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

My Lords, work has been completed to improve access to Government offices in 39 of the 71 towns listed in 1978. The Property Services Agency expects work to be completed in another six during this financial year and in five more in 1982–83.

Schemes in 14 of the towns have been abandoned because no buildings suitable for adaptation could be identified. Investigations continue in the remaining seven towns.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that if my mental arithmetic is working, his reply means that three whole years after this admirable project was first introduced about a dozen Government office buildings will still not have been modified? Therefore, is not progress quite excessively slow and is there not a clear case for speeding this up and trying to complete this project—excellent as it is—in this International Year of Disabled People? Finally, can my noble friend give noble Lords an assurance that the original sum set aside for this project will be sufficient without having to be topped up?

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his supplementary question, although I think that his mathematics may be a little harsh on me. I share his concern that we should see rapid progress, and the Government are considering taking urgent steps to find solutions for the outstanding schemes. On the financial question, we believe that the money will be enough.

My Lords, in view of the widespread interest in access for the disabled, will the Minister consider publishing a list of the buildings that are to be altered and the time-scale? Can he also confirm that the National Railway Museum at York, which has extensive projects for disabled people, is included in this scheme?

My Lords, I can see no objection to the first supplementary of the noble Lord. So far as the second one is concerned, I have not got the information here but I shall of course let him know.

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

My Lords, the World Health Assembly, which is the governing body of the World Health Organisation, voted on 21st May to approve a resolution adopting an international code of marketing practice for breast-milk substitutes in the form of a recommendation to member states. This resolution was passed by an overwhelming majority of 118 votes to one with three abstentions. The United Kingdom delegation voted in favour of the resolution which the Government see as an important contribution to the aim of improving the standards of child-feeding throughout the world. The only delegation to vote against the resolution was that of the United States of America.

My Lords, is the Minister aware that many of us will want to welcome the attitude of the Government on this issue, and particularly the delegation which made a rebuke to the consortium of vested interests which lobbied against the code? Is it not the case that in third world conditions because of impure water, the absence of facilities for sterilisation, and the illiteracy of many of the mothers who cannot read the instructions, a million baby lives—hundreds already dead—have been endangered by past practices?

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for what he said about the Government's attitude. I entirely confirm what he said about the danger to babies where water is contaminated and conditions for preparing food are unhygienic. I entirely agree with his views generally that this is an extremely important matter and many lives of babies are at risk.

My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord must be surprised at being congratulated by my noble friend. May I add my own congratulations to Her Majesty's Government. May I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware—I am sure he is—that it is not only a question of impure water, but that the women separate the fat from the milk and give it to their husbands, and the babies therefore—"Hear, hear!", says the noble Leader—get not only impure, poisoned powder but un-nutritional stuff? Can we ask Her Majesty's Government to impress upon the United States' Government, if possible—and at every opportunity in the UN agencies, World Health, FAO, and everywhere else—the dreadful practice of the aggressive selling tactics that the companies go in for?

My Lords, the delegation from this country made their views extremely clear and they fully supported what the World Health Assembly were trying to do in the code of practice which has now been adopted. It was only adopted on 21st May and consultations will now be going on with the manufacturers and others interested in this matter. So far as the attitude of the United States is concerned, I think they know our views, but I do not think we can do very much more than we have already done.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that even in third world countries breast milk is infinitely preferable to artificial substitutes because it contains certain essential nutrients which are vital to the health and development of infants and which are not present in any of the artificial products on the market? Referring to the code of marketing practice which was adopted in the resolution, can the Minister say what steps the Government are taking to draw this to the attention of firms operating in this country, and whether in the resolution there is any method for enforcement?

My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord that the best food for babies is breast milk. It has many advantages, about which I do not think I need tell the House. Some noble Lords may think that a more appropriate person than myself should be answering the Question and that the combination of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, and I might be improved; but still this is where we stand.

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord what happens when the mothers are starving and have no milk? What aid will then come to them?

My Lords, if the mothers are starving and have no milk they will no doubt be unable to buy substitute milk.

My Lords, in this unusually congenial atmosphere may I ask the Minister if he would join us in paying tribute to War on Want, which first exposed this evil seven years ago, and whether he will either insert in the Official Report or place in the Library the actual terms of the code which has been adopted?

Yes, my Lords; I entirely agree with the noble Lord, and I shall certainly place this in the Library.

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

My Lords, there are no plans for commemorating this particular anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.

My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for that reply. In view of the ominous and growing suggestions of appeasement in the face of militant Irish Republican demands, which date from the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election, and which are by no means confined to the extreme Left, is it not time that the Government counter-attacked in the propaganda war by pointing out to people at home and abroad who may have forgotten, if they ever knew, the heroic sacrifices made by our fellow countrymen from Northern Ireland in both world wars, most notably at the Battle of the Somme?

My Lords, I fully recognise the question from the noble Lord. Very many brave Ulstermen lost their lives in the Battle of the Somme in the First World War, and again in the last war. May I also say that the 36th Ulster Division played a leading part in the Battle of the Somme, particularly in the most fearful part of the battle. A wreath laying ceremony is held each year in Northern Ireland to commemorate the anniversary of the battle. The Ministry of Defence were not approached through the different associations, nor was the embassy in Paris asking if this commemorating service should take place. Therefore, the last one, as the noble Lord knows, was in 1966, the 50th anniversary, and no application of this sort would seem to have been given.

My Lords, what reason can there be for not commemorating an outstanding event of this kind? Is the noble Viscount aware that this was one of the most sensational events in the First World War, and that many of us can recall it, and some of us have a personal interest because, like no doubt many other Members of your Lordships' House, some of our relatives were not only wounded but fatally wounded in that event? We have very vivid recollections of such events. Surely it is occasionally desirable to remind the public of some of the events of this character. It may not stir up their patriotic instincts, but it may have the effect of reminding people of the gallantry of thousands of our men, and particularly the young element of that time, and the political implications that developed as a result of that event.

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, for his question, and I sympathise with what lies behind it. It is important to remember those who were killed in the Battle of the Somme, a disasrous battle, and those who were killed in both world wars. Might I say to the noble Lord, Lord Monson, and to your Lordships, that of course many from all regiments in the United Kingdom and indeed the Commonwealth were killed, not only the brave men of Ulster but brave men throughout the United Kingdom as a whole.

My Lords, to keep the record straight, would the noble Viscount agree that there were also a very large number of people from what is now the Republic of Ireland who were killed in the Battle of the Somme fighting on our side?

I quite agree with the noble Viscount, my Lords; there were.

My Lords, may I ask the Minister to appreciate that some of us who were on the Somme in 1916 do not want to be reminded of it in any artificially glamorised way?

My Lords, I am aware that many noble Lords fought in that disastrous battle. I am also aware that many noble Lords have not wanted to know much more about it, apart from the fact that they were lucky to get out of it, and I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, is alive to tell me how the battle went and that he is here to join us in your Lordships' Chamber.

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

My Lords, the Government are continuing their consideration of all aspects of the death grant and will make an announcement as soon as this is complete.

My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for that Answer, may I draw her attention to the fact that the death grant has not been increased since 1967, that during those years inflation has gone up by 372·4 per cent., and that £30 is nowhere near enough to cover even a small part of the cost of a funeral, which at present day rates is £250 minimum?

Yes, my Lords, the Government are aware of those facts and recognise the difficulties they can cause for certain people. The fact that the death grant has not been reviewed since 1967 indicates how difficult it is to balance the various pressures towards reform which have built up over the years against the economic circumstances in which we find ourselves.

My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that the General Synod of the Church of England passed a Motion in 1978 calling on Her Majesty's Government to increase realistically the present death grant and to keep the matter under review? It was on the initiative of my own diocese that that Motion was passed. Have the Government in mind the desirability of making it possible for certain people to have the cost of the most simple of funerals by virtue of receiving a realistic death grant?

My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate for the point he made about the proposals of the Church and I would reassure him that, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has indicated, this matter is still under discussion. There are no definite proposals at present, because there are of course various ways, if it were regarded as right, of providing selective help which would not involve means testing as it is usually understood. All the different propositions are still under consideration but no decision has yet been taken.

My Lords, is the Minister aware that many elderly people are suffering acute anxiety over the problem of funeral costs? The approach of these old people is the need to be decently buried, and one can understand that. Many of them, because of their age, have fully paid up policies but could not afford, even if it were possible, to reinsure. However, the main question I wish to ask the noble Baroness, and of course it affects other people, is about the position of people receiving social security benefits, especially supplementary benefit. Do they get help if a death occurs in the family? This is an important issue on which I would be obliged to receive some information from the noble Baroness.

Yes, my Lords; people whose resources, with or without the death grant, are insufficient to meet funeral costs can apply for help by way of supplementary benefit. The noble Lord may like to know that out of about 600,000 deaths each year, during 1979 we believe that between 4,000 and 7,000 such payments were made.

I thank the noble Baroness for that reply, my Lords, because it will give a deal of comfort to a large number of people. Bearing in mind the urgency of the matter raised in the main Question, may I ask the noble Baroness to urge on the Government the necessity of speeding up a decision on this issue?

My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether she has any figures of the rate of death grant in other European countries, especially in the Common Market, so that we may compare them with the rates of death grant in this country?

I do not have those figures with me, my Lords.

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, raised some points about the Bill on Second Reading. I wish to assure him that they were gone into with great care by the Unopposed Bill Committee and I shall be writing to him. I beg to move.

rose to move, That Private Business Standing Order No. 216 (Hybrid Instruments) be dispensed with in relation to any further proceedings on the order.

My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the Order of Commitment be discharged.

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The principal intention of this Bill is to enable the disposal of shares in Amersham International Limited, known until its recent change of name as the Radiochemical Centre Limited. This is a company which has a worldwide reputation as a leading supplier of radioisotopes for industry, medicine and research. The Bill also clarifies the present powers of the Government to dispose of shares held in companies operating in the field of atomic energy in general, and clarifies the present powers of the Atomic Energy Authority to dispose of shares in any company. I shall explain later why the Bill has done this.

I should like to begin by explaining the background and history of Amersham International Limited. The beginnings of the enterprise go as far back as 1940, when the British Government invited a small company, called Thorium Limited, to undertake the refining of radium and radium-based luminous paint for use in compasses and other aircraft instruments. In 1954 the centre became part of the newly- created United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, whose primary purpose is to carry out research and development into atomic energy. Although the company has undoubtedly benefited from the increase in general scientific knowledge as a result of research into atomic energy, I ought to emphasise that Amersham International's products—namely, radioactive substances for use in medicine, industry and research—are not, I repeat, not, relevant to the nuclear power programme.

The story now moves on to 1971, when the relevant part of the Atomic Energy Authority's business was transferred by the Atomic Energy Authority Act 1971 to a wholly-owned subsidiary company set up under the Companies Acts and known as the Radiochemical Centre Limited. That was done to encourage proper commercial and financial disciplines, and it was also envisaged that there might be a minority private shareholding in the future. Since the organisation was reconstituted as a limited liability company, it has developed into a very successful worldwide business, employing some 2,000 people, and its future is even brighter with the recent fall in sterling. It manufactures radioactive drugs and sources for industrial use. From the modest beginnings of a house in Amersham, the development has grown to such an extent that the name of Amersham is synonymous in many parts of the world with the production of radioactive substances.

The present proposal to sell shares in Amersham International is a result of the Government's policy to introduce private capital into public sector companies where this is a feasible proposition. As I mentioned earlier, the idea of introducing private capital into the company is not new. When the centre was constituted as a limited company in 1971, the then Conservative Government said that they favoured eventual private participation in the company. That would also appear to have been the view in 1970 of the Labour Administration, who introduced a Bill similar to that which became the 1971 Act and which lapsed with the General Election in 1970. At the time of the 1971 Act the intention was that the Government and the authority would retain a majority shareholding between them, and this was provided for in the Act. No sale of shares has in fact been made. What we are now proposing is simply an extension of this philosophy; namely, to enable a majority, or all, of the shares to be sold.

I should like to say a few words in order to explain the main purpose of the Bill. As I have said, when the company was set up in 1971, it was then envisaged that a minority shareholding would be sold off at some time in the future. As a result, the Act provided for a majority of the company's voting shares to be retained in the public sector. Although the Government have made no decision on the number of shares to be sold, they wish to have the option of selling more than half. The Bill therefore removes the explicit provision in Section 11(3) of the 1971 Act, which requires that the Atomic Energy Authority and the Secretary of State between them should hold at least 50 per cent. of the voting shares.

Until recently, it was thought that, subject to that provision in the 1971 Act, the Secretary of State or the authority could dispose of any shares held by them. However, the Government have recently been advised that these general powers are constrained by the duties of the Secretary of State and the powers of the authority. This stems from the way in which atomic energy is defined in Section 8(1) of the Atomic Energy Authority Act 1954, which originally set up the Atomic Energy Authority. As I said earlier, Amersham's products are not relevant to the nuclear power programme, but the definition of atomic energy in the 1954 Act covers matters much wider than the nuclear power programme, and, in a technical legal sense, Amersham's activities come within that definition.

For those technical reasons, it is possible that the disposal of any of the shares held by the Atomic Energy Authority might be challenged as being inconsistent with the existing powers or duties. It is obviously necessary to clarify the general powers of disposal in this case. As these possible restrictions on the general powers of disposal are really an accident of earlier legislation, it seems wise to take the opportunity to clarify the position for the other two companies in which the authority holds shares—namely, British Nuclear Fuels Limited and the National Nuclear Corporation Limited and indeed for any shares in any other company that the Government or the authority may acquire in the future. The Bill therefore ensures that the authority has powers to sell any shares owned by it, and that the Secretary of State has powers to sell any shares held by him in companies operating in the atomic field. The purpose of this is quite simply to return the general situation to what, until recently, it was always thought to be.

The specific restriction on the disposal of more than half the voting shares in British Nuclear Fuels Limited, which was imposed by Section 11(3) of the 1971 Act, has been retained by the present Bill. While the Government wish to maintain the option, which was previously thought to exist, of selling a minority shareholding in British Nuclear Fuels, they have at present no plans to do so. Similarly, the option of selling shares in the National Nuclear Corporation is being kept open, although again there are no such plans at present. Therefore, apart from the case of shares in Amersham International, where the restriction on the sale of more than half the shares is lifted by this Bill, the Government's intention is purely that of clarification.

Although the Bill allows 100 per cent. of the shares to be sold, the Government have not yet made a decision on the precise proportion of shares to be sold, nor on the method of disposal. The Government are not thinking in terms of a disposal before next year at the earliest. I appreciate that some employees may be uncertain and anxious about the disposal, and I should like to reassure them that their worries are unnecessary. The Government recognise that it is the dedication and ability of the company's employees that have secured its success, and they have every wish to see Amersham International prosper in the future. My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy made this quite clear during the Bill's Third Reading in another place, when he said:

"In deciding precisely how the disposal will be made and the manner and number in which shares will be sold, the Government have every desire to see the company prosper. We would not agree to plans which would endanger the future of the company or the livelihood of those who work in it".—[Official Report, Commons, 20/5/81; col. 382.]

In conclusion, I would say that I believe that Amersham International's record of success demonstrates that it is perfectly capable of standing up for itself in tough, international markets. I believe that the Bill will benefit the country, Amersham International, and its staff. The Government see no benefit, either to the nation or to the company, in continuing to own all the company's shares. They wish to give the company the means and encouragement to develop in an atmosphere of the fullest commercial freedom and to allow it to build on its past success. My Lords, I beg to move.

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, for explaining this Bill to the House. He has done this most competently, if I may say so, as one would expect; but I am sorry that one of the noble Lord's first Bills from the Government Front Bench should be a Bill for which there seems to be little need—except, perhaps, for display as a trophy in some Tory Valhalla, where the household gods believe that all private enterprise is wondrous and every state-owned company is to be condemned.

As the noble Lord has said, the Bill will enable the sale of up to 100 per cent. of the shares in the Radio-chemical Centre Limited—a company owned by the AEA. The centre, which employs 2,000 people and is a world leader in its field, has received the Queen's Award four times for exports during the last few years. Turnover has risen in 10 years; and profits during this period have been £26 million, with a high average return on capital investment. The board consider, I understand, that the Government should retain some holding; and the staff of TRC believe that the Government should retain a controlling interest. In short, there does not seem to be any demand from management or the workforce for this change. Indeed, the staff, to whom the noble Lord paid tribute, are worried about their future under a new régime, and they have asked the Government for an undertaking not to sell more than 49 per cent. of the shares. Will the Government assure the House that the company will not be sold off willy-nilly to the highest bidder, and that preference will be given to a British controlling company?

The Bill also repeals the provision that shares should not be sold to mere investors with no interest or expertise in this field. I accept that the Secretary of State can stop a sale if this is not considered to be in the national interest. But how is that to be determined? The centre's success has been partly due to its close association with the AEA, and the fusion of scientific talent and research associated with the Atomic Energy Authority. What benefit will there be in severing these links? Will the Government consider allowing the AEA to continue to hold, say, 25 per cent. of the shares, so that these links are maintained? This would prevent TRC from being taken over by some multinational conglomerate with little direct interest in this field. What is to be the position of patents if the centre is to be taken over by a foreign company? Perhaps the noble Lord will tell the House when he comes to reply.

Finally, there is no provision in the Bill for a Government decision on disposal to be ratified by Parliament. This Bill will allow privatisation without any parliamentary accountability. As I have said, we on this side of the House can see no need for the Bill. TRC is to be sacrificed for doctrinaire reasons as the victim of Tory dogma and because this Government cannot bear to think of any successful enterprise being publicly owned.

My Lords, I thought I detected a considerable lack of enthusiasm indeed in the almost apologetic although competent manner in which the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, presented this little Bill to your Lordships on behalf of the Government. This is understandable in view of the extraordinary vagueness of the scope of this Bill. It seems to me, as the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has indicated, basically an unnecessary Bill.

The Liberal Party has always endeavoured to support measures to dispense with Government ownership of shares in enterprises, and to introduce private capital; but a Bill which is headed "Atomic Energy (Miscellaneous Provisions)", requires a more cautious approach to be adopted. The title immediately raises prima facie questions as to safety and control of atomic energy in its widest sense, particularly having regard to the wide definition of "atomic energy" in Clause 4 of the Bill. In view of the general vagueness of the scope of the Bill and the manner in which it has been presented by the Government to your Lordships, it may be that this Bill is in danger of turning into a kind of Red Riding Hood Bill, and that perhaps it is really a little wolf in sheep's clothing.

In the field of atomic energy it is a platitude to say that general safety standards and standards of control assume paramount importance. I of course am aware that much of the business of the Amersham Company is concerned with radioactive isotopes of great value to the medical profession. Arising out of that—and the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has emphasised how successful this company has been—it is not clear to me, however, whether, if the shares of this Amersham company are sold, these important isotopes, capable of being of such use for medical purposes, would be as readily available as they are now to United Kingdom medical institutions. There seems to me, therefore, an inherent commercial danger here, particularly if all the shares are allowed to go into the hands of a foreign company.

