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

My Lords, any decision on the cases of the seven former mercenaries is, of course, a matter for the Angolan Government, but we have taken steps to ensure that the Angolan Government is fully aware of our concern for these men, to whom our Embassy now has regular consular access. We shall continue to pay close attention to their cases.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. It is true that our information is that the Embassy now have close contact with these men and that their treatment is better. Would the Minister not agree, in view of the fact that other mercenaries of other countries have been released by negotiation, and that these men have now been in prison for five years and not four years, that Her Majesty's Government might use their improved relations with many African states to exact further pressure to try to get these young men released who, certainly, have now been sufficiently punished? One can only despise the people who recruited them but they themselves surely do not deserve further punishment.

My Lords, this is something which, in the first instance, is a matter for the men themselves and their relatives. We have intense consular activity in that area. Secondly, it is a particularly touchy part of the world, as the noble Lord and the House will appreciate; and it is unlikely that the Angolans will see things in quite the light that the noble Lord would hope until there is an improvement in that part of Southern Africa.

My Lords, if I may put a further supplementary question, is it not time to open these negotiations in view of the fact that earlier mercenaries have been released and in view of the fact of the excellent relations that the noble Lord the Leader of this House has with neighbouring states, and that perhaps a little more pressure could be exerted than is being exerted at the moment?

My Lords, representations have in the past been made and when there is the slightest hope of the further possibility of successful representations, this will be done.

My Lords, could the Minister say what steps Her Majesty's Government have taken to stop the recruitment of mercenaries? I believe this was a point raised by the Angolan Government three or four years ago.

My Lords, all Members of the Government, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, my right honourable and noble friend the Foreign Secretary, have always condemned mercenaries. We do this without hesitation and will continue to do so.

My Lords, the noble Lord says that representations have been made. Can he say to what extent those representations have been supported by our fellow members of the European Community?

No, my Lords, I have no background information on that point.

My Lords, can the noble Lord say anything about the conditions in which the men have been kept, and whether any are seriously ill or have died?

My Lords, currently all the men are reported to be in reasonable health. They are allowed regular exercise and receive medical treatment when necessary. Recently, I understand, one of them has undergone surgery, but there has been no problem about this and all are in excellent health.

My Lords, following the supplementary question put by my noble friend on the stopping of recruitment of mercenaries, could not the Governments of the European Community get together and make it illegal for any mercenaries to go anywhere?—so to stop these thugs who have no ideology and who only want to kill people and make money. Can they not be stopped?

My Lords, we are now moving into a difficult area. We should all like to stop it, but it is not quite so easy as one would think. We are continually having discussions between ourselves, member states and all other Governments, and will obviously do our best to bring these to a conclusion, but I cannot hold out any hope at the moment.

My Lords, would my noble friend's Government join their condemnation of the recruitment of volunteers to a denunciation of the actions of Communist Governments such as Cuba intervening in Africa?

My Lords, that is another question.

My Lords, will the noble Lord confirm to the House that it is illegal to recruit mercenaries in this country? It must be.

My Lords, as I am unsure on that point, I will certainly write to the noble Lord.

My Lords, will the Minister not forget, in the middle of the subsequent arguments about my Question, that these unfortunate men are unlikely ever to be recruited again and they have been in prison now for five years?

My Lords, whether they are going to be recruited surely depends on whether they are going to be released.

rose to call attention to the need for effective action to combat the continuing prevalence in the United Kingdom of racial disadvantage, and discrimination on grounds of race and sex: and to move for Papers.

My Lords, first may I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for giving the House today the opportunity to debate these two very important subjects. I look forward very much to hearing the maiden speeches of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield, the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, and my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney. I hope that the House and the Minister will forgive me if have to leave before the end of the debate. I took on this duty at the last moment and I have an engagement to fulfil which I cannot get out of.

I think we are all agreed that there is enough to be said about these subjects to make in fact two debates. I also think—I do not know whether this is in the mind of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear—that it is quite difficult for a major debate on sex discrimination to be got off the ground by any one party on its own. There is the advantage that sometimes the discrimination is similar in the two areas which we are debating today, though at other times it is quite different. Women's subjects tend to be left to women, though I am glad that a great many men will be speaking in today's debate.

It is interesting that we should be discussing this subject in your Lordships' House. There are nearly four times as many women Peers as there are women Members of Parliament, and there is no Member of Parliament who is black, whereas I am glad to see that my noble friend Lord Pitt of Hampstead will be speaking in our debate.

As we all know, when a man becomes a Peer his wife takes his title. I have been asked many times since I have been in your Lordships' House whether or not I think it unfair that my husband and the husbands of other noble Baronesses do not also have a title. My answer has always been that they have got it wrong: that in fact women are still the titular appendages of men. A man does not want to feel that he belongs to a woman, even by title. What my husband enjoys most is not being able to pay for drinks at the bar, which is an entirely different form of inequality!

It is interesting to note that today we are talking of women who represent a majority of the population—52 per cent.—and of a minority ethnic group who represent something like 3.6 per cent. of the population. We should remember what the United Nations report of 1980 said about women:

"Women constitute one-half of the world's population, perform nearly two-thirds of work hours, receive one-tenth of the world's income and own less than 100 per cent. of the world's property".

I agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, when she spoke of the marked progress women have made in the professions. Therefore, one must not pretend that a great deal has not been done. But in this connection we are talking more about articulate and probably more confident women than about the mass of women in this country. Although we appreciate what has been done in the past, it is true that whether we are talking about women or about ethnic minorities, things are getting worse, due to the economic and political situation. Both groups are heavily disadvantaged. The PEP report, The Facts of Racial Disadvantage, 1976 documents the race side of this problem extremely well.

There is no time to go into the details but I should like to deal with one or two areas which affect both women and blacks. The Department of Employment survey published in April 1980 showed that the black unemployment increase over the previous year was four times the rate of unemployment generally. The Commission for Racial Equality survey of young black applicants in Nottingham applying in the same year for white collar jobs showed that discrimination had increased by one-third since the PEP report of 1976.

Women form 40 per cent. of the workforce in this country. In the last two years the number of women registered as unemployed has nearly doubled; from 377,000 to 705,500. It could be argued that male unemployment has also doubled. Unemployment generally in this country is scandalously high. However, when we are talking about women we have to realise that these figures are an underestimate. Large numbers of women are not registered as unemployed. Therefore they do not show up in the official figures. Many of them are part-time workers. They do not show up in the figures, either. Promotion and job opportunities for women, a point which was dealt with so splendidly by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, is a problem which I hope everyone now recognises.

So far as the black community is concerned, again their promotion and job opportunities are extremely poor. Both sections of the community are poor compared with white men. Women earn only 74 per cent. of the average man's wage. That percentage has risen in recent years from 60 per cent. Nevertheless, when we are talking about equality in terms not only of opportunity but of equal pay, which is the linchpin of my party's policy, this percentage is nothing like good enough. The tendency on the part of many people is still to think of women's wages as pin money. It has to be recognised very much more widely than it is now that without the woman's contribution to the family income, four times as many families would be living below the supplementary benefit level. Therefore, the contribution of many women to domestic finances is absolutely essential. It is a vicious circle. Since there are fewer opportunities, the jobs which the majority of women are able to take are usually at a low level, which means that they are also much lower paid.

If we turn to education, the Select Committee on Race and Immigration called in 1977 for an urgent, high level and independent inquiry into the underachievement of West Indian children in schools and the remedial action required. The Rampton Committee was set up. Its recent interim report showed that the achievement of West Indian children was six times worse than that of Asian or white children at both O and A levels. It showed also that the support network which is needed for these children is not available and that the image which they have of themselves is very poor.

If I may turn to the education of girls, it is terrible that after all these years the curriculum is still largely geared to traditional roles. It still perpetuates the educational gap between boys and girls and it runs against the social and economic tide. For example, there are practically no apprenticeships for women. Only hairdressing takes in a steady number. In too many professions and occupations women still have to enter at the secretarial or clerical level, which men do not have to do. This diminishes their prospects in later life. I should like to join the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, in asking the Government what they are doing about this. We have a woman Prime Minister. There is also a woman who sits in this House, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who is a Minister in the Department of Education. Much of this is simply a matter of education.

I should now like to say a few words about housing because housing problems apply strongly in the case of the black population. In 1978 a general housing survey showed that only 22 per cent. of black people were housed by local authorities compared with 34 per cent. of white people; 14 per cent. of black people were forced into the private rented sector compared to 2 per cent. of white people. This means that many black people are living in low-grade accommodation, as we well know from the debate we had on housing. The Government cannot afford to cut housing in the public sector because more rented housing is needed if we are to be effective in helping the black population of this country.

I believe we are all aware that the number of single parent families has increased enormously. One in eight of all families in Great Britain today are single parent families, and among West Indians there is a disproportionate number of unsupported mothers. If one is both black and unsupported then one is under twice as much pressure from society and needs twice as much social back-up. Again, it seems to me that the Government cannot afford to cut social services when they are so badly needed. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, spoke in some detail about the responsibilities of central Government, and I agree with every word she said.

Soon after entering your Lordships' House I participated in the debate on the Fulton Report on the reorganisation of the Civil Service. I made the point then that I looked forward to seeing a new set-up in which a great many more opportunities would be given to women. As we have seen, it has not yet worked out that way. In fact, in many areas an atmosphere still prevails in which women and girls are made to feel that they are something extraordinary or not quite right for the job. When I was a Minister in the Department of the Environment I had at one time a highly intelligent and attractive girl as my private secretary. A number of the men who came into the office—not just men in the Civil Service and other Ministers but men from outside as well—would say to her, "What is a pretty girl like you doing in a tough job like this?" It is this sort of attitude that women are having to fight all the time.

Far be it from me to say that any Government have reached anything close to perfection in their dealings either with women or with the black community, but the last Labour Government did introduce the Equal Pay Act, legislation against sex discrimination, and also employment protection legislation. With all their imperfections, these have formed a good framework on which to build. But the framework now needs strengthening and I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Lockwood, the chairman of the Equal Opportunities Commission, who has done so much to put matters on the right path, will be speaking later in the debate. I hope that my noble friend will explain some of the proposals which she feels should be introduced in order to strengthen present legislation.

It should not be forgotten that the question of equal opportunity applies to men just as much as to women. We should not imagine that this is just a women's problem; it is largely a woman's problem, but the Equal Opportunities Commission have had cases brought before them by men and there are probably many more such cases which have not been brought to the commission's attention because the men concerned are too shy to do so. In respect of employment, the Employment Act 1980, which was brought in by the present Government, has attacked women's rights to paid maternity leave and has reduced the protection from dismissal due to pregnancy. Other areas which were left out altogether from the original legislation, and which are still not covered, include tax, the difference between a single and a married woman's supplementary benefit—because a woman does not receive supplementary benefit in her own right if she is married—and loss of supplementary benefit by a single woman if she co-habits. Certainly I have never heard of a case in which a man lost his supplementary benefit or any other benefit because he co-habited.

The cuts in social services due to the present economic situation mean a double blow, particularly for women. They mean that women not only lose their jobs but also have to bridge the gaps in certain instances, such as school meals, which they now have to provide at home in those areas where schools have stopped providing meals altogether. Another is nursery schools. The situation in respect of the lack of nursery schools is appalling. We have raised this matter repeatedly, and I seem to have been discussing this subject all my adult life. If men had to go out to work and care for their children as well, there would be no lack of provision for nursery schools! The noble Baroness referred to the Tavistock Report and to the wrangling which is going on. As I understand it, the Government announced in February that they were not going ahead with the monitoring. I agree with the noble Baroness and shall not go over the same ground again. I shall only say that the Government must take the lead in these matters and implement their own legislation, and must also set the tone which can be followed by others. This applies across the board. It applies in many cases in respect of women and also of the black community. The Tavistock Report, of course, dealt with the subject of the employment of black men and women in the Civil Service.

We see the gaps in central Government but we also see them in local government. Section 11 of the 1966 Local Government Act makes provision for grants to be given by central Government, but 25 per cent. of the figure has to be contributed by local government if a grant is to be taken up. These grants were meant for new immigrants to this country. A number of points have arisen from this. Firstly, the take-up has been very sporadic because local authorities have not been prepared to pay 25 per cent. towards the cost of the grant. Secondly, it is now quite clear that these grants should apply not only to new immigrants but also to people born in this country. The question here is not one of newness or of a new generation, but of colour. People who have been born here—and whose parents may have been born here—are now finding that because of awful colour prejudice they are considered as though they have just arrived on a banana boat. The fact that they are being treated in that way is causing much of the resentment that we see today.

Even if I am not here to hear him, I am sure the noble Lord the Minister will say that at the present time the finance is not available to do all the things I have mentioned. It is not just a question of finance, however; it is a question of political will. Even when resources were available, the Government did not take the opportunity to apply resources in the ways I have suggested. There was no real commitment. Probably the most important motivation behind all that is going on—and not going on—is based on attitudes and prejudice. It is a question of how one continues to try to change attitudes and prejudice in this country. The noble Baroness has said what she believes the Government should do and I agree with what she has said. However, I do not believe that we want a large amount of legislation but, rather, some legislation to amend the Acts we already have, in order to give them more teeth. Increasingly, black people—particularly young black people—are beginning to feel that they do not belong and that their only outlet is direct action in the form of marches and demonstrations, which only cause more violence.

About two weeks ago New Society published a précis of a report sent to the Home Office on two groups of young unemployed, one white and one black, and the young black unemployed showed an enormous resentment and hostility towards the police which was not shown by the white group. Obviously we are awaiting the result of the inquiry at Brixton, but this seems to be something that is absolutely essential to good relations in our community. We shall have to take action on the curriculum for boys and girls and I think we should also remember that, although the Government must take action, a great deal happens in the home and in the schools and many of the young women who belong to some of the women's liberation groups —and also their husbands—are really insistent that women should be given a proper choice. That does not mean that every woman should be made to feel that although she does not need to go out to work she should do so and she is not fulfilling herself if she does not, but that she should have a proper choice and that she should also have the proper training and facilities to enable her to carry out that choice. It also means a different approach to the roles of men and women, and I think that that is changing among younger couples, where they take turns at baby-sitting and both work together in the domestic area.

This whole area, in which we are talking about discrimination against women and even more so, because it is even more socially dangerous at the moment, discrimination against blacks in our community, must have the highest priority, even if it means that resources have to be spent on it, whether it be money, manpower, more research monitoring of the schemes that have been started. I am not talking about some luxurious frill on the social fabric; I am talking about the social fabric itself. If we let that tear more than it is already tearing, we shall have an explosive and even worse situation in this country.

My Lords, I am deeply conscious of the privilege of addressing your Lordships' House for the first time and also of the difficulty of making a non-controversial contribution to a debate on an inevitably controversial subject—a prospect which some of my friends have regarded with a combination of incredulity and merriment. I deliberately do not want to attempt to speak on the subject of discrimination on grounds of sex. I do not think that a representative of the Church of England would find that very easy just at the moment. I agree that the Church has its difficulties. I would not want to hide behind the exemptions granted in the 1975 Act to the Churches; I can only assure the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, who introduced this debate and who was generous enough not to mention this particular subject, that we are persevering—some of us. I should also like to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, that bishops' wives suffer from the same disability as do the husbands of noble Baronesses.

In this field of discrimination, whether sexual or racial, it is, as the noble Baroness has just reminded us, a question of changing attitudes and it is to that that I want to devote a brief consideration now. All sorts of good excuses can be adduced for attitudes—biological, economic, cultural and even theological reasons. Perhaps I may give some examples. I happen to be the representative of the archbishops with that small body of clergy and a few laity who are working as community relations chaplains or officers for the Churches in different parts of the country. We were told recently by an interviewer from an employment agency that an Asian woman who had been in this country for a good few years and was a GPO-trained telephonist—which, as the interviewer remarked, is rather like having Pitman's shorthand for a secretary—working in the GPO in North London, moved south of the river and wanted to get a job near her home. She came into the agency and the interviewer said she was a really lovely lady, a smashing telephonist, she had a lot of experience and was really well spoken. She would have fitted the bill for this particular job, for which they asked for a GPO-trained telephonist. She had an Indian-sounding name. The firm was keen to have her when it heard of her qualifications but when it asked the lady's name, immediately the response was, "Is she an Indian?" The interviewer said, "Yes. She is a very attractive lady and very nice". The voice at the other end said, "No, we cannot have them. It is a very small switchboard and the others would not put up with it". The woman was sitting next to the interviewer; she heard the word "Yes", to the question as to whether she was an Indian, and she knew why she did not get the job. She was upset and she had a little cry, and the interviewer said, "She went and I never saw her again".

That is an example of what could, I suppose, be a genuine difficulty, or it could equally well be an excuse. The law can, and should, deal with that kind of injustice but of course it does not of itself change the attitudes. It is easy to persuade oneself that these attitudes are not present. Recently I was talking to one of my own clergy, telling him that I had to take part in this debate, and he said to me, "But surely there are not really many attitudes of racial discrimination about nowadays, are there?" I told him of an example which had happened in my own experience. An ordinand from my own diocese, a man who had served in a commercial firm for some 15 years and who had decided to be ordained, wanted to sell his house. He put it up for sale and because it is not so easy to sell houses in that particular part of the Black Country at the moment, he had some difficulty. Eventually he found a buyer. The buyer was an Indian accountant, well qualified and personable. The man described to me the incredible vindictiveness of his neighbours, who persecuted him in every way that they could for even thinking of selling his house to an Indian. I told the priest, "That was in your own parish".

A few years ago in my own diocesan synod we had a debate on this subject. One of our representatives from what we tend, I am afraid perhaps unkindly, to call the "white highlands" of Shropshire, went home and said to his son, "I don't know what we were spending all that time for, discussing racial attitudes. I don't think we are at all prejudiced or have these attitudes". His teenage son laughed at him and said "Father, you don't realise". The father wrote to me and said, "You know, my son really taught me to look at myself. I had not realised".

A few weeks ago I was slightly involved with the so-called People's March for Jobs, which was in my diocese for a whole week. The thing which intrigued me most about that particular exercise, in which we took part—not without a good deal of criticism—was the almost total lack of black faces in the membership, at least in the part which came from Liverpool. Of course I did not see the full turn-out when it arrived in London. That struck me as being curious, in view of the proportion of black people who make up the numbers of the unemployed. But I had to admit that even in the Church the same is true about the proportions. I have not a single black face in my diocesan synod, which I regret deeply, and that in itself says something about attitudes, not only in the secular world but also in the Church.

Noble Lords may know that I spent eight years of my ministry in Rhodesia. It would not be possible in an uncontroversial speech to analyse one's experiences as a result of those eight years. Now I have in my diocese Wolverhampton, which has been, unhappily, in the forefront of racial difficulties, but which, I am glad to say, because attitudes are being changed, not least by some excellent work by the police, is no longer coming to the attention of the media as it did at one time. But those years, and my present exprience, have taught me the part which fear plays in this whole area, how it is aroused by discrimination, how it causes distorted reactions, from the chip on the shoulder to violent resistance, and how on the other side a combination of fear and a sense of power can produce an aggressive sort of anger.

The Motion of the noble Baroness draws attention to the need for effective action, and I would wish to support that wholeheartedly. Attitude changing has to be taken firmly in hand. The law can and should provide a framework, but the great responsibility lies on those in many sections of society who are in a position of leadership, who have an opportunity to influence others. It is a need to give assurance to all sections of society, with determination to rectify discrimination and at the same time to avoid emotive words and actions on either side. There is a need—and I agree with the noble Baroness—to take positive discriminatory action to redress negative discrimination, and I would certainly support the suggestions which she made in her opening speech. Above all, we have to be prepared to persevere where it is very easy to be discouraged.

My Lords, may I first express my appreciation to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for initiating this debate, and may I also say how greatly I have looked forward to a positive covey of maiden speeches. Having listened to the right reverend Prelate's most moving and thought-provoking speech, may I venture to offer, perhaps on behalf not only of myself but of others who are not speaking this afternoon, my very warmest congratulations.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said, it is now five years since the Sex Discrimination Act came into force. I intend to address my remarks to that aspect of this debate. My experience as the United Kingdom delegate to the United Nations Status of Women Committee has made me keenly aware of the fact that the United Kingdom equality legislation is regarded as being the most progressive in the world, and among the most helpful to women. We were in many ways pioneers in this field, and our legislation, particularly concerning the establishment of the EOC, has been copied by other nations.

During the past five years there have been considerable improvements. More and more women and men are moving into non-traditional areas of employment. Married women are now finding it much easier to get mortgages and credit on the same terms as married men. In education, too, we find that the number of women going into university has been rising over the last five years, so that women now account for 43·2 per cent. of all first year students on courses in higher education. It is also worth noting that women are now being offered the opportunity of second chance education.

