffrey Pattie. He was the Minister responsible and his knowledge is quite up to date. To many of us, he speaks with a great deal of authority. His evidence and that of Mr. Roy Gibson are most important. I believe that we should all agree that Mr. Gibson's resignation as the director general of the British National Space Centre was a national tragedy. However, it drew public attention to what is happening. The evidence deserves your Lordships' closest attention.

I warmly welcome the conclusions of the Select Committee in Paragraph 6.9 that:

"The United Kingdom should play a more constructive role in the future and be prepared to take part in some ESA projects about which it has reservations, in the interests of full collaboration".

Many of those projects deserve more attention on their merits than can be given to them in a debate of this kind. I think that, in the course of the next year or so, we should find more opportunities to debate the subject. It is one of the most important subjects with which we should deal.

There are four immediate areas which might perhaps be targeted and which the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, put to Mr. Roy Gibson, who agreed with him. Those areas are the development of the next Ariane rocket, some sort of participation in Columbus, earth observation and exploring the atmosphere from space and in astronomy. As many noble Lords have pointed out, sadly, time is running out for us. Decisions are urgently needed on those and other projects. Some of those projects are Columbus, the polar platform, and RADARSAT.

Perhaps the modifications that have been made on the Columbus polar platform may lead the Government to be more inclined to support it on the grounds that it is now more realistic in its commercial objectives. Equally, I think that we are almost unanimous that some action must be taken to appoint a new director general for the BNSC. Of course that is impossible until there is a policy for him to implement.

Finally, there is one project, HOTOL, to which I should like to draw particular attention. Some reference has been made to it and to the conclusion of the Select Committee that:

"In the longer-term the prospects of HOTOL should be explored, as an international venture. If at the end of the proof of concept stage of HOTOL the future looks promising, the Committee favour pressing ahead, subject to certain conditions".

In the light of earlier statements in its recommendations and the evidence, I think that that might be put a little more strongly. This is a project in regard to which we are in grave danger of repeating all the mistakes of the past. It was in relation to HOTOL that Sir Geoffrey Pattie made his observations about Government vacillations and doubts. The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, also pointed out that in the committee's knowledge:

"This concept could win back for Britain in the 21st century a place in launcher technology even more important than that abandoned in the seventies".

This is not an opportunity to be missed. As the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said, it is true that certain aspects of the project remain classified. Reference to the 1988 Mitchell Lecture delivered by Mr. Alan Bond indicates fairly clearly the potentialities of propulsion for economic space transportation policy.

I welcome the Select Committee's report. They are not alone in feeling that this is a superior subject. There is one other concise and cogent pamphlet to which I should like to refer. I hope that your Lordships will be inclined to read it. It is called Highways in the Sky and is published by the Conservative Computer Forum, a body which I hope will commend itself to Her Majesty's Government. The pamphlet points out that HOTOL is the one project above all others which has stolen the limelight and captured the public imagination. They want to see us go forward with the project. Above all, I share the conclusions of the young authors of Highways in the Sky that, in its ability to expand our influence and forever push forward Britain's skills, the space industry fulfils many of the principles for which the Conservative Party stands. I hope that there will be no more betrayals of the future.

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I wonder whether I can raise a point which he made at the beginning of his speech. He castigated the committee slightly for being somewhat unambitious in the amount of money it talked about. Perhaps I may draw his attention to the evidence of Mr. Roy Gibson in answer to Question 575. He said:

"I think it is possible to say that if there were available around £200 million—some of that coming from the private sector and some of the additional coming from Government—you could even now make a sensible and reasonable programme".

Many of us would want to go beyond that, but I think that the committee felt that a sensible and reasonable programme was what we wanted. Of course, Mr. Gibson was accused by the Minister of being an enthusiast, which the Minister uses as a pejorative word.

My Lords, I agree that without it there could be virtually no worthwhile programme. I think that he would grasp at anything. I only say that that is the minimum.

My Lords, perhaps I may first of all add my tribute to our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, on a difficult job well done, and also to the clerks and expert advisers who served the committee so well.

I do not want to go over ground that has already been covered by others, but I want to underline my concern at what I believe to be the unfortunate direction that the European Space Agency is now taking. In my opinion it is unfortunate indeed that the French have coerced the agency into the folly of manned space flight. I believe that that has deflected the European Space Agency from following a potentially exciting and worthwhile developing space potential of great value to Europe which is based on good science. Other than rampant nationalism, there is not a case for superimposing the complications of transferring man to and supporting him in space on a significant and worthwhile programme of space science and technology.

It is well recognised throughout the world that modern tele-operated technology can do almost anything that man can do in space and can do some things a great deal better, at a fraction of the cost and without the human tragedy of a potential failure. There would be some justification if man in space were still a pioneering project. But since the pioneering has now been carried out by the Americans and the Russians it is simply not justified to risk human life at great expense in pure out-and-out nationalism.

Although it may sound strange from these Benches, I have to say that I entirely agree with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in his evidence to the committee. He told us that he failed to elicit any sound scientific or technological reason for the French drive to add a third project for man in space alongside those of the Russians and the Americans. I think that the French have done an extraordinary disservice to the European Space Agency in pursuing this course. I cannot understand the German support for this line of development. It cannot be based on logic. Since the Germans are so famous for their scientific logic I can only conclude that it is a political decision for a reason that I cannot comprehend.

Since there is no longer any pioneering reason for launching man into space there can be no possible justification for manned space flights with such high risks. One then has to re-engineer the whole system of launching, supporting and recovering human beings in any such project on a low-risk basis. That is extremely expensive, as the Americans have now realised. They are now attempting to upgrade the space shuttle to a more acceptable standard than when they were simply pioneering.

If one considers the record of Ariane launches—let us accept a failure rate of about one in 10 or one in 15 flights—and then considers full safety cost basis aerospace engineering in a modern jet liner with a risk factor of 1.5 deaths per million flights, one realises the enormity of the change that is necessary. That change from high to low risk is unbelievably expensive. In my opinion there is no way that the European Space Agency can carry out its project for manned space flight to the risk standard that is now required for anything like the sums of money that it has suggested for those projects. The costs will escalate, as they have in the past in so many other ill-conceived projects.

All of that is detracting from the invaluable true science and true technology of a space programme which is so important for the future of technology in Europe. That is the extraordinary disservice which I believe the French are imposing on Europe at the present time. The importance of the international programme on Spacelab and polar orbit is well stated in our report. But one has to remember that in the original proposition polar orbit does not need manned assistance. From the very beginning the Americans offered to provide space transport for the nations collaborating in the Columbus project which are foolish enough to think that man in space is of any real importance other than the jingoistic one.

Having said that, I believe that it is of crucial importance that the United Kingdom should play a major part in the European Space Agency. We should do so not only to try to counsel our European partners in a more sensible policy but also because I believe it will be necessary to rescue the space agency when the present folly runs into the ground, as I am perfectly sure it will, I hope that the Government will do all they can to maintain their presence and at the same time provide the maximum assistance and support for British industry in the process.

My Lords, I join with other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for giving us this opportunity to discuss UK space policy. As the tenth speaker on the list I find that much of what I intended to say has already been superseded by the speeches of other noble Lords. Most particularly I felt an enormous sympathy with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, who spoke from the Front Bench opposite, and who spoke much more eloquently than I can.

In this rather strange situation I find myself thinking back to my reasons for wishing to contribute to this debate, and I realised that I had always been involved in innovation and technology. One might say that I was almost weaned on them. Before I reached the age of 10 I was constantly at RSRE, as it was called, or TRE Malvern. That was during the war, of course. At that age I could not understand why at weekends I was made to go and see what the water was like up on the hills there, although it was because my father was involved in what eventually came to be known as radar. After the war I learned what it was all about, and I am very grateful to the people who developed radar before the war and which protected our shores during the early years of the conflict.

A memory that comes clearly to mind is a moment in 1957, on 4th October. I remember it vividly because that day happened to be my father's birthday. On that day came the news report that the Russians had put up a Sputnik. I was covered with pride when I learned that it was the Jodrell Bank radio telescope built by Mr. Bernard Lovell as he then was, now Sir Bernard Lovell, who was an old colleague of my father during the war. Alone in the world his radio telescope could track the Sputnik without listening to its bleeps That facility was unique to Britain, and I felt a real pride in it. I am sure that noble Lords will be able to recall many other instances in which they have felt a similar pride.

I am in the slightly unhappy position of having to criticise my noble friend the Secretary of State who is a senior member of a Government who, since 1979, have been able completely to transform the commercial and industrial face of Britain. I believe that in 1979 the withdrawal of restraints from industry (which I think many of us tend to forget) was of enormous importance in restoring pride to British management. Noble Lords may have forgotten, as I find myself forgetting, that there were limitations on dividends, wages, profit margins and prices. At a stroke the Government abolished the restraints upon the management of our great country. It took a little longer to remove exchange controls but they also disappeared.

The Government understood their role in relation to industry and the fact that industry has to get on with the work of creating a prosperous and expanding economy in a framework provided by them. That understanding has been proven by the programme of successive privatisations. It showed that the Government understood that bureaucrats and politicians were not the best people to run industry, and that the lack of financial discipline in a nationalised industry did not operate in the best interests of either the industry itself or its customers.

I therefore find it hard to understand why the importance of a national programme of research and expenditure on science and technology as a means of pump-priming industry does not seem to be basically understood by the present Government. Surely there comes a time in all scientific programmes when industry sees the commercial value of a concept, so they pick it up and run with it. As was mentioned earlier, there are areas in which it is not easy for a Treasury official to see the commercial value of expenditure. I believe that in 1985 the Government made a wise decision therefore to form the British National Space Centre. Properly used, that organisation would have been well equipped for the role of advising the Government on the tactical or even strategic value of involvement in space research.

At this point I must declare an interest in that I am a non-executive director of GTS (General Technology Systems Ltd.), the company mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and I am a co-director with Dr. Geoffrey Pardoe who was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Rippon. I feel that Britain has a lot to contribute to the thinking of governments and the understanding of activities in the areas of space research. I totally agree with nearly all previous speakers that the ESA programme for Hermes is wrong and that we should not become involved in man-rating. Nevertheless I believe that it is of vital importance to the whole framework of the commercial future of British industry to be involved in such programmes. Other noble Lords have put figures on these programmes but I shall speak only in general terms. I believe that the viewpoint of the Treasury official which looks purely at the immediate return on the various programmes which we have been discussing totally misunderstands the vital importance of the involvement of our scientists at—I shall say it—the forefront of British technology.

I am sorry if I repeat myself, but it is vitally important that money should be made available in adequate amounts. The availability of money raises very specific problems, in that people given too much of it are inclined to spend most of their time wondering how to spend it, and those who have too little money wonder how at the end of the week they will pay their staff. But money is not the only resource which is or should be made available by government. Equally important is the framework within which that money is spent. That, I believe, involves the role of government and I think that in this situation they should look at it carefully.

My Lords, I should like to say a few words about science in space on which the United Kingdom spends, through the British National Space Centre, about £21 million a year. The very word "space" presents conceptual problems. By definition it is a three-dimensional extent without any limits. Most of it is a vacuum. Thus expressed it would seem to have little significance for your Lordships who, like nature, doubtless abhor a vacuum. However, just because it is limitless and infinite, space contains everything in the universe. That includes us, the inhabitants of this universe.

As humans we have a curiosity about space that will not be denied. Names such as Kepler, Copernicus, Halley, Newton and so on, remind us of those who first brought order into the movement of celestial bodies and identified that mysterious phenomenon of gravity. Their work also provided the stimulus and the means for the creation of optical instruments, some of them for navigation, thereby facilitating commerce and the colonisation of continents. Scientific inquiry has indeed always—not just 300 years ago—had a commercial spin-off at a financial value far exceeding the cost of the science which originated it.

It is much the same today but there is an important difference from the past. Following Newton, we have known that it is theoretically possible for an object to be shot into space with sufficient force to overcome the gravitational pull of the earth's field and then either to stay up, moving in orbit above the earth, or to continue its travels to distant planets and stars. As the noble Lord, Lord Renwick, has just reminded us, this possibility became a reality with Sputnik just over 30 years ago. This new power that man has acquired has many consequences, some of which are detailed in the second report of the Select Committee. I wish to draw your Lordships' attention to the following points.

First, our ability to transmit signals to artificial satellites and thereby control what they do, and to receive signals from them, is now so enhanced and so precise that observations of events in space need no longer suffer the restriction of the observing instruments being earthbound. It also implies that the earth can be kept under constant and minute surveillance. The benefits which have accrued from this new power have been not just to space science—which is advancing rapidly—but also to telecommunications, the benefits of which we all enjoy, and many other sciences ranging from the obvious sciences of geology, oceanography and meteorology, to the physical and even biological and medical sciences.

Secondly—and this is most important—the conditions of temperature, density, chemical composition and gravity within space and on celestial objects are so different from those on earth, and vary over such wide ranges, that space can and should be regarded as a magnificent laboratory, unattainable on earth, that can be used to test scientific ideas in the most stringent ways imaginable. Likewise, unpredictable processes and phenomena are to be found in space which challenge our current thinking.

Thirdly, to design, to construct, and to put into the required trajectory in this hostile environment, a space vehicle with its payload of sophisticated equipment makes extraordinary and extreme demands on the skills of engineers, material scientists and technologists. They must work at the leading edge of knowledge in their fields and because failure is so costly their products must meet the most exacting standards of reliability. The high levels of competence, organisation and management that these people and their firms must possess confers obvious and real benefits on other activities in the enterprises that they serve. I believe it is no exaggeration to say that involvement in space is one of the engines of industrial innovation.