As the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, mentioned, there may be patents involved in the assets of the Amersham company. Your Lordships do not know who are the present licensees, if any, of these patents. If there are licensees, is there any obligation on the company at present to supply or to disclose to the licensees know-how relating to any form of atomic energy as defined in the Bill? It is common form to have disclosure of know-how in licence agreements under patents. If so, what are the sources from which the Amersham company now derive their know-how in the field of atomic energy? I have no information about this; and it would appear that in general your Lordships have no information about this important matter. Immediately, doubts must be raised—if, for example, information and know-how on atomic energy is to be supplied by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority—whether adequate safeguards, which only the Government can provide, have been included in this Bill. We really should have more information about the present commercial activities of the Amersham company if the Atomic Energy Authority and the Secretary of State are to dispose of all the shares.

As the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has indicated, what is clear is that this Amersham company is a highly successful company commercially and technologically. It has been successful over a large number of years. ft has competed successfully against intense foreign competition; and this success is due almost entirely to the splendid staff of that company. There are over 2,000 on this staff; and the success of the company is entirely due to very good management, the outstanding ingenuity and the skills of that staff. Large profits have been made, and these have been ploughed back regularly into the company so that very largely public money has not been used to subsidise the efforts of this splendid company.

If there is to be a disposal of shares, clearly a significant proportion of these shares—say, of the order of 20 per cent.—should be made available to the staff. But there is no indication in the Bill that the staff will be considered in any way if the shares of this Amersham company are to be disposed of. I submit that this gives the Government a splendid opportunity to put into practice schemes for employee participation on a substantial scale as a recognition, at least, of the splendid work that this staff has undertaken.

As I have said, I submit that the Atomic Energy Authority should, for a number of technical reasons, retain a substantial interest in Amersham International. It has been said in the other place that that kind of action would diminish the value of the shares, but in my view, depending on the source from which the company receives that technical information, if the Atomic Energy Authority were to retain some of the shares, such action might enhance the value of the shares and the assets to be disposed of. We on these Benches submit that no single company should acquire the remainder of the shares. Ownership of the shares should be diversified as widely as possible.

So far I have spoken to the Bill only as it refers to Amersham International. I should now like to turn briefly to the other company mentioned in the Bill, British Nuclear Fuels Limited. In the case of that company it is intended that the Atomic Energy Authority and the Secretary of State should continue to hold shares. This is understandable because that company is concerned, for example, with processing nuclear products, and therefore it is obvious that some direct control by the Secretary of State and the Atomic Energy Authority is necessary for safety reasons. It would appear therefore that it is largely for safety reasons that the Government do not propose to sell off the majority of the shares in British Nuclear Fuels. However, the Government are not proposing to retain the shares in Amersham International, and as at present advised it is not clear to me what is the technical dividing line between the activities of British Nuclear Fuels and Amersham International which justifies such different treatment in regard to the disposal of the shares. Perhaps the noble Lord the Minister will be able to clarify this point for me.

I have referred to the vagaries of the scope of this Bill and it seems to me that what is in the national interests should be defined somehow. There are some extraordinary clauses in the Bill. May I refer your Lordships to Clause 1(2), which states:

"The power of the Authority to dispose of shares shall, subject to the following provisions of this section, be exercisable"—

now comes the extraordinary passage:

"(a) whether or not the disposal is consistent with the exercise and performance of their functions.".

This seems to be very ambiguous, but it may mean that the Secretary of State can dispose of these shares despite, and irrespective of, the functions of the authority.

Clause 1(3) states:

"The power of the Secretary of State to dispose of shares shall, subject to the following provisions of this section, be exercisable—

(a) whether or not the disposal is consistent with promoting or controlling the development of atomic energy.".

It seems to me that this is too wide a clause to include in a Bill of this kind dealing with atomic energy, but these matters will be dealt with later, at the Committee stage. In the other place my party, the Liberal Party, voted against the Bill at the Second and Third Readings. Obviously we cannot go as far as that in your Lordships' House, but I have real doubts whether it is really necessary for this Bill to go forward at all, or at least not without substantial amendment.

My Lords, there was only one sentence in Lord Strabolgi's speech to which I took exception, although I also took exception to an implication in the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran. The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, very promptly put a point of view, and that is part and parcel of his job. He put his point of view very well. He explained the importance of various sections of the authority and the way in which it ought to be preserved because of the vital nature of the functions which it carries out. But he skimmed over another aspect, when he said that the national interest has to be left in the hands of the Secretary of State and that one did not know what that interest was.

I took exception to those remarks by the noble Lord, and to a lesser extent to those made by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, when he spoke about not interfering with the efficiency of the Atomic Energy Authority. What better person than the Secretary of State to decide what is in the national interest? Is the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, saying that we in this country have reached a situation where, because there happens to be a party difference over the general principle of whether the authority should be solely or partly owned by the country, that that would interfere with the impartiality and the acumen of the Secretary of State of the day? The moment we allow that to be acceptable as a basis then we can do nothing. I know of no occasion when this side of your Lordships' House questioned the impartiality or ability of the Secretary of State when the party opposite were doing things which, on principle, we thought were wrong but which provided for the Secretary of State to have the final say. The Secretary of State has more knowledge than anybody else and has access to more advice than anybody else in making such a decision.

In a matter such as this, one cannot be precise. The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, being an expert in patent law, knows that in this particular field one cannot anticipate what might happen. One cannot anticipate who will bid for the shares. One cannot anticipate the qualifications of the people who may bid for the shares, when it comes to knowing anything about the work that has to be done and the atomic energy matters which they would have to deal with. When one has the safeguard of involving the Secretary of State—and one should remember that it may not be the present Secretary of State concerned, but a Secretary of State from the other party—then I for one have enough confidence (although certain things might happen which could undermine my confidence) in the people from either party who are likely to hold the high office of Secretary of State, to know that they would not allow shibboleths of party belief to interfere in what, with all the special knowledge they have, they believe to be in the nation's interests.

The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, skimmed over that and rather doubted the ability of the Secretary of State to do an impartial job. On a matter such as this one either has to do nothing and allow matters to deter- iorate, if one's belief is that matters would deteriorate if one altered the structure of ownership, or one has to place one's trust in somebody to know what is happening on a day-to-day basis, what is likely to be in the nation's interest, and to act accordingly.

I cannot anticipate a Secretary of State, from either side of your Lordships' House, failing to veto as shareholders undesirable people from another part of the world. I cannot envisage a Secretary of State from either side of your Lordships' House who, seeing that the people who were bidding for the shares were doing so to accumulate them for speculative reasons and did not understand the business, would allow their purchase of the shares to go forward. I believe that from the choices we are likely to have as to who is to exercise this vital power, the one proposed is that one would wish to have. It has worked in the past and I know of no alternative to it.

I am rather sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, skimmed over this and made the implication that he did. I can think of no safer way of doing the right thing than letting the ultimate power be in the hands of the Secretary of State, with all of his colleagues in the Government to share and to come to some conclusions to see that we are doing the right thing.

My Lords, the noble Lord has been so kind to me that I hesitate to interrupt; but has he thought of the second-stage position, as it were, where the Secretary of State has approved the sale to firm X; and firm X now is in complete control and then sells it to Y? If he is satisfied about the safeguards initially, is he satisfied at the transfer all along the line?

My Lords, I am saying that nobody is more likely than the Secretary of State, with his special knowledge and access to knowledge, to know whether firm X is a bona fide buyer which will remain or whether it is merely in transit in order to make a quick profit. No one can ascertain that more quickly than the Secretary of State. That safeguard is fundamental. If it is on the question of principle where there may be differences of view as to the hiving-off and if one forgoes that, then the safeguard of the Secretary of State being there is one likely to prevent us getting into the kind of trouble that the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, envisaged or even that which the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, mentioned. I intervened because I thought that a rather dangerous sentence for the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, to put in his speech, and the rest of it did not justify having to deviate from the established practice in looking after the nation's interests.

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to explain that all that I was asking was how difficult it was to define the "national interest". I take the point of the noble Lord and we are glad to have him here from Europe. Having served in Government, I have as much respect as he has for the Secretaries of State. All I was asking is how this can be defined. It may be that the Secretary of State for Energy may not want it. He may be overruled by a more powerful department—say, the Foreign Office—who might want to have this sale made for diplomatic reasons. I take the point that the noble Lord has made, but these are some of the difficulties that may arise.

My Lords, I am sorry to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, regards me as one who provides trophies to hang on the wall in some Conservative Valhalla. Can I push the argument to him? Why on earth does he think we have a public sector in this country? I believe that there are only three reasons, one of which the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, will not appreciate. These are for companies which are concerned with defence or where it is in the national interest that they should be so, or where the Government, in some exceptional circumstances, should provide a safety net. Rolls-Royce is an obvious example of this, for which we are frequently criticised. Once any of these is no longer required, it is the Government's philosophy—and I cannot state it more clearly—that there is no earthly reason for keeping any firm in the public sector.

I have described the reason for keeping Amersham International Limited in the public sector as a carryover, an historical accident. That is what it is. The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, asked me the difference between BNFL and Amersham international. The answer is that they are in quite different categories. The one is an historical accident carried over from the formation of the Atomic Energy Authority and originally, as I said in my opening speech, it came into the defence category where it was making luminous paints for aircraft instrument dials. As regards British Nuclear Fuels, it will, as far as I am concerned, for all time for obvious reasons remain in the national interest to keep it principally in the public sector. This the Government will continue to do.

The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, asked about the position of the staff. The staff representatives met my honourable friend Mr. Lamont, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, on two occasions and the management on, I think, four occasions. I, too, have been to see the management of this company. Both the staff and the management have expressed anxiety that the integrity and independence of the company should be safeguarded. This was the point the noble Lord drew attention to. They would like the Atomic Energy Authority to retain 25 per cent. of the shareholding and the employees to be allowed to acquire a shareholding in the region of 10 per cent., with an undertaking that the company would not be sold to either a single foreign or a single British buyer. While not closing off any of the options for sale, my honourable friend has assured them that the Government will not sell shares in such a way as to endanger the future of the company. That would be a ludicrous thing to do. It would be too silly for words.

Although the Bill enables the sale of up to 100 per cent. of the shares, we have not decided how many will be sold or who the purchasers will be. We will want to consider all the options carefully to ensure that the disposal is in the interests of Amersham International Limited as well as in the national interest. In deciding on the method and extent of the sale, we will have the future of the company very much in mind and would never agree to plans which would jeopardise the future of the company or its workforce. My honourable friend has undertaken to consult with the staff before any major decisions are made.

On the question of a corporate buyer, if the Government were to go down this route, they would want to be sure that the sale had industrial logic and that company was not just going to be bought and then broken up. The important criterion would be that the purchaser should be responsible and likely to enhance the company's prosperity. On the employees' shareholding, the Government will consider various possibilities and this will depend in part on the advice of the financial advisers which will be needed for the proposed sale. It must be recognised that if the Government decide to sell shares to a corporate buyer, introducing such a scheme would present considerable problems and might not be feasible. We shall have to be guided by the advice given at the time.

The noble Lords, Lord Strabolgi and Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, talked about patents. Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, having been instrumental in dealing with the Patents Bill two years ago, knows more about this subject than I do. The thing is that Amersham International is already a Companies Act company and therefore any patents in the future would carry on in the same way as at present.

My Lords, I hesitate to intervene but I asked a difficult question and I was not expecting the noble Lord to reply at the present time.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. The noble Lord then went into what are basically Committee points on various words in the Bill. To save time, may I recommend him to look at the two earlier Acts to which I referred—the 1954 Act (which set up the Atomic Energy Authority) and 1971 Act—because, when we get to the Committee stage on this Bill, we shall be referring a lot to those Acts, and making the position of those Acts clearer. We have used the same words as in those Acts.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, asked me about the safeguards, and as, I understand it, there is no reason to believe that a disposal of Amersham International Limited would result in the Atomic Energy Authority's secret information becoming divulged to others capable of acting against the public interest. This would be one of the matters that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State would recognise as being very firmly in the public interest. I am very grateful for the words of my noble friend, who has helped me out of a considerable hole and made a far better speech than I have.

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill now be read a second time. It gives me particular pleasure to move the Second Reading of this Education Bill because I am acutely aware of the interest and knowledge many of your Lordships have in those members of our society who are in any way handicapped. This was demonstrated during the debate we had in January on the International Year of Disabled People. Your Lordships have long awaited this Bill on the education of children with special educational needs and I am glad that at last it is before this House. We look forward this afternoon especially to hearing from the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox. I hope we shall hear from her on many occasions.

Before turning to the detailed provisions of the Bill, I should like to make a few general points. I think it is important that your Lordships appreciate at the outset that this is not a Bill which deals solely with the educational problems of disabled children. Nor indeed is it a measure that is confined to what we have traditionally termed handicapped children. It is a Bill which tackles the problems of perhaps some 20 per cent. of the school population who have at some time in their school lives what we have termed a "special educational need".

The Bill is based on the recommendations made in the Warnock Report for a reform of the statutory framework governing the provision of special education in a way that would help break down artificial barriers between handicapped and non-handicapped pupils. It is therefore right to acknowledge that the philosophy behind this Bill has its origin in the Warnock Report and I should like to place on record our thanks to Mrs. Mary Warnock and her Committee for their work.

The Bill now before your Lordships lays the foundation for the further development of special education along lines recommended by the Warnock Committee. It proposes a radical change in existing arrangements by replacing the present system of ascertainment based on medical examination and assignment to a category of handicap with a new concept of a group of children with special educational needs within which a small percentage will require careful multi-professional assessment to reveal the totality of their special educational needs. Thus the Bill is not a measure which attempts to tinker with existing statute but one that starts afresh.

I should like to draw attention to two features in the proposed legislation which I trust will commend themselves to your Lordships. For the first time local education authorities are enabled to make provision for very young children. That is, babies and toddlers under the age of two. This is most important as I believe there can be no doubt that early help can be particularly beneficial for some handicapped children.

The second feature is the stress laid throughout the Bill on the involvement of parents in decisions made about the special educational provision for children with severe learning difficulties. Many of your Lordships will recall that during our discussions last year on what is now the 1980 Education Act, I promised that this Bill would do everything possible to strengthen the rights of parents of handicapped children. I believe that I can fairly claim that this has been achieved.

In bringing this Bill before you it would be wrong of me to pretend that it has been without criticism during its passage through another place. As you will know, the Bill there was the subject of an experimental Committee stage which allowed honourable Members on the Committee to call and question witnesses, including Mrs. Warnock and myself, before beginning detailed consideration of the Bill. It was mainly during these sessions and at the earlier Second Reading stage that there was a criticism about the lack of resources for special education.

In the hope that our debates will centre more on the provisions of the Bill and less on the general economic climate, I should like to make it clear that it is simply not true that there is no money available for special education. The Government's expenditure forecasts allow for broadly level funding for special schools over the next few years despite the fact that pupil numbers will fall by 10,000. This, coupled with a reappraisal of the deployment of existing resources which will be occasioned by this Bill, should enable local education authorities to make modest improvements in their special educational provision.

While I should have liked to announce that the Bill was to be accompanied by a massive injection of extra resources, it is not true to state that nothing can be done without extra money. I do not believe I could have stood at this Dispatch Box and told your Lordships, particularly during this International Year of the Disabled, that the Government were going to ignore the recommendations of Mrs. Warnock and leave the statutory framework unchanged. Much has already been done and will continue to be done to improve our system for special education and it is the Government's view that obsolescent law should be removed and replaced by this Bill so that further development can take place in line with the availability of existing and future resources.

I have no doubt that the measures proposed in the Bill are soundly based and that the changes proposed will have a considerable effect. One important by-product of the Bill will be in the way that it forces all of us to re-examine our attitudes towards the child with special educational needs and, ultimately I hope to change the attitudes of society as a whole towards the handicapped person.

I turn now to another issue limked with the question of resources; namely, teacher training. "Teacher training" is an umbrella term which covers many disparate types of training. Unfortunately, this means that discussions on teacher training can become very confused. There are basically three kinds of teacher training: initial training, specialised training for specific handicaps and in-service training. This latter term itself covers many different types of training. So far as initial teacher training is concerned, what I believe is required is a greater student awareness of the kinds of special educational needs likely to be encountered in the classroom. I am pleased to say that there has already been a response among colleges of education and universities to meet this need.

In-service training is equally important in increasing awareness among serving teachers, and there are already some courses specifically designed to help teachers recognise and meet special educational needs encountered in the classrooms of ordinary schools. But it is not just more courses that are necessary. There are other approaches. For example, I was impressed with the evidence given to the Commons Special Standing Committee by one headmistress when she said:

"…there is a need for the entire staff to have an occasional full day in-service training using local authority resources. That is one way of getting over the financial difficulties. To send one or two members of staff away for a term, even if the money is available, is not the answer to the problem".—[Official Report. Special Standing Committee on the Education Bill. Col. 169.]

Furthermore, I believe it is essential that we remember that the Bill does not create a new type of pupil. The children covered by this Bill exist now and are being taught now, mainly in ordinary schools, by a trained and qualified teaching profession. The Bill does not presage the wholesale movement of children from special schools into ordinary schools, and in this respect it is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. We are not therefore faced with a need to re-train the whole teaching profession overnight and the development of initial and in-service training must be viewed against this background.

I should like to turn now to one area which would require legislation but which is not covered in the Bill. The Government have acknowledged that it is not possible to extend any of the provisions in the Bill to the further education sector until the whole legal basis for the provision of further education has been reviewed and decisions taken on any necessary legislative reforms.

Your Lordships may be aware that a working party consisting of officials of my department, the Welsh Office and the local authority associations has now completed its initial review and their report was published last week. This report will now be the subject of widespread consultation and I hope noble Lords will not be inhibited in making their views known to my department. I understand that copies of the report are available in the Printed Paper Office.

While the further education sector is excluded from the Bill, I am encouraged by the ways in which colleges and universities are already beginning to respond positively to the needs of the handicapped student. Some universities and polytechnics have set up special committees for the handicapped and have appointed special student counsellors for the disabled to keep in touch with the students and their tutors to help solve their problems. Southampton and Sussex Universities have opened special residential units which are specially equipped and serviced for handicapped students. Additionally, I note that nearly 1,700 students at the Open University identify themselves as having a disability, which demonstrates how useful this approach to higher education can be for some handicapped students.

Not all children with special educational needs will be able to benefit from higher education and there will be some who move on to other provision once they leave school. I should like to place on record here the position over the provision of teachers to adult training centres. Noble Lords who have followed the debates in another place will have noted that my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary promised to introduce into this Bill an amendment to allow LEAs to provide teachers to training centres. I am happy to report to this House that we are now advised that such powers already exist under the National Health Service Act 1977 and the Local Authorities (Goods and Services) Act 1970. I shall therefore ensure that our post-legislative guidance to LEAs covers this point, as I am anxious that LEAs know of their powers in this respect.

At this point it would be wrong of me not to place on the record the co-operative spirit which has been a feature of discussions in another place. I take pleasure in being able to place before you a Bill which is supported on all sides. I feel sure that we can approach our consideration of the Bill in the same manner. This is not to say that we will not have our differences of opinion about detail, but the Government are ready to listen to the arguments and to see this House improve the Bill in any reasonable way.