I should like to cite the success of New Opportunities for Women course at Bangor normal college, and the growth of Lucy Cavendish College at Cambridge which offers degree courses for the mature female student, as examples. There are also signs that a certain amount of desegregation is taking place with regard to the kind of subjects studied by girls at GCE O and A levels. For example, girls accounted for 23·4 per cent. of physics 0–level passes in 1978, compared with only 21·8 per cent. in 1975.

Although these trends are undoubtedly encouraging, they certainly do not permit us to be complacent or to assume that women's career patterns are now well established and unassailable by prejudice, however unintentional. For in many career areas women have still to make their mark, as it were, because the system seems to be stacked against them. The Finniston Committee on the Engineering Profession reported in 1980 that

"less than one-half per cent. of the current stock of engineers are women".

Figures from the Engineering Industry Training Board show that women account for only 22 per cent. of the total engineering labour force, with most of that 22 per cent. concentrated at the low-skilled operator end of the industry.

Your Lordships may remember that when we debated the Finniston Report in the House, the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, Rector of Imperial College of Science and Technology, stated quite clearly that in terms of first-class degrees and graduation prizes women students at Imperial College do twice as well as the men. The only thing stopping them is prejudice, in the home and in the schools, based upon ignorance of what modern engineering actually entails. Girls still equate these subjects with being dirty jobs. Those who have entered careers in engineering know the contrary to be true.

The same could be said of management, where women are also conspicuous by their scarcity. Only 12.6 per cent. of managers are women, despite the fact that women now make up nearly 40 per cent. of the total workforce. My recent experience in the media field made me only too well aware of the discrimination against women, really able women, in the career structure of their industry, and the resentment caused thereby. As a matter of fact, the United Nations and the Council of Europe are also sinners in this respect. The United Nations and the Council of Europe are outside my brief today, but I quote them as examples to show that this country is not alone in experiencing sex and equality difficulties, particularly in view of the noble Baroness's remarks about the career structure of our Civil Service.

The Equal Opportunities Commission has to solve a variety of problems in carrying out its statutory duties, one of which is to monitor the working of the Sex Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act, and make recommendations for change. As a result of careful monitoring of both Acts during the past five years, the commission has now drawn up recommendations for 25 amendments to the two Acts and has submitted them to the Secretary of State to place before Parliament at the earliest opportunity.

The aim of the OEC in proposing these amendments is to make the legislation more effective in achieving equality of opportunity between men and women, and, to this end, to make the two Acts more harmonious and more comprehensive. So we should take seriously and pay attention to the recommendations of the commission, our statutory body in the field of equality. The amendments themselves are rather complex, and we do not have time, or rather I do not have time, to discuss them in detail today, but I hope there will be another opportunity to do so in this House. So leaving aside for this reason matters of equal pay, I should just like to mention one example of the proposed amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act.

The amendment which I refer to is the amendment to repeal Section 51 of the Sex Discrimination Act within 10 years. Section 51 effectively exempts from the Act all legislation passed before December 1975, which means that vast areas are outside the scope of the Act—areas such as social security legislation, immigration and nationality legislation; and the questions of the unequal retirement ages for men and women, and of the different treatment of men and women by our taxation system. Not only that, but Section 51 is also being used with regard to obscure statutes and local government by-laws—for example, a woman was refused a research fellowship at St. John's College, Cambridge, because of a statute dating from the 1920s which did not permit women to be admitted as members.

The basic intention of the proposed amendment is to shift the burden of responsibility for monitoring the currently exempted legislation and its continuing justifiability, if any, on to the relevant Government department. It is absolutely vital that this and the other amendments proposed by the Commission are taken on board so that the real objectives of the equality legislation can be given effect without further delay—an end to sex discrimination, and the realisation of genuine equality of opportunity between men and women.

I should like to mention one or two other points. With regard to the family income supplement, a working man and a single-parent family in low paid work, claim family income supplements as a right. At present a working woman with an out-of-work husband and with children is not entitled to claim. I know that this is to be put right in 1984, but I should like to ask my noble friend the Minister why must we wait until then? Why not now? I should be interested in his reply.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, I too would hate it to be thought that my interest in equality of opportunity is one-sided. Therefore, I should like to point out that a marked feature of recruitment complaints during the last two years has been the increasing number of inquiries from men. I understand that this year those represent approximately 32 per cent. of the total number of recruitment inquiries. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. It is interesting to note that some of the male complainants have been unemployed and have been refused interviews for jobs traditionally regarded as women's work.

I take this debate very seriously, but even the most serious subject has its lighter side. Therefore, I hope that your Lordships will not think it inappropriate if I end on a somewhat frivolous and personal note in agreeing with Lady Birk's remarks about reverse discrimination. Had my husband become Lord Trumpington I would automatically have become Lady Trumpington. As things stand, he remains Mr. Barker. This has led to much stimulating "pillow talk" in our household. He has so far withstood my suggestion that he should change his name by deed poll to Duke Ellington in order to outgun me! Indeed, he says that he feels like a bishop's wife. However, I think that a situation whereby my son becomes the Honourable Adam Barker, whereas my husband's name remains unchanged, smacks of the ridiculous.

My Lords, in claiming the customary indulgence to a maiden speech I hasten to begin by assuring your Lordships that my pillow companion for the last week has been the little red book from which I have learned that it is my duty to be short and unprovocative. I can give every assurance on the first point and such assurance on the second as my tender conscience will permit.

The subject of sex and race together, or separately, is an explosive one. Both are of great importance and, on the whole, I regret that we are not in a position to treat them separately. What links them seems to me to be not only the fact that they are areas in which discrimination regrettably occurs, but that they are treated by our law in a curious way. They are now two important branches of the law which we have been discussing relating to sex discrimination and racial equality, the enforcement of which is taken outside the ordinary machinery of Government—the departments of responsible Ministers—and handed over to bodies which have come to be known colloquially as Quangos. It is, I think, no disrespect to those who sit on these bodies or to the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, who will be speaking to us later this afternoon, to say that there may be something in the view that the slow progress which is made in some respects is due to the fact that people say, "Well, these are, of course, laws, but they are not laws like the laws about larceny, divorce or whatever it may be: they have been taken out and put into a category of their own, they are quasi laws". That is a matter which, if we are seriously concerned to use the law in this field, we may have to consider again.

However, when we come to substance there is a great difference, as I think previous speakers have said, including the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. In the field of sex discrimination taken by and large, and taking the international comparisons which the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, offered us, there has been a considerable degree of success. But, of course, that success has been made easier in the case of sex discrimination because the objective of the legislation is so much clearer. The objective of the legislation is to say that where a woman seeks employment or engages in a profession or in any other activity, she should be treated exactly in the same way as would a man of similar attainments and standing. That is something which everyone can understand and it is, or should be, easy enough for the courts or tribunals to discuss.

The surviving disabilities of women are largely outside the field, as I think previous speakers have agreed, with which legislation can deal. Some arise from far reaching economic changes in our society as well as from the particular economic difficulties that we confront today. Others arise from attitudes, particularly in the field of education which has, unfortunately, the result that some women cannot claim the full benefits of the legislation because, in fact, they do not possess the attainments which would be regarded as necessary in the case of an applicant for a particular post. In that sphere action by the law is very difficult. Action is only possible by a change in public sentiment, a change in the schools and a change in the attitudes of families towards what they hope for from their daughters.

It is my fear—and I hope that this is not controversial—that some of the changes that have been made in our educational system designed to assist the progress of women may actually have held it back. I think that there is some evidence that girls are more likely to go in for these unpopular and difficult or to them new subjects in mathematics and the sciences in single sex institutions than they are when they have immediately to come up against boys whom they assume are going to be better than they are themselves.

As regards higher education, I regret the disappearance almost completely of institutions of higher education run by women for women, if only because it has removed some of the laudable prospects of promotion which a woman entering on a professional career would have had a generation ago. But, as I say, in this field we have done well. In the field of race, as the right reverend Prelate has reminded us, we face enormous continuing difficulties and setbacks. There again, I think the reason is partly that, in our legislation and in our exhortations, we are trying to combine two objectives which are themselves much more complex. One of them is to prevent discrimination against people because they are black or brown, as we would prevent it because they are female rather than male; in other words, we are trying to remove an inequality which can be seen and which statistically can even be measured. Both these functions fall on the same Commission.

The other is to bring about a society in which these groups—for they are groups, the minority and the majority—can live side by side in harmony. To do this means a change and means bringing about changes in attitude which the law can no doubt stimulate but which the law cannot itself wholly control. I think that it is very important that one should consider historically and in relation to the experience of other countries which have faced similar problems—because in this respect our problems are by no means unique in the world—what it is we mean when we say that we accept the fact that Britain is now a multiracial or multi-cultural society. Do we mean this totally? Do we mean to say that we would be prepared to see a society develop in which particular groups in the community, perhaps because of their feeling that there is discrimination against them or perhaps for other reasons, prefer to live lives and to organise their social lives and, indeed perhaps even their professional and commercial lives in ways which minimise their contact with the rest of the community? Or, on the contrary, do we mean that we wish them to enjoy a common framework—the common law and common institutions of our common country—and only within that framework bring to our common country the particular contributions of their own cultural heritage?

This may sound an academic point, but I believe that it takes us to the heart of the problem and, indeed, to some burning issues of the day. Let us suppose—and I hope that this will not happen—that when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, comes to conduct his inquiry into Brixton, he is faced with an unwillingness on the part of some representatives of the communities affected to appear before him. That, in fact, would mean that there are people who already feel that our legal processes—our constitutional processes—are insufficient to give them the justice that they rightly crave.

Similarly, going outside the legal and institutional field to the field of education—which again has been touched upon, and rightly, by previous speakers—it is obviously important that the way forward for children from West Indian or Asian families—and, as we know, it affects Asian families less—is that they should get the jobs for which they naturally hope, but not because the law compels a quota system or anything of that kind, but because they are equal in their capacities and in their training. To me the most important part of the speech of the noble Baroness was when she pointed out that, although we have known that this problem was likely to arise with the new generation of children born in this country to immigrants from the Commonwealth, we have taken very little note of this in our educational policy. Again, some of the changes that we have made in our educational policy—for instance, more informal methods of teaching, a neglect of serious study of English, English grammar, English pronunciation, and English spelling—can be laughed off by children of well-placed families of native origin, but they bear with particular hardness on the children of the immigrant communities. Indeed, we know that many of the parents of these children feel the same.

Despite, as has been admitted, a gloomy outlook on this, I do not think that there is any reason why we should regard this as a field which cannot be discussed, rationally in this House and, I hope, elsewhere without provocation. For myself, on this first occasion on which I have the honour of addressing your Lordships, as the child of immigrants to this country, I feel and know what discrimination is about, and feel and know that it is something with which we can deal.

My Lords, I am sure that we are all grateful to the noble Baroness for giving us this opportunity to debate this very important subject and for the clarity of her speech in introducing the debate. It is always a great pleasure to listen to the noble Baroness, and today was no exception. I wish to congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield and the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, on their maiden speeches. They both made very good and interesting speeches, touching on the subject of our debate. I am sure that your Lordships will look forward to hearing them both on many other occasions in debates in your Lordships' House.

I also want to anticipate the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney. My noble friend and I were both, of course, on the London County Council together. In fact he, Barry Payton and I represented the constituency of Stoke Newington and Hackney, North on the London County Council from 1961 to 1965, during the period when each parliamentary constituency in London sent three members to the London County Council. Subsequently my noble friend left to enter the other place; Barry Payton became a town clerk, and I was left to continue to represent Stoke Newington and Hackney, North, or Hackney, North and Stoke Newington as it is now called, and that I did until 1977. Therefore I am very glad to be joined once more by my noble friend and look forward to listening to his maiden speech and to many contributions to your Lordships' debates, which I know will be very valuable. When I made my maiden speech in County Hall he was sitting beside me, so I am very glad to have the pleasure of repaying the compliment by sitting beside him when he makes his maiden speech immediately after I sit down.

If I concentrate on the question of racial discrimination and racial disadvantage, it is not because I rate the question of discrimination on the grounds of sex as being of less importance, but because I am more knowledgeable on this aspect of the subject than on the question of discrimination on grounds of sex. For many years I was deeply involved in activities to combat racial discrimination. Among other things, I was deputy chairman and, for the last period of its life, chairman, of the Community Relations Commission. For nine years, I was chairman of its fieldwork committee.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for dealing so extensively with discrimination in employment. It is the area in which discrimination is most damaging, but it is also the area in which it is easiest to deal with discrimination. It is unfortunate that this discrimination continues purely because of our failure to come to grips with it. In this respect the Government must carry the biggest blame. It is the field in which they have the most influence. As the noble Baroness said—and I do not want to repeat all she said—the Government have the weapons with which they can influence what happens in the employment field perhaps in a way they cannot do anywhere else. I am sorry that the Government have persisted in dragging their feet on this matter.

As the noble Baroness has said, the Civil Service department has refused to monitor the question of equal opportunity in that department. That is a great pity. But they have also refused even to review and monitor their race relations clause in contracts. For the last two years the Government have been besieged by the Commission for Racial Equality to review and monitor their race relations clause in contracts. As the noble Baroness pointed out, the last Government were able to use their power of contract to enforce their incomes policy, and did it until Parliament refused to allow them to continue to do so. This is a field in which the Government have the sort of weapon which they can use. It is a great pity that they continue to drag their feet on it.

The Government need to set an example to private industry. Private industry will follow, but it is pointless to go to a private employer to try to persuade him to see that there is equal opportunity in his business when he can turn around and say to you, "Well, the Government do not do it". I hope that the Government will take this on board and be serious in their action in this field. I know that the Commission for Racial Equality have been trying to secure Government support for a comprehensive code of practice to ensure equal opportunity in employment. I really hope that the Government will give the necessary support and take the necessary action in this field.

The massive unemployment which exists in the community at the present time carries with it massive youth unemployment. Young blacks share with their white peers the experience of increasing unemployment, but they also suffer additional disadvantages directly related to their colour. Combating this disadvantage involves a whole range of activities, starting with the provision of more nursery places, more nursery schools, greater attention to the education of minorities with the provision of more black teachers and better motivation of young blacks, and the provision of a second chance for those who miss out during the period of their journey through the school system. It also involves a massive increase in training facilities. I must say at this point that I agree with a great deal of what the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, has said, particularly on this question of the education of black youngsters.

All these matters call for effective action on the part of central and local Government. Section 71 of the Race Relations Act 1976 placed on local authoritis a duty,

"to make appropriate arrangements with a view to securing that their various functions are carried out with due regard to the need—

(a) to eliminate unlawful racial discrimination; and

(b) to promote equality of opportunity … between persons of different racial groups".

But local authorities have not been given any guidelines as to how to comply with Section 71.

What is worse, the previous Government had introduced a Bill which would have provided funds to enable local authorities to carry out this task. That Bill lapsed with the dissolution of Parliament. The present Government have not only refused to reintroduce that Bill but made no attempt to help local authorities to meet their obligations in this matter. I have been told that the need to make provisions to deal with racial disadvantage was taken into account in determining the rate support grant. But as the last rate support grant distribution transferred resources from the inner cities, where the problem lies, to the shire counties I find it hard to believe this.

Moreover, the boroughs which have the greatest need in terms of combating racial disadvantage are the very ones which the Secretary of State is busily penalising by withdrawing their rate support grant because of their alleged overspending. Prevention is always better than cure, and it is much cheaper to help local authorities to provide the facilities for combating racial disadvantage than to meet the cost of disturbances. I hope the Government will bear this in mind and review their policy in this field.

During my period with the Community Relations Commission much help was obtained with community projects from the urban aid programme. The Government should give high priority in the allocation of resources to provision for young people, especially those in multi-racial areas, in the urban programme. Another bit of my experience with the urban programme was that local authorities were often unwilling to contribute their 25 per cent. to the cost of voluntary organisation projects. I think that this can be met by a differential grant for voluntary organisation projects. For example, if instead of the normal 75 per cent. grant the Government gave an 85 per cent. grant for voluntary organisation projects, I am sure that that would act as an incentive to encourage local authorities to propose and support voluntary organisation projects. I hope that the Government will try to take this one on board.

Another development while I was at the commission was the establishment of the self-help fund. That self-help fund proved very useful, but l gather from the Community Relations Commission that the Government have placed the commission in a position where they can only increase the self-help grant by cutting down on other activities. This is shortsighted. The sum here is not large. I gather from the CRC that they propose to allocate £700,000 to the self-help fund. In 1975, when I was still involved with it, we estimated that the fund should have been £I million. It would need to be larger than that now. But the pump priming which comes from a judicious use of this fund can be of inestimable value in providing community facilities, which will make it possible to get the youths off the streets and out of mischief. Here again I hope that the Government will give this further thought.

My period as chairman of the field work committee of the CRC was much taken up with the establishment of local community relations councils. They brought the statutory authorities of central and local government together with the local voluntary organisations to work together to break down barriers between racial groups in their areas. Central Government, through the commission, provided funds for salaries and some projects; local authorities provided the premises, back-up facilities and some funds for projects; and local volunteers brought their enthusiasm, expertise, time, energy and goodwill, and together much good work was done in many areas, and as the right reverend Prelate said, quite a lot of good work was done in Wolverhampton by the CRC.

There are now 102 CRCs and, as has always been the case, they vary in quality and value. More important from our point of view, they vary in the degree of support they receive from their local authorities. I asked the commission to give me a random sample and they have given me eight councils, which I mention simply to show the difference in support that CRCs get. Camden, a borough which the Secretary of State for the Environment is always anxious to clobber—it happens to be the borough in which I live, so whenever he clobbers it I have to pay more rates—gave its CRC £325,015 last year; Hammersmith gave £100,000; Manchester gave £36,533; Leeds gave £22,312; and, at the other end of the scale, Aylesbury gave £300 plus accommodation—I must not forget to add that because we do not know what that would bring the total up to; Redbridge gave only £1,500; Cambridge only £3,750; and Slough only £5,415.

I have given the House those examples to show the difference in the attitude of local authorities towards their community relations councils. When I was responsible for this matter I tried my best to do what I am urging the Minister to do—namely, to take it up with the various local authority associations so that discussions can take place there with a view to getting them to realise the importance of making their contributions to these councils. I am sure the Minister could do that. I did a lot of that when I was deputy chairman of the CRC, sometimes with success but often without, and I believe a Government Minister could do it with much greater success.

The Manpower Services Commission has been very helpful in providing training and special programmes to help unemployed youth. As a high proportion of unemployed youths are black, the MSC programmes have been valuable in helping to combat racial discrimination and disadvantage. Rumour has it—I hope on this occasion that rumour is a lying jade—that the funds of the MSC are to be reduced. That would be a terrible mistake at this time. I hope the rumour proves to be unfounded and that when the Minister replies he will say that this time rumour is a lying jade and that, far from the MSC having its funds reduced, they are being increased, because that is what is required now.

I have spoken for long enough. I conclude by expressing the hope that the Government will concentrate their mind on the problem of disadvantage and do the things required of them in this field. The problem of how people of different races live together in equality and friendship is one of the biggest problems confronting the world today. We have an opportunity of making a contribution to the solution of that problem. For Christ's sake, let us take it.

My Lords, it is indeed a privilege for me to be able to make my maiden speech in this Chamber by the side of my noble friend Lord Pitt of Hampstead. As he said, we have been associated together for many years, in local government—if one can call the place across the way local—and in other endeavours. He speaks from an entirely unique position in this House. He is probably as sorry as I am that it is quite so unique; he would probably prefer it were less so, and I shall have something to say about that shortly. My noble friend's words carry weight not only because of that but because of his long experience of the subject, and I hope that the Government have been listening to what he said and will take account of it when they reply.

I was deeply impressed by the opening speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, not only by the great knowledge of the subject which she displayed but by the extremely impressive manner of its delivery. She abandoned altogether any notes whatever, and I was rather intimidated by that because I intended to have the life-raft of a few notes to help me along the way on this maiden occasion. But I was a little encouraged after the event to see that she was not followed by everybody in that, so consequently I feel a little more confident than I would have done otherwise. However, I shall hope to try to emulate her on some future occasion. If it were not an impertinence for me to do so, I should venture to congratulate my two predecessors in making their maiden speeches, but as a maiden speaker myself it would be quite improper for me to do that, but were it proper I should do it very warmly.

Seventeen years ago I made a maiden speech in another place and I was fortunate on that occasion in that it was on the gracious Speech. That meant I was able to set the scene for my future activities in that Chamber; I could and did talk about many things. If they were in the Queen's Speech I commented on them and, if they were not, I deplored their absence, and it was all in order. This time there is no one to keep me in order, but I did not need correction on that occasion and I hope I shall not deserve it on this.