Fourthly and finally, let us not forget that astronomy, particle physics and space research are known—inquiries have been carried out to investigate this—to be areas of scientific activity which command public interest and attract able youngsters into science. These young people are not only the oxygen of science who will keep its flame burning brightly in years to come, but the majority of them find their way ultimately into industry and other employment where they are in short supply and desperately needed for the advanced skills and knowledge that they possess. That the Government are deeply concerned about this recruitment is nowhere more clearly manifested than in Mr. Baker's initiatives about the city technical colleges. In short, we must all agree with what Sir Geoffrey Pattie had to say while he was Minister:

"No technologically developed country can afford to approach the 21st century without a significant stake in space".

Hitherto in this country we have had a good record in space science. Why then was your Lordships' Select Committee so concerned when it reported as it did? The answer lies in the fact that space science research is expensive—too dear for a single European country to "go it alone". That is why we have the European Space Agency. Its task is to ensure that collectively European countries have a viable space science research activity. It has produced a plan for European space research called, as we have heard, the Horizon 2000 programme, which has four major priorities that are called cornerstones, and five medium-sized missions.

The noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, has told this House that the Government are committed to that programme. Indeed, they accepted the implications for funding the UK subscriptions to ESA up to 1989. However, as noble Lords are now aware, last November at The Hague the Government did not accept the 5 per cent. per annum funding growth necessary for that programme for the quinquennium 1990–94 inclusive to go ahead. Moreover, since approval required unanimity of all the member states this act also blocked the increase that other nations were willing to provide. In fact the Government went further. They insisted that the subscriptions of members newly entered in 1986—Austria, Norway and Finland—be used not to make the programme go ahead at a slightly higher rate but to abate the subscriptions of existing members and to keep the envelope of expenditure constant.

Since November ESA has been probing the effect of the reduced level of resources it now faces. It has stretched the programme to the year 2007. But even so it has concluded—and I do not think that anyone who is knowledgeable in the area can dispute this—that it must eliminate two of the four cornerstones of its programme. These are in X-ray and infra-red astronomy in which fields, sadly, the United Kingdom space science community has not only great interests but very great expertise. I fear that flights will become so infrequent that it is doubtful whether our United Kingdom teams can be kept in being. Those who depart from those teams will be eagerly snapped up by our competitors. These are grievous blows to British science.

What, your Lordships may well ask, is the magnitude of the money saved by the Exchequer through this decision? That 5 per cent. per annum on the £21 million per annum that we spend is, in round figures, a mere £1 million extra per annum, equivalent roughly to a mere 2p per annum per head of population. Surely in our state of affluence we can afford this small sum?

Therefore I earnestly request the Government in their reconsideration of space science to reverse their earlier decision and thus avoid that kind of damage to British science which I have mentioned and to our relations with other countries which are members of ESA—damage which is out of all proportion to the paltry sums involved, at least as far as space science is concerned.

Moreover, this restoration of the £1 million extra per annum each year in the quinquennium would be the key to unlock the at present unwillingly imprisoned moneys of the other nations, so that Horizon 2000 could go ahead with the proper and most beneficial speed.

My Lords, as a member of the Select Committee I too should like to add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. He could hardly have chosen a better date for this debate, having regard to the decisions that have to be taken in the near future.

In listening to the evidence that was given to us, it seemed to me that space fell into two categories. First, space proper; the exploration of the stars and, secondly, space used for terrestrial purposes, for earth measurement and observation. The report is clear that in the first category the Government were right not to join ESA in putting a man into space. Here I wholly agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, said. France persuaded ESA to man-rate Ariane and to adopt Hermes with the object of putting a man into space to achieve some spurious European independence. Perhaps a country like the USA is rich enough to indulge in such exercises, but even for the States the cost of putting a man on the moon or sending him to Mars is vast and in terms of scientific advancement the return is pitifully small.

When President Kennedy in 1963 said, "We will go to the moon", it took 10 years to accomplish the feat. But most of the scientific know-how was already known in 1963. The project actually required little extra science or engineering development. Indeed as the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, seems to have discovered, perhaps the most significant scientific pay-off of that exercise is the teflon nonstick frying pan.

The exploration of space is expensive and is not the most effective way of advancing technology. The chairman of the SERC has made it clear that if more resources for research are to become available the exploration of space, in the sense of putting a man into space, would not be the first priority. Examples of scientific problems which need to be tackled to make Britain become more prosperous are process engineering, superconductivity and knowledge-based computing. The truth is that countries which have put men into space have done so for political reasons rather than for scientific reasons. France is now leading ESA into man-rated space projects for political reasons. A spurious independence in space is being achieved by repeating old technology. It may not be long before France and Germany reconsider their adventure of putting a man into space.

I therefore should like to turn to my second meaning of space: space in relation to the observation and measurement of the earth; an area where Britain has already established a considerable reputation and an area which is nearer for commercial exploitation. In reply to a Question by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, the Government announced that at that time they would not be extending our involvement in ESA including,

"the Columbus space station as presently proposed".

I ask your Lordships to notice the words, "as presently proposed". The Government argued that no case had been established for any increase above the £120 million a year plus the additional £4 million for the earth observation data centre.

Those statements imply a willingness on the part of government to reconsider if the situation should change. Indeed since the Select Committee reported, important changes have occurred of which we have heard something this afternoon. At the same time we have also heard that the British position with regard to RADARSAT, the Canadian satellite, needs to be reconsidered. As the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, pointed out, it has to be done before tomorrow night.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, that politically our relationship with Europe, and therefore with ESA, may be more important. At the time of the conference at The Hague, the UK made certain conditions about the Columbus programme and those conditions have now been met by the agreement between ESA and NASA on the scope of the programme. As a result the size of the platform has been significantly reduced from a payload of 3½ tonnes to 2 tonnes.

As my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing pointed out, the Lord President of the Council in another place on Friday last week stated that the Government were reconsidering their position because of modifications to the configuration of the polar platform.

But there is yet another reason why our position should be reconsidered. The problem of servicing a polar platform still remains unsolved. It is not therefore impossible that the concept of the platform will have to be replaced by polar satellites. All these changes are bound to bring about a considerable reduction in costs. Whatever the eventual solution to either of these problems, the solution could be based on Olympus technology.

There is one final refinement in this story which for completion I must just mention. As we have already heard, the future of ERS-2 is now in doubt. If that is not proceeded with, there will after ERS-1 be a discontinuity of data. The gap therefore after ERS-1 must be filled. It can be filled either by RADARSAT or by some reorganisation of ERS-2 using the Olympus bus.

As regards costs, as our space programme develops there will be increasing savings from the annual expenditure of £120 million a year. A kind of savings wedge will appear year by year. I am informed that if those accumulated savings are taken into account the further sum that would be needed would be about £10 million a year. For that amount we could not only take the lead in the polar platform but we could also make a contribution either to RADARSAT or to ERS-2 and, therefore, ensure the continuity of the data.

My noble friend Lord Rippon had some grandiose alternatives to compare with the modest amount of money that is required. I thought I would have some more homely comparisons for your Lordships. Our annual contribution to the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden is £13·2 million per year. The contribution to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is £5·2 million per year. Last year we refurbished the Royal Yacht "Britannia" for £10 million. Let me be clear, I am wholly in favour of all these excellent projects, but in terms of a space programme the amount of money about which I am speaking this evening is modest.

We were quite right to withdraw from projects to put a man into space. We should certainly not and we do not need to countenance further expenditure of the order contemplated in the old space plans which, we have to admit, are now seen to be too ambitious. For me personally that poses a very difficult question about the future of the BNSC.

The changes in the polar platform mean that for a comparatively modest further sum we can remain significant in the field of earth observation. Failure to take part might well be regarded round the world as a signal that Great Britain no longer regards itself as a technological nation and considerable damage would, I have no doubt, be caused to our commercial prospects.

My Lords, as a member of your Lordships' Select Commitee, I too should like to pay my tribute to its chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, who is also the chairman of the subcommittee which carried out this study. If I may use musical terms, he conducted his orchestra, which had its due proportion of wind and brass, in a tempo of allegro con brio.

He had a difficult task, as the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, has said, because your committee did not find it easy to make up its mind what the Government's space policy should be. This was partly because almost all of the evidence that we received came from space enthusiasts. It was also because much of that evidence was conflcting and, as some of the speeches in your Lordships' House this afternoon have shown, for one reason or another different members of the committee incline to different attitudes towards aspects of space. On one conclusion, however, there was no difference. That was that the Government have no space policy and ought to have one.

As has my noble friend Lord Chorley, I have some sympathy with the dilemma which the Government faced in determining their attitude to the European Space Agency. We undoubtedly do gain advantages from our membership, but ever since—primarily for defence reasons—we opted out of the launcher business, France has held the initiative and largely determined the agency's policy. That policy is motivated by a concept about which your Lordships' Select Committee received sharply differing opinions. It is that space is the new horizon; that humanity needs such an horizon in order to inspire a spirit of idealistic adventure. In the past that was provided by exploration of the oceans and of the world's remote regions and unsealed peaks, as well as by the construction of great monuments such as pyramids and cathedrals.

The exploration and exploitation of space must now fill that essential human need. If we, the Europeans, do not pursue that goal, not only will our youth be attracted to American or Soviet culture or be discinclined to pursue science or technology, but we shall suffer a loss of sovereignty in the same way as we would if we were excluded from the oceans.

Although some of us were inclined to be attracted by that concept, your Lordships' committee rejected it and the Government clearly have done so. We agreed that the French-led three-man shuttle project called Hermes led nowhere and should not be supported. We also had doubts about the need for the American-manned space station, but recommended that nevertheless we should play our part in European participation in the manned advanced pressurised module. The Government have rejected even that and intend that our participation in the Columbus project should be limited to the one unmanned project, the polar platform.

The essence of the dilemma facing the Government is this: to give full support to the ESA programme would in practice mean an open-ended subsidy to the ambitious and, we agree, misguided French policy. To restrict our support to ESA to little more than the mandatory programme means that more than two-thirds of the Government's expenditure on space is largely devoted to subsidising our fellow members, principally the French, while, by not participating in the optional programmes, we gain little advantage from that expenditure.

It might appear that, in that case, we should withdraw from the agency and concentrate on our national programme and bilaterial projects. Apart from the political impact of that on our relations with Europe and America, we have rejected that option and recommended that the right course is to remain in the European Space Agency, but spend more on a national programme. This could give us more influence within the agency to wean it towards a more realistic programme. It is the strength of France's national programme which gives her such influence within the European Space Agency.

France's aim of European autonomy in space is not restricted to ESA, the charter of which limits its activities to the civil field. The French seek European autonomy also in the defence field and are trying to breathe new life into the Western European Union as the vehicle for this. The project which they are pushing at the moment is called "Helios". It would be a European information-gathering satellite system developed from their remote-sensing satellite SPOT. Their argument is that for military and for armed control purposes Europeans need to be able to make an independent assessment, not dependent on the USA, both for information-gathering and for its analysis.

The Ministry of Defence, I am glad to say, made clear to the committee that it had no intention of being drawn in that direction. It suffers from the fault of other measures undertaken or projected to support an insurance policy against the withdrawal of US support of European defence, including both the British and the French independent so-called deterrents. If that support were ever to be withdrawn the measures to insure against it could never replace, in terms either of deterrence or of actual military effectiveness, what was withdrawn. Meanwhile, effort devoted to them is at the expense of measures needed to strengthen the alliance, and especially to reassure the Americans that it is in their interests to continue their support of it.

The committee also welcomed the Ministry of Defence's continued interest in other aspects of defence interest in space: in the application of remote-sensing to surveying on the surface of both land and sea as well as below the surface of the latter; to meteorology, navigation and communications. There was a hiccup in the latter when I was the Chief of the Defence Staff, caused by the 1975 defence review carried out by the Labour Government, which the report has noted. It was a typical example of the ill-effects of the demand for short-term economies in defence expenditure which governments of both colour invariably make. One is forced to cut development projects because others either only produce economies in the long-term or are counterproductive as they involve penalty clauses or redundancy payments. We judged correctly at the time that we could tide over an awkward period.

Since then the Ministry of Defence's satellite communication programme has been highly successful, leading, as it has, to NATO adopting Skynet 4. The Marconi Company deserves considerable credit for that. It complained to the committee that defence had benefited from developments initiated for civil purposes. That seems to me entirely right. There is a progression in this disputed area of the technological spin-off between defence and civil applications. The technology is usually intitially developed for military purposes. It is then applied to, and further developed for, a variety of civil purposes. Given the long periods for which the military have to keep their equipment in service, the civil technology overtakes the military. The right policy then is not to spend more defence money on development in that field, but to exploit the civil development. That is what the Ministry of Defence is correctly doing in the communications field, and is what we recommend they do in that of remote-sensing.

I have one slight worry about the communications field, which is our total dependence on other people for launching our communications satellite. Although I fully understand the Ministry of Defence's reluctance to be drawn into providing considerable financial support for HOTOL, I believe that they should for that purpose show a little more interest in it than they appear to reveal to the committee.

We received a certain amount of the usual ill-informed criticism that there was little or inadequate co-operation between those working in the defence and civil fields of space. This was curious when one considers that the two establishments which have played leading roles in the development of space technology are Ministry of Defence Establishments, the Royal Aircraft Establishment and the Radar and Signals Research Establishment, and that the industrial firms involved are the same.

One important object of the British National Space Centre was to bring together under one head all the agencies working in the space field, both civil and defence, the Ministry of Defence and its research establishments playing a full part in it. The BNSC now appears to be in a state of limbo, having lost two heads in quick succession and now being without one. Even before its plan was rejected, its status appeared uncertain. It had no control of any funds itself, and, as a subordinate branch of the Department of Trade and Industry, was muzzled in public. Paragraphs 5.29 to 32 of the report deal with this issue, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, in such strong terms. Why he should ever believe that he could be regarded as a wet retired diplomat, I cannot imagine.