I turn now to the detailed provisions of the Bill. Clause 1 contains the definition of "special educational needs". This definition was the subject of a long period of consideration both within my department and with colleagues in other departments. The essential feature of the definition is that it is based on the concept of a learning difficulty. It thus embraces what has been conveniently called Warnock's 1 in 6 of school children. Furthermore, no reference is made to the causal factors which give rise to learning difficulties. We can thus dispense with categorisation according to handicapping condition and concentrate on the individual child's special educational needs. The only exclusion from the definition is children whose sole problems derive from language difficulties. We have excluded them not because they do not have educational needs, which LEAs are already under a duty to meet, but because we wish to avoid the position arising whereby children from ethnic minorities feel themselves, however misguidedly, as being classified as handicapped because they have yet to gain a full understanding of the language of instruction.

Clause 2 of the Bill is largely concerned with placing duties on LEAs and governors of ordinary schools to ensure that the majority of pupils who have special educational needs and who are already in these schools have those needs acknowledged and catered for. LEAs are also required to keep the totality of their special educational provision under review.

Clause 2 also contains our statement of principle on the question of integration and association. We firmly believe that the largest possible number of children with special educational needs should be educated in ordinary schools. But this must be subject to certain safeguards and we must acknowledge that we are not talking here only of physically handicapped pupils but also of the deaf, the blind, the mentally handicapped and the emotionally disturbed children, all of whom have a variety and degree of learning difficulty. For some children because of their requirements for intensive care and supervision, or because of their emotional disturbance, it will not ever be realistic to think of integration into an ordinary school. Special schools will therefore have a continuing place in our education system, but where it is possible to integrate children the Government believes this should be the goal. The pace of integration will continue to be gradual but I have every hope that the provisions in this clause will give it added impetus, for in the longer term it is only through educating children together that society's attitudes towards the handicapped will be fundamentally changed.

Clause 3 of the Bill is essentially a re-expression of an existing power to allow LEAs to make special educational provision otherwise than at school. This power is required by LEAs to make arrangements for home tuition and to provide education for children in hospital. The clause has, I believe, been improved in another place by an amendment which brought parental consultation into Clause 3.

Clause 4 of the Bill is an important landmark because it is here that the legislation provides for the education of the 2 per cent. of children who under the present law would probably be ascertained as handicapped. The clause places LEAs under a duty to identify any child over the age of two for whom they believe they should determine the special educational provision to be made to meet the child's special educational needs.

Having once identified these children, Clause 5 sets out the procedures for the commencement of the assessment. Most importantly, Clause 5 lays down how LEAs must go about consulting the child's parents before commencing formal assessment. LEAs are required at the outset to give parents the name of an officer they can contact for further information. The Clause is linked to Part I of Schedule 1 to the Bill, which contains the Secretary of State's power to make regulations governing the conduct of such assessments and your Lordships will note here that the assessments will have to include as a minimum, medical, psychological and educational advice. Here, then, is the multi-professional assessment which was rightly regarded by the Warnock Committee as essential for the discovery of a child's individual special educational needs.

As I mentioned earlier, the Bill gives LEAs for the first time powers in respect of babies and toddlers. Clause 6 therefore empowers LEAs to assess the needs of a child aged under two, providing they have the parents' consent, and places them under a duty to make such an assessment upon parental request. LEAs are, however, given a degree of flexibility in the way they approach this task because of the age of the child covered by the clause.

In respect of a child over the age of two, once assessment has been made the LEA must, if it considers it necessary to determine the special educational provision to be made to meet the needs of a child as revealed by that assessment, make and maintain a written statement of those needs and the provision to be made. These requirements are contained in Clause 7 of the Bill and your Lordships will wish to note that the parents are again to be involved before the LEA proceeds to make the special educational arrangements specified in the statement.

Once the statement has been made LEAs are obliged to provide the parents with the name of a person from whom they may obtain information and advice about their child's special educational needs. This provision in the Bill for a "named person" resulted from an amendment in another place which was put forward, with some Government help in drafting, by members of the All Party Disablement Group. The provision is carefully drafted so as to allow LEAs maximum flexibility in making imaginative appointments. There is no restriction on whom the authority chooses to assign to the role of named person.

I pause now to remind the House of the debates we had during our consideration of the choice of school arrangements now embodied in the 1980 Education Act. Your Lordships will recall that there were considerable pressures on the Government to introduce similar arrangements for the parents of handicapped pupils. As a result, I made a statement to your Lordships on 3rd March last year that this Bill would contain, so far as was practicable, parental rights of appeal over special educational provision akin to those given to other parents. I trust the House will note that we have honoured this commitment; and Clause 8 of the Bill allows parents who are dissatisfied with the provision as set out in the statement to appeal to the local appeal committees which will be established under the provisions of the 1980 Act. However, in considering appeals from the parents of children who are the subject of statements, the appeal committee's decision will not be binding.

I must acknowledge that there has been some criticism—I believe misplaced—of this modification of the appeal committee's powers. I say "misplaced" because we have to acknowledge that the circumstances here will be completely different. We must all recognise that there will be real differences in the circumstances when the appeal is about the provision to be made for a child who is the subject of a statement. When a local education authority make a statement under this Bill, they are placing themselves under a particular responsibility towards the individual child. They are deciding that it is appropriate for the authority to decide on the provision to be made for the child, and they are placing a duty on themselves to make that provision. That responsibility is not one which can be assumed by an appeal committee.

Furthermore, the considerations in these appeals will be different from those in the normal run of appeals under the 1980 Act. In those cases the question to be resolved will be the choice of school on grounds of parental preference. For children who are the subject of statements, however, the question is more likely to be how well the school or other provision proposed will match the needs of the child.

The appeal committee may need to look in detail at the assessment of the child's needs, and to consider and question the professional judgments of the multidisciplinary team involved in the assessment. Nevertheless, an appeal committee may have legitimate doubts about what the LEA are proposing to do for an individual child, and they therefore have the power to refer the matter back to the LEA for reconsideration. Clause 8 requires the LEA to reconsider such cases and if, after this process has been completed—and it may well be necessary for the LEA to undertake a fresh assessment—the parents remain dissatisfied, then they are given a specific right of appeal to the Secretary of State. This is a right which is not enjoyed by parents of other children.

Needless to say, I have every hope that the arrangements in the Bill for the involvement of parents throughout the assessment procedures will make recourse to an appeal committee a very rare occurrence. Parents are given every opportunity to become involved in the procedures. I am sure that wise counselling of the parents, by the professionals concerned with the assessment of an individual child, should ensure that they have understood the advice being given to the LEA about their child's special educational needs. Indeed, if the parents have recourse to an appeal committee, it is likely to be indicative of a failure somewhere along the line, either in explaining to the parents the problems faced by their child and the best way of dealing with them, or in convincing parents who hold views firmly opposed to those of the LEA.

Clause 9 of the Bill contains provisions to allow parents to ask LEAs for an assessment or reassessment of their child's special educational needs. Parents will thus be able to trigger the assessment procedures in cases where they are worried about their child's development.

Clause 10 is a new clause, which was added to the Bill in another place. It places health authorities under a duty to notify a child's parents and the education authority if they have reason to believe that a child aged under five has, or is likely to have, special educational needs. The duty embraces very young babies up to children of compulsory school age, and will clearly assist LEAs in the early identification of children with special educational needs.

The procedures for the Secretary of State's approval of maintained and non-maintained special schools and independent schools wishing to cater for children with statements are contained in Clauses 11, 12 and 13. I mention two points. The Secretary of State is given powers for the first time to make regulations as to his requirements for the conduct of the independent sector, in so far as it provides special educational provision. Secondly, the Government have given a firm undertaking that non-maintained special schools will be required to have governing bodies including parent and teacher representatives, as a condition of their approval by the Secretary of State.

By virtue of Clause 14, the Bill removes an anomaly whereby the law presently allows LEAs to close special schools without reference to the Secretary of State or without notifying parents. In future, parents and other interested parties will have to be notified of intended school closures and will have the opportunity of raising objections before the Secretary of State approves or rejects a closure proposal. Special schools closures will thus be brought into line with other maintained schools.

Clauses 15 and 16 bring the school attendance procedures, in respect of children who are the subject of statements, into line with the provisions of the 1980 Act; and the remainder of the Bill is largely concerned with technical points and transitional provisions for those children currently ascertained as handicapped or attending special schools.

This, then, is the broad scope of the proposed legislation. I am conscious of the technical nature of some of the Bill's provisions and if I, or any of my officials, can help your Lordships come to grips with the complexities of the legislation, we are only too willing to help either inside or outside this Chamber. As I said earlier, I hope that we can all work together to place on the statute book a piece of legislation which will serve the best interests of children with special educational needs for many years to come. I firmly believe that, with your Lordships' help, 1981 will be recognised as the year when the best of good practice was enshrined in legislation, and what better way of marking this the International Year of Disabled People? My Lords, I beg to move.

My Lords, may I say that we, too, are very much looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox. We all know of the great experience that she has in this field. We are, of course, grateful to the Minister for her very clear exposition of the Bill and for news of certain welcome developments in a number of areas; which, indeed, the fact of the Bill coming into being may have encouraged. We are grateful, too, that the Government have brought forward a Bill based on some of the recommendations of the Warnock Report, and that that report has not been put on the shelf beside various other reports of Royal Commissions—Lord Rothschild's on Gambling, Professor Williams' on Obscenity and Lord McGregor's on the Press. We are glad that it has not suffered that fate, or the fate of about 50 reports commissioned by the DES, which, according to an Answer to my honourable friend Mr. Frank Field in another place, have not even been debated in the House.

We can be grateful that the Government have shown a little flexibility in Committee and at Report stage in another place, and that a few improvements have been made to a Bill that has been described as merely cosmetic, a fraud and giving little evidence of any Government intention vigorously to promote any serious advances in special education. I hope that we can improve the Bill still further in this House.

I want to move at once to what I look upon as the crucial issue, crucial to those with special educational needs and to their parents—the issue of integration. This is of major interest and concern and the only parts of the Bill that deal with it—in a Bill of 21 clauses and four schedules—are two subsections of Clause 2. One of those two subsections that deal with integration gives a total let-out to a local authority that does not want to be bothered. It will be only too easy to make up excuses, and say that having handicapped children in a school is not compatible with the provision of efficient education for the children with whom they will be educated. This discriminates very positively against children with special educational needs, as also does Clause 2(3)(c) where, if educating a child in an ordinary school is incompatible with the efficient use of resources, an LEA can opt out. This clause of the Bill will need clarification and strengthening in Committee.

I should have thought that the benefits of integration, whether in the mildest form of locational integration, when special education takes place on the site of a normal school, or in the form of social integration, when the children share facilities in some activities—maybe eating or playing together—or in the fullest form of integration, when handicapped children join in the normal curriculum on a full or part-time basis, ought to have received much more attention in the Bill.

Authorities are not even having a duty put upon them to produce plans for action over a number of years, which I should have thought would be the minimum requirement. The reason is not hard to guess. Integration must cost money, both in physical terms—ramps, lifts, lavatories and so on—and, more importantly, in trained teachers who can fully understand the difficulties and who have learned to cope with them; indeed, in simply having enough teachers.

The Warnock Committee said in Chapter 7, paragraph 12, that,

"The slightest participation in ordinary class activities can be strikingly beneficial to children with special educational needs, and their total exclusion should not be accepted before every possibility has been considered".

I was very interested last week when attending a Youth Affairs Lobby meeting in this House, where disabled young people were talking to us, to hear one who suffered from cerebral palsy say that it took him three years to feel easy in ordinary society and to catch up socially after he had left his residential school. The difficulties of isolation and remoteness from ordinary life were stressed by others there.

In the last week I have talked to two people I know well whose handicapped children had moved in the last nine months from special schools—very good ones, they admitted—to ordinary schools. They said that the difference to the children had been tremendous. They had got on better with their work, they had made friends with ordinary children and gained confidence generally. The model of the ordinary child is necessary for disabled children. On the other side of the coin, the earlier normal, healthy, ordinary children are made aware of the difficulties of those less lucky than themselves, the more ready they are to accept them and help them.

The USA legislated six years ago to achieve integration. All children are to be educated together, accept where the nature or severity of the handicap is such that education in ordinary classes cannot be achieved satisfactorily. However, I should like to make it clear that, although I am in favour of as much integration as possible, I am certain that special schools will remain an essential provision and that some children will be best served by being educated in them for the whole of their school life.

Good planning for integration is essential, and here we come back to resources. The section on the financial effects of the Bill says:

"It should not give rise to significant additional expenditure".

Warnock, in Chapter 7.56, says that the integration in ordinary shools of children currently ascertained as handicapped, if achieved without loss of educational quality, is not a cheap alternative to provision in separate special schools and that there is no short cut. Nobody, I am sure, would want this Bill to encourage integration on the cheap. Mrs. Warnock in her evidence to the Select Committee said she feared that some authorities would move children from special schools into ordinary schools without adequate provision and then claim that they were acting in the spirit of the Bill. "I feel most missionary about this", she said.

The Minister has just said in her speech that 18 per cent. of the children with the needs which Warnock is talking about are already in ordinary schools. But I believe the report brings out clearly that these are the children who need to be identified, who need some extra and special education and that teachers, adequately trained and experienced, are needed for them. I still think that the Bill is very much more about the 2 per cent. of children, most of whom are already in special schools, than about the 18 per cent. which the report says are in need of special educational provision in ordinary schools.

On 16th June the Government issued a circular, 2/81, asking local authorities to review their plans on surplus school places. Interestingly enough, I discovered that some CEOs had not received the circular before they read about it in the press. The circular urges local authorities to close a number of schools, to rationalise provision and to send information on the numbers and expected numbers in their schools in 1981 and right through to 1986. This information is requested for special schools, too. So one assumes that some of these will be expected to close. If school buildings are to be sold off, is the department thinking of putting money from the sale of these into resources for implementing Warnock and integration? Or is the money to go into the general pool? I think the least they can do is to finance some pilot schemes of integration or to support pilot schemes which are already under way in some more imaginative authorities. These would not cost vast sums. Experiments by forward-looking people in different local authority areas are often the way in which progress is made. The Warnock Report quotes a number of successful experiments in Chapter 7.12. I heard only the other day of a comprehensive school at Angmering in Sussex, a school of 1,100 pupils, where 80 to 90 disabled are being very successfully integrated and readily accepted by both staff and pupils. I understand that Haringey has been very successful in integrating deaf children into ordinary schools.

Developments in teacher education and initial training, in in-service training, were among Warnock's three main priorities. No mention is made of this in the Bill, though the Minister did give us some welcome news in her speech just now. Nor indeed has the idea of a unified special education advisory and support service been mentioned in the Bill. Without this, the report says that the three priority recommendations are unlikely to be successfully implemented. The role of special schools as resource centres is not mentioned in the Bill. Some statutory duties should be put on local authorities to cover some of these points.

I want also to raise another of Warnock's three priority recommendations: the provision of post-16 education training for pupils with special educational needs. I understand that the definition of "child" in Clause 20(1) to include anyone who has not attained the age of 19 and who is registered as a pupil at a school means, if read in conjunction with Clause 2, that the local education authority will have a duty to provide education in a school for such pupils until 19. Before the school-leaving age was raised to 16, children in special schools had to stay on an extra year. This is no longer the case. I should like to know what exactly are the Government's intentions on this. I had regarded it as a very great weakness in the Bill that no provision is made for further education for those with special needs, although it may be that something is contemplated as a result of this document, The Legal Basis of Further Education, which, unfortunately, I acquired only last night and therefore have not had time to study properly.

The White Paper said that it is a weakness of the law governing further education that it makes no specific reference to the needs of handicapped students. In spite of this, the ideal opportunity, one would think, to legislate in this Bill has not been taken. I understand that reference is made to what was said in the White Paper in paragraph 11, which says that action is not being taken because of the wider review of the law which is the subject of this report. Paragraph 37 deals with special education and further education, and says:

"We take the Government's recognition of the need to clarify the law in this respect as meaning there ought to be a duty on local education authorities at least to have regard to the need to ensure that appropriate provision is available for students with special educational needs".

I am not sure that I consider that "at least to have regard to the need" is quite enough, but as this document came out so shortly before the Second Reading of this Bill I think we shall have to pursue these matters in Committee.

I hope that other Bills going through this House at the moment will make the problem of access to further education establishments easier for the physically handicapped. I hope, too, that physically handicapped young people will not be obliged to go to certain establishments just because they are the only ones they can get into. It is the courses which they want to follow that should determine where they go. We should deplore any attempts at concentrating or rationalising facilities which could lead to the arbitrary allocation of students to certain universities or colleges of higher education without proper regard to individual choice or the suitability of the course. When considering what further education or training a pupil should follow, good careers advice is essential. Again we hear nothing of this in the Bill. I hope that in the clause which prescribes the duties which are put on local educational authorities we can introduce a subsection to ensure that they have on their advisory staff at least one officer who is a specialist in this field.

Closely allied to the lack of education/training provision for those over 16 is the ignoring of the Warnock recommendation that local education authorities should become responsible for a specific educational element in adult training and day centres. I understand that in Committee it was said that it is already possible for teachers to work there, and the Minister confirmed that just now. If, however, as I believe, it would be positively advantageous for that educational element to be there, I can see no reason for not having it written into the Bill, thus ensuring that the less forward-looking authorities are brought up to the level of the more far-sighted. It seems to me totally inconsistent for there to be a teaching input in day nurseries for one age group, the under-fives, and not in another, the over-16s, where perhaps it is even more vital.

I should like to turn to the position of parents as the Bill affects them. The Minister has spoken about this. It is good that the Government have given them a greater involvement in the education and assessment of children with special needs, as described in Clause 5, and that they have certain rights of appeal. Parents of children who have statements made about them can appeal against the special education provision specified in the statement to an appeal committee as set up under the 1980 Act. But that committee cannot finally determine the issue, as it can for children with no statements. This emphasises the fact that you are creating two classes of children, those with and those without statements, and are positively discriminating against the parents of those children. I see the problem, and the Minister has expanded upon it, but I am not convinced of the rightness of the decision, even now.

Where I think we shall have to probe is on the right of access to information. This was discussed at length in another place, but no final conclusion was reached. We have to admit that it is a very difficult area. I myself have found my earlier anxieties about total openness vanishing and have gradually become convinced that the gains in confidence arrived at through making all reports available are worth the risk in a very few cases of causing alarm and distress. I realise that this is not in line with Warnock, but that committee did, apparently, have great difficulty in coming to a conclusion.

We should have a full discussion in Committee on this and on paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 regarding the disclosure, keeping and transfer of statements. Who has access to statements about their children is a very important matter to parents. I have no doubt that the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth) will be speaking on the topic of access to information because she made a strong case for the parents in our debate on 14th January, reminding us that the United States' Education of All Handicapped Children Act gives parents there the right to examine all relevant records and reports, and this seems to have worked satisfactorily.

The Warnock Committee urged that there should be a natonal advisory committee to monitor the working of the Bill, to give advice, to make known examples of good practice. I have had many representations on this. Apart from this Government's generic objection to Quangos, I cannot understand their obstinacy in refusing to accept this. Their stand on this would seem to contradict their own argument that there was no need for extra resources if better use was made of existing resources with an extension of good practice. A co-ordinating body could be a huge help here. The failure to give way on this makes one suspicious of the Government's good intentions as far as the Bill is concerned. I hope very much that they will agree to look at this again. I am quite certain that enough very well qualified volunteers would man the committee and I dare say many who were on the Warnock Committee itself—and the cost need not be astronomical.