The range of subjects open to me then was much wider than it is now. I must shortly come to the matters of race and sex which the noble Baroness so cogently drew to our attention, but first I would tell the House that I approached my noble friend Lady Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, who explained to me that she would be unable to be here for reasons of a prior engagement. I mentioned to her that I intended to refer to my conversation with her and she gave me permission to do so. That noble friend, who caresses this side of the House with a silken whip, told me when I asked for her advice on my maiden speech, "Keep it short, unprovocative, and include a joke". Here conies the joke.

It is said that the celebrated American violinist Isaac Stern was once preparing for a concert when a knock came on the door. "Who's there?" asked Stern. "Yehudi," came the reply. "Yehudi who?" said Stern! Something rather similar happened to me recently when I called on—I am not sure how I should refer to him—my friend (and he is my friend) the Leader of the Opposition in another place to thank him for the recommendation which the Prime Minister was kind enough to pass on to Her Majesty which resulted in my being here. There was no one in the outer office, and so I knocked on the inner door. "Who's that?" asked Michael's voice from within. From my new-found importance as a Peer I called out, "Jenkins", and the question came, "Give or Roy?"

I must come to the Motion. On the previous occasion to which I have referred I covered the world in 14 minutes. On this occasion I shall attempt to deal with one aspect of the problem before us in a little less time than that. I want to talk about racial and sexual discrimination in politics, and in particular in your Lordships' House, but the more so in another place, since, as has already been pointed out, your Lordships' House is less vulnerable in this respect—certainly in regard to sexual discrimination. It is still vulnerable, very vulnerable, but less vulnerable than is the other place.

The situation is not getting better. The number of women in both Houses is ludicrously inadequate to represent the interests of half of our population. While the ethnic minorities are enormously represented in quality, in quantity they are hardly represented at all, as my noble friend Lord Pitt will agree. I am sure that my noble friend also agrees with me when I say that he is entirely dissatisfied with being, as it were, a token person here in our midst.

As for women, the fact that we have a woman Prime Minister merely shows that when women are wrong they can be as wrong as anyone else. I hope that that is an unprovocative remark. That we have a woman Prime Minister does nothing to correct the imbalance which disfigures our legislative Chambers. Furthermore, the situation is not much better in local authorities all over the country. On the contrary; women played a more significant role in the old London County Council (to which my noble friend has referred) and in the early days of the Greater London Council. My wife, whom I am happy to say is here listening to me this afternoon, was one of that group of women who played a notable part in the LCC and in the early days of the GLC.

The situation has not improved today. Some people might think that it has not improved in any way; others might have a different view about that. But certainly so far as sexual discrimination is concerned the situation across the way is worse than it was. What is to be done about it? My wife and I recently returned from a visit to the southern states of the United States of America. There are many cities where the "wasps", as they call them (the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants), are in a minority in the population. As for women, I am inclined to think that socially American women have overtaken men. Economically they are climbing the ladder more rapidly than are our women, but politically they are probably no more advanced—perhaps even less so.

But the Americans are doing something about it, which is more than can be said for us. In many cities—Winston-Salem, in North Carolina is an example—women and black people must be elected to the governing body in proportion to their numerical strength in the community. Thus we have the position, the racially and sexually balanced solution, that these cities are governed by councils which correctly represent the sexual and racial nature of the populations whom they serve. There is perhaps a lesson here for us, one which we could do well to study. In some cases in the United States the governing majority now is both black and female, and in most cases that does not appear adversely to have affected the political distributions of the area. I think it is time that we here looked at this problem in this positive way. I do not say that we should go the whole way, but I think that we could march some way in this direction.

But meanwhile the political parties should themselves do something; they should bestir themselves on this issue. How many black faces are there at party conferences? How many women are there at the conferences? Of the first category, hardly any; of the second, far too few. I am proud of the fact that the selection conference which met at Dulwich last week to choose a successor to my friend, Mr. Sam Silkin, gave itself the choice of three women and one black man. There was not a single male "wasp" among them. That seems to me to be an admirable example of how to proceed. I am not quite so proud of the fact that at the conference which met in Putney to choose my own successor as Labour candidate there was not a single black person on the committee which did the choosing, let alone among those from whom the candidate was to be chosen. I am happy about the fact that the man chosen was that notable fighter against racial discrimination, Mr. Peter Hain, and I am sure that Mr. Hain would agree with me when I say that the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, has drawn our attention to a problem which deserves and demands a more vigorous and a more radical approach than it has received to date.

I hope on other occasions to talk about the preservation of peace and the promotion of the arts—two subjects which engage most of my time. I am chairman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, director of the Theatres Trust, and so on. We can be sure that the bomb will make no distinction of race or sex. Many years ago a Conservative American politician, Wendell Wilkie, drew our attention to the fact that we live in one world. Unless we begin to realise that this is a profound truth which ought to affect every action that we take, unless we begin to realise that and take it to our hearts, we shall soon not be living in any world. An important task before us is to release the latent talent and energy in women and in ethnic minorities, so that they, too, can play a fuller part, not least in the search for peace and in the cultivation of the arts. My Lords, the noble Baroness has done us all a great service in bringing the Motion before us.

My Lords, it is with particular pleasure that I congratulate the three noble Lords who have made their maiden speeches in this debate, because, despite all the years that I have sat in your Lordships' House, I do not believe that I can recall a day when we have heard three maiden speeches of such uniformly high quality, even though each speech was quite different from the others. The right reverend Prelate gave us some telling examples of the way in which discrimination works at the level of ordinary individual contacts. The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, brought to bear his immense experience of the world of higher education, and the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, who has just sat down, has given us some extremely valuable advice on the role of political parties, which I personally should be very delighted to see implemented. I have in fact written to every constituency Liberal Party asking them what steps they have taken to ensure that the minorities are represented when they come to select candidates for Parliament, and indeed for the local authorities as well. I feel that we need to get minorities, and indeed women, too, represented in their due and proper proportions on the local authorities as much as we do in Parliament itself. I am sure that we all very much hope that we shall hear frequently in the future from all three noble Lords.

The right reverend Prelate said that we faced a question of attitudes, and, as I say, he gave some very telling examples. I think it is correct to say that the white public is not conscious of the fact of racial inequality for very much of the time, and that there are even still some people who would deny that it exists at all, in spite of the evidence that we have staring us in the face. I have heard white people say that as a result of the legislation of the last 15 years, and in particular the Race Relations Act 1976, minorities actually have a better deal now than native whites; and the people you hear saying this are not just members of the National Front or other extremist groups. It is only when there is an outbreak of disorder, such as happened last year in Bristol and this year in Brixton, that questions begin to arise in the minds of people who are not usually concerned with race relations as to the nature of the grievances which have caused hundreds of people to come out into the streets and riot, and to inflict sad wounds on their surroundings, which are generally much poorer than those enjoyed by the rest of the community.

I think it is at least partly because some of the minorities feel that their needs have been ignored that Bristol and Brixton happened. It was of course an Irishman who once said, "Violence is the only way to secure a hearing for moderation". While one may deplore the cynicism of that proposition, there is an element of truth in it. After the Bristol disorders last year enormous crowds of politicians, social scientists, planners and journalists descended on the St. Paul's area to find out exactly why people had behaved in this way; and, of course, after the Brixton disorders the Government appointed the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, to inquire into the origins of the trouble, going well beyond the immediate triggers and looking at the underlying causes. I should like to ask the Government whether they do not think that we should deploy that kind of expertise, now being deployed in areas like St. Paul's in Bristol or Brixton in London, in the other similar areas that one could mention, such as Chapeltown in Leeds, Handsworth in Birmingham, Liverpool 8 and so on, now, before any violence has broken out in those areas, so that we might identify the reasons for unrest and do something about them in advance instead of after the event.

I do not think that the main headings for such an analysis would be very difficult to find. If we read the annual reports of the community relations councils, the local voluntary organisations which exist to promote racial equality and harmony, we should find them mentioned there. I think that a comprehensive policy of racial equality would have to include among its main elements the following principal matters. First, there would have to be non-discriminatory policies for immigration and nationality, including the rules for immigration and the instructions to immigration officers, which are just as important as the law itself. Second, that there must be a far more vigorous attack on discrimination by the Commission for Racial Equality. Thirdly, that there should be, as has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, genuine implementation by the local authorities of the provisions of Section 71 of the Race Relations Act 1976. Then, that there should be a new strategy for eliminating racial disadvantage, particularly in employment, as has been mentioned by my noble friend; and, finally, I think, that we need stronger measures to deal with the menace of Nazism, in regard particularly to incitement, the use of public premises and the infiltration into the public service of people belonging to extremist groups, where they can apply their loathsome doctrines.

First, perhaps I may say one or two words about the subject of immigration, because I deal with this on a daily basis. I have to say that without a shadow of doubt the rules are discriminatory, and the way that they are applied is discriminatory. Since the present Government came into office, I have submitted 267 cases to the Minister, Mr. Tim Raison, and out of that number only 25 persons have been of European ethnic origin. Of course, the Government's answer to that is that people who are seeking to come here for settlement purposes are not generally of European ethnic origin themselves, but when they do come here for that purpose they have a very much easier time. We have, for example, the case of Eastern European refugees, who are more or less given asylum "on the nod", whereas if somebody comes here from Pakistan or Bangladesh it takes them as long as two years.

Then, over last year, of course, we had the tightening up of the regulations against non-European immigrants. There was the change in the rules which prohibited girls who were not born in the United Kingdom from bringing in husbands from overseas—an explicitly racist provision which was directed against the girls from the Indian sub-continent. At the time, not only did we point out from these Benches but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, pointed out as well that this was going to result in the United Kingdom being found to have violated the European Convention on Human Rights, and, as we predicted, complaints have been lodged at Strasbourg, which I understand were transmitted to the Government in December. What one wonders about this is, if the Government had a good defence against the charges of racialism which are now being brought by these girls, as they said at the time they had, then why has it taken them so long to give an answer to the case which has been presented at Strasbourg?

Secondly, we had the decisions of the courts, particularly in the case of Zamir, which has led to a witch-hunt against people who entered the country many years ago, on the grounds either that they gave incorrect information to an entry certificate officer or that they failed to give an ECO information which might have persuaded him to refuse them leave to enter. As a result partly of those decisions, the police and the immigration service have been conducting massive witch-hunts to root out illegal entrants and overstayers, raiding workplaces and taking into custody United Kingdom citizens and workers with rights of abode as well as those who may have committed offences—but all of them either black or Asian, of course.

Thirdly, resulting from the notion that any method available should be used to root out people who are not entitled to be here, we find that employers and health authorities have started to check the credentials of workers and patients who are black, even if they may have been living here all their lives. We could be sliding towards a South African pass-law type of society, in which anybody with a black skin has got to produce documentation showing that he is lawfully resident in the United Kingdom on demand from a host of public servants and the police. Then, on top of all this comes the Nationality Bill, which arrives in your Lordships' House the week after next. I will not say anything about it at this stage. I would only remark that the people who will be made into second and third class citizens by that legislation are nearly all of non-European ethnic origin.

I think that there are clear implications in this for race relations within the boundaries of the United Kingdom, because if you want to cultivate friendly relations with a neighbour you do not slam the door in his face every time you see him walking up the garden path. Government's cannot expect the native whites to believe their protestations of enthusiasm for racial equality when they see discrimination being practised so blatently at the ports of entry and in the matter of citizenship.

As my noble friend reminded the House at the beginning of this debate, we gave general support to the White Paper on Racial Discrimination in 1975 and to the Race Relations Act 1976. We believe that the Commission for Racial Equality then established should be the agency for social change, and that its existence has been of value as an earnest of the Government's commitment to a multi-racial society based on equality, even though there is still, as he pointed out, an enormous gap between principle and practice. We do not believe that the CRE has yet been given a fair chance, and we hope that the Select Committee in another place which is now looking at the commission will take full account of the handicaps it has suffered in the short four years of its existence. It has had to contend with Governments and local authorities which, as my noble friend has shown, have refused to set their own houses in order by applying ethnic monitoring to their own staff or by strengthening the non-discrimination clauses in their contracts. The Government have failed to tackle what the 1975 White Paper called—and I quote:

"The related and at least equally important problem of disadvantage";

and the effectiveness of the commission has been undermined by the way in which the Secretary of State has exercised his power to appoint the commissioners.

One result has been that the CRE's use of the formal investigation procedure in Section 48 of the Act has not achieved what was expected of it. The Government themselves set a very unfortunate example, I think, when they sought to prevent the CRE from undertaking an investigation of immigration control procedures, delaying the work by several months and, if I may say so, encouraging other people to use all the legal technicalities in the Act to thwart investigations if they possibly could. Yet it has been found that it is almost impossible to prove discrimination by way of individual complaint, so that makes the general investigation, the Section 48 procedure, all the more important.

My noble friend asked the question: How many such investigations have been set in motion since the legislation came into force? The answer is that fewer than 50 of them have been started—and the noble Lord would perhaps confirm this—and only 10 have been brought all the way to completion. I do not think that one must necessarily blame the CRE for this leaden rate of progress. More resources must be put into this aspect of the Commission's work and, in particular, they should be asked to look into the employment practices of Government departments and local authorities which have been neglected so far; although, as my noble friend said, prima facie evidence exists to show that discrimination is not confined to the private sector. She was also modest in regard to the Tavistock Institute findings. Having read them carefully myself, I thought that they indicated that there was a strong possibility of involuntary discrimination being practised in the recruitment policy of Government departments; although, as my noble friend said, it fell short of proof.

My Lords, moving on from that to the role of local authorities, the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, pointed out that Section 71 of the Act placed a general duty on them to see that their functions were carried out with due regard to the need to eliminate racial discrimination and to promote equality of opportunity. Shortly after this came into force, the Liberal Party wrote to some hundred local authorities to ask them what action they were going to take to comply with the provision, and we found that many of them took what I thought to be the smug attitude that, since they themselves never discriminated, this section could not have been intended to apply to them. Very few were prepared to monitor their functions by keeping ethnic records of the citizens who accessed the various services they provided—which is the only way to establish conclusively that equality does or does not exist. As has been said, it is humbug to pretend that you have an equal opportunities policy when you do not bother to monitor it either at Government or at local authority level. In fact, there is every reason to suppose that the minorities do receive inferior treatment from local authorities. The PEP study, Racial Minorities and Public Housing, found in 1976 that black people were kept waiting longer on the housing list than the native whites and were given lower quality dwellings when they got to the head of the queue.

Then there is the National Dwelling and Housing Survey of 1979, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, which established that minorities were worse off in terms of over-crowding, sharing the use of basic amenities and age of the housing they received. The Greater London Council undertook a survey and found that their allocation policy resulted in black applicants being nearly three times as likely as white ones to be offered accommodation in the less popular pre-war estates. The London borough of Lewisham discovered that two-thirds of its lettings to black people were in the less popular areas of Deptford and New Cross, which accounted for only half the vacancies in the borough. Wandsworth also concluded that, although their black families received an equitable proportion of the available council housing, it was of inferior quality. Those are the better authorities which have undertaken those analyses and have taken the trouble to find out what has been happening. It is not unreasonable to suppose that, where the facts are not available, the housing conditions of the minorities are likely to be even worse. The policy of the previous Government was that statistics should be compiled on an ethnic basis provided there was a sound policy reason for doing so. I think that the need has been abundantly demonstrated in the case of housing. It is a great pity that, as others have said, the Government have set an appallingly bad example in deciding that they will not monitor within their own field, thus giving local authorities and private employers the let-out of saying: "Why should we do it if the Government do not bother to do it themselves"?

The 1975 White Paper described the phenomenon of racial disadvantage in these terms: the first generation of immigrants worked in low-paid, low-status jobs and tended to live in poor and over-crowded living conditions within a depressed environment. Their children suffered from that environment and from poor educational facilities which went hand in hand with the rest of that picture, thus growing up less well equipped than other children to deal with the difficulties that faced them. They tended to be trapped in the worst housing and the worst jobs, and nowadays they are lucky if they can find work at all. The White Paper concluded:

"It is the Government's duty to prevent these morally unacceptable and socially divisive inequalities from hardening into entrenched patterns. It is inconceivable that Britain, in the last quarter of the 20th century, should confess herself unable to secure for a small minority of around a million and a half coloured citizens their full and equal rights as individual men and women".

What has happened since then? The Liberal Party made a very modest proposal in a paper entitled A Programme for Racial Equality that £50 million a year should be put into education and training courses which would be designed to bring minorities up to a common starting point in the competition for jobs. The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, talked about people being equal in their capacities and training and said that we had taken very little note of the needs of the second generation minorities in regard to education and training. I agree with him. What happened during the period of the Lib/Lab pact? I went to see the previous Home Secretary with this planned programme for racial equality and I was dismissed with the parrot phrase, "Positive discrimination". That was given as a reason for not putting any money whatsoever into education and training programmes designed not to give preferential treatment to minorities but to ensure that when they came to the point of applying for jobs, they were equipped as well as the native whites would be to meet the growing competition.

Then, just over a year ago, we sought to introduce in this House the Local Government Grants (Ethnic Groups) Bill, which had foundered at the previous election, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Pitt. That would have provided assistance for local authorities in removing disadvantages from which an ethnic group suffered and securing that the services provided by local authorities were as effective in relation to ethnic groups as they are in relation to the rest of the community. The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said then that this went in a directon which many felt was ill-advised in setting up what he called a wide-ranging special fund involving significant additional resources. How else can Government tackle racial disadvantage unless they are prepared to put additional resources into that problem? It seems to me that the very nature of the problem of racial disadvantage is one of resources, since the victims are by definition under-provided and the solution must be to bring them up to the level of the rest of the community.

We already try to do that inefficiently by means of Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966, which even the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, agreed focusses attention too narrowly on the problems of being new to this country. The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said that the review of Section 11 which had been announced by the Secretary of State shortly after the present Government took office had "reached an advanced stage"; yet now, a year later on, nothing has been heard of the results.

Then there is the problem of what the Government themselves do. This was mentioned by several noble Lords. My noble friend Lady Seear mentioned the idea of putting into the contracts let by local authorities a clause prohibiting discrimination. That has been an idea which has been floating around for some time but nothing has been done about it. Then there is the code of practice which was mentioned by my noble friend and by the noble Lord, Lord Pitt. That was published in February 1980. Nothing has yet happened. I understand that the CBI and the TUC have said that they are prepared to accept the documents but that the initiative has stuck somewhere in the Department of Employment. Perhaps the noble Lord will tell us what is the next step in getting this code of practice widely adopted.

Finally, on the question of the direct role of the Government, I should like to underline what the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, said about the role of the MSC and particularly the present state of affairs where the unemployment of young blacks is so very much worse than that of young whites. The work of the MSC is absolutely vital, and it would be wrong to make any cuts in its programme—quite the reverse. If we are not going to store up very serious trouble for future generations, then that money should be increased.

Now I turn to the menace of Nazism which has to be considered by your Lordships. One aspect of racial disadvantage of particular concern—and all are agreed that it should be treated as a matter of urgency—is the ugly cancer of racial violence. When minorities are under physical attack they obviously cannot play their full part in the life of the community. The Nazis and their vicious allies have actually murdered and also brutally assaulted hundreds of individuals. They have attacked mosques, synagogues and gurdwaras. They have terrorised football crowds and intimidated defenceless women and children. The Secretary of State was absolutely right to set up an inquiry into the activities of extremists groups and the extent to which they have been encouraging attacks.

However, it was a mistake—and I tried to get this point across to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, without success—to have this inquiry conducted entirely by Home Office officials and in private. The minorities should have been given the opportunity of representation on the inquiry itself and not merely among the witnesses. Separately, there has been an inquiry into the Public Order Act. It has been a matter of great concern that although the power to stop or divert marches likely to result in serious public disorder exists, the Nazis have been allowed to parade through areas like Southall and Lewisham at enormous cost in terms of police manpower. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, who said in answer to a Question that the Lewisham march alone cost the taxpaper over £100,000 in terms of overtime for the police.

Liberals by definition are particularly reluctant to put restrictions on the right of assembly, but in this instance it is justifiable on the principle enunciated by Mill, that the state may interfere with the liberty of action of an individual where harm to others is likely to arise. Harm to others has arisen from the activities of these extremist groups. Even if it was not physical harm there is obviously enormous psychological damage done by Nazi thugs shouting and threatening abusive slogans outside one's front door and harm done by the revolting publications issued by the Nazis.