The committee have said that the situation cannot be allowed to remain as it is, and we have recommended that the space centre should be made stronger, preferably by becoming free-standing within Whitehall, and that industrial partners should be brought into it, perhaps providing the next director general. I hope that the Secretary of State, in replying to this debate, will be able to tell us that the Government are taking some positive action to remedy this very unsatisfactory state of affairs.

The Government's attitude to this whole space business at present appears to be that of Mr. Micawber. It is waiting for something to be turned up by industry. The announcement in the press a few weeks ago of the project called LITTLEO, to provide a commercial satellite launch facility into low earth polar orbit, from an island off Norway, must have been music to their ears. However, that is a very limited project. But we cannot afford to sit about waiting for such projects to turn up. The Government's lack of decision and action is already threatening the RADARSAT project, which is of considerable potential importance to us. All involved in space-related projects, scientific, industrial and defence, need to relate their activities to a clear, consistent Government policy. When are we going to see one?

My Lords, perhaps I may express my appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and the other members of the Select Committee for this very interesting and far-reaching report which I read with great interest.

My excuse for taking part in this debate today, if I need one, is that I am a member of the Science and Technology Committees of both the Council of Europe and the Western European Union. I thought I might be able to make a small contribution to this debate by looking at Britain's approach to space as seen through the eyes of our European partners.

Last year our committee visited Washington and California when we toured a number of the largest American space corporations and had an exchange of views with members of the Pentagon and a selection of senators and congressmen. Also, in November of last year we had a meeting in the ESA headquarters in Paris where Professor Lüst, the director-general, explained the agency's programme in some detail.

In recent years both the committees which I have mentioned have produced their own report on space. The Council of Europe Committee produced two: one in November last year entitled The Future of European Space; and the other as recently as January of this year called European Space Policy. In addition, the WEU Science and Technology Committee, although as your Lordships will know primarily concerned with defence, produced a report entitled European Space Policy Until 2000. Rather amazingly, if that is the word, the content of that report—although as I have said the WEU is primarily concerned with defence—had a very high content of civilian and commercial considerations.

Your Lordships can see from that that the European agencies, in particular their science and technology committees, have been very concerned with space and many words have been written about it. I find it especially interesting to compare these reports with the report of the Science and Technology Committee of this House.

If I were asked what I considered was the single most fundamental difference between Europe's attitude to space and that of Her Majesty's Government, I would say that it was Europe's adherence to a policy of European independence in space by the turn of the century. There is no doubt that this policy is primarily dictated by France. Many of your Lordships have already mentioned France, but I make no excuse for mentioning it again. That policy is diametrically opposed to the policy of the British Government.

From this European policy, it is a small step to ESA's plan, which is quite clearly tailored to achieve this objective; that is to say, a man-rated Ariane 5, Hermes and the Columbus programme. If one probes a little further still, one finds that Ariane 5 is to be built in France. Hermes is a French project and the Columbus programme, although ascribed to West Germany, nevertheless has an important French involvement.

From this I am sure your Lordships will agree that at the present time France is leading the way in space in Europe. It can of course be argued fairly that, in view of the large sums of money France is investing, it is natural that that should be the situation. As the saying goes, "He who pays the piper calls the tune". The question is, are we as a nation, and are our Government, prepared to accept the situation?

It is not simply a matter of national pride, though I believe that that does carry some weight, but more importantly, of commercial considerations—a question which I am sure will be of interest to my noble friend the Secretary of State. Her Majesty's Government rightly look seriously at value for money, but is it reasonable to judge all projects on a short term return? Is not this an instance where we should be taking a longer view and looking to the benefits that can accrue to British industry from involvement now in the high technology that presence in space entails? I suggest that investment of the taxpayers' money today may not show high returns tomorrow but holds out promising rewards for the day after.

Various ministers have recently reiterated their belief in space projects and their determination that Britain will continue to maintain its stake in ESA. But actions speak louder than words. After the recent statements made at the Council of Ministers meeting in The Hague, is it surprising that our European partners are somewhat sceptical of our true commitment to space? It may be that many aspects of our Government's criticisms are well founded, but I suggest that if we want to maintain and enhance our influence over European space decisions we need to show more flexibility. For example—and this has already been referred to by a number of noble Lords—Her Majesty's Government have refused to agree to an increase of some 5 per cent. in their contribution to the mandatory element of the ESA programme, which is effectively blocking all the other ESA members' ability to effect this increase. Is that the way to win friends in Europe and obtain support for our own projects and aspirations?

There is no doubt that Britain's involvement in European space activities is greatly valued by the majority of our partners. Certainly, when Professor Lust spoke to us in Paris his remarks of concern for Britain's attitude and apparent about-face, though clearly critical, were spoken more in sorrow than in anger. However, there is a risk, and we should not be blind to it, that if we continue with this negative approach the day may come when our colleagues in Europe—particularly the French and the Germans—may come to the conclusion that we are more trouble than we are worth.

One can applaud the firm stance we take in Europe over agriculture, but I suggest that a similar attitude is inappropriate in this situation. It can in the future put an important sector of our industry seriously at risk. In the meantime, our influence in European space circles is minimal, as was evidenced by the other ESA members accepting the programme at The Hague. Further, there is a risk that because our contributions are so small the returns to our industry in compensating contracts will diminish still further. In the end, as has already been pointed out, our contributions could in large measure go towards financing contracts in other member countries.

I said that there is no doubt that the aims of our European partners and of Her Majesty's Government are widely separate, but there are aspects of the ESA programme which I believe commend themselves on purely commercial grounds Professor Lüst told us that Ariane had at that time, when we were in Paris, 64 forward bookings, more than half of which originated outside Europe. The total value of these proposed flights is three times the development costs of the Ariane project to date. That surely makes the future development of Ariane 5 worth supporting.

I agree that it is a fact that at the moment the specification includes a manned capability so that it can carry Hermes, but it is agreed that the project will be subject to review after three years and there is no doubt that a carrier with enhanced carrying capacity, as envisaged for Ariane 5, will be required for the larger satellites which are already coming into use. Here I should say that if we are interested in satellite sensing those satellites somehow or other must be put into space. Either we will depend on the Americans or Russians, or Europe must have its own carrier. As virtually all noble Lords have said, Hermes is an extravagant luxury which Europe does not need and can ill afford. As and when the need arises to fly European astronauts—for example, to the space station if it comes about—it should be perfectly possible for them to fly with the Americans.

However, the Columbus programme—again, as several noble Lords have mentioned—has some attractions for us. This applies particularly to the polar platform, for which at one time it seemed Britain would be the prime contractor; but this, too, may now be at risk. Time is running out. Professor Lust has asked for confirmation of our intentions by mid-April. The British National Space Centre is without a director-general, as many noble Lords have mentioned, and needs a thorough overhaul. We are already excluded from a number of European projects and we may lose more still. France is attempting to curtail further development on the European remote-sensing satellite (the ERS-2) with its British input and to substitute in its place its own SPOT satellite. It is certain that Britain's influence in European space matters is at a low ebb and could well slide still further unless we take immediate remedial action.

In conclusion, I fully support the recommendations of the Select Committee's report and I ask my noble friend the Secretary of State to urge the Government—as virtually every other speaker has done—to take a more dynamic and long-sighted approach to space; and, above all, to make an early declaration on a British plan for space so that British industry and our European partners may know where we stand.

My Lords, I can claim no professional knowledge of space technology but in entering today's debate on the Select Committee report on United Kingdom space policy—introduced so ably and with such unrivalled experience by its chairman the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton—I am motivated by a deep interest in the commercial and technological relations between the United Kingdom and Canada.

The history of this collaboration dates back many years under peacetime and wartime conditions. The benefits that have accrued to both countries have been substantial, to say the least. Recently the UK has joined with Canada in major projects such as the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope; the world's most advanced high accuracy radio telescope. Closer to earth is the major collaborative deal signed last year between Britain and Canada whereby a large number of Westland EH101 helicopters will be supplied to the Canadian military. Underneath the sea lies the tantalising prospect that British nuclear submarine technology and equipment may be chosen for the Canadian navy.

Today I propose to confine my remarks to and to elaborate a little on what many noble Lords have stressed concerning one specific recommendation of the Committee; namely, that Britain should continue and extend its collaboration with Canada (and also the United States where applicable) in the development of the remote sensing programme known as RADARSAT.

It is encouraging to note that since publication of the committee's report, Her Majesty's Government have announced several measures that fit well with that recommendation. In particular, it is gratifying that the Government have agreed that British space policy should focus on remote sensing, as stated by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in Answer to a Question in another place on 10th February last. Moreover, the recent allocation of funds for establishing a United Kingdom earth observation data centre is a proper element in building British competence in the utilisation of remotely sensed data.

However, as regards the acquisition of such data, there is a distinct possibility that the United Kingdom might forgo the opportunity to participate in the development of the most advanced system for this purpose which RADARSAT will provide. A British and Canadian team has been working for a number of years on the concept and design of this international project in which the industries in both countries would design and build an operational remote sensing satellite to be launched by a US rocket in early 1994. RADARSAT will incorporate the most advanced synthetic aperture radar—and in this world of acronyms it will be known as SAR—to provide reliable high resolution images despite atmospheric interference. The RADARSAT spacecraft, if derived from the British Aerospace Olympus satellite as planned, would be the best earth observation vehicle available to the end of the century and beyond.

Collectively, our two countries have invested about £15 million to establish and prove the RADARSAT concept including detailed specification and costing of the additional instruments that the United Kingdom will have the opportunity to include within the RADARSAT payload on the Olympus-type bus. Based on those studies the total costs of the RADARSAT satellite have been set at £370 million. Each country's share of the costs in this tripartite endeavour are estimated at £205 million for Canada; £55 million for the United States and £110 million for the United Kingdom (of which Italy is expected to contribute £30 million towards the platform sub-systems).

Thus to be a major participant in this most advanced operational satellite planned for the mid-1990s, the share of the United Kingdom would amount to about £80 million spread over seven years or approximately £10 million per year.

Compared with the far-reaching benefits that this programme will produce in terms of commercially valuable data alone, surely it should be possible to find this amount within the current limitations of the space budget, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has suggested. The Canadian Government approved the RADARSAT project in June 1987 subject to the agreement of the designated international partners. The United States has confirmed its commitment to launch the satellite in 1994. Canada has waited for close to a year for the United Kingdom to resolve its priorities in space and to confirm its continued partnership in the RADARSAT project. Understandably, as time passed, the Canadians, as project leaders, have had to consider alternatives to United Kingdom partnership. My information is that although British partnership is still by far the much preferred option, Canada must make a decision now.

Lacking a positive decision from the Government, Canada will proceed with RADARSAT. The data gap, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Butterworth, prior to the establishment of a polar platform, will be filled, but, unhappily, without Britain as a partner.

If that were to happen, British firms would be denied an opportunity not only to develop their technology for this project but also to market that technology against hard commercial opposition in the future.

Beyond the aerospace industries, whose experience is needed to create RADARSAT, the real beneficiaries; namely, dozens of small high-tech firms which will emerge to process and interpret RADARSAT data for specific end-use markets such as offshore petroleum exploration, better crop management for farmers; geological, shipping, forestry and other industries throughout the world. Denied access to RADARSAT data, these entrepreneurial firms will not emerge and extensive development of the attendant specialised hardware and software systems will not take place in this country.

For all those reasons I submit that participation in RADARSAT is the logical and most effective way to implement the government's strategic focus on earth observation and its commercial potential. To lose this opportunity by default would be most regrettable.

As many of your Lordshps have said during this debate, time has almost run out. In the interest of continued Canadian co-operation in the realm of space technology from which many tangible benefits have already flowed, I too urge the Secretary of State to tell the House today that a positive decision will be reached promptly on this joint programme.

My Lords, I too join with other noble Lords in congratulating the Select Committee on a quite superb report and in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for introducing the report to us in such an excellent and interesting way.

I suppose that I am somewhat disqualified from taking part in this debate because I too am an enthusiast. I note that the report says:

"An outstanding characteristic of the evidence is its quality of enthusiasm: a deep desire to make a substantial British contribution as part of a European and international space initiative. Such enthusiasm, while strongly to be commended, is infectious and can cause distortion unless it is supported by thorough analysis. The Committee have tried to avoid such distortion in their conclusions".

I am delighted with that. I am bound to say that in so many areas of our national life there is very little enthusiasm. We ought to be cautious at any time in suggesting that we should not be enthusiastic about something.

I notice in that connection that the committee has also been struck by what it refers to as:

"the paucity of sound economic analysis of the benefits that may be derived from investment in space programmes".

It also refers in a rather insulting way, which I shall try to ignore, to:

"the imperfections of economic analysis".

I do not know what imperfections one can possibly find in economics, so I choose to ignore that remark. Nonetheless, I am well aware that there is not sufficient economic analysis of those matters, as many noble Lords have already pointed out, and that the economic aspects in this connection are important. We need much more research in the field. I should like to see some of the private enterprises that are interested supporting serious economic analysis.

However, having said that, what also worries me is that there is a type of economics—I was quite good at it myself—which is very disruptive to many projects. As economists we are very good at focusing our attention on all the costs of the project, seeing the benefits as accruing in the future—rather nebulous benefits we might say—and then in a sense we throw our weight against almost anything enterprising or imaginative.

I hope that in this sphere the Government—although they should always take notice of economic analysis—will not use it to destroy such projects.

On looking at today's debate the first objective is to repeat the plea made by many noble Lords, especially by my noble friend Lord Williams of Elvel, that we must have a statement of policy from the Government; that is, a statement of what the Government are trying to do. That at the very least we should like to know.