There is one last omission from the Bill that I should like to see corrected. Where non-maintained schools are used by local authorities it is essential that those schools should have governing bodies with parents and teacher representation on them. I understand that the Secretary of State has given an undertaking that this shall be so and we may have to discuss why it should not be written into the Bill.

I am not speaking on the other main Warnock priority—the under-fives—as my noble friend Lady Jeger will deal with that. I think we may have to do a little probing in Clause 1(4), which deals with language difficulties, when we come to the Committee stage.

So, my Lords, to sum up, I suppose one can give one cheer for the Bill. It is satisfactory that the old categories of handicap are disposed of, that there is a new definition of special educational needs and provision, and that parents are to have some greater rights—but, in my view, not enough. I do not think that the balance as between the professionals and the parents is right and I hope that other noble Lords will enlarge on that. In our view there are very important omissions from the Bill which I hope we can rectify in this House, where we have so many who are both well informed and deeply interested. In which case, I think we shall give two cheers for the Bill. Otherwise I shall be inclined to think that the words "cosmetic" and "fraud" as descriptive of the Bill are true and that this half-hearted effort is a poor contribution to the International Year of Disabled People.

My Lords, I should like to join in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for her very clear and lucid explanation of the purpose and the contents of this Bill. I should like to join, too, in expressing thanks to Mrs. Warnock and her committee, on whose work the Bill is largely based. Like the two previous speakers, I look forward with keen interest to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox.

It seems to me that the principal objects of the Bill are, first, to set out a new definition of "educational need"; secondly, to provide a new statutory structure supporting it; thirdly, to embody a commitment to integration; and fourthly, to give parents a greater voice in decisions taken about their children. On these Benches we fully endorse these objects. In particular we are glad that most handicapped children will be educated in ordinary schools, although we understand the need for safeguards and we welcome the fact that the views of parents in this respect are to be carefully attended to.

When we debated this subject on 14th January on the Motion moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, I think all who spoke expressed support for these aims as they were set out in the White Paper which followed the Warnock Report. But most of us had fears about certain aspects of the Government's plans and the question is how far does the Bill go towards setting these fears at rest? A major criticism at that time was the criticism to which the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has referred this afternoon, that there is a lack of additional resources. When we considered this in January it seemed unlikely that the wider number to be covered could be integrated, principally into ordinary schools, without a fairly substantial increase in resources.

The need for special equipment, for more teachers, more speech therapists, seems obvious. The Warnock Committee advocated one educational psychologist to every 5,000 pupils whereas the present ratio is one to every 9,000–10,000. So the criticism about additional resources applies to the Bill as it did to the White Paper, and I think there is a genuine fear that integration may on occasion be thwarted by lack of resources. It is a major defect in the Bill, although I appreciate what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has said about level expenditure and redeployment.

Concern was also expressed in our earlier debate about teacher training, to which the noble Baroness referred this afternoon. She referred to three aspects of training: initial training, specialised training and in-service training, and I think it is the in-service training which concerns me most. If one is embarking on an enterprise of integration of this kind it seems desirable that as many as possible of those involved should receive some training as soon as it can be arranged.

Reading the debates which have taken place on this matter in another place I could not help feeling that this problem has not yet been fully tackled. Again, the lack of resources seems to be at the root of the matter. There was much discussion in another place about access to information for parents, to which the noble Baroness, Lady David, has just referred and the question of whether parents should see the reports of the multi-professional teams. I am quite sure that we shall be returning to that question during the Committee stage in this House.

Related to that is the question of whether appeal findings should be binding on local education authorities. I listened with interest to what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said about that and I think we shall want to consider carefully what she said. I feel that we shall be further discussing this matter as well during the Committee stage.

Concern was expressed in the debate in January about the position of independent schools for the handicapped. This matter was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady David. At that time it was urged that the independent schools should have a governing body on which parents and representatives of local education authorities could sit and, like the noble Baroness, Lady David, I understand that the Government have said that this is in fact what will happen. But I am not quite sure exactly how it is to be brought about and I should be extremely grateful if the noble Baroness, when she replies, could confirm that it is certain that these independent schools for the handicapped will in fact have governing bodies of this nature.

I welcome the fact that the named person is now incorporated in the Bill. This was a Warnock recommendation to which many of us attached considerable importance. The named person will deal with cases where a statement is made—and I agree that it is better to use the word "statement" rather than the word "record", which has unfortunate associations.

Co-ordination between the services, locally and nationally, to which the noble Baroness, Lady David, referred—between the educational services, the health services, the social welfare services—is not, as I understand it, finally settled. The Government appear reluctant to have an advisory committee, but I believe that they are going to consult the organisations that would be involved in such a committee, including voluntary organisations. I hope that they are open to accept such advice whether or not it accords with their preconceived ideas. I still think that as well as having a national committee there is much to be said for a standing committee supporting each local education authority, comprising representatives from all the relevant departments and voluntary organisations.

Finally, my Lords, I should like to ask the Minister about the amendment moved in another place by my honourable friend Mr. Clement Freud, which would have placed a duty on the National Health Service to notify parents of handicapped children of the relevant support organisations to which they could turn. The Government promised to look at this again. The case for this amendment was emphasised in a moving article in New Society last week, an article written by the mother of a mongol child. In the course of that article she says this:

"While we received sympathy and support from family and friends, support in an informed and practical form was rarely offered by any of the official bodies we came into contact with. … While my son's health was carefully monitored at regular hospital checkups, at no visit was I directed towards any useful organisation or asked to discuss the problem I might have as the mother of a handicapped child".

She goes on:

"The breakthrough in getting advice and information came through a chance 'phone call from an acquaintance, who, when I told her about Will, immediately suggested people I might contact for information. One of those contacts then suggested that I should get in touch with the Down's Babies Association. Getting in touch with them meant a breakthrough for me, not just in finding out factual information but also in getting advice on positive action I could take to help develop Will. Even more important, my contact with the association put me in touch with other people who also believed that their Down's Syndrome child had potential to be developed and a role to play".

The mother in question was not making any complaint about the medical care. The medical care continued in the home; the hospital had a home care unit. But looking after a handicapped child of that kind covers very much more than the medical care, important though that is.

In conclusion, my Lords, I welcome the Bill. I regret the lack of additional resources, I have the other reservations I have expressed, but I support the Second Reading on behalf of my noble friends and hope that the Bill will be further improved in Committee.

My Lords, I really am very conscious of the great privilege it is to be addressing your Lordships' House on this first occasion. May I record my gratitude for the remarkable help and consideration I have received here since I took my place among your Lordships? My wish today is to welcome this Bill, particularly Clause 2(7). This says that a child with special educational needs who is educated in an ordinary local authority school shall so far as is reasonably practicable engage in the activities of the school. Remembering my own experiences as a severely disabled 12 year-old, I want to reiterate what has been generally expressed, in the Warnock Report and elsewhere—namely, that it is to the good of disabled children as far as is possible to mix with able-bodied children. I humbly claim that it is very good for able-bodied children to mix with us, because in that way normal values and assessments can be made, corners can be rubbed off and the common difficulties can be better understood.

While in no way wishing to belittle the excellent work that we know is carried out in some special schools, today there is no denying that there is this growing belief that wherever possible special school pupils should get to know the climate of ordinary schools. Quite a long time ago a friend of mine was educated, despite her very heavy disabilities, in a fair sized private school. She was the daughter of two teachers and that may have encouraged the school's administrators to open their hearts and their doors and to overlook the annoyance and the hindrance that could well have been caused by enrolling her. But their generosity paid off handsomely for they found the other pupils helped her and did a great deal to make good any shortfall. Not only did the disabled pupil keep well up with the high educational standard of learning but when her co-pupils left they went out with a better understanding of disability, which helped them in later life.

The fact that pupils in large ordinary schools often know very little about severely disabled people was brought home to me very strongly when, during this International Year of Disabled People, I was lucky enough to be asked by several large secondary schools to address sessions of various age groups of their pupils, to show that, although when we are in our wheelchairs or on crutches or sticks, or perhaps have contorted faces, et cetera, we look different, basically all of us are of the same species. It was a very fascinating exercise once the barrier of difference was removed, and one tried to do that largely by trying to make them laugh. Unselfconscious questions ranged between a rather plaintive, "Please, Miss, before you got your polio, did you ever think you would get it"? to a more positive "Please, Miss, will you tell me where me and my friend can put down our names to help you people?". What was very clear was that their interest and warmth of heart sprang to my rescue, and later they said that they wished to include the disabled young people in their activities.

It is obviously essential that the progress of able-bodied pupils should never be encumbered by disabled pupils. I say that with sincerity. This must be ensured. But paradoxically there will be instances where the integration of disabled students into ordinary schools does not meet the full needs of individual pupils, and that, too, must be guarded against. It seems to me that the provisions of the Bill allow at every stage improvement of opportunities for children with special educational needs, and that is what we are after.

Perhaps consumers among us know best of all that, in the very special work in ordinary schools, teachers should be trained in particular to be flexible, flexible enough to meet individual requirements. But an awful lot depends on the understanding co-operation of the head teacher and the resourcefulness of the other teachers concerned, as well as on the accessible accommodation, the size of class and the equipment. Of course, this all does call for funds.

It is unnecessary to explain to your Lordships, I realise, that money spent in educating disabled children can be both humane and economic, because helping children at this stage to be as independent as possible and to have the chance to make the very most of their talents and abilities can prevent them from growing into unhappy people with chips on shoulders and an attitude of mind calling later for hospitalisation. It can help them to become industrious, tax-paying individuals. The work achievements of some such people already illustrates that the money devoted to this subject is well invested. I feel that people are really supported by Clause 2(7) because these pupils should now get a better chance of joining in all the fun and the trials of sharing school life with able-bodied children.

Before concluding, I should just like to refer to the clause which the noble Baroness the Minister so kindly explained—namely, Clause 1(4). I fear that it was double dutch to me. It speaks about language and it says:

"A child is not to be taken as having a learning difficulty solely because the language…in which he is, or will be, taught is different from a language…which has at any time been spoken in his home".

I understand from what has been said that that is because it will be dealt with in another way. However, it is so very difficult for these children to be taught in a foreign language and the recently published interim report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups proves that even West Indian children have very real language problems.

As my attention is drawn to this matter because I am one of many people in this country cared for by coloured nurses both in hospital and in the community, it seemed only fair to make the point, which they have so often made to me, that their growing family problems are often very much increased by this very real handicap. They have put it as a handicap—I found it in the Bill and I thought that it was marvellous. However, if it is to be dealt with in other ways I shall be able to reassure some of my nursing friends. There are those as regards whom language troubles do constitute a real learning problem and it is as a tribute to those nurses that I have made this modest glancing reference to the clause before wholly welcoming the Bill. I thank your Lordships.

My Lords, it is my privilege as well as my pleasure to convey the congratulations of the House to the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, for not only an interesting but a vitally important speech on this subject and to express the hope that we shall hear her on many future occasions.

I welcome the Bill. I do not wish to make any reference to what is in it. I want only to refer to three matters which are not in it and which I think are vitally important. In my view we have made a mistake in our thinking to refer to handicapped children as if they were a single group. The physically handicapped are in a different position from the mentally handicapped. The only need of the physically handicapped to enable them to attend the ordinary school and to take full advantage of the educational facilities is fundamentally physical access and physical ease of movement within the school. I know that the noble Minister will say that that is dealt with in the school building regulations. However, the school building regulations only apply to new schools and the plain fact is that in the years immediately ahead, because of falling school rolls, we shall not be opening new schools, but we shall be closing existing schools.

I may be wrong but I would hazard a guess that there are hundreds, and much more likely thousands, of ordinary schools where access for the physically disabled is not available. It would be rather pointless for a local education authority to make a statement regarding a physically handicapped child saying that he should be educated in an ordinary school if, in fact, the physical access makes it impossible for the child to do so. Therefore, I greatly hope that special steps will be taken to seek to secure in existing schools the necessary alterations to school buildings which will enable access to the physically handicapped. If, as was suggested earlier, we are to get any money for selling off some of the schools, we might use that money to put the others right in this respect.

The second matter to which I wish to refer concerns one of the main recommendations of the Warnock Report which is not embodied in the Bill and to which reference was made earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and by the noble Lord, Lord Banks. One of the imperative requirements if this Bill is to be successful, is effective co-ordination of at least three services: the Social Services Department; the Department of Health; and the Education Department. I do not think that that will happen unless there is an effective means of keeping a watch on it, of generalising good practice, and of securing effective co-operation in the area of each local education authority. Their recommendation in paragraphs 16.43 to 48 argued the case which I do not need to go over.

I do not think that it would be expensive. Representatives of the three services would, I am certain, be only too happy to fulfil this function. I see them reporting at least once a year to the Secretary of State as to the state of co-ordination and co-operation between the services and, I would hope, that there would be some pressure on the Secretary of State—if there was failure in this respect—to take adequate steps to secure that it happened.

The third matter to which I should like to refer is the question of resources. I was told the other day that this Bill was "Warnock without resources". I must say that I was a little disappointed to find in the opening part of the Bill, in the financial statement, so much emphasis on the fact that it will not cost very much. It is not only a question of the amount of resources that will be necessary: I am much more concerned with the methods by which they are made available.

For the last 23 years no Secretary of State for Education has had any means of securing that money put into general grant, rate support grant or block grant will be applied for the purposes for which it was intended. The Minister referred to the importance of in-service training. I well recall securing the provision of £9 million in rate support grant for the in-service training of teachers. Two million was spent on that purpose, and what the other £7 million was spent on I do not know. Whether it was spent on other parts of the education service or whether it was spent on things which had nothing whatever to do with education, nobody could tell me. I would plead, therefore, with the Minister and with the Government. In this matter they are taking an initiative, a special initiative, and I would hope, therefore, that as regards any resources made available for this purpose, steps would be taken to secure that they are used for this purpose and not merely be put into block grant where no such guarantee can be given.

Nor would such a step create a precedent. It already applies in the case of monies made available for the training of careers teachers. I would very much hope that the Government would consider that this was one of the occasions where there is justification for specific grants to be allocated to these purposes and necessarily devoted to these purposes and not merely left to the discretion of individual authorities as part of block grant where they might never reach the purpose for which they were intended.

I welcome the Bill. I hope that it will be improved in Committee, and I very much hope that the noble Baroness the Minister will seek to secure these additional purposes which I think are essential if the Bill is to make a real contribution to the needs of these children. If not, I am bound to say that I share the view expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, that it will be evidenced that this is no more than a gesture to the Year for the Disabled rather than a purpose of intention to help children whose needs are there.

My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, on her maiden speech, and say how much it was enjoyed by the rest of your Lordships' House, and how delighted we are that she is here. I must say that her jet-propelled wheelchair has added a new hazard to life in your Lordships' House. She is actually the seventh wheelchair member; that constitutes a new party—almost as many as the Social Democrats. I wonder whether any other legislative chamber in the world has quite as many wheelchair members as your Lordships' House. It shows the breadth of experience that we have as we avoid them whizzing along the corridors.

I should like to extend my warm congratulations to my noble friend the Minister on this Bill. For a fifth of the children of this country the Bill is as big a breakthrough as the 1944 Act was for 100 per cent. of children. Although the Bill is not exactly what the Warnock Report recommended, it certainly embodies the great bulk of the Warnock recommendations. It has been very considerably improved during its passage through another place by the rather new constitutional mechanism that was used for it and which I think shows, quite conclusively in this particular instance, that consideration in a specialised committee of that kind in the other place can send legislation to this House in a much better shape than that in which much of the legislation normally arrives.

I think that Mrs. Warnock is to be congratulated because she has produced a report which is practical and easily put into legislative form. The legislation is here, and I gather that she has followed it up by a special meeting of her committee in Lincoln—I am not quite sure whether it was Lincoln the city or Lincoln College, Oxford—in order to review the progress. I have strongly recommended that all chairmen of royal commissions or committees of inquiry should do that on a regular basis if they really want to see their work embodied into legislation and carried through. I am very grateful that Mrs. Warnock did that.

Incidentally, it is not the only report that has actually been carried through. The report of the Gulbenkian inquiry into the training of musicians, of which I was the chairman, has been 95 per cent. implemented and it has not required any legislation or any expenditure. It is a small point which I should like to add.

We must distinguish between the legislative framework and the resources. The 1944 Act was passed without any commitment of resources. It was quite impossible for the war-time coalition Government to make forward commitments not knowing the circumstances which would arise in peacetime. I think that a very similar condition now prevails. This is the legislative framework. I would respectfully submit—and here I disagree slightly with the noble Baroness on the Opposition Front Bench and the noble Lord, Lord Banks—that arguments and debates about resources are another kind of debate. I think that my noble friend can take some comfort from the fact that the fall in the number of pupils in the schools is so dramatic—though I must say that people seem very unwilling to believe it—that it is a fact that the average expenditure per head in schools is actually going up, and the pupil/teacher ratio has actually continued to improve. I think my noble friend said that, or if it was not her, it was my right honourable friend in another place, in a recent Parliamentary Answer So the resources may be being cut, but the pupil numbers are being reduced even faster.

Interestingly enough, this is exactly what happened in the 1930s when the great increase in grammar school provision took place without any increase in expenditure, because again the number of children in the schools was actually dropping. I think that more resources will have to be diverted to this 20 per cent., but I do not despair of the resources being there in the present circumstances.

Most of the points that I would have made in my speech are Committee points, but there are just two or three general principles that I want to refer to before I sit down, because I am anxious to let my noble friend Lord Swinton go to hear his noble kinswoman Lady Masham give a speech in Westminster Abbey. First, I think that we should listen to the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill. It is time that the complete legislative framework of the 1944 Act was replaced. Increasingly, we are doing bits here and bits there, and it is out of date; it does not work. Nowhere is this clearer than in the whole field of further and higher education.

At the moment, we have no fewer than three departments concerned with education for young people aged over 16. We have the Department of Education and Science, the Manpower Services Commission and the Department of Employment. What resources go to which is, so far as I can see, entirely a matter of accident, and not at all of policy. I, personally, believe that the time has come to merge the whole of the work of the Manpower Services Commission in this field with the work of education. I should like to see two completely new Ministries: a Ministry of Schools and a Ministry of Skills, but that is a private view. I say this because I think that this Bill will take its place in a series of major Acts which ought to be brought before Parliament to tidy up what is an increasingly untidy and unsatisfactory position, which wastes resources and which leads to unnecessary suffering on the part of individuals.

I am very pleased indeed about the assurance that has been given as regards the governors of independent schools. This is very important. The handicapped in particular have a very high proportion of their total number in the independent sector, and these independent schools should be subjected to the same kind of scrutiny as we have given to the maintained sector in the Act that was passed last year.

The last point I want to make—and I shall, of course, raise other points in Committee, if I am fortunate enough to be here—is about the National Advisory Council. I think that I am as doubtful as anyone else about the value of talking shops, national advisory councils and things of that sort. Quite often for quite a few people they provide a nice trip to London to meet friends. However, here we have a very special problem. It is the Health Service, the social services and the education system which have to be brought together. Unless they are brought together by bringing together, on a systematic basis, those who are leading this field, then the co-ordination simply will not happen. I am very sorry indeed about what happened to the Children's Committee and I am very sorry that the Court Report has not been followed up as well as the Warnock Report was.

However, with those minor caveats—or, now I come to think of it, quite major caveats—I should like to renew my congratulations to my noble friend and say how much I shall enjoy the Committee and Report stages of this very important Bill.