I hope that equal attention is being given under the Public Order Act inquiry to the law on incitement. I have sent examples of this literature to the Attorney-General and he has replied that while it is indeed most objectionable he does not take proceedings because he and the Director of Public Prosecutions have come to the conclusion on every occasion when this literature has been submitted to them that criminal proceedings stand very little chance of success. Obviously, it would be worse to bring the proceedings and fail than not to bring them at all. That indicates to me that if the Attorney-General himself and the DPP think that this literature is objectionable yet they know that the chances of success in criminal proceedings are low, there is a need for reform of the law. The noble Lord might be able to tell us what progress has been made in this review of the Public Order Act which I know has been proceeding for over a year now.

Apart from the need to stop the Nazis creating fear and insecurity by strengthening the Public Order Act, there is also a growing awareness of the danger arising from the infiltration of these people into sensitive parts of the public service. It really is intolerable that Fascists teach black children, vet black passengers at the ports of entry, or look after black inmates in prison. How can minorities ever attain equal access to public services if some of the officials who they encounter in the course of their applications are committed to frustrate that policy of equality.

Finally, there is the role of the CRE itself. The evidence given to the Select Committee in another place by the Commission demonstrates the problem very clearly; it is one of massive Government indifference. The Department of the Environment has

"given little consideration to the implications of Section 71".

When the Home Office arranged a ministerial meeting to discuss the CRE's report Youth in Multi-Racial Society, only two Ministers bothered to turn up; the DHSS shows

"little evidence of any central application of the need for an ethnic dimension to policy".

There was supposed to be an ethnic minority element in the new block rate support grant, but a recent answer I had from the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, indicates that, after all, this had vanished. The Commission says

" In short … the Commission's impact on central Government and on public and community service matters has not been as great as we would like".

But the CRE cannot be blamed for its failure to prompt action from a Government so firmly committed to doing nothing if it can possibly help it. We believe that the Select Committee in another place would have done better to focus its attention on the policy of slashing the CRE's budget by £1 million and freezing its recruitment. On paper, the CRE may have been given the widest powers in the western world to combat discrimination; but in practice it has been prevented from exercising them by starving it of resources.

The acceptance of discrimination and disadvantage, and the unwillingness to mount an assault on them by every means possible, is likely to have very serious consequences indeed. The minorities could become alienated from the rest of society, and at the extreme, violence could become endemic—not for the reason given by Mr. Powell, the mere presence of black people in this country, but because of the frustration and resentment of the victims of institutionalised racism. At best, if the tensions are contained, there will be a tragic waste of human resources, with tens of thousands of people prevented from realising their potential because of the colour of their skin.

The Liberal Party is absolutely determined as our constitution says:

"to create a world in which various cultures of mankind can develop freely without being warped by nationalist, racial or religious antagonism".

We hope that in raising these matters in your Lordships' House we have brought that goal a little nearer.

My Lords, like many speakers, 1 am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for placing this motion on the Order Paper and enabling us to discuss the very difficult problems of racial and sexual discrimination. I should like to follow the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in offering congratulations to our three maiden speakers, all of whose contributions in a different way showed very real understanding of the problems with which we are dealing. The right reverend Prelate said that he did not think it was appropriate for him to deal with the subject of sex discrimination. I was sorry about that particularly when he went on to indicate his sympathy with one area of sex discrimination which is outside the province of the law. Perhaps on some future occasion, when he is not constrained by the non-controversial nature of the maiden speech, he might let us into his secret thoughts in this area.

It will be clear to your Lordships that I have a particular interest in this subject and a particular responsibility. I hope therefore I shall not be exceeding the privileges of the House if I venture to speak on the subject. Because of my responsibilities, I shall only deal with the problems of sex discrimination. That does not mean that I am not sympathetic and understanding of the problems of race discrimination. Indeed, because of my own responsibilities, I feel I understand the difficulties that the Commission for Racial Equality is encountering in its area of discrimination.

The two types of discrimination are really quite different both in nature and intensity, but that does not mean that one is any less important than the other. The problems of sex discrimination are not so immediately apparent as those of race discrimination. They manifest themselves in a more insiduous kind of way. Your Lordships might be interested to learn that on one occasion I received a communication from one of the departments of state—and I would hasten to assure the Ministers on the Front Bench this afternoon that it did not come from their particular departments. In the course of the letter was a sentence which said:

"After all, women have been around for a long time".

Of course they have; they would not be human beings if that were not so. But the whole problem is that because women have been around for a long time, and we have been used to seeing them in a particular role, we tend to expect that they will go on in that old traditional way for ever and ever. The fact is that we refuse to recognise the reality of the changes that have taken place, particularly during the last 20 years, and as with all things, whether the change is for good or not, we cannot put the clock back. The change will continue and women's role in society will continue to change.

A number of speakers—and particularly the noble Baronesses, Lady Seear and Lady Trumpington, whose interest in this subject I much appreciate, particularly because of the noble Baroness's international experience—have referred to the anti-discriminatory legislation we have in this country. There is no doubt that basically it is good legislation. In some respects it is innovative and in others it is keeping pace with and facilitating the changes that are taking place. Perhaps change is not taking place as fast as we would like but the process can be seen, and it can be seen in the fifth annual report of the Equal Opportunities Commission, which was presented to the Home Secretary and laid before Parliament yesterday. Both the noble Baronesses, Lady Seear and Lady Trumpington, referred to this progress in the whole area of women in the professions.

It was also said that we have not yet cracked that difficult matter of job segregation: men's jobs and women's jobs. That is absolutely true. If we look at figures for the dispersal of women in the workforce today we find that 1 per cent. of women are in management jobs, 9 per cent. are in supervisory grades and 70 per cent. are in clerical grades. It is a very difficult situation to have to cope with, and it is obviously a situation that cannot be changed overnight. Again, this is where the importance of positive provisions of both the Sex Discrimination Act and the Act for Racial Equality come in. The industrial training boards, and not just the engineering training boards—although they set the pace—have used the positive provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act, but I regret to say that with one exception this positive provision has not been taken up by private industry in its own training schemes. That is really where we need to break through.

I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, is not in her place at the present time. I know she is interested in this subject and that she has listened to part of the debate today, but I am glad to say there are signs of a breakthrough in education, too. Again, references were made in the debate to the number of women now entering the universities and higher education—a greater proportion than ever before. I am also glad to say that we are beginning to see traces of segregation among children into "girls' subjects" and "boys' subjects" being broken down. Again, that is absolutely essential if we are to make progress and if we are to break down job segregation in employment. I am by no means complacent about this, but it is encouraging to see the response the commission has had from many of the educationists and the teaching profession in looking at this whole problem.

One area where we have not broken through is that of policy making. One of our maiden speakers referred to the fact that we have a woman Prime Minister. That, of course, was a tremendous breakthrough, but we have a Cabinet of 22, of whom no other person than the Prime Minister is a woman. We have a House of Commons with 635 Members, of whom 19 are women. The TUC has a general council of 41, of whom two are women. I am told that the CBI has a presidents' directorate of 12, of whom none are women. In the media, the BBC's board of governors has 12 members, and three are women; the IBA has 12 members, and five are women. That shows a little progress there, but they still have only five. If we look at the press, there is no woman editor anywhere in the national dailies of Fleet Street; and in the universities there is no woman vice-chancellor. Of the 4,500 professors in the country, only 119 are women.

So women, sadly, are missing from the policy-making areas—though perhaps that is why we have some of the problems that we come across. That may be one of the reasons, for example, why when we run into economic difficulties and difficulties of unemployment, the solution being put forward in some spheres is for women to go back into the home and leave their jobs. This particular thesis has been made in this House and I think perhaps we need to look at the feasibility of that particular proposition.

There are 10 million women in the labour force, of whom 6.6 million are married. We have at the moment, unfortunately, just over 2.5 million registered unemployed, three-quarters of a million of whom are women. It is estimated that something between 250,000 and 700,000 women are unemployed in addition to the official figures, because of the fact that they do not register as unemployed. But even if we take the official figures, 2.5 million and three-quarters of a million women, and if we were to replace all the unemployed men by women—in other words if we take women out of a job so that they could go back to their families—we would still be left with something like 5 million women in the labour market.

The figures do not match up, but in any case who is to say which married women should give up her job, and would it be for a married man or a single man? And what about single-parent families? There are about a million of those in the country, of which 90 per cent. are headed by women. What about their responsibilities? What about those families whose family income would be below the poverty line of supplementary benefit were it not for the fact that the wife was going out to work as well as the husband? The number of people living below that poverty line would increase four-fold, if it were not for the fact that wives are going out to work. So that this argument on statistical and on practical grounds is just not "on". But, in any case, for questions of natural justice and questions of equity, it is not "on" either. I must say I had hoped we had got beyond the stage when equal opportunities for men and women were regarded as a luxury, to be enjoyed only in times of prosperity.

Given the legislative framework that we have, what further steps do we need to take in order to eradicate sex discrimination? First, may I comment on the legislative framework itself? I do not want to trespass on your Lordships' tolerance here. I shall not go into the whole of the 25 recommendations which the Equal Opportunities Commission has made to the Home Secretary. But I would underline what the Baroness, Lady Trumpington, has said, that these amendments are based on five years' experience—five years in which we have sought to test out the law, to see just how far it could be used, where the gaps are and where the planks are. The amendments that we are recommending are intended to stop up those gaps and to make the present legislation more effective.

I was very interested when the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, said that anti-discrimination laws are quasi-laws. I was not sure what he meant by that. I think that those people who have to go through our legal system, from industrial tribunals right up to your Lordships' House and, indeed, across to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, will not regard them as quasi-laws. I think they will accept that they are laws of the land which have to be obeyed. But there is a very strange feature about the laws of the land, because one of the premises on which we in the Equal Opportunities Commission have suggested amendments to the Government has been that we bring our legislation into line with European legislation.

It seems to me rather strange that a person cannot go to the courts in this country and plead English law, in order to get equal pay on the basis of the concept of equal pay for work of equal value, but that we can begin to test out this concept in t he court in Luxembourg. It would be much simpler, and certainly much less expensive for the taxpayer, if our own very simple and readily available system of industrial tribunals could be used, rather than having to go through to Europe and, step by step, begin to spell out the implications of European legislation.

In her contribution, the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, very rightly said that we now need to begin to talk about what equal pay for work of equal value means. Yes, my Lords, we do need to talk about this. The Commission is under no illusion. It is not an easy concept and it is not a concept which can be easily tried. We are involved in discussions with a number of governmental institutions, as well as the two sides of industry, to try to work out the kind of criteria that would be necessary in order to operate such a concept. We are equally conscious of the fact that there had to be a five-year run-in period to the Equal Pay Act in 1970, and there may have to be a five-year run-in period to changing the concept of equal pay. It is not something which will happen overnight. It is something which, if we give careful attention to it, could be taken aboard by industry, step by step, without too much disruption, which is exactly what happened when the Equal Pay Act was first put on the statute book. So while we do not need wholesale new legislation, we need to stop up the gaps in the legislation that we already have.

We need more opportunity for equal access to subjects. We have equal access to education, but we do not yet have equal access to subjects. Some children have to opt into a particular subject. For example, it is not easy for a girl to say "I want to take metal work" and find that she is the only girl in the form among 30 boys taking that subject. She has to make a positive decision in order to do that. Likewise a boy might have to take a similar step in order to study domestic science or home-making. The fact is that in some schools the curriculum is so organised that these two sets of subjects—so-called traditional girls' subjects and so-called traditional boys' subjects—do not coincide on the timetable, so that boys and girls can have a sampling of the two kinds of subjects. This is the kind of discussion that is going on now in the educational world in order to see how we can make equal access to subjects much more a reality than it is at present.

We want the opportunity to train both men and women for the new and emerging industries in an integrated labour force. We must think in terms of an integrated labour force and not in terms of a dual labour force, as we have done in the past. Again, this is where the positive provisions of the Sex Discrimation Act come into play. Then we need an opportunity for women to return to employment after they have had their families and when their children are beginning to get a little older. Alternatively, we need opportunities for families to share responsibility; for the partners in marrage to share responsibility. There is not equal opportunity. There is some discrimination in the system if women have to fit themselves into the traditional male patterns of employment. Finally, women need to be treated as individuals in their own right in respect of taxation, social security, and, above all, retirement.

We have had a Green Paper on taxation and discussions are now taking place on it. I hope that we may be able to iron out some of the present discriminations in the system. I am not so optimistic about being able to get rid of the discrimination in retirement ages, because the White Paper on questions of the elderly including the retirement age, which the Government have published, does not give a very hopeful view of the future.

The fact is that many of the discriminations suffered by both men and women arise from the fact that there is this discriminatory retirement age. There is discrimination in redundancy and discrimination in access to all kinds of facilities. As regards privilege travel for retired people, even if a man retires at 60 on an occupational pension he cannot get his special bus pass until he is 65. So it is not just the one subject of the retirement age; it is all the many facets that derive from it.

So there are a number of areas in which we could strengthen our existing legislation. There are one or two areas outside the scope of the Sex Discrimination Act where we call for positive action and new legislation from the Government, largely in the area of social security. But, above all, I stress the fact that the major source of discrimination against women arises from the fact that women have not been regarded in the past as individuals in their own right. They have always been looked upon as dependents: dependent on their fathers, their husbands or even their brothers. It is not asking very much of society to treat women as individuals in their own right. This is the fundamental, philosophical and attitudinal right which women are seeking as well as all the material things which have been mentioned in the debate this afternoon.

My Lords, may I, too. thank the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for initiating this debate. I should also like to thank the three maiden speakers and give them our good wishes. In this debate I wish to speak on the part of and on behalf of West Indian women, particularly those with children under five and to go on to the problem of children who are under five whose parents, particularly the mothers, must work. Over the past 18 months it has been my orivilege to serve on the committee of inquiry into the education of children in the ethnic minority groups. The committee was established in March 1979 as a result of the report by the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration on the West Indian community, thus highlighting widespread concern over the under-achievement of West Indian children in our schools. This was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk. The committee of inquiry decided to publish an interim report on the problems and needs of the West Indian community and at a second stage to complete the report by relating it to other ethnic groups who also have their needs and problems. May I say that I think the white indigenous population is not without its problems.

The Minister of State announced in another place the impending publication of the interim report and recommendations concerning West Indian children in our schools. Alas! I am sad and sorry that this report has not been published in time for today's debate. I gather that the printing of reports takes time. Important as this one is, it has had to take its turn in the queue. When it is published, may I commend it to your Lordships' House, and in particular to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, who initiated this debate. I do not think it will be out of order if I base my few remarks upon what I learned during these deliberations and upon my personal experience with the Oxford Community Relations Committee when I was director of social services in Oxford City. The committee consists of 20 members, men and women, under the chairmanship of Mr. Anthony Rampton. We are black and white British. Some of us have our origins in the Caribbean, some in the Indian sub-continent and some in the United Kingdom. On this committee there is therefore no discrimination on the grounds of sex, race or creed.

Any group of people settling in another country has adjustments to make, even after one or two generations, but some have greater adjustments to make than others and therefore are more vulnerable. This is no reflection on them as people. It is only that the problem is more difficult. It calls, on the one hand, for great effort on their part to adjust and to settle. It calls, on the other, for great understanding and sensitivity on the part of the host country, as well as maturity of thought and behaviour on the part of the entire population.

In order to deal with the difficulties, it is essential to appreciate the differences in culture and background. Again these differences have to be understood both by those who have come to this country and by those who were horn here. I should therefore like to confine my few remarks to the position and place of the West Indian woman.

As I understand it—I have read as much as I possibly can on the subject and I shall certainly go to the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, for some help on this at a later stage—the history of the West Indian woman in the Caribbean was that of bringing up her children single-handed and at the same time working. Many of your Lordships will have read the book The Mother who Fathered Me. History dies hard. West Indian women came to this country without the support of grandmother, aunts, uncles, families. They brought with them their culture of working and looking after their children, many of them without a father. Therefore, there started to be this feeling towards the West Indian child that perhaps he was not so intelligent as other children.

I should perhaps mention that 68 per cent. of West Indian mothers go out to work. This has to be set against a national average of 42 per cent. Two generations ago, perhaps, the feeling solidified that because the West Indian mother went out to work she did not have time to talk to her child, to play with her child, to read to her child, to be with her child and to establish relationships with her child. By the time they went to school it was thought that West Indian children were two years behind the rest of children at the age of five. And if you start two years behind children at the age of five, you never catch up; it goes on and on. This has become a kind of norm which is quite inaccurate. I should like to pursue how best it can be dealt with.

I have talked to many West Indian women. They tell me that when their children are very young they would prefer to be at home but that either they are on their own or their husbands are earning such small wages that they must go out to work. As the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, said, there are not the back-up services—the day nurseries, the nursery schools—for the children. This means that as the children grow up they are always behind, which is extremely damaging to their self-image. Let us never forget that the child is father to the man.

This brings me to the question of equal opportunity: of women having a career, of women nevertheless having children, being the home-maker, establishing relationships with children and bonding with them at a very early age. About a year ago I gave away prizes at a school which has a very high academic attainment. Most of the girls to whom I presented prizes were going into medicine and the law. One was going to become an engineer. It was my old school and I was heartened by this. In my speech to the girls I said that perhaps women are extraordinarily fortunate in that we have the opportunity of two careers: the career of marriage, home and children, and the career of whatever it is that we decide to take up. The girls are taught to be quiet during a speech but when I said this I found, to my absolute astonishment, that it brought the house down. The girls clapped and clapped. In the end, the chairman had to ask them to stop.

I found that very interesting, because it seems from this that although girls want a career, they also want to be wives and mothers. I absolutely agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, when she said that the role of women has changed and cannot change back. I am not sure that I would want it to change back. Those of us who have been fortunate to have a career and to have done the work we wanted to do realise how very satisfying it is and would want every other woman, be she married or unmarried, to have a career—and rightly so. Nevertheless, in this country we have not yet resolved the problem and the difficulties of the wife, mother and woman with a career. Until we have resolved this dilemma, we will continue to have problems in respect of both sex equality and racial equality.

With regard to the Rampton Committee, I was fortunate enough to be chairman of the group dealing with the under-fives and I have been very heartened by the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has been going round together with Sir George Young—no relation, but just a case of equal opportunity!—from the Department of Health and Social Security to see what should be done in this country to provide back-up services to women who want to work. However, I have to introduce a jarring note here and say that the children of this country are the citizens of tomorrow and if they do not have a bonding experience and a happy home in their early years, we will have problems all the way along the line. If women do not have children—and after all, men cannot have them yet …

And have no ambitions to do so, either.

Yes, but if women pursuing careers cannot also have children, the population would drop. We must face the problem of how we are going to help women who want both a career and to be a homemaker and a mother. If we talk only about women having a career, then we denigrate the institution of marriage. Marriage is a career and the art of being happily married and having a career is perhaps one of the greatest privileges that a woman can sustain. I would ask the Minister—although I do not think that he can answer this—whether it is the Government's intention really to look at this problem of supplying back-up services for women with younger children so that they do not lose their place in the career structure and can give their children the love, care, sensitivity and quietness which children require—with the result that in the future our society will be one that has grasped the changing role of women but has not deprived children of their birthright?

My Lords, I should like to add my thanks to those which have already been expressed to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for introducing this debate. I am sure that the noble Baroness has been particularly gratified by the spread of the arguments and the general nature of the debate itself, epitomised by three remarkable felicitous maiden speeches—and I should also like to congratulate the noble Lords who made them.

The emphasis in this debate has been on two themes. One has been the field of articulate representation; of improvement in enactments and in administrative effort. Much has been said about the improvements which need to be made to existing enactments and the more sensible application of the intentions of various proposals which have been made by Governments and which have been to some extent implemented by those who are expected to carry them out. I would invite your Lordships to return to the other aspect, which to me is more important. It is that aspect concerned with changes of opinion and conviction and with alterations in the attitudes of men and women. It is surely beyond question that however admirable may be the enactments which are made, unless they carry with them the general consent of an intelligent community which at least can be persuaded to try to make them work, then it is highly unlikely that the enactments will be successful.

I speak as a churchman, and I believe that we have a very heavy load of responsibility for discrimination both in matters of race and in matters of sex. I would go so far as to say that the issue is fundamentally a religious one, but that assertion demands some kind of definition of what religion is all about. I believe there has been a recrudescence of religion as a sense of ultimate dependence, but I do not believe there has been a renaissance of faith; we have yet to wait for that, but I hope it will come quickly. The concept of religion as an attitude that is promoted first by other reasons and then becomes cemented within its own rights can be best illustrated by reference to the whole question of apartheid in South Africa. I wonder whether your Lordships know that, of the 14 members of a previous Administration in South Africa some years ago, 13 were paid-up members of the Dutch Reform Church. The satellite in this galaxy was a Plymouth Brother.