Secondly—I am not speaking merely as one taking part in the debate; I think I am reflecting as it were the interested party, namely industry itself—industry wants to hear a statement of commitment. I believe that this is a classic area of industry and public governmental co-operation that will involve funds. I shall return to that aspect and enlarge upon it later. However, what industry wants above all is some form of commitment so that, should it commit its resources as it were, its main risk will not be that the Government will change their mind. That would be grossly unfair to industry and if that is the Government's view we might just as well bow out of space research. I hope that we do not but if the Government cannot make up their mind will they please say so and let us get the whole thing over and done with, disastrous though I think that decision would be.

I turn now to policy. It seems to me that, partly because of the high risk nature of the projects that we are talking about and partly because of the enormous range of spin-offs, not least, on the one hand, those of scientific importance but also, on the other hand, the defence aspect of the matter, there is a public interest involved. This is not one of those areas where even the most ardent free marketeer, or anyone else, could say that we should leave it to the private sector and it will all come out well. Even if we were to believe that theory, there is overwhelming evidence from every other country in the world that this is the type of area par excellence where the Government and the private sector must get together.

As I have already said, that is partly a matter of commitment and partly of creating the right climate—a climate of certainty. However, I am bound to say that it is definitely a matter of the Government providing additional funding. Such funding should be, to use the technical term, super-additive. It is true to say in this case that the more money that the Government put in, the more private industry will put in.

The sums that the committee has mentioned are rather on the cautious side. In my opinion it has leaned over backwards in order to persuade the Government that such figures are not too extravagant. Those people whom I have consulted have suggested to me that the £200 million mark that the committee is talking about errs vey much on the side of caution. I should like to believe that if the Government were to say that they would give that much, they would also say that if a good case could be made for more money more funding would be forthcoming.

There are two aspects in this connection. First, this is an area of decision-making under extreme uncertainty. It is the equivalent of sitting down at the poker table. I should also add that it is enormously competitive internationally. I must tell the House and others who know anything about this type of game, that when you play it, if you do not sit down at the big game with enough stakes you might as well not sit down at all because you will lose. Either we do it properly and commit ourselves on a large scale, bearing in mind that we might still lose because it is a decision without certainty, or we do not do it at all. I hope we do it properly.

I should like to make a further remark en passant which relates to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Dainton. There is an enormous scientific aspect which we should not forget. I hope the space programme as we see it develop does not crowd out other important scientific developments. In other words, in speaking out this afternoon as I do very strongly for the space programme, I am not saying that we should forget the case for basic science altogether. I have complained to the Minister previously because I do not believe that we devote enough in the way of resources to basic science; so I hope that that does not happen.

I turn now to criteria. I believe that the scientific criterion is a very important one. As we have said many times before, our record in basic science is marvellous and it is not one that we should ever risk abandoning or losing. Therefore, even if it could be argued that a major space programme, whatever that means, would only have scientific impact, that would be a good enough argument for me. However, I do not for one moment believe that.

I strongly believe that space programmes are very important. I hope that that does not detract from the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, about pride, prestige and national confidence. Those are ideals that I subscribe to totally. I hope that the Secretary of State does not decide to oppose them just because I happened to agree with his colleague. However, it seems to me that programmes which raise national pride and prestige are not trivial; they are important.

In that respect as a lay person I must say that I am grievously unhappy about the no Englishman in space policy. However, I have to admit that the Select Committee and noble Lords, notably the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, have together convinced me that such a policy is correct. Nonetheless I say that with great sadness; I wish it were not so, because that too is part of the national spirit and the concept of national pride and prestige. However, we must accept that there are tremendous economic potentials to be derived from a proper space policy.

I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, who referred to the Americans looking well into the next century. But as regards the future of this country's economy, we must look into the next century. We must ask ourselves what Britain will be producing in the next century; what acquaintance and what experience we will have with the highest and most advanced technology. My view in that connection is that our survival will depend upon all considerations, as space is clearly the most obvious one that we can see at the moment.

Therefore, following what the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, and many others had to say, I say that even if our economists cannot pinpoint the precise economic benefits we should go back and look at almost all the major inventions and realise that at the beginning no one could have predicted with precision the benefits which followed from them. We have to use our judgment and common sense in these matters and say that this is clearly an area where such benefit would be forthcoming.

I should like to refer to one or two specific projects. I hope I do not have to emphasise that I am not in any sense an interested party; I am not part of the space industry in any way whatsoever. Therefore, when I support such projects I stand to gain nothing other than the fact that I should be living in a country which would be more successful.

I am appalled by the RADARSAT problem but I live in hope that when the Secretary of State replies he will tell the House that we have taken the decision and also confirm that it is a positive one. The polar platform decision seems to me to be a sensible one and one that we should come to as rapidly as we can—by which I mean now. Speaking purely as a lay person, I think that the HOTOL project makes good sense, in a way more sense than any of the other bits of technology. It will not cost an enormous amount of money to proceed with the conceptual analysis in the first stages. I hope that we shall proceed in that way.

I do not wish to detain your Lordships much longer. The debate has been a good and interesting one in which I and, I hope, many other noble Lords have learnt a great deal. I make the usual plea of those of us in Opposition. Much as we like to talk about these things, what we want is action, not kind words. In particular, we want action with respect to particular projects—RADARSAT, polar platform and so on. I should like to hear a positive statement about the British National Space Centre. I should like the centre not merely to find itself with new leadership but to be given a bigger, stronger role altogether. I hope that we shall hear something of that.

More generally, I hope to hear that the Government now regard themselves committed to supporting all kinds of important projects and will therefore lend themselves to giving whatever guarantee they can so that Great Britain in the long term will have a successful position both in space technology and in space science.

My Lords, the past few hours have provided a lively and stimulating exchange of views. I had expected to sit through the afternoon totally friendless but, to my pleasant surprise, I find dotted round the Chamber still a friend or two for the Government. Space is a particularly fascinating and challenging field of research and development and, I suspect, attracts more than its fair number of enthusiasts. I shall endeavour to dampen my natural enthusiasm when I respond to the debate. Many points have been raised by noble Lords and, if I do not answer them all, I hope that I may be given the opportunity to reply to them later.

We are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, who introduced the Motion, and to his colleagues on the Select Committee, which has produced this valuable report. I do not believe that your Lordships would expect me to respond to all the specific recommendations in the report now. Indeed, the Government would wish to consider their attitude carefully. I should like first to sketch in briefly our general approach and our reaction to the proposals put forward by the European Space Agency at The Hague. I shall then deal with some major issues that have been raised in the debate.

There is a measure of common ground between the report and the Government's position. Because space is a high risk, indeed, expensive business, collaboration through ESA has been a centrepiece of our policy. We are one of the founding members of ESA, and it is through this agency that the main British effort has been directed over the last 10 years, accounting for about 70 per cent. of our civil space budget. Our policy of adopting a selective approach towards the optional programmes has yielded worthwhile benefits, as for example, the report recognises, in the satellite communications field where we have been able to develop one of the strongest industries outside the United States. Our scientists have been able to utilise our membership of ESA I believe to considerable effect. We have had some notable successes, in particular the International Ultraviolet Explorer, which has now been operating successfully for 10 years, and Giotto, ESA's first interplanetary probe, which encountered the comet Halley. We therefore value our membership of ESA and hope to continue to play a constructive role.

At the same time a solid national programme is required to underpin our technology base and to get the best out of our membership of the agency. We need to achieve the right balance between ESA and national expenditure and between Government expenditure and private sector funding to meet our industrial and commercial objectives. We shall therefore be examining the content of our national programme in the context of our future ESA involvement and of the scope for greater private sector involvement in the operation and funding of projects.

The Government welcome and share the committee's view that private sector expenditure on space should be encouraged. I believe that there is also scope for collaboration outside ESA and this should be another feature of our space activity. Anglo-French co-operation on the Eurostar satellite in the early 1980s allowed the British Aerospace-led consortium to bid for and to win the INMARSAT second generation satellite requirement worth £65 million to the United Kingdom. Scientific instruments and payloads have been flown on American satellites and further collaboration is planned. We are fostering co-operation with China, another launching nation, and co-operation with the Soviet Union on space science provides an opportunity to cover cost effectively areas outside the ESA programme.

However, I am sure that your Lordships will agree that there is always scope for improvement, and ESA is no exception. Having a 13 nation membership it has difficulty from time to time, as the committee rightly pointed out, in reconciling conflicting interests of individual member states, and compromises have to be made. What emerged at The Hague was a plan where the supporting infrastructure and transportation programmes were, in the ESA director-general's words, at

"the centre of gravity of ESA's future activities",

and, as the committee recognises, this will swallow the bulk of ESA's funds in the coming years. The step by step approach envisaged at the previous ministerial meeting in 1985 had given way to a dash for European man in space and, as many noble Lords have pointed out, the long-term plan is now distorted towards infrastructure to the likely detriment of application programmes.

At The Hague three major optional programmes were under discussion, Ariane 5, Columbus and the Hermes manned spaceplane. The Government entirely share the committee's reservations about seeking to put a man in space as an end in itself. The committee describes it as "an expensive and hazardous diversion". We made it clear at The Hague that we would play no part in that diversion. At that time we also opposed an increase in mandatory funding for science. While we are committed to ESA's Horizon 2000 programme, it will have received an increase in real terms of 27 per cent. by 1989. The Science and Engineering Council believes that the main scientific objectives of Horizon 2000 can be achieved within the present budget, and it does not give a high priority to additional funding in this area.

Since The Hague meeting we have given further consideration, in consultation with industry, to participation in the two new programmes. It has to be accepted that, while we have contributed some useful technology to earlier Ariane programmes, this has not generated exceptional spin-off. The minimum effective participation in Ariane 5—between 2 and 3 per cent.—would cost us some £80 million over eight years or so. Even if Ariane's market projections are borne out—how many projections ultimately are?—revenue from sales will not begin to accrue until the late 1990s. Our share of the profits would be small and unlikely to be commensurate with the scale of the investment required.

Since The Hague we have decided not to take part in the further development of Ariane 5 as we believe that the case for our contributing to it is weak. However, it is even further weakened by the requirement that Ariane 5 should be capable of launching the Hermes spaceplane. We have heard good reasons in your Lordships' House today why the Government do not support the man-rating of Ariane 5. At that time we did not see a case for joining Columbus, although there have been recent developments on the polar platform, which I shall explain in a moment.

The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, questioned to some extent the attitude of Professor Mitchell, the chairman of SERC. Professor Mitchell said that he fully supported the Horizon 2000 programme in concept, but believed that the main scientific objectives of the programme would be achieved within the present budget, albeit with some rephasing and restructuring of the programme. Despite our enthusiasm for space, surely we should not lose the basic precepts of good government; that is, to seek to obtain value for money and to ensure that the programmes into which we enter have some scientific or commercial logic.

What has happened since Rome two years ago has ensured that the programmes that ESA had at The Hague were different from the programmes it had in Rome. Not only have Hermes and man-rating been added, the whole balance has changed. Costs have increased by 60 per cent. We reserved the right to look at the programmes again and did so.

My noble friend Lord Caldecote questioned the existence of the duopoly. I recently confirmed the Government's position to your Lordships. We shall consider the present position of the duopoly in November 1990. It is the foundation of communications policy. I strongly believe that we should ensure that there is sufficient competition for British Telecom. I do not believe that it would be right to pre-empt the review, even today. It will have a considerable effect on whether we will allow point-to-point communications. There will be an opportunity for about six companies (British Aerospace will be one) to come forward to look at down-loading programmes which could be operated through satellites.

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for so courteously giving way. Are we committed to that position? All along, while trying to break the monopoly and create competition in telecommunications, we have asked for time for our manufacturers; for them to have the specifications; and to start to make the equipment well ahead of the start of any further service in competition. I was under the impression that we were going to discuss the matter in 1988; that we were going to have rulings in 1989, as originally laid down in debates in the other place, and were going to have a ruling that it should start in 1990. If we start considering the matter in 1990, there is no chance of the change coming until 1992. That puts the idea of competition a long way into the future.

My Lords, from the moment that my right honourable friend Kenneth Baker made the statement in 1985 until I restated it only a few days ago, it has always been government policy that the duopoly would be reconsidered in November 1990. We have considered the matter. There are many other implications. I do not believe that I should take up your Lordships' time this evening to deal with that point. I am happy to deal with it on any other occasion. It is a plank of our competition policy that we do not reconsider that matter until November 1990, because we wish to see that there is adequate competition in that field. I believe that that is necessary.

The noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, confessed to the House that he was an old-fashioned romantic. I have long suspected that, but I am glad to have confirmation of it. He was therefore keen about the long-term prospects of HOTOL. HOTOL will cost so many tens of billions of pounds to develop that it is clearly outside the range of any individual nation. During my recent visit to Japan I mentioned HOTOL. Although I did not receive an immediately enthusiastic acceptance of the idea, I believe that in the fullness of time we may look for co-operation and collaboration in the development of a concept as radical as HOTOL.

The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, said that the Government do not have a policy on space. They do. Many noble Lords have said the same. The policy has been stated on a number of occasions in another place by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. I shall endeavour to restate it before I sit down. The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, was kind enough to say that we should draw a line on the past and start again. I agreed with him when he identified that earth observation should be a primary purpose. I hope to deal with that matter a little later.

I fear that I cannot be as agreeable to my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing. Whether we have power stations depends upon those who take part in planning inquiries more than upon government policy. I am second to no one in my admiration for Concorde. Every time that I see it, let alone the odd occasions on which I fly in it, I rejoice in it as a triumph for British engineering. However, I must point out that it was a dead end. It led nowhere and sold nowhere. If we had taken more account of commercial considerations, there may have been a different outcome. Despite the fact that it is a triumph for engineering, it absorbed a great deal of British skills and expertise at a time when, if we had not taken part in that project, we might have gone in other directions.

The noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, asked us about the advice of ACOST. It is of course confidential. However, the Government are grateful for the helpful advice of ACOST. It was fully taken into account when we reached our decisions. I doubt whether anyone on ACOST would disagree with the Government's line on space, which I should like to deal with in a moment.