My Lords, my name is not on the list of speakers, but I must take objection to what the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, has said on the matter of nice trips to London. Many people serve on committees, and to try to help the Minister we have different departments. It is not a nice trip down to London. We come here to try to help.

My Lords, I am sure that that is perfectly correct in the noble Lord's case. But I am not wholly convinced that many of these bodies produce quite as much as we who sit on them would like to think they do. I assure you that I am just as guilty as anyone else.

My Lords, I am delighted that today we are at long last beginning to legislate following the Warnock Report. It is now three years since the committee chaired by Mrs. Warnock reported. It has been a pleasure to listen to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, explaining the Bill in her usual eloquent fashion I say "eloquent" but I mean "elegant" too. I have many times argued in debate for the concept of intergration wherever possible, and I am happy to see introduced the new concept of special educational needs. There is a sense in which every child has special educational needs, for no two individuals have identical talents. From this point of view each child requires special educational consideration. The old concept of the average child identical with all the rest is narrow and indefensible. And in the past it has been equally mistaken to single out handicapped children as something utterly different from all the rest. It is only when the handicap is very severe that separate and special provision may become necessary.

The whole success or failure of the Bill when it becomes law will depend upon the crucial factor of teacher training for new teachers, and adaptation courses, one might hope, for teachers already in service. I was very pleased to hear what the Minister had to say in regard to the problems of teacher training. I say this because H.M.I.'s report—the one produced in 1978—on Education of Children in Hospitals for the Mentally Handicapped states that, of the 208 teachers in the existing schools, 54 only have any special specialist training, while no less than 53 had no professional qualifications at all. Given the enormous effort in terms of teacher training in the country, I find this a disturbing and saddening state of affairs, which has no doubt existed for a very long time, and for which no particular Government can be held responsible.

About two years ago some American friends came to stay with us with their two children, one perfectly normal but the elder one of 8½ years has spina bifida and was also hydrocephalus. She was a wonderfully integrated child, of high intellect. She spent one afternoon sitting below the Bar in your Lordships' House, and at tea afterwards she asked intelligent and interesting questions. The parents had not only been kept informed at all stages of her progress or of any problems as they arose, but had been trained how to look after her and encourage her to look after herself as much as possible. She attended an ordinary primary school in Cambridge for the year that her father was there and enjoyed it thoroughly, and apparently made many friends.

This is only one example of the kind of problem with which Clauses 4, 5, 6 and 7 deal. Plainly statements are essential to parents who are able and willing to look after their handicapped child. I am very glad that, as the noble Lord, Lord Banks, has already said, a named person as recommended by Mrs. Warnock has been accepted by the Government. I would also like to see brought together by the Government a national advisory committee as recommended by MIND, and many professional and voluntary organisations. I gather that the Government do not consider such a committee necessary at present, but did give a commitment in another place to call a conference of professional and voluntary organisations to discuss the matter. Since then some voluntary organisations have said that they consider this suggestion unsatisfactory as the only solution.

While I appreciate the Government's reluctance to create new Quangos, there was a suggestion made in another place for expanding the work of the existing Children's Committee so as to cover the duties of a national advisory committee on special education. But I now understand that the Children's Committee is to be wound up. So I would have thought that there was more need now to have a national advisory committee which could perhaps help to co-ordinate the various Government department's concerned, together with professional, lay and parental opinion.

I now turn to the problems of mentally handicapped children in long-stay wards. I think that nobody who has seen the film the Silent Minority could disagree with the idea that we have a long way to go in our treatment of the handicapped adolescent. The difference in behaviour between the young in the children's wards where they had schooling, even if not for many hours a week, and those same youngsters when they transferred to the adolescent wards with nothing whatever to do in most cases, was striking. They became difficult and destructive, for the most part through boredom and in some cases to call attention to themselves, but also of course because of their inability to communicate their needs.

It has now been recognised that LEAs have a duty to 16 to 19 year-olds, if they were registered as pupils at a school, to continue their education if requested to. Many handicapped young people over 16 need further education, yet in school may not be appropriate, but possibly in a training centre or some other institution of further education. I am pleased to note that the document The Legal Basis for Further Education recommends that there should be a duty on LEAs to provide further education, both in school and in training centres. I hope that the handicapped young person will benefit by this.

Perhaps, my Lords, some of the needs of handicapped youngsters in long stay wards could be met by voluntary organisations and by part-time teachers and occupational therapists. Man is essentially a creative being, and it is because of his ability to make tools and employ them for his use that we differentiate the earliest kinds of human being from superficially similar animals. With the mentally handicapped in long stay wards we must be careful to avoid frustrating their essential nature, and I hope that this Bill will become law in this International Year of Disabled People.

My Lords, may I start by offering my congratulations too to my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox. I have known her for many years and I know that what we have heard this afternoon is just a preliminary to what we hope to hear over the years from her, because she speaks equally well about the disabled and about a number of things. She will be a great asset not only to this House but also to the mobile Bench. As my noble friend Lord Vaizey said, with her splendid electric chair she will not only be inflicting mental anguishes upon successive Front Benches of varying shades of political opinion but I know that they may also be in danger of suffering some damage as her machine goes zooming along the front of them.

I have some apologies to make this afternoon. My first is that I am afraid that I must apologise to the remaining speakers in this debate, and especially to my noble friend Lady Young, as I shall not be here for the end of the debate. As my noble friend Lord Vaizey said, many months ago my noble kinswoman Lady Masham was asked to deliver the one-person oration at Westminster Abbey this evening, and I promised I would go along to hear her and to encourage her, and I dare not miss that. She also asked me to say who sorry she is not to be taking part in this debate on this occasion. As I am sure noble Lords need no reminding, this is a subject in which she is greatly interested. Unfortunately she is heavy with speech. I think she has to talk for 40 minutes in the Abbey this evening, and she really thought she could not tackle two major debates on one day. Therefore, I give her apology too. Lastly, my apologies to my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth, who I have mucked about this afternoon. We have been chopping and changing in the batting order as to whether I would be on and finished before the Abbey or whether I would come on in his place later on, and I apologise for any inconvenience I have caused him.

Apart from a very apologetic individual this afternoon you also see before you a very fortunate man indeed. I am fortunate because my own local authority of North Yorkshire, which I think might be considered by many to be conservative with both a large and a small "c"—and perhaps even in some eyes reactionary—throughout all the cuts and the circulars and the instructions from central Government has stuck to cutting and cutting but it is also the only authority in the country that has opened a brand new post-Warnock special school. I have the very great good fortune, which indeed makes me such a happy person, to be the first chairman of the governors. I thought I would tell you something about that this afternoon, because it is obviously involved with the Bill we have in front of us, but also perhaps reflects somewhat on the change of thought in special education that is going on in the country.

The school was built in very close co-operation with the Department of Education and Science, and it incorporates the philosophy of Warnock. It started off life as what might be described as just another ESN(M) school, but it was lucky enough to come into the building programme immediately after the Warnock Report and it got very rapidly changed. It opened its doors to its first children after Easter, and it draws them from a very scattered rural area, mostly villages and farms but also a handful of market towns of various sizes, and also a large military population at Catterick garrison.

How does it differ from what noble Lords perhaps think of as a normal special school? To start with, it has a nursery unit where it is, or will be, admitting children of two years old and upwards. That works in close co-operation with the children's unit at our local hospital. Indeed, the paediatrician in charge of that unit has given us an enormous amount of time and advice and is pleased to help in any way he can. These children will be reviewed very regularly and at the age of five they may move from this nursery unit into ordinary primary schools.

Then there are language classes for infant and junior children in the five to 11 year age group. These are for children with any type of language problem whatever. These children may attend for a variable period which may be a matter of terms or stretch into two or three years. During their time with us, every effort will be made to maintain the links with their ordinary schools, and indeed it is envisaged that the great majority of these children will return to their ordinary schools when they have finished their courses and got over their various difficulties.

Then there are the pupils with moderate learning difficulties who were previously catalogued as ESN(M) children; they will I think produce the great bulk of children with us and they will require long-term help. Then there are pupils with mild learning difficulties who will attend for what I can only describe as a blitz package of remedial teaching, especially in reading and numbers. They will probably come for, say, one or two terms and will remain on the roll of their ordinary schools, and when they return there, which they surely will, they will be supported by staff from our school who will go out and help them and their teachers with the problems they have when they are reintegrated into their ordinary schools.

Then there are pupils with mild emotional and behavioural difficulties and, again, they will come on a short-term basis, staying on the roll of their ordinary schools, and when they return, there will be support for them. There will then be a small number of children with physical disabilities. Obviously, the school is built with complete access to everything and it will be able to meet the needs of children of from two to six years with physical disabilities of average or below average ability. And eventually—this is particularly important—the school will hold a stock of aids to support these children when they go on, we hope, to education in ordinary schools.

The school has a teacher of visually handicapped children, though it is not envisaged that there shall be a class for these, but this teacher is prepared to visit any school in the catchment area and to offer advice and support to the children and teachers there. Then there is, I am glad to say—in mentioning this I look across the Chamber to the noble Baroness, Lady David—a large resource centre, which is built and is running from the school, which has a base for a good staff of remedial teachers. The idea is that these remedial teachers will go out to schools in the area, offer advice and run groups for the teachers and children in them, and encourage teachers who are interested to come into the school for sessions and encouragement on the art of remedial teaching.

I need hardly say that the school is very well equipped—I do not think I need go into the details, which will be obvious to your Lordships—with a wide range of specialists who will have their accommodation in the school, and these include an educational psychologist, a teacher of the deaf, a teacher of the visually impaired and a teacher for pre-school children with learning difficulties.

I have gone into a considerable amount of detail on this development because it is an exciting new venture. I do not want to excite your Lordships too much, and I can see that some noble Lords may wish to visit the school. While the last thing we want to do is discourage anybody from coming, at the same time we do not want to be so swamped with visitors, which threatens at the moment, that our work may suffer, so we are trying to limit visitors to one day a week. However, for any of your Lordships or anyone who reads the debate and shows interest, I am sure we would not want to turn anybody away.

Those are the sheer physical details of the school and of what we are trying to achieve. However, that is not what has impressed me most about this new school. What has impressed me most is the enthusiasm of everyone concerned with it. When we started as a new body of governors, we said, "We want to be involved with all the appointments from the word go, right through the whole teaching staff in the school and indeed all the domestic staff and the caretaker", because we thought it must be a team effort and we wanted to be involved. What impressed me most was the terrific quality and enthusiasm of the applicants we had for these posts.

Some noble Lords may think it not surprising that we should have got many applicants in the present situation of unemployment. But many of the people who applied were already in well-paid and reliable jobs in other areas. Many of them offered to take a cut in salary and status because they were so keen to come and work in a school which was based on the Warnock Report. That says a lot for Mrs. Warnock and her committee and a lot for the report they produced and the ideas they put forward.

I am sorry to say there is one worry in the current legislation which is troubling this very happy and enthusiastic team. It is a point which has not been mentioned in the debate so far and I may be a lone voice speaking out. I refer to the detailed assessment clauses which appear in the Bill. I must admit that I am in somewhat of a muddle because I thought I understood my noble friend Lady Young to say it would apply to only 2 per cent. of the children. On the other hand, I thought the Warnock Committee spoke about 20 per cent. or one in five as needing some sort of help, and it is the 20 per cent. we are trying to cope with in this school.

We have got away from a very formal system of assessment and we now have what I believe is a very good situation where to start with the educational psychologist meets the parents very informally and discusses the child's needs with them. This is done in a very sensitive and supportive manner and it appears to me to be the right way to do it. They then talk around or about the matter, and then he brings the parents and children along to see the school and they decide what to do. It worries me lest some of the provisions in Clauses 5, 7 and 8 and particularly Schedule 1 to the Bill will put us right back where we have come from, with a very bureaucratic and formal system where there will be notices sent out which may frighten parents with questions about appeals and all sorts of things. I hope, for the sake of what is being done, that I have completely the wrong end of the stick and that the Minister will say at the end of the debate—even if I am not here and I can read in Hansard tomorrow what a fool I made of myself—that I am wrong about this. It is worrying and I hope we shall not get back to the formal system which only hampers the flexibility—"flexibility" is the key word I would use—which is essential.

I had intended to mention the further education provisions in the Bill, and I was delighted to hear my noble friend say the Government had it in mind to do something about the issue. I had also intended to mention teacher training, and again my noble friend dealt with that. I fear that I must conclude by striking a rather unpopular note and talk about finance, a subject which several noble Lords have raised. The great thing about Warnock is that it is not an excuse to save money by closing down special schools and sending all the children, regardless, to their local schools. I do not think there is a danger of that happening; local authorities are much too sensitive and realise the problems. Nevertheless, it is a bit of a danger.

Like all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, I am absolutely in favour of sending handicapped children to normal schools wherever possible, but they must be sent to the right kind of school—schools that are equipped to cope with them and where the access is suitable, but even more important than access is that the teachers are suitable and have had some training in how to deal with these children. Again, I was pleased to hear my noble friend refer to in-service teaching, but in-service teaching is not very easy now; all authorities are cutting down on teachers and it is not easy to run courses at this time. Before we send physically or mentally handicapped children out into ordinary schools the conditions must be right to receive them.

Even if we do all that, and manage to convert the buildings and have all the teachers on the right wavelength, there will still be special schools needed. I am sure that there will be needed schools for severely mentally and physically handicapped children who simply cannot cope with the pressures in the ordinary schools. The noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, mentioned the hospital schools for the very severely mentally disturbed children. I know that these schools are doing a marvellous job and that the children slip back when they go into adult wards. There is also a danger that they slip back during the school holidays. The work that the children do is so encouraging and they derive much benefit from it. But I am sure that there will always be that kind of school.

I believe, too—if I may be rash enough to say so—that there will be the need for the kind of school which I have described to your Lordships in such detail this afternoon. This is where we are going—where we can take out children for a short time, look after their special difficulties, and then send them back to their ordinary schools; where we can send out the teachers, too; and where we can send out the resources. Of course that kind of school is not cheap. It has not been cheap to build, equip and staff.

So I fear that, whatever we may think, there is a rather expensive and rather long journey ahead of us. But though I can see this road stretching into the horizon, with signposts stating, "More money wanted here, more money wanted there", at least we are making a good start on it today, and I am sure that thanks to the Bill we are setting off in the right direction.

My Lords, as in so many other areas of life in this country, the education of children, young people, and adults is furthered and enriched by a partnership of voluntary and statutory bodies. Forty years ago a memorable White Paper entitled Partnership in the Service of Youth was a formative document for the youth service both during and immediately after the war. Long years before that the voluntary bodies and the state entered into a partnership for the provision of schools for children of all ages. But the law does not at present allow voluntary bodies, such as the Churches, to promote special schools.

Nevertheless, the voluntary controlled and the voluntary aided schools of the Church of England endeavour to provide special educational facilities for those of their pupils who need them. This provision is made either by integrating a small number of handicapped pupils into ordinary classes, or by means of special classes which provide facilities akin to those in special schools, while allowing the handicapped child to be integrated in the same school with those pupils who are not handicapped. That is a point on which other noble Lords have already commented on favourably.

While I speak only for myself, I know that there are many others in all the Churches who welcome much that is in the Bill. I believe that the concept of special educational needs as outlined in the Bill and explained to us by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, in her opening speech, will greatly facilitate the assessment and education of children whose physical, emotion, and mental disabilities impair their education.

I believe that the recognition in the Bill of the very important role played by parents is highly significant, as is their involvement in decisions regarding the education of their children. I believe that this should do much to alleviate the considerable frustration felt by so many parents of handicapped children because they feel that they have no opportunity of expressing their own views about their children's education.

I welcome, too, the clear recognition in Clause 2 of the Bill of the role of the governors of voluntary schools. However, I wonder whether "the responsible person" mentioned in Clause 2(5)(b), and further defined in the following paragraph, is not detailed in such a way that other members of the school staff or of the governing body might not feel themselves excused from any share of the responsibility involved. I am sure that this is not the intention of the clause, and I would hope that perhaps a future Government circular might emphasise the corporate responsibility of all those concerned.

I should like to draw attention to Clause 12(4) of the Bill, which states that

"Provision shall be made in the regulations to secure that, so far as practicable, every pupil attending a special school will attend religious worship and religious instruction, or will be withdrawn from attendance at such worship or instruction in accordance with the wishes of his parents".

I rather fear that the words "so far as practicable" may refer to practicability in terms of somewhere for the worship or instruction to take place. What I should like to see would be a rewording of the clause which would make it necessary to provide the opportunity for worship and religious education appropriate to each child, unless his parents specifically ask for him to be exempted. Much consideration has been given in recent years to the religious life of disabled adults and children, and I should like to think that the Government might see fit to reword the clause so as to reflect this concern in as positive a way as possible.

With those two very modest suggestions for possible amendment I should like to welcome the Bill from these Benches. I am confident that all the voluntary bodies, including the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Free Churches, will wish to co-operate to the full in helping to implement the Bill's provisions when they become law.

My Lords, I consider myself privileged to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester because for five years I was recorder of that city, where I learned to respect him and the robust views which he expressed, and of which we have had another example this afternoon. In particular I was glad that he referred to the problems of the parents of mentally handicapped children, because I have a daughter who is severely handicapped both mentally and physically. If I dwell mainly upon the problems of the mentally handicapped as they are affected by the Bill, I trust that your Lordships will understand.

I also happen to be chairman of Mencap, and I see that one of my distingushed predecessors in that post, the noble Earl, Lord Longford, is present today. Your Lordships will be very sorry to hear that my immediate predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Segal, was taken seriously ill two days ago and cannot be with us, and may not be with us for some time. At Mencap we welcome the Bill. We do not find anything cosmetic about it; nor do we agree with any of the other adjectives which were used about it and which spoiled an otherwise very constructive and interesting speech which we heard from the Opposition Front Bench. This Bill is an important step forward in helping many of the mentally handicapped to lead lives which could become more useful, less costly to the community and more fulfilling and happier for themselves. Certainly Mrs. Warnock and her committee deserve our thanks and praise for laying the foundations of this.

I was particularly interested to read the proceedings in the special Standing Committee in another place because in the last two Sessions of the last Parliament I was a member of the committee—indeed, I was acting chairman of it for some time—which recommended this new departure in procedure. I think it is a great advantage to us to have, first, the written evidence of the various interested bodies, including the departments concerned, and then the evidence in cross-examination (if that is not a pejorative word) of the witnesses who were examined, including, first, Mrs. Warnock; secondly, my noble friend Lady Young; and, last, Mr. Stanley Segal, the principal of Ravenswood, of which Lord Longford and I are patrons and where our daughter is cared for. I think it must have led—and, indeed, the proceedings show that it did—to a better understanding when the Bill was considered clause by clause, line by line, to have had all that evidence in the minds of the members of the Standing Committee. Therefore, I should like to join with my noble friend in saying that this is an experiment which has so far justified itself.