Nevertheless, here was a Government pledged to a particular attitude derived from the synods of the Dutch Reform Church itself, which until three or four years ago specified apartheid as being necessarily adduced from a proper reading of the Bible. Your Lordships will know that the Bible is a magnificent servant but an intolerable master, and in many cases one can decide what one wants the Bible to say and then look up the appropriate text.

The Bible itself is a cornucopia of such references. The fact is that the apartheid of the Dutch Reform Church was characterised by something that goes far deeper and finds its roots in the whole missionary spirit of Non-Conformism and Protestantism in the 19th century. I was brought up on certain hymns which may not be unfamiliar to your Lordships, such as "From Greenland's icy mountains"—from which your Lordships may remember the verse:

"What though the spicy breezes

Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle,

Though every prospect pleases

And only man is vile.".

We in the Methodist Church could not find Java on the map and so we put in Ceylon instead, but Java does appear in the original version. The fact is that, whether one thinks of Java or Ceylon, there remains an attitude of superiority on the part of those who went from Western Christendom in an endeavour to convert those who lived in total darkness in deepest Africa; I do not believe that this attitude has disappeared I find it very deep-seated in my own work. I find continuously that there are those, who whatever their protestations of ideas on equality, are nevertheless the legatees of this kind of discriminatory atitude towards those of other colours.

It is for the Church, among other institutions of persuasion, to take upon itself the very important taks of destroying the cult of missionary superiority against which many have rebelled in ways which are increasingly hostile in themselves. Alongside this attempt to Westernise the rest of the world in terms of religion has come a multiplication of all kinds of queer, charismatic, peculiar and idiotic sects. They are committed to the very kind of racism which first they abominated when they found it operating upon them from the other side of the world. Here is one of the outstanding responsibilities of an intelligent and worthwhile Church today: to destroy the superiority cult which I still believe very largely prevails and has left its effects upon generations which would not recognise it as having come first of all from the tutelary attitudes of the Church of the 19th and later 18th centuries.

I believe that the same thing has to be said about sex discrimination. I do not perhaps feel myself as inhibited as my noble friend the right reverend Prelate about women in the ministry. We have solved that problem in Methodism, more or less, and I think I can speak for any bishop in saying that it is intolerable effrontery to suggest that divine grace of certain kinds can only flow through masculine viaducts. This would seem to me to be utter nonsense, and I am sure from the smile on the face of my noble friend that he would agree with this and I have great pleasure in speaking for him and for others who believe that some way and somehow this kind of sex discrimination has to be obliterated in the sense that in respect of women it is a very serious bulwork against any kind of future for a Christian Church in the vastly changed world of which we have just heard.

May I venture upon your Lordships' indulgence to remind myself of where this question of the superiority of men comes from. In the initial stages we are somewhat in difficulty in Christianity because Jesus said very little about this subject and what he said was more or less what his Jewish antecedents had said. Many people today recognise, quite properly, that it was for the Christian Church to fill the gaps that were to be found in Holy Scripture and they filled them to their own satisfaction, but I think deplorably in many respects, in as much as from a celibate ministry they conceived a concept of masculine divinity and in fact in particular matters, knowing very little about science, they believed that in the procreation of man the provider was man and the carrier was women. So that, at the best, a woman was the cradle in which love and succour and nourishment were provided for the oncoming life; at worst, woman provided the kind of carton which was required in the initial stages but at a suitable time could be discarded.

I know that there are many people who would regard this as a ridiculous kind of assumption. I would plead with your Lordships to believe that it has its residuary effect in a continuing belief that somehow man is a more important and first-rate creature than woman. I speak with due care but, at the same time, I have found in my own ministry that this pervasive idea of the inferior status of women is not only proclaimed by men; it is sustained by very many women, and it is in that regard that a great deal of understanding should be accorded to those who have not been able to break away from a fantastic concept of how life comes into this world and who is responsible for it.

It is for the Church to take its courage in both hands and to tell the truth. When it tells the truth it will shed a very different light on questions such as abortion, for the relationship of abortion to the concept of who is the primary and fundamental person in the bringing into the world of new life has had a very great deal to do with the perverse attitude to this very contentious issue into which I will not go any further.

I believe that here in this religious sphere is a continuing problem, and of course in the realm of persuasion it belongs to the Church to endeavour at least to face it, if not totally to resolve it. But I believe also that it is required at this moment to do something which I think only politically can be undertaken, to provide an atmosphere of greater equality and a sense of community for those who are now separated by antagonisms, senses of discrimination and unfair treatment; and we have had an eloquent declaration from speaker after speaker of these disadvantages and discriminations.

I have a lively faith regarding such existing disadvantages set within a community which can give a sense of unity where it now gives much less—if indeed it gives anything more than a sense of separateness. I believe that there will be a very marked influence upon those who are still the residuary legatees of attitudes largely promoted by the Church but which have nothing to do with Christianity and, what I consider is even worse, nothing to do with the kind of world in which Christians and others would like to live in peace and quietness.

My Lords, my first and pleasant task is to congratulate the three maiden speakers in this debate. I see the spires of Lichfield Cathedral as I travel home to Anglesey every week. They are an expression of hope in an uncertain age and the speech of the right reverend Prelate was also a message of hope which was based on his considerable experience, not only in this country but in Africa as well. The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, had a rather different perspective. He is a distinguished historian and he made a thoughtful speech. His references particularly to the laws and quasi-laws on discrimination need careful study. What is important from the point of view of the Government is, first, that the law is enforceable and, secondly, that it is carried out; and if it is not enforceable it is the duty of Government to bring it to Parliament to be repealed and replaced with a better law.

Then my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney spoke with wit and a knowledge of these problems which he has gained as a councillor and a Member of Parliament here ill London. I am sure that the Government will wish to heed what he has said. He advised us about the need to increase the representation of women in both Houses. The speeches that we have heard from noble Baronesses in this debate seem to me to prove beyond doubt that their presence here in increasing numbers is essential. The three maiden speakers have made important contributions to our debate and we shall look forward to hearing from them on future occasions.

The debate has been a wide-ranging one. This was to be expected because the noble Baroness to whom we are indebted for this important discussion, framed her Motion so as to include two of the most burning issues of the day, namely, racial discrimination and sex discrimination. They are not necessarily related, as noble Lords recognise and as the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, pointed out, and I think they are more easily dealt with separately.

So far as racial disadvantage is concerned, let us be clear about one thing: there is no lack of public discussion and debate about this subject. No topic has been more thoroughly investigated from every viewpoint over the last few years. In the press, the media, Parliament, the local authorities, the Churches and in other public bodies, the debate has been continuous over many years and our discussion this evening is one more contribution to it. My point is that coverage of the subject has not been neglected. The pressure of events has not allowed us to forget it, and during this debate we are conscious that the noble Lord, Lord Scarman, is at present performing a most onerous and complex task on our behalf. I think everyone on all sides of the House would agree that he deserves the utmost support especially in the area in which he is working. I hope that he will be given that support by every interested body and that there will be no obstacle of any kind to the noble and learned Lord in the performance of his duty. It is vital in the interests of racial harmony that he should be allowed to complete his task thoroughly and effectively.

Racial discrimination is no new phenomenon in these islands and this is something that coloured people might bear in mind. I started reading an article under the heading of "Problems of Racial Discrimination" in a magazine recently and discovered after a couple of sentences that it dealt with discrimination against Welshmen in Wales in the 14th and 15th centuries. I shall not go into that scholarly disquisition in any detail, save to say that discrimination at that time was authorised by the Government of the day and carried out by its servants at every level. I should not care to argue that modern Governments deliberately discriminate against any section of the community on grounds of race although I have reservations about the Nationality Bill which will come before this House shortly. But, on the whole, post-war Governments of all complexions have made strenuous efforts to understand the problems which have arisen as a result of the great immigration which has followed the dissolution of the British Empire, and to find solutions to them.

Noble Lords have referred to these problems and the difficulties, and we should remember a fairly obvious truth—this was referred to in the speech, which the House appreciated, of the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull; namely, that anyone emigrating from one country to another must face difficulties in adjusting to a new way of life. English families going to Australia today face acute problems of adjustment, as we have heard on many occasions and, indeed, many of them return to this country. The difficulties are compounded, of course, when colour and different religions and cultures are involved. They are made worse in this country first because this is a comparatively small and heavily populated island and secondly because we are going through an economic recession with higher unemployment than we have known since the pre-war period, unemployment which is still rising. Poverty, unemployment and racialism overlap. The streets of London are not paved with gold. The task of helping immigrants to adjust and feel that they are part of the community is made infinitely harder when they find there is no work for them, or that they are discriminated against when looking for a job.

In a memorandum submitted to the Race Relations and Immigration Sub-Committee in another place, the Department of Employment had this to say:

"The majority of minority group workers were not born in the UK and received most of their education and training overseas. Many find it difficult to adjust to the unfamiliar culture and to the customs and practices of an industrial society. This problem is aggravated for those—a substantial number—who have a limited knowledge of the English language. Problems stemming from language difficulties and cultural differences make it difficult for ethnic majority workers to understand and to be understood. This hinders them in getting a job. It also puts them at a disadvantage in the workplace once they have obtained a job, in doing the job, in making use of facilities for training and promotion, and in securing acceptance by white workers. The need for an effective industrial language training service has long been recognised ".

The Department of Employment went on to say that racial discrimination remains a problem, notwithstanding the 1976 Act, and expressed concern about "concealed and indirect discrimination", which is difficult to expose.

The fact remains that unemployment among ethnic minorities is substantially higher than the average and it is clearly the Government's responsibility to ascertain the reasons in detail and to take action to remedy the position. The House appreciates that the Race Relations Employment Advisory Group and the Race Relations Employment Advisory Service have been set up to help Ministers on matters relating to the employment of ethnic minorities, and it will this evening wish to know what progress these groups are making. The role of the trade unions is also crucial, and it is good to know that the TUC is represented on both these groups. It would, however, not be right for me to stand here this evening without saying that there is a need for a degree of enlightenment among many trade unionists on this subject.

The memorandum makes one further point to which I should refer:

"The difficulties faced by young people from minority groups are partly ones of location. They tend to live in rundown inner city areas.

The difficulties are partly cultural and connected with immigrant status, and can partly be attributed to covert and unconscious discrimination, which the Department of Employment accepts remains an element in disadvantage.

"Some young people also experience linguistic difficulties which may be obvious or which may involve some of the more subtle aspects of English usage. Young people are commendably persistent in the face of these problems".

It is good to know that these young coloured people are "commendably persistent" in their efforts to obtain employment, and they must be helped by Government and other agencies to do so. I should like to pay a tribute to the Manpower Services Commission for their efforts to help ethnic minorities. I think their work is admirable and their reports are worth reading. They experience difficulties from time to time, as some noble Lords have pointed out. Nevertheless, given the times in which they are working, I believe they have made very good progress.

Other noble Lords have referred to the Commission for Racial Equality, and the recommendations which they have made to the Government are again of the first importance. I have no time to go into these in detail, but I should like to know from the noble Lord how many of these the Government are proposing to implement. For example, they ask that Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 be reviewed and that cash limits on expenditure under it are not imposed. They ask that the Manpower Services Commission be given more money to meet the demands for special training, and so on. These are all reasonable requests. The House appreciates the financial difficulties which the Government are facing at the present time, and we are not asking for large subventions of money. We are saying that small amounts of money put in the right place could be crucially helpful at the present time.

Reference was made, I think by Lady Faithfull, to the teaching of English, and I agree with her remarks. Mr. David Smith, who wrote an excellent article on "Unemployment and Racial Minorities", has this to say:

"Asian men who do not speak English well have a distinctly higher risk of being unemployed than those who do. Thus at least half of unemployed Asian men have a serious linguistic handicap. Forty-five per cent. of unemployed Asian women speak English only slightly or not at all".

This is an extremely serious situation when you come to consider the non-availability of work in this country at the present time. The provision of jobs, of housing, of appropriate education and of training—all these are dependent in the final analysis on this country's economic performance, and it is only in the climate of economic expansion that the problems of race in Britain can really be solved. In a period of recession like this, the difficulties are compounded.

I should like to say one more thing. I have been travelling to London from North Wales on my parliamentary duties for well over 30 years, and I have seen great changes in the nature of the community here in London. I should like to pay a tribute to the tolerance of the English people. This is not often appreciated or voiced here and I may be permitted to say it. They, as well as the coloured immigrants, have had to make adjustments. If we are to resolve this problem in the spirit to which the noble Lord, Lord Soper, referred—in the Christian spirit—then we must do all we can to help the new coloured community and the old community to live together and to understand each other. This is where the Government, the agencies they have set up and most of all the Church, have a contribution to make. The Church has lost a great deal of its influence in this country over the last 50 years. No one would be happier than I if the Church were to regain this ground, give an inspiring lead and help in the solution of this problem. In their consideration of this problem, the Government will need to consider that aspect as well.

When we come to sex discrimination—and I want to make a short speech—we discover that although the subject is a different one, the forces which militate against racial equality also affect sex equality. Female unemployment has been worse than that among men. I could quote endless figures to prove that. The Equal Opportunities Commission has told the Home Secretary that the growth of unemployment among women, combined with inflation, has contributed to a growing sense of uncertainty and insecurity among women. They point out that progress towards equality in measurable requests—for example, in terms of earnings—has come to a halt. Perhaps the Minister will be good enough to comment on that when he replies and give us the latest figures.

One senses that the Equal Opportunities Commission is going through a period of intense frustration and that it needs encouragement from the Government. Like other noble Lords, I have received today the Fifth Annual Report of the Equal Opportunities Commission. I have not had an opportunity to study it as I would have wished in preparation for this debate, but what I have read indicates two things to me. The first is that the commission is really doing a first-class job, and I should like to pay a tribute to my noble friend Lady Lockwood, not only for her speech today, but for the work which she has accomplished as chairman of the commission. I believe that the commission deserves all support from the Government.

I believe that the Commission for Racial Equality deserves equal support. We heard something about its work from the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, to whom one listens on this subject with very great respect indeed. We were given the flavour of the job and also an idea of the immensity of the task facing the commission.

In conclusion, I should like to say that this is a daunting task for any Government to tackle. I should not like to pretend that this Government can perform miracles overnight. What they can do is to proceed forward step by step, to show by positive action, by reasonable grants of money—for example, to the Manpower Services Commission—by accepting the recommendations made by my noble friend's commission and by accepting the argument of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, on the question of monitoring, that something can be achieved. The noble Baroness said, "I do not expect monitoring on a large scale now from the Government: I want limited monitoring in a fairly narrow field" That surely is a concession that the Government could make without embarrassment or large-scale expenditure. There are many small but significant things that the Government can do to help in both causes. It is absolutely essential in the interests of the future of this country that they should do so.

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, has given your Lordships' House the opportunity to debate three very important and interrelated topics: racial disadvantage, racial discrimination and discrimination on the ground of sex. Each of the speakers who has made a maiden speech today has approached those subjects from his own particular stand-point. However, each of the speakers—my noble friend Lord Beloff, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield and the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney—met eventually in their speeches on the common ground of showing concern for the subjects of disadvantage and discrimination to which their speeches were directed. I should like to make it clear that the Government share this concern and have made clear before—and I make clear again now—that we are fully committed to a society where all individuals have equal rights in law and equal opportunities in practice.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield reminded us of the essential importance of our own attitudes in this matter. The desire to share together the responsibilities for making our society work is, it seems to me, the only way forward if we are to achieve the harmonious and prosperous society that we all seek. I know that there is still a long way to go, especially in the area of racial equality and also, of course, in the area of sexual discrimination. There is a lot of important information in the report of the Equal Opportunities Commission which the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, presented to your Lordships' House yesterday and which was published today.

It is a sad fact that, particularly in education, housing and employment, the ethnic minorities in general fare less well than the majority of the population. The reasons are not always clear and advances have often been slow and piecemeal. At the same time I think that it is fair to claim that probably all of your Lordships are aware, from the daily experiences which we all have, of the contribution which members of the ethnic minorities are able to make. It is nevertheless clear that they have special needs and that Government must take account of these in formulating their policies and their spending programmes.

The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penhros, made a very constructive speech and he specifically asked me about the Government's spending programmes. I should like to say a word or two about spending programmes in the area of racial discrimination and racial disadvantage. It is particularly important that the Government's special measures to help unemployed people have been considerably expanded and the Youth Opportunities Programme will now provide in this year 50 per cent. more opportunities for unemployed young people. The new Community Enterprise Programme which helps the adult unemployed will give priority to areas of high unemployment.

Your Lordships might be interested if I remind you that the Manpower Services Commission which administers these programmes is now setting up, in consultation with the Commission for Racial Equality, a number of experimental posts whose function will be to enable ethnic minority organisations to plan and organise suitable schemes for young and long-term unemployed.

The Industrial Language Training Service, to which the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, referred, funded by the Manpower Services Commission, has also done a great deal of work in providing in-company training for many non-English speaking workers in industry. Here again, the Government are committed to encouraging improvement of language training in the workplace and, despite the general need for economies, language training facilities have been expanded.

However, arguably, I think that one could say that perhaps the first necessity when children are ready to go to school is for nursery education. I do not think from the speech which the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, made that she was aware that there had been an increase of 5,600 extra nursery education places since the Government came into office. It is not enough, I know, but at least it is quite a significant increase. But, of course, many children come from homes where English is seldom used. Cultural differences may also lead to their failing to benefit fully from their schooling. Therefore, again arguably, the first requirement on entering the primary school—or the secondary school, if a child has perhaps come to this country at that age—is for second language teaching. Schools and local education authorities are also increasingly realising that teaching in schools needs to reflect the diversity of cultural backgrounds which exists in today's society.

If I may say so, in all this I think that governors of schools have a part to play. Of course, I realise that boards of governors are not responsible for the curriculum; that is a professional matter. But, after all, governors represent to their school the wishes of the local community which the school serves, and when the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, pointed—quite rightly—to the relative absence of black people on elected bodies in this country, I reflected that now that last year's Education Act gives the right for parent-governors to be elected to governing bodies in schools, perhaps this will give the opportunity for more members of the ethnic minorities to serve on school governing bodies.

The Department of Education and Science has set up the Committee of Inquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups, first, under the chairmanship of Mr. Anthony Rampton and now under the chairmanship of Lord Swann. I thought that my noble friend Lady Faithfull gave us in her speech an absolutely fascinating insight into the forthcoming report on the particular needs of children of West Indian origin. We shall await the almost imminent publication of that report and, of course, we shall also await the follow-up report, which I understand will be published some time later, on the educational needs and attainments of children from all ethnic minority groups.

My noble friend Lady Trumpington reminded your Lordships that the further education system also provides a second chance for people of all ages. Here again, some action has been taken. The Department of Education and Science has encouraged certain local authorities to establish special preparatory courses, aimed particularly at students from the ethnic minorities, to enable them to reach a standard necessary for entry to training courses for teaching, social work or, indeed, general higher education. Five education authorities have already set up such courses.

A particularly encouraging factor is that training courses for youth workers in the London area are attracting people from the ethnic minorities. The operation of the youth service is at present under review in the Department of Education and Science, and one area which will be looked at is how it can be better adapted and made more attractive to young black people.

A great deal has been said in this debate about the place of spending programmes in preventing disadvantage, and I still bear in mind that I am trying to answer the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, on this point. Perhaps I could remind your Lordships that the Government's urban programme is running at £290 million for this year, and this money will be used to finance a wide variety of economic, environmental and social projects in the inner city areas. Of course, a number of the projects aided by this programme will have been put forward by ethnic minority groups and community relations councils. This year we expect to pay some £45 million in grant to local authorities under Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, will not mind me saying that I felt he spoke a little as though Section 11 grants had ceased altogether, although I realise that he was not, in fact, saying that. £45 million is a great deal of money, and the greater part of it will be used not only for educational purposes, but also increasingly by local authorities for such purposes as ethnic language librarians, health education officers, specialist social workers and various other activities related to local needs. A number of boroughs also employ race relations advisers, who are funded under Section 11.

I know that I have said before in your Lordships' House that Section 11 is under review, and noble Lords have every right to ask what has happened to that review. I must make clear what was given in evidence by the Home Office to the Subcommittee on Racial Disadvantage of the Select Committee on Home Affairs in another place; that we must see what are the implications of the new rate support grant arrangements. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has also promised to take account of any views of that subcommittee when it reports on racial disadvantage.

My Lords, as the Minister knows, the first thing about Section 11 is that it is only for staff and, therefore, it has a very limited value. I am glad that he is touching on this question of the rate support grant complement relating to racial disadvantage. I should like to hear something about that. I should like him to dilate on that, because what has happened is that the rate support grant has been redistributed away from the inner cities to the shire counties. When that has been done, how can you say that you have taken account of racial disadvantage?