My noble friend Lord Rippon accused the Government of not having enough guts to invest in space. Guts is a test—

My Lords, with respect I said that I hoped that the Government had ears as well as guts.

My Lords, the Government certainly have ears, because I have listened to a great deal. Guts is not a factor that I would apply to any decision to invest. Mindless investment is one way in which we can go wrong. Space is a romantic notion. Reality is different. We must be sure that we go into matters in which there will be a sound commercial return, where there is a good economic case. That is something we are endeavouring to apply throughout the whole of our space programme, while disregarding whether other countries wish to spend considerably more than we do. The single test that we should surely apply in government is not that of inputs (how much things cost) but of outputs (what we get). That is the one we must bear in mind.

I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, who recognised the change of direction in ESA. After I had listened to him, I wondered whether the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, whom we shall have an opportunity of hearing again, would agree that I have at last found a friend. In those circumstances, he may be prepared to contribute towards the ESA programme, although he may not consider that the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, contributed as a friend in full measure. I believe that he did.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dainton. We have some difficulties with Horizon 2000. Agreement was reached that the subscriptions of new subscribers, who were added in 1987 and 1988, would cover the additional costs which were due to delays in the shuttle. The convention which set up ESA is silent on the treatment of the subscriptions of new members. There are arguments both ways as to whether that is a proper use of the money. The issue is currently being examined by ESA's administrative and finance committee. We shall no doubt hear about that matter shortly.

The noble Lord, Lord Dainton, also inferred that the 5 per cent. increase amounted to £1 million a year and that it was bad for the Government to have gone along with that increase; they should have vetoed it. The Government were asking people to stop and look at the 27 per cent. real increase in the Horizon 2000 contribution between 1985 and 1989. SERC has itself said, as I believe I have already said this afternoon, that if there were priorities, they should be elsewhere.

The noble Lord, Lord Butterworth, recognised that a savings wedge will develop and that will be taken into account to protect data collection. I do not think I could quite go along with the noble Lord in choosing between contributions to Covent Garden or data collection. I prefer my data collection to be musical, but noble Lords may have their own views on that.

I am grateful to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, who drew attention to the implications of defence. But the BNSC was set up to co-ordinate civil space activities. Defence space activities are the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence. I hope to assure the noble Lord and all in your Lordships' House that the appointment of a new director of BNSC is being examined as a matter of urgency. We are also examining, and I hope we shall come back with conclusions shortly, how to ensure that an industrial input into the British National Space Centre and a greater partnership with industry can come about in the future. We have taken the committee's views on that. However, alas, I cannot see how the space centre could be free-standing. It is part of a government department, it spends taxpayers' funds and at the end of the day the policy would have to be that of Ministers.

The noble Lord, Lord Rodney, said that money should be invested long-term as an act of faith. I am not sure what "long-term" is; often "long-term" is, I suspect, an excuse for those who cannot get funding for their particular projects if they are short-term. Acts of faith are perhaps something on which we should resort to prayer on occasions. We are looking carefully at each and every investment to ensure that there is a likelihood of a real return.

Perhaps I could assure the noble Lord, Lord Shaughnessy, that although his figures contemplated Italy participating in RADARSAT, my information is not that they are not interested but that they have not yet decided whether they will join. That decision is still to come. I wish to assure the noble Lord and indeed all in your Lordships' House that we shall respond to the Canadian Government in good time. The time is not tomorrow night; we have longer than that.

The noble Lord, Lord Peston, said that we must be prepared to sit down at the big table otherwise we should lose. I am a gambling man in my private life but not when I stand before this Dispatch Box. I believe that there are some important matters which we should look at. I shall deal with them very quickly since I have rather exceeded my time.

My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord for moment. He said that he would make a statement on what the Government's space policy is. I take it that the noble Lord will not sit down before telling us that.

My Lords, I am absolutely certain that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, would not let me sit down without doing so, and I shall give our policy before I sit down. Perhaps I may deal with earth observation which several noble Lords have identified today as an important area with long-term potential. We agree with your Lordships' committee that out main effort should go into the ground and user segments so that the space data can be usefully exploited by industry and science. As a first step it is essential to ensure proper handling and processing of data. For this reason we are providing about £4 million a year over the next five years to set up an earth observation data centre as part of the BNSC's National Remote Sensing Complex at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. In the first instance that will handle data from ERS-1 which should begin in the early 1990s.

In the space segment, there are a number of projects available. In the period immediately after ERS-1, ESA's first radar all-weather satellite, the Canadian-led RADARSAT and ESA's second radar satellite are proposed. Beyond that there is the polar platform with Columbus. I am afraid that when we discussed the future scenario with industry at the beginning of this year, there was little consensus emerging among our space companies and potential users on any preferred strategy, nor was there any apparent willingness to make a significant contribution to the heavy costs involved. In those circumstances we could not see why we should join nor what justification there was.

However, in the past few weeks ESA have been re-assessing with NASA the polar platform requirement and the indications are now that its target configuration will be significantly modified, resulting in a less expensive and perhaps more utilitarian concept. I ask myself from time to time, would that actually have happened if my right honourable and learned friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had not questioned the programme so properly? Surely that is a proper function of each and every partner within ESA. ESA will now decide how to proceed at the Columbus board meeting on 18th April. But I hope we can take a decision before that time. At the same time, we have RADARSAT.

In view of all these decisions we asked the main space companies and users to carry out a rapid reappraisal of the changed situation and to give us their conclusions, which we received yesterday. ESA are giving the BNSC a presentation on the redefinition of the polar platform tomorrow. We are urgently re-examining the options and aim to reach decisions as soon as we have had an opportunity to reconsider first of all the latest information from ESA, then the latest information from the UK industry and users. So this debate is timely and it will be particularly helpful to have the views of the House on the matter, since we wish to continue to play a visible and effective part in the exploration and exploitation of space. We do this not at all costs, but we shall seek to spend our £120 million a year on civil space activities as sensibly and as usefully as we can in those ways which will have a good outcome.

I believe that we can put all this into context, my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster having made a Statement in another place on Thursday 12th November last year. In it he explained the stance which we took at the Ministerial Council at The Hague and later in a Written Answer in another place on 10th February this year my right honourable friend explained our policy on the science and technology of space research.

To summarise, it said simply that the Government will seek to use the expenditure on civil space activities in ways which are potentially beneficial for both the industry and scientific research. We are committed to a programme of scientific research in space, and in particular we are committed to the main aims of the European Space Agency's Horizon 2000 programme. We shall continue to consider the various options open to us in the field of earth observation, including the Columbus polar platform and RADARSAT. But we reserve the right to apply the same economic tests and the same spirit of looking for outcomes to space as we have in the rest of the economy. In this field space is on land as well as up in the air.

My Lords, the noble Lord's reply was in many ways predictable. I did not believe that the Government would move, particularly in response to a debate in the House of Lords, but the Minister left us with a measure of hope. I suppose I ought to be grateful that he seems to have persuaded the Canadian Government that we can have a little more time so that Her Majesty's Government do not have to announce a decision for or against at the time of this debate. The information which we have all had from official sources and from the Canadian Government was that the decision had to be taken by tomorrow. However, the Minister seems to have succeeded in postponing that decision and I hope it will be the right one.

I shall speak very briefly. First of all I should not like the noble Lord, Lord Peston, to think that we were nasty about economists. What we said was that one cannot carry out cost benefit studies on something if there is no costable benefit at the end of the day. However, we called for exactly the sorts of skills which he has in approaching these problems. Therefore I am very gratified that the advocate of the dismal science is such an enthusiast for enthusiasm. That is what is called for and what has to some extent come from a number of noble Lords in this debate, albeit not from the Secretary of State.

I do not accept that there has been a major change, notwithstanding remarks in regard to the policies of the European Space Agency. I do not know what the Government have been doing for the past four years if they have allowed a situation to develop in which, according to Mr. Clarke, the ESA has unfortunately not so far helped governments to agree on the balance. He said that he believed that the agency had simply piled up grandiose proposals in seeking to pursue every objective regardless of cost, as was shown by the high operating expenses and other matters.

I ask the noble Lord what the Government were doing all this time. They were party to this agency and they had representatives on it. Suddenly they wake up. A general election took place, but the same government came hack to demonstrate a new dose of apparent realism and complete ignorance. I do not know who was advising Ministers as I am quite sure that the members of the British National Space Centre did not agree with their philosophy. I suppose that we should be grateful that there has been some progress.

A number of noble Lords made kind remarks to me. I can claim very little credit for this report. If I may say so, I had a very idiosyncratic committee, most of whom proved conclusively their capability of thinking for themselves, which is a distressing quality in a committee of which one is chairman. The result, I am hound to say, has been a difficult one to achieve but one on which there is a great deal of agreement. I must pay tribute to our advisers. The senior clerk, Mr. Hayter, and others did a superb job, because we were rushed in trying to get the report out in time to influence the Government before the first of what appeared to be a series of deadlines. There is now a third deadline as regards RADARSAT.

There is a great deal of enthusiasm among those who have moved into this field because they are interested and because they think it does something for this country. I ask the Secretary of State, because he has shown enthusiasm in other areas, whether the Government will stop trying to justify their very inadequate response at the moment and the change of direction of this body. If anyone has changed direction it is the Government rather than the European Space Agency.

We made clear that we think that Europe seeking to put man into space is mistaken. But we know that man is already in space and undoubtedly Englishmen, Scotsmen, Welshmen and Irishmen will go into space even if it has to be in an American or alternatively a Russian rocket.

I see that the Secretary of State is not volunteering to go himself. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Peston, could volunteer, as the Labour Party is always in the van of progress. I ask the Secretary of State to think very hard on this reduced area, namely RADARSAT and the polar platform. There is no doubt that the polar platform has been adjusted. It is an easier proposition. The Secretary of State can give some tribute to Mr. Clarke if it makes him and Mr. Clarke happy after the deplorable performance that Mr. Clarke has put up. According to what my European friends tell me, Mr. Clarke did not help his cause. The Secretary of State was not there and so he does not know whether that is the case, but let him talk to the other members of the European Space Agency. The Secretary of State is loyal and he is defending his subordinate. In those circumstances I do not think that we need to take the matter any further unless we start the debate all over again.

I suggest to the Secretaryof State that he might let those of his doubting colleagues read our report. I know one Treasury official who thinks that it is a very good report, but I shall not mention his name.

rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what they are doing to promote the quality of British architecture.

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to take part in a debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Fawsley, particularly when he so characteristically raises a subject of supreme importance for vast numbers of citizens. I should like to start my remarks by congratulating him on everything that he has done for the Royal Fine Art Commission since he has been chairman. Certainly he has raised its status. He has made it infinitely more efficient. It now fulfils in the most distinguished way its job of being an adviser to the Government on matters of aesthetics and taste.

I suggest that the first thing that the Government should appreciate about architecture is that it is an art that impinges more than any other on the consciousness of the ordinary citizen. The Minister for the Arts does not seem interested in the subject in any way. The run-down Arts Council has abandoned altogether its long-established fund for housing the arts. It is only in the DoE that a flicker of interest in this subject remains. It is the noble Earl who now has the responsibility of tending that small flame.

A major concern of any government must be the quality of life of their people. The environment in which we all live is central to our happiness. So the Government must concern themselves, interest themselves and instruct themselves in the architecture which is producing homes, offices and public buildings, whether the latter are government departments, barracks, museums or—no doubt dear to the noble Earl—prisons or other institutions.

What should the Government do? First, they should set an example and exercise their overwhelming influence. As the noble Lord has already said, Prince Charles has done a magnificent job as far as concerns influence. He has established the fact that architecture affects us all and that the people affected should have some say in the creation of their environment. That job should surely have been done by the Government.

A government who are prepared to spend hours of valuable time stopping local authorities from an imagined promotion of homosexuality could very easily spend half that time stopping local authorities from the very real promotion of the fifth-rate architecture which blights cities such as Birmingham and London. Planning procedures can be streamlined and simplified. The powers of planning committees can be more clearly and more broadly defined to prevent the endless frustration that drives so many of our best architects abroad and the hideous comprehensive developments that are imposed on powerless ordinary people.

I suggest that the Government can commission, with enthusiasm and knowledge, beautiful and worthwhile public buildings. Indeed, in the United States I have seen government offices, other buildings and prisons of the greatest distinction. Can the Minister tell us something of the arcane procedures by which his department chooses architects for government buildings? Who designs the prisons for the Home Office? I do not know whether they are in-house architects. I rather hope that they are not.

Let me spell out something of what I mean. When our great National Gallery wished to build an extension facing Trafalgar Square to display its incomparable treasures, the Government would not provide. There was no money for new building for the nation for a national gallery that attracts millions of visitors from all over the world in London's central and most famous square! Trafalgar House wanted the address No. 1 Trafalgar Square and was willing to build a block of offices with two attic floors on top for the Rembrandts and Titians in the National Gallery. The Government thought that that was a wonderful solution. Luckily, the public thought otherwise. Now the Sainsbury family have chosen a distinguished American architect to build a proper building for the nation. To that beneficence the Government have so far given absolutely nothing.

When at the Tate Gallery we wished to create a home for the great Turner bequest to the nation of his major works, the Government would do nothing to help. The Clore Foundation came along and backed our choice of architect, James Stirling, and gave the nation the brilliant building which is now on view at Millbank. We went excitedly to the Government and asked them to match the sum which we had been promised. A grey face at the Office of the Arts and Libraries informed us that the Government presumed that the foundation would meet the running costs of the building as well. At that, the foundation threatened to pull out. At that moment the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Fawsley, became Minister for the Arts and from that moment all was sweetness, light and encouragement. Even some topping-up money was produced.