Of course, it was not unexpected that two things which loomed large in the examination of the witnesses were, first, the question of integration and, next, that of resources. May I say this about integration? In that wonderful maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, she stressed the desirability of integration for the physically disabled; and there are other categories of handicapped to whom it could always be a great advantage. But I must tell your Lordships quite frankly that so far as the mentally handicapped are concerned, we have grave doubts about it. Indeed, at a well-attended meeting of our national council (all those present, except the advisers that we have, being parents of mentally handicapped children and young people) I invited their views as to what they felt about integration so far as the mentally handicapped were concerned, and they were very unenthusiastic about it. Moreover, they feared that under certain local authorities it could become an excuse for not getting on with the provision of special schools, and that would indeed be dangerous so far as the application of the Bill to the mentally handicapped is concerned.

As for our resources, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, and, I think, others, buildings are not the problem because of the decline in the school population. Some buildings are becoming redundant. If we may take at its face value what was said by Dr. Rhodes Boyson at the conclusion of the Third Reading debate in the House of Commons, money does not seem to be an inhibition, either, at any rate for the present. He said this:

"We are spending up to £½ billion"—

that is £500 million—

"on special education. It is a considerable sum. We should all like to spend more. We have maintained in real terms the expenditure on special education while the numbers have been dropping. That means that in real terms more will be spent per pupil in the next two or three years than is being spent now".—[Official Report, Commons, 10/6/81, col. 500.]

So money does not seem to be an inhibiting resource.

So we come to teachers. In her very valuable opening speech, my noble friend took the trouble to tell us a great deal about what is being done to train teachers—these three categories which she mentioned and which I need not repeat. But still at Mencap, I must tell your Lordships, we have doubts as to whether enough teachers trained for teaching the mentally handicapped are available, or are going to be. My noble friend, perhaps wisely, did not go into statistics as to the number of teachers so far trained, the number needed and the number that can be made available; but this is a crucial matter.

At Mencap we were very disappointed when the Quango (if I may again use the expression) established by the previous Government, the Quango called the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work, now known as CCETSW—that pronunciation is the nearest one can get—decided to abolish altogether the diploma in the training of the mentally handicapped and claimed that they were providing for that training in the more general certificate of social work. So far we are not satisfied that that is in fact being done.

We made representations to the previous Government about this. I myself have been to Ministers in the present Government, when we have always had the most wonderful hearing, let me say in passing. We have always had the most wonderful hearing when either Mr. Brian Rix, our secretary-general, or any of our senior staff, have been along. We have stressed this point about the need for the training of teachers. I do not know whether I am asking too much, but, of course, it would be of enormous help if, in reply to this debate, my noble friend were able to give us anything in terms of numbers. I know that statistics can be misleading, but it would help if we could be told what the true position is; because this splendid Bill really does depend for its implementation, especially where the mentally handicapped are concerned, upon the availability of enough teachers.

I have just one or two points or relative detail. We are really worried at Mencap only about two more points. The Government offered at Report stage in another place to consider them, and they have both been mentioned today, but perhaps I may stress them because we are concerned about them. The first is this duty to inform parents after the birth of a handicapped baby of the name and address of the nearest relevant support organisation. That need not embarrass the parents at all. They need not take any advantage of the information given to them; and I really do not see why this information should not be given to them. May I say that this is no effort on my part to recruit on behalf of Mencap; we do not operate that way. So I hope that the Government will concede that point.

The other point—and I know it is controversial, especially in the case of the mentally handicapped (don't I know!)—is that we feel that parents should have access to all relevant information upon which a conclusion is reached that a child, at whatever age and however early, is considered to be mentally handicapped. One knows as a parent, without getting emotional about it, that the revelation (especially as in our case, where the child seemed quite normal physically and mentally for the first few months of her life) on expert evidence that she was below par mentally was something hard to bear at the time. One wanted to know why. Fortunately we were told, but I can imagine the frustration, amounting sometimes almost to resentment, felt by parents who may be fairly humble and not having a great education, upon being told, "Your child will never be like other children". They may not understand why that is so.

This is something that is very important to parents and about which we at Mencap feel very strongly. This is another matter that the Government have offered to consider and so I implore my noble friend to table Government amendments which will deal with these two points, and perhaps to be so kind as to let us have early warning if the Government do not intend to table such amendments so that we may table amendments and press them.

Some of your Lordships may have seen that distressing television film, "The Silent Minority" about some of the mentally handicapped in two large institutions. I stress the word, "some", because obviously the film was looking for the worst and not taking the average. But the film was distressing for people to witness. It featured mentally handicapped people—mostly men—between the ages of 14 and 80, and the problem of looking after them, and that of the way in which they spent their time, was obviously an acute one. As I watched that film I could not help thinking that if this Bill had been on the statute book and implemented 20, 30, 40 or 50 years ago many of the sad scenes one saw in that film would not have been as they were portrayed. So I say, let us get on with this Bill. It will not only save human misery but it may even save a lot of public expenditure, and not to spend money on implementing this Bill would be a very false economy.

My Lords, I must apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for not being present at the start of this debate and so I did not hear her opening address. I was in another part of the country, and I hope that the noble Baroness will accept my apology. I feel very privileged because when we last debated the handicapped I followed the noble Lord, Lord Renton, and listening again to his plea for that forgotten group of children and young people, one could not fail to be impressed by the arguments which he put forward. However, when I read the Bill, and having listened to what previous speakers have been saying, and also having read reports of the debates in the other place, I have come to the conclusion—having served as chairman of special services in Birmingham for six years in the 1960s—that there was nothing new being placed before me.

I can recollect the multi-disciplinary groups, where the child psychologist, the speech therapist, representatives from the children's committee and others properly assessed the child; and when the chairman and two members of the committee listened to appeals from parents if they were not happy. We tried to provide at least infant schooling for children who were going to be classified, to give them a trial and to ensure that the assessments were correct. I have been thinking to myself, "What is new?" Then I read some remarks made, I think, by the Minister in the other place. He said:

"I have stressed that much of what we are doing in the Bill is to put into legislation what is already good practice among the best local authorities".

I should like to ask the Government, how will the Act coerce those not-so-good local authorities to put into operation those things which the good local authorities have been doing for a long time? I speak from knowledge of my own local authority, and know that we were not in isolation because at many of the conferences I attended I met people from other local authorities who were doing similar work to our own. Will the Government be calling upon university departments of education to gather information and undertake research into the various types of integrated settings that the Government hope will be established as a result of this Bill?

How will the Minister be able to progress what she calls "good practice"? Will backward authorities be named in the press in the same way as the so-called backward local authorities who do not sell off enough council houses or who put up the rates too much are publicised in the press? Is it not important to parents of handicapped children to know they are living in an area served by a backward local authority, which does not do as much as some other local authorities in the country? It is just as important for parents of handicapped children to know that as for other people to know that the local authority is not selling off enough council houses.

I should like to reiterate what other Members of your Lordships' House have said. Both Warnock and the Bill recognise that there is still going to be a need for special schools. I speak here as the chairman of the governing body of a school for handicapped children in Birmingham. I was a little worried when the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, said that handicapped people were grouped into what he called a "global group", but he excluded from the global group the physically handicapped by saying that this was just a matter of access. The school of which I am chairman of governors is classified as one for the physically handicapped. Their handicaps are quite serious. They include cystic fibrosis, brain tumours, and colostomy arising from all sorts of handicaps.

It is not just a matter of access; it is a matter of having all the supportive services given with the guidance of the consultants whom the children are under in the various hospitals. Those consultants suggest the therapy and tell the nursing sister what has to be done. The children spend a week there, from Monday to Friday, and then go home at weekends. So we should not lump together either what we call the "physically handicapped".

I am not against integration but I do want to sound a word of warning. Ordinary schools must establish that handicapped children will do as well if not better than they would in special schools. What concerns me is that, whether we like it or not, local authorities are under extreme pressure to cut expenditure. That situation might encourage them to go for integration, which may mean in effect, in some cases, simply placing a handicapped child in an ordinary school with little or no support for either the school or the child. That situation has to be guarded against, especially in the case of local authorities which are not among the "good practice" local authorities at present. One can hazard a guess as to the extent of the strain placed on the teaching staff of an ordinary school where levels of support are insufficient. When one is talking about levels of support, it is not simply a case of seating a handicapped child at the front of the class because he or she cannot see very well. Many of these children have to receive medical attention, which means attending to their toilet requirements and all that means. While I accept that there are a number of highly motivated and intelligent handicapped children that will cope easily in ordinary schools, we must not assume that all handicapped children can do the same. That is very far from true.

The success of the integration is the extent of the resources. This is where one worries when one reads the Bill, because the Financial Memorandum as, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, said, does not give us very much hope. What are the resources? They are not only the buildings, but the teachers; and if we are thinking about teachers, we need specialist teachers with qualifications; if we are thinking about the partially sighted or the partially deaf or the deaf, these are teachers who must have a qualification. We are thinking then about all the supportive services and equipment. Many local authorities are aware that limited integration, only limited integration, will be very costly.

How do the Government envisage local authorities trying to implement the Act to any meaningful extent without significant extra spending? Following on what the noble Lord, Lord Renton, said, I want to say that the parents of handicapped children in many cases are not a very vocal group of parents; but they are just as concerned for the education and the welfare of their children as are the parents of children who benefit from the assisted places scheme. Their concern is a genuine concern and one which I think we overlook perhaps at our peril.

I should like to draw the attention of the House today to the fact that we must recognise that there are going to be smaller classes in many schools because of falling numbers. We will close a lot of schools; and Heaven knows what will happen to the school buildings. Many local authorities are being forced themselves to close schools. It is envisaged by the Government that they recognise that the more time-consuming child who will be placed in the integrated setting will have to be recompensed by the smaller class. Will the Government be taking advantage of smaller classes and reduced numbers in schools by getting integration on to the right foot by placing them in the smaller class groups. Advantage ought to be taken at this time in that particular situation.

I think it true to say that a great deal of comment has been made that it is attitudes that we must change. Once we change attitudes, we are half way to our goal. May I say to noble Lords—and perhaps I do not need to say it to those who are listening today to the debate for practically everybody is involved in some type of work with the handicapped—that attitudes to special education and to the handicapped generally have been changing outside Government much more rapidly than they have been changing inside the Government. Many voluntary bodies, because they have not been able to get the satisfaction that they wanted in the educational field for the particular children in which they are interested have set up their own schools. We have the Royal Institution for the Blind, the Birmingham Royal Institution for the Blind, the Rubella Association, the Spastics Societies, and Mencap itself, trying to fulfil a need which really is a need brought about by parental pressure and for which they raise their own money. Those attitudes have changed but those organisations are perhaps a little more concerned that more resources are not coming out of this Bill to help them further in their aims and achievements. If we look at the Bill closely, we are going to get to the stage when we have got to have a statement made on each particular child if it is thought necessary. I compliment the noble Baroness, Lady Young, that we have changed the word from "record" which I think she raised some time ago and felt a better word was needed. I congratulate her on the word "statement". Will the statement identify what is the special educational need? Will it identify that the need is physical or that it is sensory, or that it is mental or that it is a psychological need?—because what worries me is that unless this identification is made, we will have no statistics and when we have no statistics being compiled then normally we find that no services are provided. Questions are asked and the answer is that no figures are available. I think it important for us to know whether the statement will define, in the categories I have suggested, what the handicap is.

We should recognise, as did the noble Lord, Lord Renton, that the largest number of handicapped children are those classified as ESN, whether it is S or N. The success of these schools has been that the small teaching groups have made individual programmes successful for the pupils. What worries me is that these children, the children that have been classified as ESN in the integration process, will most likely lose out if we are not very careful. Will the schools be able to cope with this category? This will be their biggest influx. Are those schools, which now have such a great emphasis on their high academic successes (the Government support them in this) that they want to publicise their examination results, to be encouraged to take their share of the ESN children, because this will bring their percentage rate down very often at academic levels?

Therefore, I would make a plea on behalf of the mentally handicapped especially to remind noble Lords that the mentally handicapped are not just children who need remedial teaching. There are children who need remedial teaching for all kinds of reasons—long illnesses, perhaps bereavement in families—but the educationally subnormal children need more than remedial teaching and therefore one would hope that the training, the skill and the experience of staff in special schools will be recognised in any integration, and perhaps in future we might have heads of department for children with special educational needs which will cover all the children in those schools.

When we are talking about special adaptations to buildings, may I mention—because I have a special interest in the blind and the partially-sighted—the work of Elizabeth Chapman at the Faculty of Education at Birmingham University, which recognised by the department, also has a lot of information that is available for the partially-sighted inside schools, whether it might be a special reading stand or the provision of sloping desks, et cetera. Let us not forget that there are aids to help others besides the physically handicapped. I would therefore touch briefly on 16 to 19 year-olds. I feel very sorry, after reading all that went on in the debates in the other House, that the Government are not very sure what they are going to do about the 16 to 19 year-olds. I am sorry that I did not hear what the noble Baroness said about this because I feel that if integration is to mean anything, it must mean the same facilities for the disabled as for the able bodied. One hopes that in the very near future we shall have a very definite statement from the Government on what they are going to do for the 16 to 19 year-olds.

My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt the noble Baroness; but as she was not here when I made my opening remarks, it would be helpful for her if she takes advantage of looking at the document the Legal Basis of Further Education which sets out a number of the Government's proposals and asks for comment from everybody.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness. I take notice of that and I shall see that she gets some comments. The real point is that young people today are having great difficulties in finding employment and the needs of the handicapped are much greater. When they reach the age of 16 to 19, just when they are ready to take this final chance, that is something that ought not to be missed.

I conclude by taking up what the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, said when he referred to the Government setting off in the right direction in this Bill. All that worries me is that the Bill does not contain sufficient for me to conclude that we shall ever reach the destination.

My Lords, I should like, even in her absence, to add my congratulations to those of other noble Lords to the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, and to take up one or two points that she made in a very interesting speech. I have not known her as long as the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, with whom I agreed on one matter which has slightly thrown me. I now come to my noble friend the Minister and her statement about Clause 4. This is a point that puzzled him and I shall leave it for the moment and allow my noble friend to take it up in her winding up.

I represent perhaps not too much of the 2 per cent. referred to in this Bill but some of what might be called the Warnock children, the other 18 per cent., as chairman of the British Dyslexia Association. For many years now since the early days of the Warnock Report, when the committee was calling for evidence I have been in touch through every stage up to this extremely welcome appearance of the Bill. The White Paper was published I think just over a year ago. It is my first opportunity to speak on this subject since my maiden speech some six or seven years ago. I missed the debate of my noble friend Lady Masham in January on the Year of the Disabled Child and special educational needs. Some noble Lords spoke on this subject and I have been following that and the comments in the other place in the Special Education Committee with very great interest.

There are many people with a very long and professional interest in education who are speaking in this debate. I am delighted to see that I am to be followed by some real experts who might well pick up anything I happen to drop on the way. There are one or two general points regarding education that I should like to mention and see whether the Bill fits a simple, perhaps rather idealistic, idea of education that I have been thinking about for the two or three years that I have been privileged, as chairman of the Association, to talk to many educationists on both sides of the Atlantic. These have been conceptual rather than practical points.

However, what I want to say is different from some of the speeches that we have heard today. It might show that the work my association is doing, and the work the corporate members are doing, is of very great importance to the whole field of education, to the statutorily handicapped and also those who are apparently normal. I say that not meaning to be flippant. I believe that education and educationists are in a very traditional profession. I hesitate to call it institutionalised. There are parts of it which are very far-seeing. But it is resistant to change and there are a lot of ideas that we have which come from a rather conditioned view.

I do not want to get too involved because it has been a long debate but I believe that perhaps people have not thought of the fact that children and the education of their minds—because this is what we are talking about—are very different from each other. But when we get them to the school room we expect them to achieve the same standard. If they do not, we think that there must be something wrong with them and that they perhaps need special help from a remedial teacher.

If we got 20 children all of the same size and shape and asked them to run 100 yards, would we expect them to breast the tape together? The one that is the slowest might be good over a mile, at the high jump or throwing the discus or the hammer. When we get into a classroom situation—and I am not talking of all teachers, for there are those who do understand—if a child has not accepted the education as presented, then the teacher is inclined to think that there is something wrong with the child. This was the flexibility which attracted me in the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox. This is very relevant to teacher training. My noble friend the Minister was kind enough to mention the unit at Southampton which we set up and obviously teacher training is of very great importance.

It is amazing how, even among our local associations and corporate members when they have a workshop over a week-end, over Easter or on a week-day in the holidays, we are overcrowded with parents or teachers from both state and private sector schools, who either pay for themselves or are supported by local authorities and come to learn how better to teach the perhaps not totally normal child. This is most encouraging. I am confident from my personal view of the educational scene that there is enormous goodwill. This has to be capitalised upon.

I think that as far as resources are concerned there is an enormous goodwill among local education authorities and education officers. Once they see that one is not threatening them and they realise that among our members there is an enormous store of experience and expertise in the special educational field, then, my goodness! they are prepared to listen. We have had a very good response, and I hope in that way we can perhaps have some effect on the attitudes that have been mentioned earlier. My predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, mentioned the need for attitudes and it reminds me that on the last page or so of the Warnock Report—and before going any further I must pay my tribute to Mrs. Warnock for the work she did—it was said, quoting from memory, that even if the resources and the provisions were available there would need to be a change of attitude.

I am told by people much wiser than I that you cannot change attitudes, and I learned that very quickly. I formed a world association to change attitudes, but you cannot do it. What you can do is to promote awareness and understanding that—and why not?—all children are difierent. We have in our care those who are so different, or different to a degree, that within the normal educational system they fail to achieve their potential. More than that, they suffer emotional problems because, as I believe we all know, if you are "different" then, as in the animal kingdom, you are treated slightly differently. That is an attitude that I, too, would love to try to change; but I am pretty certain in my own mind that a good many of the specific learning difficulties we hear about are real differences of ability, and it would be far easier for them to be understood by other children if the teachers accepted and totally understood.

That brings me to the matter of integration. Of course, I have followed what has been said by your Lordships and by many of the voluntary organisations with whom we have been conferring. It is ideal for a handicapped child or one with a difference of ability or with a disability to have education with others, but only as much as (a) it does not affect the others, and (b) it is in a sphere in which the child feels competent and on a level with the others.

I do not want to keep your Lordships too long. There will be certain points of interest to us all during the Committee stage of this Bill. I should like just to mention the right of access to reports. I am no expert on the academic, professional or parental side; but purely on the humanistic side I believe that a parent's duty to his or her child is in relation to the prime impact upon that child's education. We must get the balance right between the role of the educationalist and the role of the parent. I believe that a great deal of education of the child is done before it gets near a school, and that the child is the prime responsibility of the parent. The educationalist has a specialist role to play in cases where the parent, perhaps because of society imposing functions upon him, has a difficulty in performing the function of total educator. That is surely how education evolved. I think we must remember that the role of the educationalist and that of the parent must be in partnership so as to bring out a child's confidence in the world in which he is going to emerge. This is putting things into a proper role, and we should remember that.

I believe that the parent can play the part that humanity appoints only if he has total access to information. It is unreal to expect a parent to take a decision on something as important as the child's education without access to relevant information. I believe there could be safeguards—a confidential pocket or something—in certain cases, but I am no expert in the technicalities or of legal matters, and perhaps we shall learn quite a lot in the course of the passage of this Bill. That, I believe, would be the right outcome.

As far as resources are concerned, I will try to make my point very quickly as I am conscious that time is going on. Resources should be required by the needs of that organisation and if the planning that goes into the provision of local education authorities for handicapped children or whatever is well done, I believe the money will be made available. I have a horror of the idea that, "Funds are available. What shall we do with them?" I believe that funds are available if there is a real and genuine need for them.