My Lords, I thought that I had made it absolutely clear to the House that what we wished to do, what we intend to do and what we said to the Subcommittee on Racial Disadvantage, which is considering that matter in another place, is that we want to consider how the new arrangements for rate support grant will, in fact, work out in practice. The noble Lord has made the suggestion that they will work out in a highly disadvantageous way. I am not so sure that the noble Lord is right, but at least in order to show that we are genuine in what we say, we are making it clear that we shall not make any changes in the Section 11 grants until it has become clear—and we said to the subcommittee in another place that this would not be until at least after the autumn—how the new arrangements are working.

My Lords, will the noble Lord give way?

My Lords, No. I think that that was a fair and reasonable answer, and I must get on. In addition to the effects of Government spending programmes and existing legislation, the Commission for Racial Equality, established under the Race Relations Act 1976, has the task of eliminating racial discrimination and promoting good race relations. However, I do not mind admitting at once that spending programmes, legislation and the work of the CRE are not enough. I accept that good race relations overwhelmingly depend on a positive effort by everyone in this country, and I accept that here the Government have their part to play.

The Government are concerned by signs that racially-motivated attacks on persons and property may be on the increase in certain parts of the country. For this reason, as your Lordships will know, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary recently set up a study into racialist activities. In his speech, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said—and it was not for the first time—that the ethnic minorities ought to be represented on this study. But if the noble Lord will not mind my saying so, I think that he misunderstands the objective of the study. It is supposed to be a fact-finding operation to examine the activities of extremist groups which seek to stir up racial discord. Representatives of the Home Office are talking on the spot to local authorities, to the police and to ethnic minority representatives in order to discover whether additional measures are necessary to combat these attacks. I think that this is the speediest and the most thorough way of going about it. It gives everyone a chance to have their say. I am absolutely certain that the Secretary of State was right to take this initiative.

My Lords, we have been over this ground before. The noble Lord is telling the House that black people are incapable of discovering for themselves (if they were on this inquiry) the, if you like, etiology of these racist attacks, because, of course, all the Home Office officials who have been appointed to deal with the matter are white.

My Lords, I must admit to the noble Lord that I do not see the matter in those terms. I see it in the terms that I have just set out. If he would like to read what I have just said, he may see it in my terms as well. I was interested to hear the tribute which was paid by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield to the work which the police have undertaken in recent years in Wolverhampton. I think that cooperation is a two-way process, and while the police constantly have to bear in mind the importance of their relations with members of the community, which they serve, so all of us must understand that only by co-operating with the police—and that means reporting crime to the police when it occurs—can we get on top of the problems of public order which from time to time beset this country.

Discrimination not only causes injustice to individuals; it can lead to a waste of talent and potential which this country can ill afford. If we are to increase the prosperity of the country, we need more than ever to harness the skills and abilities of all our citizens. The Commission for Racial Equality I know still finds disturbing evidence that applicants for work are rejected not on their merits but because of their colour or because a prospective employer holds stereotyped views about black people as a whole.

The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, spoke particularly about the position so far as the Government are concerned. The Civil Service of course has had a formal policy of equal opportunities since 1969. Indeed, the noble Baroness referred to this. The noble Baroness referred also to the commissioning of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, of which she is the chairman, to undertake a study to establish the effectiveness of race relations policy in the Civil Service. May I repeat what was said by the noble Baroness, that the Tavistock Institute's report did not reveal any evidence of racial discrimination, but it pointed to potential hazards to fairness in employment procedures.

The noble Baroness then said, "What has happened to the Tavistock Institute's report?" Following the publication of that report a joint working party of management and trade unions, both industrial and non-industrial, was set up to follow up the report. The working party has been unable to reach agreement on the desirability of recording the ethnic origin of staff and applicants for jobs because of differing views between the unions. As a consequence, it is not certain that staff would co-operate to achieve a head count that was both comprehensive and accurate. I shall not conceal from the noble Baroness that when the Government took the view against monitoring we were also not convinced that censuses and the like are the most appropriate and effective ways of using the scarce resources which are available; I am saying this of course against this rather unpromising background of lack of agreement which I have just mentioned so far as the follow-up to the Tavistock Institute's report is concerned. But I should like to leave this by simply reminding your Lordships that the responsible Minister, my noble friend Lord Soames, was present while the noble Baroness was speaking and I know will have taken serious account of the speech that she made.

It is the truth that the procedures for recruiting and promotion in the Civil Service, which include procedures formally agreed with trade unions and subject to appeal, provide a substantial safeguard against unfair discrimination. So far as discrimination on the grounds of sex is concerned, the Civil Service has an honourable record. It introduced equal pay long before there was any statutory requirement, and was among the first employers to do so. Recently a joint review group of management and trade unions has been reviewing progress since the Kemp Jones Report, to which the noble Baroness referred, and in considering ways of further improving opportunities for women.

The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, asked me about the work of the Race Relations Employment Advisory Group and the Race Relations Employment Advisory Service. I shall not go through a note I have here about the functions of both the group and the service because the noble Lord referred to both, but I should like to give an assurance that, as I understand it, the work of both the group and the service is in good heart, is continuing, and is valued by the Government.

The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, made two points which I must pick up before I speak for a moment or two about the important other part of the noble Baroness's Motion. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, made an assertion, as I understood him, that officers of the immigration service showed discrimination in their personal attitude, if I heard the noble Lord right.

You did.

Then I just have to make it clear that I reject that charge completely. So far as the Commission for Racial Equality investigation into immigration control is concerned, the Home Secretary has said that the Home Office will respond as helpfully as possible to requests for information by the commission in connection with its investigation. Some material has already been made available to the investigating team, and senior officials are discussing with the commissioners the general line to be followed in relation to the provision and protection of sensitive information.

The other important point which the noble Lord raised was that he referred to a witch hunt towards those who may be suspected of being here in employment, but illegally. I want to make it crystal clear that the Government do not accept that there is any need for members of the ethnic minority to feel that they must carry their passports with them as a matter of routine. Towards the end of last year my right honourable friend the Home Secretary reviewed the arrangements for joint police/immigration service operations against illegal entrants and overstayers. The results of the review were announced by my right honourable friend in another place on 12th December and appropriate instructions were issued then to the immigration service and a circular was sent out to the police.

Searches for illegal immigrants and overstayers take place only where there is specific information that offences are being committed. It may be that some employers ask their employees or job applicants to produce passports if they have good reason to suspect that employment restrictions are being evaded. That is a matter for them if an occasion arises when they need to be satisfied that a person is lawfully here, but the Government attach the greatest importance to any such requests being made without discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, or creed.

Finally, on these first points, the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, have referred to the CRE's powers to undertake formal investigations. The noble Lord asked specifically how many such investigations have been started. Of course, the choice of formal investigations and the numbers undertaken are matters entirely for the commission, but I understand that by the end of March 1981 the commission had embarked on 45 formal investigations, 23 of which related to employment and some 10 of which had been completed.

The Government are also firmly committed to a policy of equal opportunity and treatment for women in employment, and seek to encourage employers, workers and their unions to develop practical schemes to this end. I think we all are well aware of the advantages and progress as well as the disadvantages of the legislation in this particular field. We are also well aware of the value of the work of the Equal Opportunities Commission.

In recent years the rise in registered unemployment for women has, I admit, been faster than it has been for men. But this needs to be seen against a background of the very large increase in the numbers of women entering or seeking employment at a time when employment opportunities in the traditional areas of work are decreasing. In case the noble Baroness may say to me that I am immediately leaping to conclusions which are stereotyped and taking views as to who should do what in the world of work, may I remind your Lordships that not very long ago the Department of Education and Science issued a booklet called The School Curriculum. In paragraph 54, this important passage was included:

"The Secretaries of State"—

meaning the Secretary of State for Education and Science and the Secretary of State for Wales—

"consider it essential that career opportunities should be kept equally open to boys and to girls. The obstacles to equal employment opportunities for women are deeply rooted in attitudes in the home and in society. Schools can do much to diminish these obstacles through the content of the curriculum, the way in which the work is organised and the subjects taught, and careers guidance, as has been illustrated in Her Majesty's Inspectors' recent paper Girls and Science".

I do not find that passage is in any way contradictory to the very interesting observation which was made by my noble friend Lord Beloff, when he gave the view that there is much to be said for preserving schools for girls where pupils' expectations can perhaps develop in an atmosphere which is sometimes a bit more relaxed than in the competition of mixed schools. At any rate, as I understood it, my noble friend was saying—and I support him in this—let us preserve some single sex schools.

I was also interested to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, say that the attitude to subjects in the curriculum were still guided by attitudes to what suits boys and girls, and I hope she may feel that what I read out from the booklet of the Department of Education and Science shows where the Government stand on the matter.

The Manpower Services Commission recognises that women wishing to return to work after several years out of the labour market and those wishing to enter non-traditional areas of employment may encounter special difficulties. The MSC's response to these problems has been in two broad areas; the provision of courses, often of an experimental nature, and the encouragement of initiatives by industrial training boards and other national training organisations to promote training opportunities for women. I would particularly mention that the MSC has developed a range of courses in two priority areas, electronics and computer skills, and courses open to both men and women are available at various levels within reach now of most centres of population.

I thought the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, was very fair in drawing attention to the considerable progess which has been made towards equal pay for women on international comparisons. At the same time, it is clear from the latest report of the Equal Opportunities Commission that there is still much to be done in the fields covered by the sex discrimination and equal pay acts if the move towards equal opportunities is to be maintained.

Several noble Lords, particularly my noble friend Lady Trumpington and the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, referred to the Equal Opportunities Commission's proposals for 25 amendments to the sex discrimination legislation. The Government recognise the importance which the commission naturally attaches to these proposals. Some of these have complex and far-reaching implications, and we are giving them the careful consideration which they clearly deserve. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has had a helpful discussion about the proposals with the commission's chairman, the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, and there have also been meetings at official level with the commission. The Commission naturally recognises the importance of securing the support of the CBI and TUC for its proposals, and I understand that consultations are already in hand.

I have tried in the time to cover the ground which has been covered most interestingly by your Lordships. If there are points to which I have failed to reply, I shall write to your Lordships. I am genuinely grateful to the noble Baroness for this extremely important debate we have held today.

My Lords, it remains only for me to thank all those who have contributed to this interesting debate, and in particular to the three noble Lords who made their maiden speeches. The House will not want me at this hour to detain noble Lords for long, but there are a few points I feel I must make. First, I would assure the noble Prelate that I am well aware that it was not the fault fo the House of Bishops in the Synod that further progress was not made, nor indeed to the House of Laity; it was, I understand, the recalcitrant clergy who held up progress in this regard.

I would also tell the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull—and perhaps she will be surprised to hear this—that I have a great deal more sympathy with the point she made than she might expect. I echo what the late Dame Margery Corbett Ashby, a great feminist who died within the last month aged 99, said in 1978 at the time of the celebration of 50 years of women getting the vote; namely, that nothing was more important than to reconcile the two responsibilities and opportunities for women which Lady Faithfull highlighted today. I believe that a great deal of work still remains to be done there.

I am sorry to have to sound an unhappy note at the end of this debate. I must say that I was profoundly disappointed by the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Belstead. I could not have made myself clear. Of course, the Government have policies as an employer. What I hoped to illustrate was that nothing has come as a result of the policies of Government as an employer. For the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, to say that the Civil Service has a record and reputation as an equal opportunities employer where women are concerned flies in the face of the evidence of the facts. For the noble Lord to pass off the failure to react to the Tavistock Report and to say that, if there is discrimination, there is an appeals procedure which can be used, leads one to ask what use an appeals procedure is to people who are turned down on entry; that is where the Tavistock Institute among others have pointed to the failure to introduce and operate a genuine equal opportunities policy. I am afraid the complacency reflected in the Minister's reply fills me with despair. Above all, I am asking once again: Is it not possible to reconsider monitoring, on a narrow front if monitoring on a wide front is too expensive? With that, once again I thank noble Lords for their contributions, and beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

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

moved Amendment No. 1:

Page 1, line 5, leave out (" indecent matter ") and insert (" matter offensive to the public at large ").

I do not propose to keep your Lordships very long on this matter, but I would say that I support the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, in his initial statement, in that I would hate to see any more of our very restricted liberties further restricted. If I may make a very short aside to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, I shall not be able to be present tomorrow afternoon when a very important amendment is going to be debated because I shall be attending a meeting of a Select Committee, but I shall apply that policy to any vote that takes place.

Having said that, I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, is really following up that policy by introducing this amendment, because it seems to me that unless Amendment No. 3 is also agreed by the Committee the words "matter offensive to the public at large "carry a very much broader meaning than" indecent matter ". We might be landed with something which could cause enormous confusion in the courts—what is offensive to the public at large?—whereas I would have thought that "indecent matter" can be much more narrowly defined.

I want to ask just one question, which it is probably for the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, to answer. It is: What is going to be the timetable for the rest of this Bill? If we amend it, are we going to lose it? I should like to know that because it has to go back to the other place, and I would think that, unless Government time were to be given to dealing with any amendments, we here must be very careful as to what amendments we make.

I hope your Lordships' Committee will reject this amendment. This question of definition was debated at length in another place, and I think there are at least four or five reasons why this phrase should remain in the Bill. First, "indecent" has the advantage, not only of being in common usage but also of being easily understood. The dictionary definition of "offensive" is:

" disgusting; ill-smelling; nauseous; repulsive".

It is thus, as the previous noble Lord said, a much wider term than "indecent".

The purpose of this Bill is to legislate against displays which offend people. This purpose, in my view, will be defeated if the term "offensive" is used, with its wider implications. Fourthly, "offensive" can be extended to cover political opinions. Fifthly, violence could be said to be offensive. While violence is a problem, it is not against such displays that this Bill is aimed. Therefore, for all these reasons, I hope that your Lordships will both speak against this amendment and, if it goes to the Division Lobbies, vote against it.

This is a Private Member's Bill, and as such, as my noble friend Lord Houghton knows, nothing that is said from this Front Bench in any way commits any one of my noble friends sitting either by the side of me or behind me. Having said that, may I challenge the view that in regard to this Bill and in regard to the specific amendment that we are discussing the question of the liberty of the individual is an essential matter for us to consider. To confuse the word "liberty" with the word "licence" is a mistake which has often been made; and you do not preserve liberty by confusing it with licence. To talk in terms of preserving liberty when you are dealing with people who are making a fortune out of exhibiting pornographic literature to the offensive reaction (if I may use my noble friend's own words) of the large majority of people subjected to that exhibition is denigrating the word "liberty ".

Having said that, may I say that this Bill stands or falls, as I see it, by being supported by your Lordships' House within the narrow ambit within which it was drawn. Therefore, to extend questions to violence or matters which are generally offensive—and this is the only amendment before the Committee at the moment—is, in my judgment, to kill the Bill; and I do not want to see it killed. I hope that my noble friend will not regard me as being in the slightest degree rude when I say to him that some people might regard it as offensive in this House to read an announcement which might be exhibited that any one of the noble Peers present tonight is going to make 10 speeches. It is in those circumstances that one can realise how broad this word "offensive" can be.

This is a term which has been used in our law over a very long period of time. My noble friend Lord Houghton in fact read from Lord Reid's judgment in 1972 when he defined what was an indecent exhibition; and I feel that one can deal with this amendment perfectly simply by saying this. I am not impressed, as I said at Second Reading, by the doubt which is supposed to be put in people's minds, be they newsagents or general exhibitors of pornographic literature or whatever, as to what really is "indecent". Most of us know almost instinctively what is indecent and what will give offence as a result of that indecency to the public. If people are in any doubt, let them err on the careful side. I then will rejoice that they have done so and will shed no tears because they have been put in doubt.

There remains little for me to say after that admirable speech by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. However, I should begin by saying to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, that I welcome his amendment on the Marshalled List for giving this Committee the opportunity to discuss the most important point in the Bill, but I agree with the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, that if we altered the Bill substantially then probably—and I emphasise "probably" and not "possibly "—the Bill would be lost. Time is so short for the return of a Private Member's Bill to the Commons, where there must be complete agreement, and there simply would not be time to re-open the major issues. However, 10 speeches from the noble Lord I would find in no way daunting. I imagine that they will not all be 17 minutes long, but I am sure they will be very interesting. I would say this about the amendments on the Marshalled List in the names of some of his noble friends who cannot be here: that for a Private Member's Bill, where a good deal of work must be done to deal with technical amendments, they should have been on the Marshalled List before this morning.

Turning to the points that Lord Houghton has made, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, that while we are all concerned with the defence of liberty, here we are very much concerned with a matter of balance. We are concerned not only with people's liberty to express themselves artistically or through literature or however else; we are concerned also with the freedom of citizens to be able to walk down the street without being offended by showcases or shop fronts full of disgusting material. This is what this is about. There is an urgency. Every day one reads in the newspapers of more provincial towns where local citizens are being seriously disturbed because sex shops are arriving and they seem to be unable to check the proliferation. And as the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said, behind it are very substantial financial interests who are proliferating these outlets because they are making large sums of money from it.

I welcome the enterprise and enormous skill of my honourable friend Mr. Timothy Sainsbury in the other place who conducted this Bill successfully through it. Coming to the specific point which the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, put forward, that we should use the Williams Report definition of "offensive material" instead of "indecent", I am sure that he will recognise that, without going into the merits of the Williams Committee which we are not concerned with now, that Committee was seeking a definition for a much wider purpose than this. Here we are concerned solely with display, what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, and a definition of what is not acceptable and therefore where the law should come down and action be taken. This is quite different from trying to find a definition which will be effective in law dealing with the whole spectrum of obscenity. We can have different views on that but it is a different problem.

I would think that "offensive" has very many meanings indeed, beyond the sphere of sex and violence—all kinds of meanings in the field that the noble Lord is particularly interested in, in blood sports. Think how offensive blood sports are to many members of the community. We can think of so many things where "offensive" has a general application. Even with the noble Lord's definition in his Amendment No. 3, which gives us a more specific idea of how he thinks "offensive" should be used, I doubt very much whether it would cover such matters as the apparatus of the sex shop. If that were all displayed in a window—it is extraordinary stuff, intriguing to the young, but certainly indecent. But his definition—even the two put together—would not catch it. No one would be more ready than I to agree with him that this is a matter of opinion. It must be tried out. But it is true to say, as has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, that the word "indecent" is part of existing law, has been reasonably successful and effective within a limited sphere over the years, is understood by the courts and is generally understood by everybody.

On the whole, exprience shows that if one can find a single term which will do that and give general satisfaction and confidence, then I think one ought to stick to it and certainly not to try to give a definition to it. We learned from the 1959 Act that the more one attempted to give definition to a term in this particularly controversial field, the more likely one is to cause problems when it gets to court. I should have thought, in this particular context of this narrow issue of display, the word "indecent" will serve well. It is understood well. Here we are not so much making new law. This Bill is really modernising the existing law, bringing it together, codifying it into one Act which everybody can understand. Therefore, this is a term which is already tested and tried and works pretty well in court. It is better to stick to that than to take a chance and put in a new definition which is not sound for this particular purpose and hope that that would he more effective. The odds are that it will not.

On those arguments I hope that the noble Lord, having given this a very helpful and lucid airing, will feel on balance that it is best to leave it as it is. It is quite marvellous that it should have got through the Commons. It is a highly controversial subject. Nevertheless, it got through the Commons with general agreement, with interesting debates in the Committee stage; it went through the Commons on Report with complete agreement. If we have got something like that, then surely this is something that we should accept and send it back with our blessing and the fervent hope that it will work. I earnestly hope that the noble Lord, having given this particular point a good airing, may accept that the Bill as it is on the whole has the best chance of working, and that he may withdraw his amendment.

I am sure that the Committee will acquit me of any discourtesy if I say I shall try not to speak on very many of the amendments. On this first one, it is important that from the Government Benches I should make clear what is our attitude. I should like strongly to support the words of my noble friend Lord Nugent when he asked the Committee to take serious account of the consequences of making a substantial amendment to a Bill of narrow but extremely useful scope.

I shall not try to improve upon what my noble friend has said, and, indeed, what was said most eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, about the difficulties, as both noble Lords see it, with the amendment, except to say this. One wonders whether in dealing with a relatively straightforward matter such as public display it is wise to saddle the courts with involved and potentially troublesome definitions of the kind upon which this amendment would embark. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, will not mind if I say that on Second Reading the noble Lord said said that the mischief of this Bill is that it adapts the Williams remedy to the old formula; but if he will forgive me saying so, I think the mischief of his amendments is that they adapt the Williams formula to an old remedy. I hope that the noble Lord may consider whether it may be right to withdraw the amendments.