At the moment the Courtauld Institute is struggling with the begging bowl to have its magnificent bequest of old masters displayed in Somerset House. The Goverment are not even offering assistance to the University of London for the cost of running those galleries, if they are ever opened.

Finally, Baron Thyssen has just announced that his supreme and unique collection of paintings, some of which are on view at the Royal Academy, could find a home in any country prepared to provide a suitable environment for it. The Baron is a good friend of this country; he lives here. I ask the Minister whether the Government are prepared to commission one of our internationally famous architects to prepare plans for that collection—Messrs. Foster, Lasdun, Rogers, Stirling, Dixon. There is no question of Mrs. Beeton catching them. Any one of them could do a wonderful job.

If the Minister replies, as I imagine he will, that the Government would be prepared to hold out the begging bowl to private enterprise, perhaps I may suggest another course. Instead of holding out he should throw out the Inland Revenue from the rest of Somerset House, restore it to its former glory and create a magnificent gallery with a walkway along the Thames from Waterloo Bridge opposite the South Bank. That would be a perfect setting for those wonderful paintings if they could only come to this country.

I say to the Minister, look upwards and look across the Channel. There there is a consensus that the taxpayers' money should be spent on things of the spirit as well. There the government build the great Pompidou arts centre, bearing a Prime Minister's name. It is the government who build a second opera house in the Place de la Bastille, who convert an old railway station and make the Musée d'Orsay and who provide a Picasso museum in the Marais at the same time as making the Exocet missile, the TGV train and cheap atomic energy.

The noble Lord, Lord St. John, achieved much in government but before he was removed he failed in one respect. He did not convert one of his dry colleagues to an understanding and appreciation of the arts. I suppose that we have the most philistine government of this century. The noble Earl may of course be the one exception—we have yet to hear him on the arts. He is certainly exceptional in his versatility and his humanity. I do not say that philistinism is unique on the Benches opposite. Last week when I heard the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips —I am sorry that she is not in her place—tell the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, that there was nothing beautiful about Hampstead Heath and indeed it could be compared to Wormwood Scrubs, I knew that she would never embrace the liberal culture which is to be found on these Benches.

The Government now have a great opportunity to give good architecture its head. The Education and Arts Committee of another place in its report in 1982 said:

"Cultural resources can be seen as a vital element in the regeneration of Britain… [and] as improving the chances for successful rehabilitation and redevelopment in the inner city areas".

It saw, as the French have long seen, that the arts are an influence on economic development. It cited as examples the Maritime Museum and the Tate of the North in Liverpool Docks, which I am glad to say was started in my time at the Tate Gallery.

I should like to end by commending to the Minister an idea that has had an astounding success in the United States of America in tackling the problems of rebuilding the inner cities; namely, the creation of what are called Rudats (regional urban design and architectural teams). Instead of developers coming into cities, applying for planning permission and imposing from above their ideas on the local community, this scheme approaches the problem from the bottom upwards.

The community or the local authority asks the equivalent of the RIBA for a Rudat, which is a small team of totally independent experts who have nothing to do with the city in question and who will work with the architect. The team may consist of an engineer, an economist, a social worker and a town planner. They spend a period in the city researching the area, holding public meetings, conducting phone-ins and finding out what amenities the inhabitants of that city want, as well as their housing and commercial requirements. They get together and in a very short period, usually within seven days, produce an outline development plan. They return to the city and present that plan to the public, again holding public meetings and using the local press. Having finally adjusted that plan, they hand it to the architect and the developer who will carry it out.

Rudats have operated in no fewer than 98 cities in America for the past 10 or 12 years and have achieved very remarkable results. Recently they held an international conference in Pittsburgh. The centre of discussion was a Rudat which focused on a desolate valley of disused steel mills called the Mon Valley. Five members of the team came from Britain, one of them being the distinguished architect, Richard Burton. His Royal Highness Prince Charles attended that conference. I understand that that idea has now been taken up in this country by the RIBA. We call them Cudats because "community" replaces the word "regional" in the name. A Cudat with some American members has recently been formed in Newcastle and one has been operating in Southampton.

In that way the inhabitants of a city are brought in and are consulted. They participate, become involved and often very excited about what is happening in their own city. Local labour is recruited at all levels and the project ceases to be anonymous. In those circumstances the chances of a good architect are far higher than when the choice is made by the town clerk's office or from the cosy groups of supine architects who are constantly employed by successful developers. I hope that the Minister will tell the House whether the Government will seriously consider the use of such teams in their plans for the inner cities.

My final suggestion is that the Royal Fine Art Commission should be given some sort of status as the Government's adviser on taste and aesthetics. As I have already said, since he became its chairman, the noble Lord has done a tremendous amount to reform, streamline and galvanise the commission. It is now an effective and very distinguished body. Could it not at least be given a statutory power to call in designated schemes and make its views known or have the power to delay any scheme which is brought to its attention? We all await with the greatest pleasure the Minister's view on these matters when he speaks on architecture for the first time in this House.

My Lords, I can tell the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Fawsley, that one thing that the Government have clone for architecture is to appoint him chairman of the Royal Fine Art Commission. They could not have made a better choice. I cannot match the eloquence of the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, in showering praise upon him but I can certainly match the noble Lord's enthusiasm for the appointment and for what has happened so far.

I submit that the state has four roles to play as regards architecture. They may have others, but to me there seem to be four obvious ones. First, there is the role of patron—commissioning new buildings for their own occupation, whether at national or local level, and maintaining, where necessary adding to, existing public buildings. Secondly, they are the protector of our architectural heritage, laying down and administering the rules for its protection. Thirdly, they are overlord of the planning authorities. I think planning is too big a subject to touch on this evening although the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, has mentioned it. Finally, the Government have the role of provider of education in the sense that architecture should be an important part of the education in the arts which every child ought to have the chance of receiving.

To take first the role of the state as patron, how is the commissioning of new buildings or substantially adding to old ones best done? I agree with the noble Lord, Lord St. John, that it is not done by using in-house architects but by public competition. The job of the in-house architect—in the case of the DoE it is the PSA—is to look after public property and to organise competitions when they are needed. I think they perform that task very well. I dare say that more maintenance functions could he contracted out to the private sector, although I do not think that that is very important in itself. I think that the Government do that job very well. Like the noble Lord, I do not know how the building that houses the DoE came to be built. I had prepared some scorching comments to make about it, but as the noble Lord has already made similar observations I shall not add to them.

It is important to ensure that competitions arc designed to find the best architect for the job and not just a winning design. A few years ago, as the lay judge on a panel to choose a winning design for a new building at Kew which was intended to house a reference collection and exhibition hall—and I believe it is now almost ready—I had an interesting experience. Perhaps I may say that we could not have carried out the task without the help of Sir Philip Dowson, one of the members of the panel. There were 270 entries to be judged, and we had to do it blind in the sense that we were not allowed to know the names of the architects who were putting the designs before us. I think that we chose a good design, but whether it was the best one we shall never know. I believe that the method of the competition was the wrong way to set about the task. We were judging designs, and we should have been attempting to find architects.

In that competition I can think of at least one entry which was extremely imaginative and interesting but in which there were aspects that the curator at Kew, who was naturally a member of the panel of judges, felt would make it unsuitable unless they were changed. If we could have discussed the design with the architect—and of course we did not know who he was—and suggested changes, we might ultimately have preferred his solution.

I do not intend my words in any way to derogate from the design that we chose. The building has been erected and it looks to me as though we made a very good choice indeed. However, there was no input from the client, and the point that I am making is that in most cases an input from the client is an essential element in producing a good building. So the best competitions are those in which the architect is selected after interviews in which ideas and sketches can be discussed.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, outlined, basically it was holding the competition for a winning design that got the National Gallery into difficulty in its initial effort to provide for its extension. The chosen design did not suit the trustees and, of course, the partnership with a commercial developer in order to finance it limited the trustees' ability to meet their real needs. The difficulty was resolved through the incredible generosity of the Sainsbury brothers which obviated the need for the developer. The National Gallery began all over again at the beginning and the subsequent competition ended in the choice of Mr. Robert Venturi, with whom it could begin from scratch.

Such competition makes possible the dialogue between client and architect from the earliest stage which no mere provision of a brief by the client can possibly achieve. We have had a similar competition, although sadly without the elimination of the commercial developer, at the Royal Opera House. The noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, and I were both on the panel that chose Mr. Jeremy Dixon. I think the design promises to be worthy not only of the opera house but of the historic environment of the Covent Garden area.

On the subject of competitions, the most instructive example of methods of public patronage is the story of this palace, told in the book by the late Sir Robin Cook. As chairman of the works of arts sub-committee in your Lordships' House, I must tell you how deeply I miss him. His knowledge of this palace was encyclopaedic, as was his knowledge of the methods by which money was obtained to maintain and improve it. I not only miss him very much personally but in this House we are all very much the poorer by his sad death. His book describes how, after the fire in 1834, there was a general demand for a public competition to which the Government responded a year later and ordered a Select Committee to advise on the procedure.

Commissioners to find an architect were subsequently appointed, with Charles Hanbury-Tracy, later Lord Sudeley, as chairman. He was then an MP but his knowledge of architecture was considerable. He designed his own vast house at Toddington in Gloucestershire—a mansion which few realise is not inspired by this palace but is its predecessor. The inspiration must have been the other way round. It puts beyond doubt the influence of Hanbury-Tracy and his commission on the appearance of this palace. Among other members of the commission were Thomas Liddell, an amateur Gothic architect, George Vivian, who wrote on architectural matters— he was not wholly wedded to Gothic architecture—and Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt, who designed his own beautiful Gothic house at Bayons in Lincolnshire.

As we all know, the commission chose Barry, who brought in Pugin. However, in recommending Barry the commissioners were clever enough, when reporting to the Select Committee, to say that Barry's design needed revision before execution, thus keeping in their own hands the power to influence his final plans. They therefore had the best of both worlds.

Throughout the building of the palace there was intensive input from the client of a high order. I tell this story only to emphasise that if the state is to be a good patron—as it was in the building of this palace —it must engage citizens who are well informed about architecture to act for it and not attempt to do so itself. I am sure that this is even more essential—if that were possible—at the level of local government.

Another aspect of the state's role as a patron of architecture is the maintenance of public buildings and the treatment of buildings which are no longer needed by the state. Recently the Royal Society of Arts and the Cubitt Trust held an interesting conference called "The Future of the Public Heritage" at which the Government's role in conserving historic buildings and their ownership was discussed, as were the uses to which such buildings when redundant could be put. A small book was subsequently produced and, although I must declare an interest as chairman of the Committee of the Environment at the RSA, I venture to commend this book to your Lordships.

If I say no more on this part of the state's responsibility for architecture, I nevertheless consider the maintenance of the public heritage as an extremely important part of it. The present dirty and blackened condition of the Victoria Tower of this House is a standing reproach to this nation's pride in its architectural heritage. To leave that tower dirty for years after cleaning the rest of the building, and all for want of some £4 million, is difficult for me to understand. I am assured that it will be begun in 1991.

The noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, has already spoken of the pride which France takes in its surroundings. I ask noble Lords to consider whether the French, with all their pride in their heritage, would allow a comparable monument in the heart of Paris to stand out like a dirty thumb for so long. It is all a question of priorities, and of pride in one's surroundings. If one wishes to stop people leaving litter in the streets then one should start by showing a pride in the built environment. I beg for a strong lead from this Government in this regard.

I spoke of another role of the state in architecture as being a protector of historic buildings. It lays down and administers rules for their protection. This is a very difficult role in a constantly changing society where the use of buildings needs to change so frequently. The listing system that the DoE administers is essentially a good one. However, it does not, and should not, give final protection. It merely guides the planners as to the amount of resistance with which they should oppose the removal or alteration of the buildings. I am unclear as to who are the advisers of the DoE, when, and if, it rejects the advice of English Heritage—the quango which replaced its former in-house advisers. It appears that English Heritage's advice has been rejected in the case of the listing of a number of postwar buildings in the list just announced.

To whom does the Minister turn for a second opinion if he is not happy with the advice of English Heritage's experts? I hope that he will tell us. I stress that I am not talking about planning decisions, which may on occasion have to override listing. But when deciding whether to list on purely architectural grounds, then on whose advice does the Minister dismiss the opinions of English Heritage's experts? I am sure that he will help us there.

Finally, I come to the Government's role, as I see it, in providing for our architectural education. We hear much nowadays about the public's role in influencing architects and the need for architects to pay attention to what the public wants, and I heartily support this. But in that case, in order to have better architecture we need a better informed public. If we really mind about our built environment, new or old, the interest of the public must be an informed one. Architecture therefore should have a leading place in the study of the arts as an element in the core curriculum.

We shall be discussing educational reform in this House quite soon. Perhaps this point can be emphasised afresh in that context. It is quite fundamental, and if time is not found for it in schools, or if there are no qualified teachers to teach it, then, unless time can be found and the teachers trained, architectural standards in our country will be much lower than they ought to be.

On the professional side, do not let the schools in which architects are trained ignore the past, as I believe they wickedly did for some years when training students in the post-war period. A decent future depends on an understanding of the past in architecture as in everything else. When teachers and architects ignore this factor they lose touch with the community and a desolate architecture—of which we have seen too much in the post-war years—is the result. Good architecture flourishes where the community is conscious of the difference between beauty and ugliness. We may not always agree with the decisions, but there is a strong predisposition to judge between beauty and ugliness. That is what we have to promote. It existed in the Italian Renaissance and in Ancient Greece. Let us aim for a renaissance here and let it begin in the schools.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord St. John, and I have wondered why there is nowadays so little good architecture. Although I do not disagree with his suggestions on how to try to achieve improvements, I am not sanguine that such suggestions will bring immediate effect. The antecedents of the architecture to which both he and I agree to object go back a long way.