My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity to speak and I look forward to the replies of my noble friend the Minister on Clause 4, which is fairly basic to our operations. I will leave the matter there, and wish the Bill well.

My Lords, coming as I do towards the end of this debate, I find that most points have already been covered by other speakers. There are only two matters on which I wish to comment today. From the moment they are born, all babies need lots of care and attention to help them grow and discover the world around them. Because they learn much more slowly, mentally handicapped babies need extra special care; and the best place for them to get that is of course at home with their families.

This is Mental Handicap Week, and so it is appropriate that, through this Bill, we should today be trying to improve the basic rules and regulations with regard to these children, and give their parents as much help and support as possible right from the start, at the birth of their handicapped babies.

Those of us who are interested in the subject were very grateful to the Government for their acceptance in another place of a number of amendments, particularly those to Clauses 3, 6, 7 and new Clause 10. The Government gave an assurance that they would see whether an amendment to Clause 10 could be made, which would ensure that after the birth of a handicapped baby parents were informed of the name and address of the relevant support organisation. I speak from personal experience over 30 years ago, when there was literally no help or advice whatsoever available—a traumatic experience.

That brings me to the matter of parents' access to all the relevant informtion on which statements are made under Clause 7. The Government gave an assurance to Mr. John Hannam in another place, when he withdrew his amendment on this matter. I refer to the Official Report of 10th June, cols. 467–478, and I should like to ask the Minister whether the Government intend to put down an amendment on this matter at Committee stage. I am fully aware of the arguments against the disclosure of information, which is a very complex question, but such information is often essential to parents considering an appeal.

There may well be a small minority of cases where the information is sensitive or disturbing, and could cause harm to parents and/or child. There may well be the attitudes of professionals to be considered; they might feel reluctant to commit their opinions to paper in this case. But I feel sure that this could be dealt with by the Government, by allowing a reasonable amount of professional discretion.

I should like to see the appeals procedure strengthened. If the Bill goes through in its present form, it will have the effect of establishing a two-class system of appeals, with fewer rights for parents of handicapped children. I feel it is wrong that these appeal committees are given advisory powers only. They should include one or more nominees of the organisations of handicapped people and/or the parents of the handicapped children, which would ensure the necessary expertise to deal with special education cases and enable them to have equal powers to appeal committees under the 1980 Education Act in respect of all other children. Were these issues to be adopted, it would enable adequate trust and communication to be established between parents, local education authorities and other professionals, and would be a big step forward in the care of our handicapped.

My Lords, may I at the outset declare my interest in the National Deaf Children's Society, largely because one of its vice-presidents is a friend of our family and he and his wife have two children with impaired hearing. So my remarks will probably be in a somewhat narrow field. I give a great welcome to this Bill, and I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on explaining it in a very simple way and, particularly, for reminding us that it embraces so much of what the institutions and associations for the handicapped have been looking for over a number of years. Generally, it has been accepted that all the discussions to date have been on a most friendly basis, with the Government being quite receptive to most suggestions.

It was, therefore, rather surprising to me that the noble Baroness, Lady David, was somewhat short in her acceptance of the Bill. I think I remember the gist of what she said in her closing remarks, although it was some time ago. I was equally disappointed that the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher of Rednal, should also have spoken about the Bill never reaching its destination unless we do one or two things. I can only say to both noble Baronesses—and, if I misquote, forgive me—that it is better to travel hopefully than never to travel at all.

I do not want to contradict my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox—and may I join with others in congratulating her on her very warm and real-life contribution to our debate this afternoon—but I join other noble Lords who have expressed some concern over integration. The Bill places emphasis on integration, but I should not like that principle to dictate the system of education that some children and young people may need. I am thinking particularly of the deaf, because they live in their own soundless world, cut off from communication with other people, and I do not believe that a totally integrated system of education would be in their best interests. My noble friend Lord Renton emphasised this point, as did others about their own particular fields.

The deaf have a special place and I call in aid the report in the Sunday Times of 21st June, headed "Deaf miss half-price Rail Card". Apparently, all other disabled persons, including the blind and the partially sighted, can claim this concession but, at least at this moment, the deaf cannot. So here is an example of where they are specially discriminated against.

There are three areas in the Bill which give me cause for concern. Clause 1 obliges the health authority to inform the education authority of children who have special educational needs, but that is where it stops. Clause 4, however, provides for special educational needs from the age of two, while Clause 6 provides that for a child under the age of two the education authority may, with parental consent, make an assessment of that child's special needs. But the authority is not obliged at that stage to make any provision for the child.

There is a gap here, because if one takes a child who is born with impaired hearing—and I have no doubt that this goes for other disabilities or handicaps—it is most important that some remedial work and educational support of both parents and child is started immediately. I was going to say on day one, but certainly the exercises and the various other things that are done should be started within a very few months. But there is no provision for this in the Bill. If we are to make the right kind of progress later on, we should not begrudge the expenditure, which need not be a lot. I do not believe that expenditure is one of the worries about this Bill, and it would be inexcusable if progress later on were impaired by lack of work in the early stages. So I have real concern that we should be looking for support not from the age of two, but from birth when a disability is diagnosed.

My second area of concern arises on Clause 7, which has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords. My noble friend the Minister said that Clause 7 strengthens parental rights. As I understand it, the statement referred to in Clause 7(4) is built up from reports and so on from a variety of people; for example, teachers, medical authorities and, probably, the social services. The parents may make representations.

What illustrates my point best in subsection (5) is paragraph (c): the authority may determine not to make a statement and shall notify the parent in writing of their decision. I understand that apart from the appeal procedure, which I have not fully understood, parents at that time can do nothing; they have no right of access to the reports and so on which make up the statement. I believe this to be basically wrong. There is nothing secret about it. It is absolutely foolhardy to suggest that a parent should be mad enough to accept the statement; it depends upon the basis on which the statement is made. I think that parents should have access to all the relevant information which makes up the statement.

I want to draw to the attention of my noble friend the Minister a case which illustrates the point I am trying to make. A divorced mother with a handicapped child was advised, after the various procedures had been gone through, that the education authority thought the child should go to a special boarding school. This the mother did not want. It appeared later that the social services report indicated that the mother was living with a man, or that at least a man was living in her house. It was widely thought that this was undesirable. My understanding is that it was for that reason, given by the social services department, that the education authority felt the child should be educated at a special boarding school. However, it transpired that the man living in the house was the woman's brother. There is nothing very much wrong with that. If the mother had been able to see the papers which contributed to the statement, that misunderstanding could have been cleared up and a different decision might have been made. I believe therefore that at a later stage we should look at Clause 7 and also at Clause 8, the appeals system.

The third and final area of concern is not included in the Bill but it has been referred to by most speakers. It was mentioned in particular by the noble Countess, Lady Loudoun: namely, that the parents of a handicapped or a disabled child are not notified of the support services available. There are arguments for and against this, in that some agencies might not be quite so good or quite so responsible as others. This point has been well debated in the other place. My understanding is that the Government are going to have another look at it. I hope the noble Baroness the Minister can tell us how their "look" is getting on.

I know from friends of mine that even an affinity group can give support to a distressed parent. It does not have to be an expert group. Sometimes all that is needed is a little sympathy. I can say without any fear of contradiction that town halls are tremendously frightening places for distressed parents and, indeed, for most ordinary people. It is quite an experience to go to the town hall to make inquiries. People are afraid of officialdom. I think we should pay a tribute to both radio and television which run a number of talk-in programmes and so on which give this kind of information. I believe that it should be the duty of authorities to provide that information.

I hope the Bill moves along very quickly. If it can be improved during its latter stages, that will be all to the good. I believe this is the right move in the right direction and that we should get the Bill on to the statute book as quickly as we possibly can.

My Lords, may I begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, on her very interesting maiden speech? It is particularly appropriate that it should be made on this Bill, because she has experience of being disabled as a child.

In January when we debated the White Paper, Special Needs in Education, I expressed my disenchantment at its lack of a firm commitment to achieving integrated education. I felt much the same about the Bill when it appeared. However, some progress has been made in another place and I very much hope that much more progress will be made in your Lordships' House. If it is, then I feel that we shall be moving in the right direction.

First, I should like to welcome new Clause 10. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, said, it is very important that the education and training of handicapped children should start as early as possible, whether they be mentally, physically, or sensorily handicapped. May I also echo the plea of the noble Lord, Lord Banks, the noble Countess, Lady Loudoun, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, that an amendment about notification to parents of relevant support organisations should be included in the passage of the Bill through this House?

I now turn to the major points which worry me. Basically, there are two areas. Quite a lot has already been said about them. They are the rights of the handicapped child, which boil down to accessibility and the provision of equipment, and the rights of parents of handicapped children to assessments, statements and appeals.

First, in relation to access and equipment, Clause 1(2)(b) states that a child has "a learning difficulty" if,

"he suffers from a disability which either prevents or hinders him from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided in schools, within the area of the local authority concerned, for children of his age".

I do not know what "educational facilities" are. The Advisory Centre for Education—ACE—comments that there are no nationally agreed guidelines on what constitutes "educational facilities of a kind generally provided in schools".

This subsection appears to allow a child to be deemed to have a learning difficulty if his local ordinary school is inaccessible or if some aid which he needs is not available. I find it amazin, particularly in view of subsection (4) of the same clause, which was referred to by the Minister in her opening speech and also by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, that if the difficulty is solely one of language, which presumably leads to problems of communication, this is not a learning difficulty, yet if the problem is simply one of bricks and mortar—that is, access—it is a learning difficulty! I do not believe that this should be so in this day and age, and certainly not in the future. We must remember that we are legislating not only for today's children but for the children of the future.

The Government's new access clause, which includes educational buildings, and which was introduced into the Scotland Bill, was extremely welcome as it strengthened the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. It was also included in the Disabled Persons (No. 2) Bill to cover England, Wales and Northern Ireland. That, too, was very welcome. However, I voiced my concern at the Committee stage, and I stress it again now, that in the case of educational buildings the attention of the developer is only going to be drawn to Design Note 18, not to the code of practice, BS 5810/1979, as well. This is very important, not only because some of the dimensions in the design note are less generous but because it does not mention the blind and the deaf, as does the code of practice. If provision is not made for them, it will be harder for them to get into ordinary schools. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to see her way to amending this in the Disabled Persons (No. 2) Bill, otherwise we shall have to try to do something in this Bill.

As the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, said, there is also a need to adapt existing school buildings. There will be very few new ones built in this day of falling school rolls. Therefore it is very important that we should try to cover this need. There are some excellent special schools as well as some which are much less good, and educationally undemanding and socially isolating. However, in all special schools, as the noble Baroness, Lady David, has said, the handicapped child is removed from the model of the ordinary child and can come to look at himself as being something outside the real world.

The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, made a fascinating speech and gave a very good example of a school where you can shuttle between the special and the ordinary school systems, as necessary. I think that is very valuable. For those who are going to be able to cope and compete in an adult world—and I fully accept that there are some who will not be able to—I feel that they will be best equipped to do so if they grow up among their able-bodied peers and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, said, this helps the latter to understand the handicapped. Some handicapped children may not be able to cope, but no child should be prevented from doing so simply because a building is unsuitable.

Then, Clause 2(3)(b) and (c) increase the difficulty. The noble Baroness, Lady David, has already spoken on the fact that the local education authority has a duty to secure that the child for whom they maintain a statement is educated in an ordinary school, provided that it is compatible with,

"(b) the provision of efficient education for the children with whom he will be educated; and

(c) the efficient use of resources.".

I appreciate that in the Education Act 1980, Section 6, similar words are used concerning the duty of an LEA to comply with parents' expressed preference for a certain school. The words are:

"Unless it would prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources".

But this is something rather different because it concerns the choice of which school the child goes to within the ordinary school system. I imagine there is consideration of numbers in the school, distance to be travelled et cetera, whereas in this Bill we are concerned with the choice between education in a special school or in an ordinary school, and I think it is very doubtful if criteria exist whereby efficient education and efficient use of resources can be measured objectively for the purposes of this Bill.

My Lords, there is no such thing as equality. All men are not equal and all children are certainly not equal, but there is equal opportunity and all I am asking is that handicapped children who can cope should be given the same opportunity as their able-bodied peers to go to an ordinary school. Clauses 1 and 2 as they stand do not allow this. Clause 2(4) places a duty on every local education authority to keep under review the arrangements made by them for special educational provision. I think this would be very worthwhile if we could expand and strengthen this subsection and I do not think anyone has yet spoken about this. No serious advocate of integration supposes that integration can take place all at once and, in circumstances where it is difficult to do a lot straight away, it is all the more important that legislation should encourage local authorities to develop plans for what they hope to be able to do over a reasonable period of time. I think a process of planned and sensible integration would help to ensure that we could continue to move in the right direction. The Minister described the Bill as evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and I think satisfactory evolution needs planned evolution.

Parents of handicapped children should also have the same rights as parents of non-handicapped children. Quite a lot has been said about this already so I shall try to be as brief as possible. I should like to welcome the Government's amendment to Clause 5, which was moved in another place, whereby parents are allowed 29 instead of 15 days to make representations and submit written evidence re the proposed assessment, because I think that will be very valuable. But Clause 9 gives too much power to the local education authorities. It is they who will decide whether a parent's request for an assessment of a child for whom a statement is not maintained is unreasonable and it is they who will judge whether it is appropriate to make a re-assessment when parents of a child for whom they maintain a statement request it and I feel that it should not be the local education authority concerned which decides this.

I am glad that in Clause 9(2) the maximum period before a requested reassessment is carried out was reduced from 12 months to six months in another place, but I feel that it could possibly be even shorter, because six months is a long time in the life of a developing child.

In Schedule 1, Part 1, paragraph 2(4), there is a maximum penalty of £50 for parents who fail, without reasonable excuse, to comply with the requirements of a notice of assessment. I really do not think that is at all a good idea. Compulsion is likely to affect adversely the relationship between child, parent and professionals and is hardly likely to be in the child's best interests.

On the question of statements, the noble Lord, Lord Renton, the noble Countess, Lady Loudoun, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, have already referred to the importance of the disclosure of statements, and the noble Baroness, Lady David, referred to the parent's right under the United States of America's Education of All Handicapped Children Act 1975, to examine all records relating to children's education, and to the fact that it is working well there. She also made a number of other interesting points on this which I fully support, as I do those of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I think it is terribly important that parents should have access to all the reports behind the statement because if they do not have that information it makes it difficult for them to decide whether or not to appeal against the LEA's decision and also it makes it very difficult for them to appeal successfully.

On the subject of appeals, the noble Countess, Lady Loudon, has already said that the parents of handicapped children should have the same rights of appeal as other parents have under the 1980 Education Act. Under Clause 8(4)(b), if an appeal committee does not confirm special educational provisions specified in a statement on a child, it can only remit the case to the LEA for reconsideration and it has neither the power to amend the statement nor the power to direct the LEA to cease to maintain it. I know that the Minister says one can always go to the Secretary of State, but it demands great stamina, determination and persistence on the part of the parent who has already been through all the other procedures first.

I said before that there is no such thing as equality, only of equal opportunity. The scales are weighted against the handicapped child and his family from the start, whether he is physically or sensorialy or mentally handicapped. I am delighted that the Minister said that the Government were keen to improve this Bill further in any way that was reasonable, and surely it is not too much to ask, in this International Year of Disabled People, that the handicapped child be given the same opportunities as his able-bodied contemporaries to be educated in an ordinary school and that the parents of handicapped children be given the same rights as those of able-bodied children.

My Lords, like other noble Lords I welcome this Bill and offer my congratulations to my noble friend the Minister, Lady Young, and to the Secretary of State for Education for responding to the recommendations made in the report, of outstanding quality, on the special educational needs of children, so ably chaired by Mrs. Mary Warnock. I think the noble Baroness, Lady David, said that she gave only one cheer and afterwards she said that she gave a weaker second cheer. My Lords, I give three cheers.

I wish to speak for just one moment on the question of the under-fives. I should like again to congratulate my noble friend Lady Young, for considering and taking into account the needs of the under-fives and their families. However, I should like to ask her just one question in this realm. Under Clause 10, on page 8 of the Bill, the health authority must notify the parents and the Education Authority of a child's handicap. Children under five are mentioned in several clauses but I will not go into the number of clauses at the moment. However, I should say here that there is more than the Education Department that is responsible for offering a service to the under-fives. The Social Services Department offers a service in the form of day nurseries under the Health Service and Public Health Act. Day Centres are run by the social services department under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, and if the social services department are not notified of the number of handicapped children under five they are not in a position to provide the services. But I should say here—and I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, and my noble friend Lord Vaizey—that I agree there is need to delineate the differing roles and responsibilities of the various local government departments. While they are not properly defined and while they overlap, the local authority cannot offer a partnership to parents.

I now pass to the needs of the family. I have to say that when the Warnock Committee was set up I remember making a plea that, instead of being a report on the needs of handicapped children, it should be a report on the needs of handicapped children and their families.

Under Clause 1 the children who fall into the category of special needs in education are outlined, and I will not go into this. But I think the noble Baroness did refer to medical, educational and psychological needs. There are also the needs of the family. I cannot stress too strongly that unless the family is taken into account, both as a partner, and also having their needs, then we shall not get this right. If I may say so, there are some parents who can tolerate and can handle the most severely handicapped child. There are some parents who could not tolerate it and could not help the child. There are even some parents—it is just the way we are all made—who cannot even tolerate a mildly handicapped child and give that child the help it needs in the home. Therefore, I would have hoped that not only were the needs of the child taken into account but the needs of the family. Perhaps one of the saddest things to those of us who have worked with such families is the way in which in some families the concentration is all on the handicapped child to the detriment of the other children. Therefore, I would make the plea that not only the needs of the child are taken into account but the needs of the family.

I turn to special schools. I would very much support the noble Lord, Lord Renton, and the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, who said we cannot put into one compartment all handicapped children. The different grades and categories of handicap are done away with, but nevertheless there are still categories of children with special needs, and it is those special needs which have to be met. May I ask the Minister, under the heading of special schools, whether, for instance, parental choice plays a part here and whether parents are allowed to ask, under the assisted places scheme, for places in voluntary schools, privately-run schools for handicapped children. I think we have to achieve a balance. There are some children who need residential accommodation, some families who need residential accommodation. I worry—this has been said by other noble Lords—that, with the present cut-back, it could be that some local authorities would not want to use the special schools.

I should like to pass now to Clause 3. I feel deeply concerned over Clause 3, particularly in connection with the provision of special education otherwise than in schools. I suppose this must touch on home tuition, and it much touch on those children excluded from school by the head of the school, who has every right to exclude a child under the 1944 Education Act. I should like especially to refer to children suffering emotional disturbance which results in maladjustment and disruptive and difficult behaviour. These children are very often excluded from school, perhaps for non-attendance, perhaps because of their difficulties in school. They are sent home, and in order to comply with the 1944 Education Act peripatetic teachers are allocated to help such children in their own homes. Very often—I have experienced this in my own work—that amounts to perhaps one day or two days a week, leaving the parent to deal with the very difficult child, needing special help, kept at home for quite a considerable time.