I am grateful for the comments that have been made. The noble Lord, Lord Spens, has a point that the relevance of the change in Amendment No. 1 depends on the acceptance of a definition in Amendment No. 3. This is a problem of the Marshalled List. Sometimes we put the cart before the horse because the Bill is drafted that way.

Another thought has occurred to me: it has been suggested that even though the word "indecent" was left in the early part of the clause, the definition proposed in Amendment No. 3 could still be relevant to the word "indecent" if that were put in the definition in Amendment No. 3 instead of the word "offensive", That is something which might be worth consideration when we try to enlarge on the word "indecent" and attempt at long last, after many urgings and refusals, to give a definition to the word. My noble friend Lord Mischon was not indecent in what he said. He came close to being offensive. Occasionally, I am ill-served by noble Lords on my own Front Bench. I sometimes wish on occasions like this that noble Lords who sit on the Front Bench and speak only for themselves would get off the Front Bench and go on to the Back-Benches so that there would be no misunderstanding as to where the words were coming from.

To suggest that I do not know the difference between the words "liberty" and "licence" I find unacceptable. I read in the Daily Telegraph only today that there were 5,000 petitioners who tried to prevent a sex shop opening in Eastbourne. The shop was opened and it had pickets outside demanding to know the names and addresses of people who went in the shop. This shop was boarded up. There was nothing on display in the window, according to the report. The notice was there that nobody was allowed in under the age of 18. Yet this demonstration of militant action outside the shop took place on the day of opening. Where is liberty in this situation? People are entitled to go in that sex shop in Eastbourne as they are entitled to go into Sainsbury's shop in Eastbourne. In those circumstances, one has to get this into perspective.

I have no more patience than the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, with the profiteers in pornography; but there are some respectable booksellers who have been harried, harrassed and driven out of business by the activities of the police, who believed they were fulfilling their duty under the existing legislation. One has to be careful in providing new conditions of trading or of living and in giving the police the right of enforced entrance—because that is what we come to in the end—in order to see whether there are any grounds to suspect that the law is being broken. That is where liberty comes in. There can be no pretence that enforced entrance by the police to a person's home or business premises is under any circumstances a light matter. It is not.

So I am sorry to say that T find the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, much more persuasive than my noble friend Lord Mishcon. He has put it to me—and I accept it—that this is a matter of judgment and opinion. There is perhaps a balance of argument one way or another. The Williams Committee unanimously—with the very varied composition of the committee—came to the conclusion that the balance of opinion was on the side of offensive ". Others, believing that this is to deal—at the present time at any rate—with a narrow issue, feel we need not widen the field of offensiveness beyond what is conventionally believed to be indecent. I see that point straightaway. This is not a Bill that tries to deal with the wider aspects of what is offensive but it is trying to deal with what is believed to be at the present moment, as the committee described it, almost a public nuisance. When I come to the next amendment, that is the point at issue.

I am sorry to have taken more time, but if I am provoked I shall hit back. In rather more temperate spirit, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 2:

I certainly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, on handling this major issue so skilfully and at such short notice. It is an ingenious idea and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, on producing it. Certainly it is worth further consideration, but of course it would fundamentally change the whole structure of the Bill and, as the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, rightly says, it depends on whether the local authorities would be willing to operate it.

It so happens that I approached the local authorities about this Indecent Displays Bill, to ask whether they would take on an additional responsibility which I thought might strengthen the Bill; and the reply was that they were not keen on it at all and did not wish to have any further responsibilities in this field. I consulted all three of the national associations, and the answer was the same from all of them. So I am pretty sure that their answer to this would also be the same: they would not be willing to take it on.

Therefore, it really falls down at the first fence, but it does not alter the fact that the noble Lord made a very valid point from the legislative point of view when he said that this is an alternative approach which is worth thinking about in the general context. I hope—indeed, I know—that my noble friend Lord Belstead and his right honourable friend the Home Secretary are thinking that sooner or later (and the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, is quite right about this) the Home Secretary really must square his shoulders and bring forward general legislation in this field because legislation on obscenity itself has completely broken down on the 1959 Act and something is needed in its place.

But in this limited context I am grateful to the noble Lord for seeing that it would not be possible to contemplate this at this stage and if we did put it into the Bill it would wreck its prospects in another place. Having given it a brief airing, which is very worth while, and having brought it to the notice of the Committee—it would be interesting to hear what my noble friend has to say about it—I am pleased to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, would be willing to withdraw it.

I have nothing to add to what was said by my noble friend Lord Nugent, except that I am a little concerned about an alliance—not, of course, an unholy alliance—between my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, in pushing for more comprehensive legislation in this field. However, that is another matter and it falls well outside the scope of this limited but extremely useful Bill. I join with my noble friend in hoping that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, as he has indicated to us, will not feel it is worth pressing this amendment to a Division.

Several references have been made to "this very useful Bill" and the narrow issue that it deals with. I am bound to say that the Government have shown no particular anxieties about this reform in recent years. A Bill was introduced in another place in 1979 which fell through lack of time. The Government refused to give special facilities for Bills to deal with this matter. They have regarded it as something to be left to the hazards of the Private Members' Bills procedures. Although from the Government's point of view it is a useful Bill, it is entirely fortuitous that this Bill comes to this Chamber at all. The sponsor of the Bill in another place had first thought about another subject entirely, and it was only by his own choice, after coming out well in the bran tub of legislative opportunity, that he decided to choose this Bill. So I think that, having left it to the luck of the draw, so to speak, one cannot put too much stress on the Government's interest in the usefulness of this Bill. It did not seem to matter too much until now.

However, I do not want to go on picking quarrels all round the Committee. As a lone person, with noble Lords of a different view in front of one and at the back of one, it probably brings out characteristics in my temperament which are not quite so pleasant as usual. I do not want to dwell further upon this. I quite understand that the local authorities would have to be consulted and that in present circumstances they would not want to take on this additional burden. But I think the idea of the local authority having the power to issue an abatement order, then a nuisance order, and if necessary a prohibition order, all dealing with local nuisance, with powers of enforcement only if there is failure or refusal to comply with the orders made, has its attractions from a theoretical point of view and it would not then be in the calendar of criminal offences in the same way as this Bill retains it. However, in the circumstances I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 3:

moved Amendment No. 4:

I have to confess that I have not studied this point in great detail. I had rather imagined that it was attached to the earlier amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, and would stand or fall with it. I am hopeful that my noble friend Lord Belstead may be able to express a view on it. But I am not absolutely clear how it will tie up with the very carefully worked out provisions in subsections (4), (5) and (6) in the Bill as it now stands. I should not like to disturb them, because I recollect the very detailed discussion which they were given, and a certain amount of amendment that they were given, at the Committee stage in the Commons. So I should like to hear what my noble friend has to say and, perhaps, I could then express a view to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, as to how we might proceed.

After a rather brief glance, I think that this amendment could be said to be technically defective, and we ought to have another look at it before we decide whether to agree to it.

In those circumstances, I readily beg leave to withdraw the amendment. It is only fair that further thought should be given to it, to see whether it does what it is intended to do.

moved Amendment No. 5:

The thought here is that a local authority or the Crown might allow its premises to be used for some artistic display which could be seen from outside and generally, and then there could be a charge of indecency. The thought is that public authorities of this kind should be trusted to ensure that their premises are used in a perfectly reasonable way for artistic displays, and that they ought to be protected in doing so. It is as simple as that and means exactly what it says. I imagine that this amendment was proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson. I think there must be a misunderstanding, because I am sure that he would be entirely in favour of the provision.

Here, again, it would be unfair to pursue the matter further now. If I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, that will give an opportunity to the prime mover and to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, to consider the position. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 6:

Before the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, replies, may I draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that the word "includes" occurs twice in subsection (5), once in line 27 and a second time in line 28. It seems to me that the amendment is defective, in so far as it alters the word "includes" to "means" in line 27, but does nothing about its receurrence in line 28. I should have thought that, for an amendment tabled as late as this has been, to ask us to take this in our stride is wrong, and I appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, to withdraw this amendment and have another look at it, before it is brought forward again at a further state of the Bill.

I cannot add very much. The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, is perfectly right. The word "includes" is repeated in the next line for a specific purpose, and the two "includes" are linked to each other. If "means" is put in, instead of "includes ", the drafting will then be defective. I hope that the noble Lord will feel that he does not want to press the amendment.

I think that there should be a further opportunity to consider this point. The only matter which can possibly be subject to the Act is matter which is capable of being displayed. It does not include anything else. The point is that "matter" must mean something which is capable of being displayed. However, there is a point to consider. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 7:

The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, with unerring skill has put his finger on an anomaly in the Bill. The boundary of the Bill is to deal with indecent display, not with the general subject of obscenity. The sort of activity which one might think about in this context, an activity which is to be found in particular in the northern part of this country, is the strip show. Strip shows are often to be seen in public houses and the like. The Bill is not intended to deal with that situation, though it may be that some of them are obscene and ought to be checked.

As we have already acknowledged, the general law is in disarray in this field but this Bill is not designed to try to deal with it. The author of the Bill felt that he should make plain what were the limits which this Bill was trying to deal with. That, as I understand it, is why the structure of the Bill is as it is here: it is in order to define what are its limits. My noble friend may be able to shed a little more light on this matter, but that I think is the basic position.

My advice is that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, is quite right and that other legislation of various kinds, of which the noble Lord mentioned one example, would cover the kinds of eventuality which he had in mind.

In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment in order to give my noble friend an opportunity to consider the matter further.

moved Amendment No. 8:

I recognise the noble Earl's great parliamentary knowledge and therefore the value of his opinion on this point. The fact is that parliamentary counsel says that either form of words—either "open to view" or "exposed to view "—would mean the same. So it really is a matter of taste as to whether your Lordships wish to make the change. I feel quite neutral about it. I shall be interested to hear whether my noble friend Lord Belstead feels that there is any risk attached to it. From such advice as I have been given, I believe that there is not.

I would say to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that I should have felt obliged to resist the amendment on the ground that it would be far better if we did not amend the Bill at all, but for the fact that, as noble Lords will have seen, I have an amendment down in my name to correct a technical fault which was made in bringing the law in Scotland into line with the law in England. This amendment was put into the Bill at Report stage and therefore an amendment has to go into the Bill to get the law right in both countries. That being so, I would be prepared to accept the amendment which the noble Earl has moved.

I hope it will not be felt indecent by your Lordships if I add a few words on this amendment so soon after making my maiden speech. My excuse for doing so is that in the other place I served on a committee dealing with a similar Bill and thus became slightly engaged in the esoteric discussion which this kind of Bill provokes. It seems to me that your Lordships should take advantage of the mover's kindness in suggesting that the change might be made. It seems to me that the word "exposed" has a more deliberate connotation than the word "open". The word "open" suggests an accidental display whereas the word "exposed" has a rather more deliberate connotation. If your Lordships feel that too, then there is much to be said for the amendment, and in view of the feeling which has been expressed by noble Lords opposite, perhaps your Lordships will feel disposed to accept the amendment.

I agree with what my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney has just said. The sponsor of the Bill in the other place assured the Committee on 4th March 1981 (col. 123):

" I see no risk that someone who goes into a bookshop, opens a copy of a magazine with a decent cover and looks at something indecent inside the magazine will be committing an offence. Such a person would not be making a display".

I suppose this may be just a matter of semantics but the phrase "open to view" rather suggests something that is available to be looked at, whereas "exposed to view" suggests something that is openly there to see. In other words, "open" suggests opportunity but "exposed" suggests that the display is a fact. These are the fine differences between one and the other.

This point has caused concern outside. I have received a letter from a university professor on this very point. He says that he is not interested in sexy, glossy magazines but he is interested in scholarly works on Greek vases and is afraid that such works might be prosecuted. He comments:

" A scholarly work on Greek vases might well be prosecuted to the great embarrassment of reputable booksellers ".

There seems to be some doubt even in high academic quarters and it is as well that any doubts should be removed. If the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, admits that the words "open and" exposed "are mutually exchangeable, he might care to meet the representations which have been made to him and exchange one word for the other, because it will not make any substantial difference but will, for some of us, remove any shadow of doubt.

I was most anxious that your Lordships should have an opportunity to express opinions about this amendment because I was not myself certain whether it was suitable or not. But as all of those noble Lords who have spoken have supported the amendment, and since the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, himself has been generous enough to say he would accept this amendment even though he says it makes no difference to the Bill, I believe it would be in accordance with your Lordships' wishes if I pressed my amendment.

moved Amendment No. 9:

We must thank the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, once again for moving an amendment in the absence of its progenitor and for the very able way in which he did so; the example he gave of a 17-year-old marriea mother was a good one. Here again we are dealing with a matter of judgment. If one fixes the age at 18, then there may be some young men or girls of 17 or even 16 who will go into a shop, and the shopkeeper will find it very difficult to tell what age they are. Some young people look quite grown up. On the other hand, if one sets the age at 16 some children aged 14 or 13 may go into a shop. The noble Lord was good enough to give me part of the case against the advice given in the Williams Report that 18 was a good age to set—I would have thought that 18 was an appropriate age. I understand that the working party on vagrancy also recommended that 18 was the age that should be set, recognising that there is bound to be a bracket and nobody can tell absolutely what age a person is.

If one sets the age limit at 18 one at least ensures that younger boys and girls—if one can call them such at that age—are not freely mixing with hard porn of the kind we particularly want to keep them away from, and that the Bill therefore serves its purpose. There cannot be anything absolute about this, but I believe it would be a mistake to bring down the age to as low as 16. I hope that your Lordships will feel that it is better to leave the age limit at 18, knowing that in practice there will inevitably he a certain amount of flexibility in the interpretation of the age limit.

The arguments will go down on paper in the Official Report and they will be available to the noble Earl whose amendment it is. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 10:

I would suspect that this form of structure is fairly common in defining an offence of any kind, actually committing the offence or attempting to commit it, but how it applies in this particular case I would suggest is that if a shopkeeper was in the process of dressing his shop window with indecent material of this kind that would be attempting to make a display of the kind which is to be made illegal under this clause, and if a constable saw him doing this and entered the shop to take action against him, to charge him, he would then charge him with the attempt to commit the offence because the shopkeeper would not have completed his offence; he would only be in the process of starting to do it. That is the kind of action. I agree that it would not happen very often that the constable would be there at that critical moment and see the shopkeeper starting to dress the window but it could happen, and, because it could, the clause has been drafted in this way in order to cater for it.

I share the concern of my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby about the appropriateness of an attempt occurring in this type of offence. I found him very persuasive when he suggested that the offence was either committed or not committed and that an attempt to commit was hardly appropriate in this particular context. I was not entirely convinced by the answer and I hope that my noble friend will not be easily deterred from pressing his amendment.

I wonder whether I might assist. As always the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, gave a very clear exposition of a point of view with regard to attempt, but I would say to my noble friend Lord Houghton—who I know will forgive me for addressing him again and this time with considerable affection, as I always do—an attempt of course could be made in these circumstances. A constable is standing opposite a shop; the display, which is quite obviously an indecent one, has been nine-tenths put up. What is put up in fact is not at that moment indecent in regard to the nine-tenths but in the hands of the shopkeeper, or whoever it might be, there is the tenth part of this exhibition, which is just about to be put up and which makes it thoroughly indecent. Does the police constable have to wait in front of a crowd of people looking at the shop, or passers-by, while the shopkeeper puts up the one-tenth in order to make it thoroughly indecent so that the offence is committed, or is it obvious, because he is trying to put it up, that the attempt is about to be committed? Is it not right that the police constable should be able to seize the article—which is the right that is given under this clause? I think that is possibly an example which I might give to the Committee of what these words attempt to cover.

I am grateful to my noble friend for his helpful remarks and forgive him much. However, I am still not convinced that the example that he has given would be one in which the constable should enter the shop and say, "I see you have put two books up there which look very dicey to me. Have you any more like those which you are going to stick up?" The shopkeeper will say, "No, that is it" and the police constable will say "Well, I had better have a look round and see. What is in this box here? Were you thinking of putting those up?" "No, constable ", the shopkeeper will say, and the constable will say "Don't lie, you were just going to put these up. I am going to exercise my right to seize these books because I believe they were going to be used in an attempt to commit an offence ".

Seriously, we are dealing with a different kind of situation from the one where the attempt to commit an offence is common form in the Bills concerned. This is different and it is new, and I think one has to deal with the powers of the police with great care. This is not censorship. This is not dealing with obscenity; this is dealing with indecent display. The offence is to display to public view matters which they might regard as indecent and offensive. He is absolutely in the clear if he puts what he has got beyond the door with a notice prominently displayed, as the Bill provides. So this is a very fine point indeed, as to whether he is attempting to commit an offence, whether certain material was about to be used to commit an offence. The powers of the police are quite sufficient, I suggest, here without allowing a constable to throw his weight about to this extent. Although it might be a little inconvenient for the constable to wait until he has seen whether the shopkeeper was going to put up any more material in the window which might in cumulative form amount to an indecent display, I think it is better to wait until he sees more obvious signs that an offence has been committed or is being committed before we give him the right to go into the shop and seize material.

Very shortly we are coming to the question of forfeiture. I am very doubtful indeed whether the powers of the police should be extended a single inch beyond what is really necessary to enforce the law. I cannot believe that these words have any convincing relevance to the situation. I do beg of the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, to give further thought to this. I know he is a reasonable man and does not want this Bill to go any further than to deal with the narrow point the Bill is intended to cover. I will, therefore, beg leave—

Before the noble Lord withdraws the amendment, I should like to say a further word. I regard this as very marginal, and I think we all do; it is a very fine point indeed. Bearing in mind the argument the noble Lord has just very effectively advanced, that if the constable waited a few more minutes the attempt would turn into reality, it really does seem that the case for including the attempted offence as part of the offence is not very justified when we are dealing with indecent display. So I feel that it would be right that I should advise your Lordships that this is not going to affect the strength of the Bill and the character of the Bill. The noble Lord has made a fair point, and if the noble Lord wishes to press his amendment I would advise your Lordships to accept it.

moved Amendment No. 11:

I should like to support the amendment for the following reason. During the mid and late 1960s and early 1970s the pendulum swung much too far in favour of permissiveness, towards an almost intolerant permissiveness, if that is not rather self-contradictory. Now in the 1980s the pendulum, as always happens, is swinging back this time too far, I feel, in the direction of an almost intolerant puritanism. I think that this amendment would provide a reasonable safeguard for the middle ground, for the happy medium. For that reason I hope that the Committee will give it some earnest consideration.

I also would like to add a few words in support of the amendment. I was on the joint parliamentary committee which decided to abolish the role of the Lord Chamberlain as censor. There was great concern among theatre managers at that time that the consequences of the abolition of the role of the Lord Chamberlain would be that a series of private prosecutions would be launched and that they would not know where they were—anything could happen to anybody, anywhere. No one knew when a show went on the road whether if in this, that or the other town it might suddenly be stopped. It was then decided, as the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has said, that no prosecution should be launched without the fiat of the Attorney-General.

If that had not been done I think that the consequences of the abolition of the role of censorship by the Lord Chamberlain would have been absolutely disastrous. The consequence would have been that private prosecutions undoubtedly would have been launched throughout the country. I foresee that, without some such minimal protection as proposed by my noble friend, something similar would happen here. It seems to me that ordinary booksellers throughout the country would be placed in a position of gross uncertainty, a position verging on the impossible. I therefore echo my noble friend's words and hope that this amendment will be treated seriously and, if possible, accepted.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, that this is an important amendment, and of course it did receive a great deal of attention in the debates in another place which I have studied in the same way as the noble Lord has. We start from the position that the law now allows private prosecutions. Therefore, Lord Houghton's amendment would remove from private citizens a right that they have now. Let me remind the noble Lord, Lord Monson, that this is a right which the private citizen has at present and I would suggest that there should be a very strong case indeed before we take it away from him.

The case has been put eloquently by noble Lords on the other side about the danger that there might be to bookshops and newsagents if the right of private prosecution remains. We are talking here, of course, about public display in the context of this particular Bill where a certain machinery has been defined in the Bill whereby a pornographic display must be confined to the rear part of a shop with a suitable warning notice and so on. It is a very narrow context.

I make the point particularly cogently to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, that the Williams Report in this context is talking about the offence of obscenity—a very much wider subject. In particular, it is talking about it in the context of limitations on expression, artistic, literary, dramatic, and so on. It is essentially in the field where legal action becomes censorship. That has no element whatever in this field of public display. That is the difference, I would suggest, as regards private prosecution in this particular field where it now exists—and I make this point very strongly.