When I saw this Question on the Order Paper I at once thought of tower blocks and slab blocks which were the subject of a painstaking study by Professor Alice Coleman, published a year or two ago under the title Utopia on Trial, which I have been reading. These are buildings about which, from the day they were built, passers-by protested at their unattractiveness, and experience quickly proved them also to be disagreeable to live in. Why, one must wonder, were they ever built?

The excuse is that at the time they seemed quicker to build; yet houses would have been as quick to build and almost certainly cheaper. But these houses, had they been built, would not have been of the traditional type. More likely they would have been of a quite untested, novel construction. They would have had deliberately non-traditional features—original ideas as they were called—such features as slit windows or flat roofs, in spite of the fact that no one has ever been able to design for this climate a flat roof that will last without leaking.

I was a new town chairman for rather a long time and therefore had much opportunity to consider this matter. Some years ago I was walking through a new housing estate of a Radburn design where so far as possible pedestrians are segregated from vehicular traffic. Mothers were supposed to push their prams along concrete pavements, but they were so bumpy that they made straight for the nearest tarmac road where they were not intended to be. I therefore was musing to myself as to why architects designed houses of problematic quality which few but themselves liked the look of and where the simple everyday practice of pushing a pram had not been considered. I can suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, that these pram-pushers were indeed part of his well-informed public.

There were many of these paved paths, neatly laid out at right angles to each other. Everywhere, however, there were muddy footpaths subtending these right-angles, for people were ignoring the paths which were drawn on graph paper and were taking an old fashioned short cut. I then realised that the estate had not been laid out for normal human beings, but for theoretical ones. Not just this estate suffered from that. Hundreds of estates throughout the land were being created rather as an exercise in abstract art, designed with an almost Olympian detachment as to their real effects on real people.

For this extraordinary state of affairs I do not blame architects as persons, for nearly all those I know or have met are kindly and considerate people. However, they have a habit of not living in or near their creations, preferring a farmhouse or a Georgian square. But that fact only serves to emphasise the detachment which so many of them have from the consequences of their work and their habitual indifference as to whether anyone likes it.

This indifference to criticism is a feature of a whole range of modern art. It is an idea which has prevailed for a great part of this century and I believe is based on the notion, unprecedented in history, that it is the artist's duty to express himself and the duty of the spectator or audience to be uncritical. However, being put into the position of having to accept what one is given is in effect to suffer producer control, which throughout the ages has been a formula for poor quality products, and that is what too often we find.

As is well known, people can vote with their feet as to which pictures they view or which music they listen to, but architecture is unavoidable. Architecture is the public art and I believe deeply that it has a duty to produce buildings which invite us to like them; otherwise one is vesting in architect and developer power without responsibility.

The fear of what is to be built next has been a strong motor of the conservation movement. I almost hate to think of the amount of time that I have spent in the last 15 or 20 years in the city of Bath. First, there was the task in which central government played an essential role of halting the wholesale destruction that was going on. This was not achieved before about a quarter of the city had been laid waste. Since then the main problem has been to dissuade assorted architects from putting up buildings which would have been wholly inappropriate in their context. Here again the continuing support of the Government has been crucial, as has the influence of a growing number of architects who have not gone along with the modernists.

While the bulldozing was going on, we were told that if we wanted to keep 18th century artisans' cottages, we should have to find 18th century artisans to live in them; and Bath had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century. So although there was much mindlessness in it all, one could, and still can, detect an element of wilfulness in attitude. Having lived with the problem for as long as I have, I have not been able to escape the conclusion that one motive in destroying so much was that people liked what was there and that sometimes one reason for bringing forward incompatible designs has been an itch to blight the old by juxtaposing the new.

I am not holding up Bath as being of perfect design or offering an ideal way of life, though it is worth pointing out that the preservation of most of its historic core has saved the city from inner city blight. Bath represents a town whose architects and builders really wanted their buildings to be liked, and it retains that welcoming feeling. It was built entirely speculatively to cater for what the customer, the citizen and the sightseer, admired and felt comfortable with.

These desires have changed but little over the centuries, as is shown by the vast number of people who contentedly live in centuries' old buildings in layouts the evolution of which was brought to a halt by the modernist revolution. This revolution, which started in the 1920s, still has momentum and still retains its juggernaut tendencies. Towers are still being built, although I think only for offices, and so are slabs like the new Broadgate development, although it is well known that their bulk increases wind pressure. What may be suitable for Chicago, where nobody walks if they can help it, is not suitable for London, where people walk a lot.

There are signs of improvement however. I have seen three modest new buildings in or near Fleet Street recently which I admired. Many new buildings now have facades and one welcomes them into the ranks of the living in contrast to the dead faces of their predecessors. There is still a long way to go, but a need to put things back on the right road of architecture for people and not just for architects, as has been mentioned this evening, has magnificently and tellingly been given by the Prince of Wales. The prospects therefore are much brighter than they were less than a year ago.

The Government can help in improving style by never again erecting, as they did in Marsham Street, a building which makes one think that height limits might be a good thing. They can help in bringing forward legislation to prevent landmarks and national monuments from being obscured or dominated. For instance, the hotel in St. Katharine's Dock should never have been allowed to compete, as it does, alongside the Tower of London. Perhaps the Government could be most influential in revising the Halford-Abercrombie site ratio planning rules in the light of their effect on our environment during the past 40 years. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord St. John, referred to those.

Subject to what the noble Earl may say tonight, I should like to bring forward those matters for debate in your Lordships' House in due course. Meanwhile I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord St. John, for asking the Question. It is hard to overestimate the importance of architecture and its impact on the way in which we live.

My Lords, I apologise for not having put my name on the list of speakers; but I intend to be brief. I intervene because I feel strongly that something should be said about the relationship between buildings and behaviour. I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord St. John, for his brilliant and informative speech. I should also like to congratulate other noble Lords who have spoken in the debate because I have learnt a great deal from them.

I should like to begin by making two quotations. The first is from Plato:

"Let our youth live in a beautiful land".

The second quotation, which is more relevant to our discussion, is from Churchill:

"We shape our buildings but our buildings shape us".

Having been brought up in one of the most superb settings in this country—the buildings and grounds of Stowe in Buckinghamshire—I am particularly conscious of what I owe to that environment in almost every sphere of my life. At the other end of the scale, we see the cramped and crowded ugliness of so many of our modern buildings. I refer particularly to the high-rise blocks with their ghastly overhead walkways, totally lacking in privacy, and which have been so widely criticised. Indeed, I have done so at least once in your Lordships' House.

I submit that it is in no way fanciful to connect the relatively high incidence of youth crime in the vicinity of such buildings, and others totally lacking in anything approaching beauty, with this appalling environment. I have visited some of the buildings and have been told exactly that by the people who live there. I believe that any statistical survey will bear out what I have said.

I could elaborate but I shall not because time is short and I have been unable to prepare a detailed speech. However, I should like to conclude by putting forward two points which concern me deeply. The noble Lord, Lord St. John, opened his speech by referring to St. Pancras. I believe that all noble Lords will agree that it is one of the great buildings of this country. It certainly stands out in London. The great train shed is without compare anywhere in the world, and I am glad that the noble Lord has its interests at heart.

The second point that I should like to raise bears on a Starred Question that I asked about three months ago. It was: what is being done about the proposed development near St. Paul's? At the time I received a brief reply from the Minister and I shall be grateful if he can elaborate on what he said on that occasion in order to bring us up to date.

My Lords, I envy the Minister because I believe that he will rightly be expected by all noble Lords to respond to the many interesting points that have been made. One of the aggravations speaking in such a debate as this is that one comes to say what one has prepared. So much has been said by all notable Lords who have spoken and I should have been pleased to pursue and largely support that.

I should like to say that it is a delight and joy to the colleagues of the noble Lord, Lord St. John, who served with him in another place to see him here and hear him speak so powerfully and perceptively upon a matter in respect of which we acknowledge his deep experience, interest and passion. I believe that what he has said tonight will not only be worthy of being read tomorrow morning but of being re-read. I certainly intend to do so. The noble Lord set the scene at a level and from his own unique experience. My experience is not as broad as is that of the noble Lord or others who have spoken. I should like to use my experience and talk about what may be called "community architecture". It is different but nevertheless important.

I was most interested to hear what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, about the Rudat experiment in France. I am sure that when I have finished speaking, the noble Lord will understand that that is exactly what I am trying to achieve in this country. One of the benefits of a debate of this kind is that we can learn from what has been said by others.

If ever there was a discipline, a science or an art which merited the epitaph, "I cannot describe what it is, or how I feel, but I know what I like", it must be that of architecture. In the experience of most people the role and the place of an architect in our modern buildings may well be limited to the home they buy or, more rarely, that they commission. They will also come face to face with the skill of the architect when their local council puts out for consultation plans submitted for a scheme either to redevelop a part or the whole of their town or city; or for the building of a new estate within or on the edge of their town. Visual impressions, perspectives and external treatments are gobbledegook to most people.

As for mass, scale or aesthetic treatments, they may be so much clever talk, but it does not mean that people do not know what they like; they do. Nor does it mean that they do not care; they do. However, it may well mean that they feel that they cannot influence the way in which their environment, townscape or landscape is developed or created; and they should. The design and the power or the sympathy of the built environment is not just the prerogative of the professionals, the design team, the possession of the planner, the speculator or the estate agent. Ultimately, it becomes the endowment of this age as a bequest to the future. It will be paid for by this generation's consumers, residents or tenants. That townscape will certainly be lived and worked in by today's residents and workers.

I plead the case of the all-too-often silent majority who are affected but often ignored or taken for granted. Why is this? Is it that those who shape and reshape our living spaces hold ordinary people in either contempt or disdain? I submit that this is but part of a syndrome in Britain today where money—the making of it, the profit from it and the salting away of it—dominates our society. We are money mad.

I must confess some difficulty in avoiding making party political points. As the noble Lord, Lord St. John, said, in architecture there is only good or bad; there is not Conservative or Socialist. I shall be content to rely on what is known by all who follow such things. If we were getting it right, for the sake of our children and our children's children, in a timescale measured in centuries and not decades we should be concerned to ensure that it is the long view and not the short view that prevails. We must satisfy our responsibility to the future. I must say that there is clear evidence that this is all too often sacrificed in order to satisfy present-day financial problems. All too often it is the greed of the developer, the speculator or the professionals which dominate the shape of things to come.

There is much to be done by the architects themselves, lf, as I assert, there is a widening gulf between architects and the public and communities, it is a two-way street. Architects should come down to our level and instead of speaking down to their clients, who I claim are ultimately the public, they should come into our communities and invite the people to tell them what they want. Who ultimately pays for the architects' designs? It is not the consortium or the planner but the public who live and work in the built environment over which they have so little sway.

Why is it that so much of the townscape is fashioned, and residential areas designed by, architects who show their confidence in what they design by living elsewhere—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Raglan? When I was a member of a local authority in the 1960s I took my share of responsibility for what was planned, and sadly much of it was rightly the subject of criticism.

Let us take the issue of maximising the use of land allied to housing and the maximum number of homeless people. The whole country was galvanised into erecting tower blocks. In Greater London alone there were, and still are, more than 5,000. I wonder how many of their architects chose to live in their creation. Given the proper criteria of homelessness which would debar them, why do we not have a period of two to five years for architects and planners to live within their creations in order to demonstrate their faith and to adjust their views for their next essay in community architecture?

My Lords, I did learn of one distinguished architect who lived in a tower block for three months. He was Mr. Goldfinger, who is now deceased.

My Lords, that is a very interesting comment, and the fact that it is possibe to name only one architect who lived in his creation for three months makes my point.

If there is to be a two-way process, what can be done to give architects a meaningful dialogue with their ultimate clients, the public? For that to take place requires not only humility from the architectural profession that they can learn something from the untutored and the uneducated but also for the public to appreciate the role of the architect and his constraints and problems.

I have a strong belief that there is a huge, unfulfilled yearning for knowledge in this field. There is a great respect for our historical places and admiration and even love for the fine buildings and other places which are monuments to a past age. We need the trained and sensitive architect, but we also need a public who understand in general terms the context in which sympathetic architectural treatment is to their benefit or otherwise. I would welcome this process beginning in our schools, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, and the younger the student the better.

When I took my degree in the Open University I took a foundation course, one unit of which roamed over the history of architecture and the salient features which characterised the civilisations, schools and styles over the years. I confess that a veil dropped from my eyes. It was the same with art appreciation and the history of art. After putting behind me my annoyance at waiting perhaps 40 years for this eye-opener, I developed an unquenchable thirst for more and more. If that can happen to a then 50 year-old, just imagine the effect that it could have on a 15 year-old. Of course I had the great good fortune to be awakened by the excellent course material of the Open University.

The media has a vital part to play in the renaissance of learning about architectural matters. At present that is limited to the heavy daily and Sunday newspapers in which the architectural correspondents set out arguments about major matters attractively and enticingly. I believe that the Independent deserves a special mention in that sphere. I invite those newspapers to take unto themselves the worthy and nationally valuable task of educating the masses in architectural matters. There is enough happening every day to provide pegs or measuring rods upon which to hang a tale—moral or otherwise. The capturing of the imagination of young people who can observe critically and assess positively what they see, but more importantly, what they want to see in the future, would be a great service and would be much better than many other campaigns, themes or crusades. How about it, dear Mr. Editor?

That other great arm of the media, television, is already well apprised of the opportunity. Who can forget the unforgettable programmes in which our civilisation was surveyed, those programmes by the late lamented Huw Weldon or the many programmes of late which have dealt with specific developments of current controversy? These are made all the more relevant to people's lives when they embrace not only the views of architects and planners but also those of ordinary people who have a distinctive claim to be seen and heard. They live there, work there and will be looking at whatever is being built for the rest of their lives, as will their children.