We are required here to see that we have the right balance as regards the rights of the private citizen. The private citizen is just as entitled to be able to walk down the street without seeing disgusting displays in shop windows as the other private citizen is entitled to sell his wares in a shop. We are concerned with the balance, and the rights of the private citizen are not all on one side.

The point which the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, very effectviely made with his excellent command of dialectic, that there is a danger of persecution by morally motivated groups who can finance some private citizen to put up a private prosecution, may be one side of the matter, although there are none that I know of that have any great finance behind them. However, we are looking at the picture where the finance, if we are talking about finance, is on the other side. We all know jolly well the size of these publications; the millions that are sold every month; the huge sums of money that are being made out of pornography; the continuous effort to push out its boundaries to find new markets among children and to use material which becomes ever more reprehensible. The threat, if there is one, is not from the private citizen who is saying "I don't like this display; I shall take action against it ". Most private citizens who do that will jolly well have to finance it themselves, and there are not very many who have the courage or the money to do it. So the risks are not very great and the issues at stake are not very great.

I should have thought that the balance is about right in retaining, and I stress the point—and this should appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Monson, who, heaven knows, is a valiant warrior in the cause of the rights of the private citizen—the existing rights of private citizens to protect themselves from the pollution of the town or city in which they live. I should have thought that if we retain this particular right in the Bill and do not take it away from the private citizen, the balance would be about right.

Therefore, I most earnestly hope that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton—who I know, despite his powerful dialectic attacks on a particular subject, is very fair-minded at the end of the day—will see that there is a powerful case on the other side too, and that there really is no justification for taking away this particular right in this particular narrow context. I can only suppose that that was the reason that right honourable and honourable gentlemen in another place agreed that it should stay in, because they must have been at least as aware as the noble Lord of the history of this affair.

I intervene only in order that I can emphasise an argument that was, in fact, before the Committee in another place but which has not been advanced this evening. I mention it only so that it can be considered by the Committee, and by my noble friend. I have a great deal of sympathy with the point that there can be oppressive prosecutions brought by private individuals who have some rather weird ideas about what is decent and what is indecent. I accept that completely.

However, one of the things that influenced the Committee in another place was, indeed, a point that was advanced in argument by the mover of the Bill, who of course, was the honourable Member, Mr. Sainsbury. He referred to the position which the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure had reported, and which made major recommendations in regard to private prosecutions. If the Committee will permit me—and it will take only a moment or so—I should like to read its recommendation, which is to be found at paragraph 715 of its report. It says:

" We therefore recommend that if a private citizen wishes to initiate a prosecution, he should apply in the first instance to the Crown Prosecutor ".

In parenthesis, that is a new idea that was advanced by the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure. It goes on:

" If the latter is satisfied about the case, applying the same criteria as he would apply for any other prosecution, he should take the case on. If he is not, and the private citizen, after explanation, still wishes to proceed, the latter should be able to make an application for leave to commence proceedings to a magistrates' court; that is, to at least two justices attended by a clerk ".

It is known, although I believe that no one anticipates that there will be Government action on the Royal Commission's report very soon, that these matters are under consideration, and under pretty urgent consideration.

However much one may sympathise with the view put forward by my noble friend Lord Houghton—and I certainly sympathise with him in this amendment—I think that it would be rather extraordinary if, in a Private Member's Bill, we excluded private prosecution before major legislation comes forward to Parliament dealing with the whole question of private prosecutions and how they should be dealt with. It is in those circumstances that I would personally recommend to the Committee that to exclude private prosecutions in this Bill would be rather extraordinary in view of the fact that the whole matter is under consideration.

Before the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, decides what to do, I am—as I think all noble Lords know—a very keen supporter of the very small businessman and I must draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that very small newsagents generally carry some of this material in their shops. They probably make their profits by being able to sell this material. The small village shop certainly does not have the space to produce what is described in Clause 1 (3)(b) as:

" a shop or any part of a shop to which the public can only gain access by passing beyond an adequate warning notice ".

There is probably only one counter in the shop. This material is displayed inside the shop, but it is not behind an adequate warning notice. I am afraid that if we wait for the Government to act on the Royal Commission's proposals, we shall probably have to wait for three or four years, and during that time a large number of these small village stationers may be put out of business unless we can protect them by making sure that this type of prosecution is not brought against them. Therefore, I very strongly support this amendment.

In answer to the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Spens, on the small village shop, surely once this Bill becomes law, if the proprietors of the magazines that are sold in the small village shop want their magazines sold in those shops, they will produce inoffensive front covers so that the proprietors of the shops will not be committing an offence and will, therefore, continue to hold their magazines within their stocks.

The noble Lord, Lord Nugent, said that the right of private prosecution already exists. But what he did not tell the Committee is under what statute that right exists. Unless I am very much mistaken, he was relying on the Vagrancy Act 1834. I am advised that one could rely on the Vagrancy Act for almost anything in this Bill. Indeed, the Vagrancy Act was passed mostly in order to deal with the unruly behaviour of the soldiery returning from the Napoleonic wars and, indeed, anything went under that Act. However, we have chosen to legislate afresh—and we are doing so today—on matters that might be covered by the obsolete Vagrancy Act, because we want to update the law and provide something at which Parliament can look afresh.

Therefore, if I am right in assuming that no right of private prosecution exists anywhere in this field except in the Vagrancy Act 1834, I suggest that the noble Lord is not relying on anything very strong. I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to page 185 of the Williams Report. There, it sets out the authority for prosecution in a varied field. It says:

" Indecent display provisions. None of the 19th century enactments restricts the right of private individuals to institute proceedings for an offence ".

But what are those enactments? Is the noble Lord relying on any of them, or is he relying on the common law? When we have dealt with specific matters in recent years—such as the Theatres Act, the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act, customs Acts, the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act, the Judicial Proceedings (Regulation of Reports) Act, the Protection of Children Act—we have not allowed the right of individual prosecution. In these days of high pressure groups with a strong mission in life many of which think evil of anyone who does not agree with their own point of view—and I have had wide experience of societies in this field and know how strong can be their hostility towards those who do not agree with them; this is not only in the social field, either—and, bearing in mind that this kind of pursuit of alleged delinquency can become a form of persecution or blackmail, we have to be careful before leaving the private citizen, who may be egged on by somebody else, financed by somebody else, to embark on a private prosecution, a test case. That kind of thing we have to beware of. It is the responsibility of other people to decide a matter of that kind.

I am feeling confused by what the noble Lord has been saying. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, can come to my rescue here. I have always believed that the right of insisting that the law, if broken, should be defended was a common law right inherent in the subject. It does not vest in any particular statute. I do not know whether the noble Lord can help me?

We shall probably deal with that point in a moment. What I am stressing is that in previous Acts in this field we have not left the right of private prosecution in the hands of the ordinary citizen. We have deliberately taken it out of the hands of the ordinary citizen. Why have we done that, and why did we do it for the Protection of Children Act and the Theatres Act? Why did we take the right of private prosecution away from the citizen, and in this Bill propose to retain it? This is the important point.

I am beginning to see why it is that some reputable retailers in the publishing world have represented to me that there should be a moratorium on private prosecutions, if that is what Parliament decides, for long enough to enable the retailer to put his house in order. The idea that he can put innocuous covers on otherwise indecent display covers is not, I suggest, an easy one to accomplish. After all, he has to sell his books and he has not normally the means to put fresh covers on books that have already been delivered to him.

I was not suggesting that the retailers should put covers on the books but the producer of the magazine, the publisher.

That is a perfectly valid suggestion, but that is on future deliveries. He may already have material in his possession. It is not all the girlie magazines and the sexy glossies that are involved here. There are other indecent displays too. There is point in some delay to enable people to put their shop in order. Indeed, in a later amendment I plead for an extension of the period between the passing of the Act and the date upon which it will come into operation from three months to six months. It strikes me as relevant to our consideration here that this chain of booksellers should expressly put it to me that it is desirable that the right of private prosecution should not be let loose upon us right from the time the Bill is passed.

I do not think that the noble Lords who have intervened so far understand what the pressures are. The pressures that have produced this Bill are the pressures which will pursue those who are alleged to be in default of its provisions. There is a campaign going on here in just the same way that there was a campaign at the time of the Protection of Children Bill. We legislated in 1978 by scare, by panic, and from that Bill since 1978 less than 30 prosecutions have taken place, which shows how big a scare it was. We have scarcely heard any more about it since the Bill was passed. Here is a fresh opportunity for that kind of campaign to continue.

I am sorry to express myself in these terms but they are there, and they cannot be ignored. I sincerely hope that they do not use this opportunity of picking out people. In many cases of course you do not need in those circumstances to prosecute. All you need do is to go into the shop and say, "I find this indecent, and if you don't take it out I shall launch a prosecution against you ". The bookseller says, "I don't want to get into trouble. I don't want my name in the papers. I don't want anybody to come in here and seize my goods. I will take it out immediately ". Are we going to put up with that kind of thing? Talk about liberty in these circumstances!

I beg the noble Lord to consider what we are being asked to do. We are being asked to do something in this Bill that this House has not done before on any of these questions since I came into the place eight years ago. We are advancing our views upon the basic right of citizens to exercise their right of going to the courts to get redress not on a personal grievance but on behalf of the community, of which they may be quite unrepresentative.

I come now to my noble friend Lord Mishcon. I accept what he has said, but are we prepared to put the right of private prosecution in this Bill while waiting for the implementation of recommendations of a Royal Commission on this subject, on which there is no early prospect of action being taken? I do not agree with him that it is appropriate to leave the right of private prosecution in the Bill, because later that will be converted into a different right if the recommendations of the Royal Commission are implemented. I do not think that is the way to do it.

If the recommendations of the Royal Commission are implemented, then it seems to me that one has an entirely new situation and a new status and new safeguards given to private prosecutions. In those circumstances one might legislate to incorporate in a number of existing statutes, including this one and including others that have gone before, the new form of the citizen taking proceedings in the community's interests, and not leave it to the caprice of an individual to do it in the circumstances in which they can. So I am sorry to say that I am not convinced at all on what is a very grave issue indeed. What does one do in a Chamber in which there are less than a dozen people with an important matter of this kind? I wait for some help, and I am not prepared to let it go by default.

The noble Lord has asked a question as to the course he should take on a matter about which there is clearly a difference of opinion. Would he see fit to look again at the amendment before Report? I was a little surprised to see that the right to bring a prosecution would be restricted under the amendment to a police officer of or above the rank of superintendent. I am advised that the Government do not know any precedent for a provision of that kind, and although I admit that I have not consulted the police, it would surprise me if that provision were not seen as an unjustifiably rigid requirement. On those grounds the noble Lord may be prepared to look at the terms of the amendment again and not press it now. I do not think that is an unreasonable request for me to make, and he may consider it a sensible course to take.

The noble Lord has scored a goal. It may be that the amendment is defective in specifying an officer of the rank of superintendent or above. That was, so to speak, an off-the-cuff judgment as to who might do it. I did not want to put it in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions, and it seemed unsuitable to raise it to the level of chief constable. The Williams Report referred to "normal police procedures" or some such phrase, which presumably would have left it in the hands of a constable in certain circumstances if he was advised by his superior officers that it was a suitable matter for a police prosecution. So long as the right of prosecution is removed from the citizen—however worthy or however mischievous—and goes into the hands of a public authority, which is the police, I should be very willing to consider the matter along those lines. Therefore, I readily accede to the suggestion of the Minister to look at it between now and Report, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 12:

Before the noble Lord sits down will he explain the reference in the amendment to seven days—within seven days of what starting day? Does it mean by the 28th day, there having been no prosecution?—because if that is what it means, it does not say so.

What I intend it to mean is that, if no charge has been made within 21 days of seizure, the goods must be returned from whence they came within seven days of the expiry of the 21 days. So it is the 28th day, as the noble Earl said. It means that there are seven days in which to return the goods after the lawful retention for up to three weeks.

I must leave for another occasion the question of whether the amendment says what it means.

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, has made out a good case for the amendment, though I agree that the wording is rather unclear, as has been indicated by my noble friend. I believe that the amendment would help to protect the rights of innocent individuals; I say "innocent" because if they were not innocent they would of course have been prosecuted. I have pleasure in supporting the amendment.

I think that there is some misunderstanding in the noble Lord's mind. This is not at all a question of forfeiture. It is simply the removal of some of the material sufficient for purposes of evidence; that is all. There is no question of forfeiture. The police need to retain the material for a reasonable period in order to bring the case. No doubt my noble friend will be able to tell the Committee for how long the police might need it, but I would very much doubt whether the processes of the law could be completed within 21 days. We are not here dealing with forfeiture. The noble Lord has misunderstood the purpose of the clause. That would have to be dealt with under a completely different Act. This is simply to gather the necessary evidence in order to bring the charge of indecent display if the constable thinks that such a charge lies; and, of course, if the police retained the goods for an unreasonable period there would indeed be a legal remedy for the shopkeeper to take against the police.

So, really, there is a misunderstanding here. I suspect that my noble friend will say that it would be better not to put a term of days or weeks on the period for which the police might hold this material, but if one had to be put on then, of course, it would have to be a good deal longer than this. But the major point that the noble Lord I think had not taken on board—I hope he has now— is that this is not a question of forfeiture; this is simply a matter of gathering the evidence necessary to bring a charge.

I am a little perplexed about this. It is true that the Bill does not provide for retention or forfeiture as the Protection of Children Act did. If I am assured that when goods are seized, and when that seizure is not followed by a charge against the person complained of, they will he returned to him after a reasonable period, I think we come nearer to agreement. The question is: How long would be a reasonable period? I have known of cases where booksellers have lost half their stock and not been able to replace it because of the exposed position they were in, with a possible charge pending against them. I will ask leave to withdraw the amendment at the moment, and see whether I can get some greater reassurance than the noble Lord is able to give me on this matter.

If the noble Lord will allow me to interrupt him, before he withdraws his amendment we might ask my noble friend whether he will confirm with much greater authority than I have that I have given the noble Lord a correct version of the law, so that he might then be completely reassured.

My advice on this amendment is that the power of seizure afforded to the police by subsections (2) and (3) of Clause 2 applies only to an article which a constable has reasonable grounds for believing to have been used for the commission of an offence. It applies, therefore, only to an article which is believed to be indecent and to have been publicly displayed within the meaning of the Bill, and in most cases, therefore, a single item, or only an item or two, would be seized. That is not exactly, I think, the same as my noble friend Lord Nugent said, but where my noble friend and I certainly meet in giving the same advice to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, is in saying that what this certainly does not mean is the sort of situation which I know the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, fears—where, under the Obscene Publications Act, there are seizure and forfeiture provisions, the seizure involving thousands and thousands of pounds worth of goods. Nothing of that kind could conceivably happen, I think, under this particular provision in the Bill. Therefore, I think substantially, if I may say so with respect, the advice which my noble friend Lord Nugent gave in reply to this amendment was correct.

It may be that the whole case therefore rests upon the efficiency and diligence of the police. If they take anything away and take a long time before bringing a charge, then presumably the goods remain in their hands while they are either considering the matter or just shilly-shallying. Then it may become a case for the citizen to try to get redress by some means to recover his property because the police are doing nothing about it except sitting on it. I am not sure that that is a very satisfactory position in which to put a citizen. There is a lot of unfavourable publicity given to this kind of thing, and many innocent people, I am quite sure, have been very badly treated under the existing legislation.

I do not want to go into details on this. There is wide variation between one police area and another on how the police look at some of the alleged offences against existing legislation. Statistics will prove that. If one goes into the matter one can see where prosecutions have occurred and where raids have taken place in one police area to a much larger extent than anywhere else in the country. One has to spare the citizen from this strange behaviour of certain police authorities which seem to think that they have a special mission to be very active in this particular field. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment and will take further advice on it. This is regarded as a very important matter by those in the business.

moved Amendment No. 13:

These punishments have been debated and approved in another place. I would not regard myself as an authority on what is the correct gradation of punishments for an offence of this kind. I should have thought that it would have been extremely rare that there would be imprisonment ever awarded for such cases, that fines would normally be sufficient and that it would be only where there was the most persistent, flagrant and continuing breaches that more than the monetary penalty would be considered. Whether two years is more correct than one year I would think is a matter for judgment and something on which I should like to hear my noble friend before we conclude this debate; but I see that it is related to some extent to the Obscene Publications Act which has a maximum penalty of three years. I suppose that the two years' maximum was fixed in relation to that. I would think it very rare indeed that the punishment of imprisonment would be inflicted at all and certainly a punishment of two years would be extremely exceptional.

It is worth noting that the working party on vagrancy and street offences which reported in 1976 recommended that this would be an appropriate maximum penalty. I underline my noble friend's remarks. This is a maximum penalty that we are talking about. I speak as a non-lawyer, but I apprehend that the courts take the view in these cases that they should be dealt with summarily and custody would not enter into it at all. What do you do if somebody continually breaks the law in this way? I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has a view on this matter, but I would have thought it was reasonable to have in reserve the maximum penalty which incidentally the working party in 1976 recommended as being appropriate.

I must respond to such a courteous invitation but reply to the courtesy with brevity. There would possibly be cases not only of repetition but where huge profits were shown to have been made and therefore where the maximum fine was no deterrent. It may be sensible to have in reserve a prison sentence which is a real deterrent to cover such as case which I accept with the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, and the noble Lord the Minister would be an exception. But exceptions can arise. Many of us who are very troubled by what is happening in places like Soho at the moment would feel that a very severe deterrent in some major cases—not the average ones—is necessary.

I suppose an argument could made out in really bad cases that we could send them down for five years. But I will not press that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment and I shall consider the matter further.

moved Amendments Nos. 14 to 17:

It was put to my noble friend Lord Nugent by the Government, that it would be highly desirable to do this in the cause of keeping the laws of Scotland and England in line on this particular matter, they having got out of line for the reason that my noble friend has explained. We approached my noble friend and he agreed to put the amendments down. They went down a little late, the day before yesterday. I am afraid that I am entirely to blame for that and not my noble friend.

The effect of the amendments is to reduce the amount of penalty in these cases in Scotland. In the light of the discussion that we had on the previous amendment, I thought it was right to point that out as well.

Does this mean that the Scots can do it more cheaply than the English? Is this another grievance—England against Scotland again, or are the Scots more enlightened people than we are?

I would say that they have a colder climate, but the answer to the noble Lord is that the effect of these amendments would be to bring us to the same level.

moved Amendment No. 20:

The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, who has a very definite memory and imagination can, I think, envisage, if his amendment is passed—another allowing nine months or 12 months will presumably come forward at Report stage—having a different kind of notice displayed, namely, one saying "Closing down sale of indecent exhibitions: buy early: we are closing in six months' time ". That is a situation which I do not think this Committee would like to see. I would have thought that a three-months term here was a very proper and appropriate one.

I hope the noble Lord will accept that three months does not sound very much, but the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, well knows that all booksellers, newsagents and the like have been aware of this Bill for at least the last six months and many of them have made the necessary changes already, as again no doubt the noble Lord also knows. Three months from the date when the Bill reaches the statute book, which hopefully will be by the end of next month, gives them from the beginning of the year, when they certainly knew it was coming along, nine months. I would have thought that that is really quite adequate time. Once the Bill is on the statute book we had better let it go forward and become effective as soon as may be.

However, in saying that, may I just add that the noble Lord is a little over-painting the picture with his words about the persecution of shopkeepers. He knows very well that that is not the case. This is simply a reasonable measure of protection to every family in the country, and to many men and women who are most anxious about the present displays and the effects they are having on their children. I am sure that he is as much in touch with the other place as I am—probably more—and knows what a very large number of Members of Parliament are approached by their constituents on this matter. As regards the question of persecution, the noble Lord has really got the picture the wrong way round.

My noble friend Lord Mishcon has a more vivid imagination than I have. I should not have thought that it would happen in that way. We are not stopping selling. They are only selling in a different part of the shop. In fact, they are selling in a part of the shop that a lot of people, who would not have bothered otherwise, will want to go to. They will want to look around behind the notice board and, if they are over 18, they will have freedom of access to look at what is there.

There is a lot of nonsense being talked about this Bill and its provisions, and what it is attempting to stop. I believe that this is almost Cloud Cuckoo-land, from the point of view of stopping what people basically want to stop. In many cases, it is not so much the public nuisance that they want to stop; it is the material that they want to get rid of, which is not in this Bill. However, I must have a full survey of how we have got on in the course of this evening's Committee stage of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw this amendment, along with others I have withdrawn, and will take stock for the next stage of the Bill. I am very grateful for the patience of most noble Lords here this evening and I feel satisfied that we have, at least, put some parts of the Bill that needed examination under closer examination than they have had before. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.