Perhaps I may echo a point made in an earlier contribution. Let us remain suspicious or sceptical of the value of architectural competitions, which usually involve the work of architects judged by other architects. I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, had to say in this respect. James Stirling designed the new history building for Cambridge University in the 1960s. It gained national and international awards. Within a year it had sprung over 500 leaks. It was bad to work in—too cold in winter and too hot in summer. It was constructed mostly of glass with tile facings and the tiles fell off. The university did extensive repairs and even contemplated building an envelope to weatherproof it. There was little point in suing when this disaster only came to light after five years and therefore no claim could be made. The point is that a building that gained the acclaim of other architects was unsuitable for the purposes for which it was built and for the materials of which it was made. Architects often design beyond the capabilities of the technology of the time.

I want the calling of architecture to be not only respected but valued and even revered. I strongly feel that architects have some hard thinking and even soul searching to do—certainly individually but, more importantly, collectively. In my view, they are victims of our times but that does not excuse them from taking a stand on behalf of their professional integrity.

An onlooker looking in can come to the conclusion that the running in the ultimate design is largely, perhaps wholly, dictated by considerations of time, profit and exploitation. Good architectural treatment may well cost more and take more time. Just how often do architects dig their toes in and even refuse a commission if it is offered in such a form and with such imperatives that the input of the architect is demeaned and suborned? If the architect is simply a technician who takes his orders and complies with his brief for his fee, and in so doing aids and abets the creation of a monstrosity or a hideous or offensive blot on our skyline, he or she is unworthy of our patronage or support. If developers find that they are encouraged to produce a viable scheme or treatment as quickly as possible, not at least so as to generate rateable income, rents or profits, who is there to blow the whistle?

I favour much stronger powers being wielded by a central body with enough muscle and power to hold the line against philistine actions motivated by greed or varying interests. For example, I applaud the creation of such bodies as the Covent Garden Community Association, which is active in respect of the Opera House. Those bodies invariably arise out of an attack on people's concepts of how they perceive their town and their living area and demonstrates the very real problem there is. Such bodies as the Enfield Preservation Society, which wears the mantle as custodian of Enfield heritage and past, as well as acting responsibly towards proposed changes, has us all in its debt, as indeed have hundreds of civic societies. I assert that the views of the community through such bodies are given less than fair treatment by developers and alas by architects. I want to see architects looking on such bodies as allies, always assuming that the architect wants to serve the people as well as, if not before, the speculator.

Nowhere do I see a better illustration of all that is wrong in this relationship than in the London Docklands development. The noble Lord, Lord St. John, was spot on with his comments. I applaud the fact that this area of our capital is being transformed. I give credit to the Government for wanting something to be done. Yes, we have housing and jobs, but there is square mile after square mile being developed at a frantic pace by private capital without, as far as I can ascertain, a grand design for land use or democratic control.

Colin Davies described this in the Architectural Review as the old dock areas being splattered with mediocre mush. If communities are at the heart of our lives, why should so many of them feel that on the great decisions they are marginalised, taken for granted, informed rather than consulted? My plea is that British Architects and architecture stand both at the crossroads and in the dock. They have only themselves to blame. They can rescue themselves. They have to speak out when they feel affronted by the pressures from their paymasters; and I do not minimise those pressures. They must be proud of their calling. They should welcome public support. They should seek it and cultivate it. Architects should be supported by the public.

The public should acknowledge that the best for our future may not be the cheapest. We should start public appreciation of the role and the fruits of architects and their gifts at an early age. We should encourage every government to see their role as the custodian and trustee of the past in real terms, not just the preservation of monuments but by keeping a tight grip on the changes in our environment which diminish the worth of those monuments. It will require from this Government a determination to say no to grotesque and gratuitous change, often on a massive scale, in the interests of what we bequeath to the future. I believe that the public would be on the side of such a government, and that is a prize not to be sniffed at by any government, especially this one.

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord St. John of Fawsley for giving us an opportunity to debate this matter. Discussion of architecture in this Chamber has been, in recent years, a rare event. The last major debate was, I believe, that initiated in 1943 by the then Lord Wimborne which dwelled in particular on the role of the Royal Fine Art Commission. It is entirely appropriate, therefore, that this debate should have been initiated by my noble friend who, since taking the chair of the Royal Fine Art Commission in 1985, has done so much to raise public awareness of architecture and the impact on our towns and cities of the development now taking place.

If there has been discussion, here and elsewhere, in recent years it has too often been an occasion to lament the damage done by architects and developers rather than to celebrate the appearance of a distinguished building. We have suffered a crisis of confidence in architecture and it is only a slight exaggeration to say that along with the term "planner" the term "architect" has come close to a term of abuse.

The reasons for this remarkable fall from grace have been the subject of much heart searching and debate and it is a matter which, I have no doubt, will provide a rich field for architectural historians. But there is, I believe, already consensus on one point; that is, that architects in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s lost touch with the people and communities they served. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, that architecture came to represent the values of the institution and the bureaucracy rather than the people who would live and work in the buildings they designed.

In the 1960s and 1970s there was a mistaken belief that better building meant more control and more regulation. The variety, complexity and richness of architecture was lost in pursuit of purely mechanical goals of "dimensional co-ordination", prefabrication and standardisation. There was as well an idea that to discard individual preferences and adopt instead common values was somehow improving. The conditions of the planning committee were substituted for the vision of the individual client and the social survey for the view of the man in the street. Indeed, my noble friend Lord St. John of Fawsley and the noble Lords, Lord Gibson and Lord Raglan, said that perhaps it was the building in which I work—the DoE—that epitomises that which is bad. Of course, I have to remind your Lordships that it was none other than the Royal Fine Art Commission which commended the building's light and airy design; and that helped to silence the growing number of critics of the building as it was being erected.

Your Lordships will have noticed that there has emerged in these past few years a very different style of architecture. They will have seen, in the City of London, confidence expressed in some of the most exciting and distinguished buildings to be erected in the City in this century. The new offices in Finsbury Avenue, designed by Arup Associates for Rosehaugh Greycoat estates are a good example and, I believe, set new standards for the design of office buildings. If you walk in the City today you will also find more modest examples of refurbishment and redevelopment which display the same confidence and architectural skill.

That same confidence is seen in our urban development corporations which have fostered a whole new generation of outstanding buildings. Someone has said that a test of fine architecture is that a building attracts people who have no reason to visit it other than that they find it attractive and exciting. Contrary to the views of the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, I believe many buildings in London Docklands pass this test with flying colours. A high quality of design plays a part in all of our initiatives to regenerate previously rundown areas of our towns and cities.

Industry, too, has emerged as a patron of much fine architecture. I am delighted to find that there are many in industry who wish to see the success of their companies expressed in the buildings they occupy. The result is industrial buildings of international distinction which maintain what is a very proud tradition in this country. The list is long but I would point, for example, to the Renault Centre at Swindon by Foster Associates, the Greene King brewery at Bury St. Edmunds by Michael Hopkins and the Trebor factory at Colchester by Arup Associates.

Your Lordships will have noticed too that, in the hands of some private housebuilders and housing associations, very different styles of housing have begun to appear in some of our towns, cities and suburbs. Areas which were once the preserve of council housing have been invaded by more attractive houses more closely matched to people's need and preferences and of a richness and variety that has been missing for many years. This applies not only to new housing development but the highly imaginative renovation by private sector housebuilders of some of the most run-down estates.

We have a fine tradition of civic, industrial and domestic architecture in this country. There was a period in the 1960s when, with our eyes set on a brave new world, we lost sight of that tradition. We were deaf to protest when buildings regarded with great affection were torn down. Those who disapproved of the generation of buildings which replaced them, ascetic in style, incomprehensible in the images they presented, were dismissed. Regrettably, our enthusiastic embrace of new technology led us to ignore the unchanging importance of scale, variety and an ability to "grow old gracefully".

I hesitate to embark on a discourse on architectural style. There are noble Lords here very much more expert than I. I do not align myself with the post modernists, the classical revivalists or those who support high-tech. But I welcome the very lively debate about architectural style which is now in progress, and I welcome the fact that this debate is not the preserve of learned societies but extends to the daily newspapers and indeed to any community where a new building is proposed.

The shift in styles which has occurred in these past few years is remarkable. It is certainly not the result of any Government edict nor, I believe, the result of the deliberations of architectural theorists. It is, I believe, a response to overwhelming popular opinion. There is no greater force than public opinion and we need people to speak their mind on developments. I am greatly encouraged to find increasing attention given to the discussion of architecture on television, on radio and in the press.

My noble friend Lord St. John of Fawsley asks what this Government are doing to promote the quality of British architecture. What we have done, and will continue to do, is what my noble friend said governments could do, which is provide opportunities for people to realise their preferences and tastes. We have created confidence in the business community and in industry. We have created a climate in which people are anxious to express their achievements in architectural terms. In our extension of home ownership we have given people freedom of choice which finds expression in attractive new housing developments and the renovation of older houses. Our proposals in the Housing Bill will provide a similar opportunity for those who provide housing for rent to respond to tenants' wishes and to compete to provide better and more attractive homes.

We have in the past few years produced a series of distinguished new public buildings; and here, through the Property Services Agency, the Government have had a direct hand. The PSA seeks to produce a high standard of design through the work of its own architects and in its selection, briefing and management of private consultants who now carry out about 70 per cent. of the total workload. The PSA has an important responsibility as a patron of architecture. As well as employing established practices such as Stirling and Wilford for the Clore Gallery at the Tate, and William Whitfield for Richmond House (as it is now called), the PSA seeks to award 10 per cent. of its commissions to rising young architects. Examples are Kit Allsopp's design for the Northampton Crown Court, which last year won the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition Award, and the new courts in Truro by Shalev and Evans. Over the past year, the PSA has won some 16 major national or international architectural awards.

It is for that reason that I take issue with my noble friend's comments on the work of architects in the Property Services Agency. Perhaps I may add one comment on a development which I am sure he will applaud. That is the refurbishment of Durbar Court in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

We have rolled back regulation and control. The revisions we have made to the building regulations have been well received. Instead of detailed regulations, we have functional requirements supported by guidance which provides new freedoms for architects to exercise their skills. We shall continue to simplify the planning system wherever possible and improve its efficiency. We shall continue to look for opportunities to reduce unnecessary controls.

This Government do not seek to promote better architecture by prescription or control on the assumption that those in Whitehall or the town hall know best. We have been down that road and we have seen where it leads. We believe—there is a wealth of precedent to support the case—that fine architecture can only emerge where people are given the opportunity to exercise choice.

My noble friend Lord St. John of Fawsley and the noble Lords, Lord Gibson and Lord Graham of Edmonton, have referred to the need for more attention to education in architecture and the visual arts in schools. I know that this is a matter which is pursued with great enthusiasm in many schools. My own department has been engaged in funding, with the RIBA, an innovative project to encourage studies in architectural awareness in primary and secondary schools.

Education and increased public awareness provide the basis for enlightened patronage. Given that patronage, I am confident that our architects and builders have the skills to provide the finest buildings we could want. Indeed, the worldwide recognition of British architects is unprecedented, and some of the most distinguished buildings erected in recent years, in Europe and further afield, are of their design.

My noble friend Lord St. John raised the important matter of the refurbishment of the St. Pancras Hotel. I understand my noble friend's concern for the future of this important building. I am sure my noble friend will understand that I cannot comment upon the proposals which are now before the local planning authority. On another development the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, asked to be updated on the situation at Paternoster Square following a question that he raised earlier in the House. Although a number of designs have been prepared for the possible redevelopment of Paternoster Square, no formal application for approval has been made. It would be wrong for me to comment any further at this stage.

I was interested in some of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington. I was particularly interested to hear his thoughts on how my right honourable friend could centralise power by taking away decisions from some of the local authorities. He talked about the Thyssen collection. If Baron Thyssen were prepared to consider his collection coming to this country, we would take every care to see that proper provision was made for its accommodation. I take note of the suggestion made by the noble Lord for the future of Somerset House. That would indeed be an exciting prospect.

The noble Lord asked about the choice of consultants for government buildings. The PSA maintains a list of all design consultants who have expressed a wish to work on government projects. Selections are made with great care from this list. He took me back to my days as the Minister with responsibility for prisons. One prison that is often the subject of debate is Holloway Prison. That is a prison which he and the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, know well. I soon found that that prison was designed by a distinguished private practice.

The noble Lord, Lord Gibson, raised the question that has been to the forefront of my mind in the recent past. That is the matter of listing. There can be no one view on the merits of a building or one source of advice. Of course we pay very careful attention to the expert advice of our advisers, English Heritage. We must have regard to the much wider body of opinion. It was the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, who said that an architect does not live in what he designs. One of the properties that I listed recently was a house lived in by its designer, an architect. I merely that this comment from the press, but his remark on hearing the news was that, "it was great fun to hear that in view of all the opposition that he had had from local conservation groups when he designed it". That shows how tastes change. It strengthens the point of the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, when he said that our role as the protector of heritage is indeed a difficult one.

Lord Hutchinson's exposition on Rudats and Cudats was picked up by the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton. I know that these are associated with initiatives in the United States of America. We are not without similar initiatives in this country. I absolutely agree that it is essential that the local community is closely involved in proposals for development. I am pleased that at every level—from the modest local initiatives such as the RIBA's involvement in the Globe Town area of Tower Hamlets, to the major design initiative taken in Birmingham—many people from many disciplines and countries are coming forward to advise on the future of the city schemes. It involves the widest consultation.

I believe that architecture reflects very closely the society in which it is produced. I think that it was Lord Clark who said that if asked to make a judgment about the achievements of society, he would believe the buildings it produced rather than any statement of a government Minister. I urge your Lordships to look about you as you travel around the country, to see the new buildings now emerging from behind the scaffolds and hoardings, and to take heart.