I would here say that there is a very thin line drawn between children who are deemed ultimately maladjusted under the old Bill, who will under this Bill, I maintain, still need special educational help, and those children who appear before the juvenile court and are then sent to a children's home or a penal institution. There is a very fine line drawn, and I would hope that these children can be kept within the educational system and not within the penal system. I wonder whether the noble Baroness could look at this.

I am conscious of the fact that I am the sixteenth speaker, and I am rushing on. I would wish to say a word about the monitoring of this Bill when it becomes an Act. I cannot see how we are going to know whether this Act is a success unless in some way we monitor it. I am very conscious of this because the Children and Young Persons Act was passed in 1969, was not monitored, and is now by many people deemed a failure. I do not believe it is a failure, but I believe it was not properly monitored and therefore the lack of resources and the difficulties were never assessed for a very long time.

I wonder whether the noble Baroness the Minister would think that it would be a good thing for an annual report to be produced by every local authority, both the education and social services in conjunction with the health board, and that those reports should be perhaps submitted to the National Childrens Bureau; they have a large staff, are able to put things on computers, and have a great deal of experience of writing reports, doing research and producing recommendations. I speak with some feeling because I served on a committee dealing with handicapped, which was ultimately produced by the National Children's Bureau.

May I pass on to the question of social work service and counselling. Here again there is not a clearcut structure for giving counselling and advice to parents. Within the local authority there is the social service department with their social workers, administering the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, there is the schools social work service working within the education department. Their work does overlap, and I wonder whether the time has not come for us to look very clearly at what are the specific roles of each of the two departments and how they can dovetail rather than overlap.

If I may say a few words on parents as partners, several noble Lords have spoken about the question; I am bound to mention my own authority, Oxford. During pregnancy every young couple attends classes, and I mean both father and expectant mother. Together all through pregnancy they are attending what they laughingly call their classes. During that time there is a rapport established with the doctors at the hospital and with their doctor. If a handicapped child is born, there is this bond between the professionals and the parents, and it comes much more easily to inform immediately the parents of any difficulties that may occur. I believe that we need not make such a mountain out of the molehill of confidentiality. If the parents are treated as partners at every stage, there would not be any confidentiality. I speak again with feeling, because when one is submitting a report to the juvenile court on a child who appears before the court, for the magistrates to decide what to do about the child, one submits a full report which the magistrates must see.

Leading up to that, I cannot even remember submitting a report to the magistrates of which the parents did not know every detail because one had always consulted with them step by step all the way along the line. I know, for instance, that the Invalid Children's Aid Association would deplore the named person being the person to give details of confidentiality. I think that they are absolutely right because I believe profoundly that if there is a good relationship between the helping services, the doctors and the parents, then there is no confidentiality because every point will have been discussed at every milestone along the line.

In conclusion, I wish the Bill well. I think that there are certain matters that need to be altered to make it a good Bill. Once again, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for introducing it.

My Lords, it is a special pleasure to follow the wise words of the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, who speaks from such great experience of these problems. Indeed, during the whole of this debate we have heard in every speech wisdom, experience and concern. I should like to add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox. She has brought to this place commonsense, humour and courage and this place will be the better for having her with us. I hope that we shall hear often from her. I was especially interested in her perspicacious reference to the language question in this Bill because I think that it is very important not to over-simplify the question of language. There are many children from other countries who are imitative and who are quickly seen to have picked up English. But that is quite different from having comprehension of a language for understanding the imagery and the references. I hope that all those who have to make decisions in these cases will bear in mind that we are not thinking just about a sort of "parrotability" but something much more significant, because "parrotability" can often cloud the child's real difficulties.

I should like to add my thanks to Mary Warnock and all those who worked on the report, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for the way in which she has explained it with her usual efficiency today. I look on this Bill as an attempt to bring the vision of the Warnock Report into some reality. However, there are two main things that worry me about it. The first is that there is not any money available. If noble Lords will look at the "Financial effects of the Bill" as set out in the Explanatory Memorandum, it states:

"The Bill…should not give rise to significant additional expenditure".

The noble Baroness explained that because of the falling birth rate we should be able to keep up with the present expenditure. But the purpose of the Bill is surely to improve on the present situation—not just to keep still.

Secondly, there is no date for its implementation. I refer noble Lords to page 14 of the Bill where it says:

"This Act shall come into force on such date as the Secretary of State may by order appoint and different dates may be appointed for different provisions or different purposes".

I find that very worrying because it makes us wonder how much longer many of these children will have to wait for these improved circumstances. Also, the fact that different parts of the Bill could be brought in on different dates makes me wonder—and perhaps the noble Baroness can set my mind at rest—whether there would not be some danger of a piecemeal approach rather than wholehearted dealing with the situation on a date which I am sure all of us in this House wish to be soon. We are talking about 20 per cent. of our children. Children do not wait year in and year out. They are growing all the time, and that is why there is a real urgency about this Bill. I am sure that the noble Baroness shares that view.

I was very interested to see the Warnock Report's approach to the subject. On page 5 it says that the goals of education are:

"first, to enlarge a child's knowledge, experience and imaginative understanding, and thus his awareness of moral values and capacity for enjoyment; and secondly, to enable him to enter the world after formal education is over as an active participant in society and a responsible contributor to it, capable of achieving as much independence as possible".

I think that that is a fine ideal, and those who work with handicapped children are giving a great service not only to the children but to the whole nation. It is a very difficult and demanding job. It means that we have not just to care for children but to try to maximise their potential, to find their growing points. It is very sensitive and difficult work for which I think a great deal of training needs to be undertaken. I shall come back to that matter again in connection with the financial provisions.

We have had a very full debate and so I wish to refer quickly to other points that we shall come back to in Committee. I share the anxiety of the noble Baroness who spoke about the question of educational facilities. I do not understand what is meant in Clause 1(2)(b) about "educational facilities". We are told that a child will come within this section:

"if…he suffers from a disability which either prevents or hinders him from making use of educational facilities".

Does that mean that he cannot get into a classroom? Does it mean that he has spina bifida or some other difficulty, so he cannot use the ordinary school lavatory? What are "educational facilities"? I hope that that can be spelt out more clearly, particularly with regard to access and what I would call the physical surroundings of the school, which I know in many cases are matters that prevent the child even attending the school.

In Clause 2(3)(c) one of the considerations about accepting a child for special education has to be:

"the efficient use of resources".

I am not sure how local education authorities are expected to interpret that, especially with the noble Baroness's right honourable friend the Minister for the Environment breathing down their neck and telling them to cut and cut and cut again. Who is to judge whether it is an efficient use of the financial resources of the local authority to provide for one handicapped child to go to an ordinary school at the cost of some improvements in access, or whether it would be more in keeping with Government thinking for the rates to be reduced by a halfpenny by that authority? It seems to me that we are putting on local authorities a very heavy and a contradictory burden.

Lower down on the same page, in subsection (5)(a), we see that the education authority must:

"use their best endeavours".

Noble Lords must feel that the English language is being misused here. That is the biggest excuse that anybody ever had for not doing anything about anything. Have we not all as children, not particularly disabled children, said, "I did my best". That is supposed to be the alibi for a multitude of sins and shortcomings. I hope that we can tighten that up. I wonder how good is "best". Let us try to get some guidance on that. While these education authorities are saying that they are doing their best within their guidelines of financial expenditure, I would remind your Lordships that the Government have allocated £3 million to the assisted places scheme so that the brightest and best of children can get specially good education. It seems to be in line with the Government's total philosophy that those who most need help, get help least.

I want to say a few words about teacher training. Now that we have a three-year course for normal teacher training it seems to me that there ought to be a considerable input of special training for disabled and handicapped children. When we talk about 20 per cent. of the nation's children, it must surely mean that within the course of an average teaching career the chances are that practically every teacher at some time is bound to come across a class in which there are one or two children who need special attention. In fact, if this Bill is to mean anything, that will certainly be the case.

However, again, this question of cost arises. I suppose it could be said that money is available for in-service training for it is built into the rate support grant, but there is no specific grant and, therefore, tonight we can have no confidence that money will be used for this purpose. I understand that under Section 62 of the 1944 Act the Secretary of State has power to regulate the content of teacher training, and we very much hope that that will happen.

References have already been made to the United States where some very good pioneering work in this field has been carried out, where positive efforts have been made to bring handicapped children into the regular classroom. To give one example, in 1972 the Colorado legislature earmarked 2 million dollars for in-service training of regular teachers to give them the extra skills and knowledge necessary, and those grants were repeated in later years. In Missouri and Georgia they have enacted legislation that, in order to become certified, all teachers much receive specific preparation in the techniques of how to work with handicapped students in regular classrooms. If this positive action is not taken, with the best intentions in the world, we could put many handicapped children at a disadvantage. You could have a classroom situation where it is not so much a question of the learning difficulties of the child, but a question of the teaching difficulties of the teacher. I am sure that they need this extra help.

The Warnock Report suggested that 200 full-time, or equivalent part-time, lecturers would be needed if we were to embark on a five-year programme of in-service teacher training to meet the demands set out in this Bill. It is against that sort of statement that I find it very difficult to make sense of the fact that apparently no extra financial provision is to be made. It could be that the integration, which we have discussed so fully today, could be looked on by some hard-up authorities as a cheap option and could actually harm children, both educationally and socially.

The noble Baroness referred to the falling rolls and to the fact that that means that we have a higher proportion of teachers to children. But it is no use having smaller classes if the teachers concerned are no good at their job or—and I do not want to sound critical—do not have the special skills to enable them to do their job. They are asked to deal with a great range of handicaps, and we are asking them to perform a very difficult and sensitive task; to keep the peace among a crowd of children, some normal, some abnormal, some naughtier than others and, let us be honest, some who can be unkind to each other, with elements of bullying and tension. Therefore, the fact of the numbers of teachers does not seem to me to answer the question.

Simply to place a handicapped child in a room full of normal children does not mean integration. No one should believe that it does. In passing this Bill—which I know we all wish to see passed as quickly as possible—I think that we have a great responsibility to enable it to take realistic effect and to ensure that it does what we hope it will do. But simply to economise—and this must be tempting in some areas—by closing down small special schools and saying, "It is all right because Parliament now says that all these poor children can go to the school down the road", and at the same time not to provide the extra teaching, the extra skills and all the supporting techniques that these children need, would be a disaster, and I know that your Lord- ships would not want to be a party to any such outcome of this Bill.

I am also very concerned about the position of the under-fives. I think that this must be the first time that an Education Bill has had to do with babies. A great deal of thought must be given to the way in which this will work out. The noble Baroness, Lady Faith-full, referred to the present difficulties in the town halls with the social services, the education services and the health services. I can see a danger of there being some confusion unless a great deal of careful thought is given to this problem. For instance, I am wondering whether the medical profession has been sufficiently brought into discussions, because it is very often the family doctor who sees the baby or the child, who may have been sent home from hospital apparently absolutely all right. Having been married to a marvellous general practitioner, I am the last person to criticise doctors, but we would be unrealistic if we did not accept that occasionally in a busy surgery, with a whining baby—and even Dr. Stone might say this—a doctor will say, "He will grow out of it, mother", or, as I have heard some doctors say, "There is nothing wrong with that baby; it is the neurotic mother who is the trouble. If only she would leave the baby alone, he would be all right". The family doctor has to be in the front line on this.

In many areas we find that attendance of mothers with young babies at post-natal clinics is dropping off badly. Let us face it, some of those clinics are boring enough places to visit. Often, when a doctor refers a child to hospital there is a long wait and then you see a different doctor every month, or however often you have to go. Unless, throughout the medical process, there is full co-operation with the education authorities, it will be rather difficult to make this work.

Having got the doctors to inform the education authority, the education authority is supposed to do what? If it does not have any money, what is it supposed to do? Here again, we must have further talks about how the resources are to be made available to do all that this Bill wants done. The awful truth is that although the Warnock Report said quite clearly on page 343:

"Nursery education for all children should be substantially increased as soon as possible",

we know that there is no increase taking place. In fact, the opposite is true. Local authorities are being pressed to economise, particularly in this sphere. They are closing down day nurseries and nursery school provision. There are staff leaving; posts being frozen; people not being replaced.

Again, if we are to make any real progress in this question of the under-fives we shall have to look at this sort of provision in a more realistic way. This is important because if a child lives with its handicap undiagnosed and untreated until it is five years old and until a school doctor or teacher picks it up, it has lost five of the most precious years, because the first five years of life are the years of the fastest growth. He can be set back for life through that early neglect. Therefore, I am so glad that this provision is in the Bill, and I hope the noble Baroness will not mind my expressing anxieties about its being implemented. It is because I am so glad that it is in the Bill that I want it to be fully carried out.

There are all sorts of exciting things going on in different parts of the country at the present time, many of them threatened by financial stringency, which is most unfortunate at a time when I feel that the mood of this House and of the country is of increased concern about disabled and handicapped people; and today, of course, we are specially concerned with children. I hope that this Bill will have a speedy passage, but it is no good its having a speedy passage if there is no date put on to its implementation and if there is no money available to implement it. There will be certain points we shall want to come back to on Committee stage, but as we have had such a good, full and detailed debate, I propose not to go into any further detail at present. I hope that the noble Baroness will accept the sincerity on this side of the House. Many of us have worked together in the background from which this Bill has emerged, and we honestly want it to succeed. I believe she does too, and I hope she can give us some good news tonight so that we shall feel more confident about its future.

My Lords, we have had an important debate today and I very much appreciate the most constructive way in which the whole of the discussion has taken place. The House will I am sure understand if I do not answer all the points, although I hope to touch on many of the most important. I am particularly glad of the welcome that has been given by almost every Member of your Lordships' House who has spoken, some more warmly than others but everyone giving it a welcome.

I was particularly pleased at the support from my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox, who made a most moving maiden speech based from practical experience on both the joys and the problems of integration. It was interesting because I think she is the only Member of your Lordships' House who was handicapped as a child and actually had that particular experience. I was grateful too to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester, who spoke I believe not only on behalf of the Church of England but of all the churches, and to my noble friend Lord Renton for the support he gave from Mencap.

My noble friend Lord Swinton described what I thought was an excellent example of a special school. No wonder he was alarmed that we might all be queueing up to visit it, because clearly it is an up-to-date example illustrating the best of practice and equipment in this interesting world of special education. It followed very well when the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, said that the Bill was built up on the best practice She is quite right. That is precisely one of the cornerstones of the Bill. Before saying anything more, I should like to pay my tribute to the many professionals involved in education who do such a very good job day in, day out, for many years.

In the course of the last two years I have visited a lot of special schools. I have been particularly interested in preparation for this Bill and for the debate that we are having today. I have without exception been impressed not only by the variety of provision that is made—and we would be very mistaken to think that there is a kind of standard provision, because each authority has its own ideas—but also by the dedica- tion of the staff, and the numbers of examples I have seen with close parental involvement in the school with a very active and well supported parents' association.

Not surprisingly the main issues that have come out have been those that have been debated before: resources, integration, confidentiality, problems of the non-maintained and the independent schools, the question of the advisory committee, and the role of parents. I shall before concluding try to touch on all of those. Before I do I should like to deal with some quite specific points. The noble Lords, Lord Banks and Lord Renton, and the noble Countess, Lady Loudoun, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, all referred to an amendment put down in another place towards the end of the proceedings in which the principle was that parents who have a handicapped child would be put in touch with a support organisation.

I was asked what the Government view was on this. We undertook in another place to consider whether it would be possible to introduce into the Bill a provision which would allow health authorities a degree of flexibility in how they approach such matters and how they decide which, if any, organisation might be able to help the parents. I should like to confirm that we are actively considering whether a meaningful amendment can still be made to the Bill.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester raised a point about religious education. In Clause 12(4) the wording is, "so far as practicable". This repeats the wording used in the 1944 Education Act, Section 33(4). The reference to practicability is because of the possible state of health of the child and not because of constraints imposed by timetable or the characteristics of the building. However, I shall read carefully what the right reverend Prelate said, and no doubt consider whether the Bill requires an amendment, but I think he will find that because it is a repetition of what is already in legislation it has stood the test of time very well.

My noble friend Lord Renton raised a number of points, but he asked about training for work in adult training centres and teacher training. At this time I have not got the figures available that he has asked for, but I shall look into the matter and write to him before the next stage, or at any rate while the Bill is proceeding. The noble Baroness, Lady David, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, raised a point about the school-leaving age. The 1944 Act looked forward to the raising of the minimum school leaving age to 16. Because we had neither the buildings nor the resources in 1947 to do this, the age was raised to 15 for most children but to 16 immediately in special schools, which obtained the benefit of the reform at once. When the school leaving age was raised to 16 much thought was given to the question as to whether it should be raised to 17 in special schools. But at that time the consensus of opinion was that the distinction between handicapped and other children should be removed. It has of course always been possible for children to stay on beyond the age of 16, and we have recently reiterated that it is the duty of local education authorities to provide for the 16 to 19 year olds if they are asked to do so.

My noble friend Lord Renwick raised a point about dyslexia. Of course I was interested in his remarks because he has this special association with children who suffer from what has been termed dyslexia. It is only right in our consideration of this Bill that we do not overlook the special educational needs of children with learning difficulties in reading, writing, spelling, or mathematics. We understand the pain and distress of a child who is neither lazy nor backward but who is unable to learn to read or write at the same pace as his peers, and that this is a proper cause for concern. I hope the Bill will lead to a more sensitive response to the individual educational needs of such children.

Several noble Lords raised the question of the monitoring of the Bill, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady David, and my noble friend Lady Faithfull. It might be helpful to the House to know that, with the abolition of statutory categories of handicap, this will remove the basis on which the DES currently collects statistics. But we have every intention of ensuring that future statistics will reflect the new, less simple view of handicap and acknowledge that children cannot simply be neatly categorised under one label.

Mrs. Warnock's committee proposed that the DES should collect statistics on a limited group with severe special needs—that is to say, for those for whom statements will be made—but encouraged LEAs to consider individually what information they might collect on the wider population with special educational needs as defined in Clause 1 of the Bill. Our view is that we agree with this division of responsibility, as we consider that the national information on the wider population would be very hard to collect and that the absence of common standards would make the drawing of conclusions from it very difficult indeed.

The noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, raised three interesting and very important points and I would tell him that of course we recognise the importance of defining the duties of the National Health Service, the local education authorities and the social services. But I think that what he was concerned about, as was my noble friend Lady Faithfull, was co-operation between the three arms that will be concerned with these children. This is often a matter of good practice. One has read enough reports where there has not been co-ordination to know that everything was there to make it right, yet it did not work because of failure on the part of the individuals or lack of good practice. We cannot of course legislate for that, but I am sure that we need always to bear in mind as we are considering the Bill that, while we can do what we can to create the right legal framework, we cannot ever legislate for good practice.

I turn to the major issues which no doubt we shall reconsider in Committee, and I must comment again on the question of resources and say how grateful I was to my noble friend Lord Vaizey for reminding us of the sums of money which are going into special education. I must remind your Lordships also that when the 1944 Act was introduced, no resources went with that, yet I think I can say without fear of contradiction from any noble Lord that that Act has had a most profound effect on education—quite the most profound effect since the earlier one of 1902. So I do not believe that, simply because in the Financial Memorandum we have not included large sums of money, we need think that nothing will happen.

I believe local authorities will take the resources they have and consider whether they are using them as wisely as they might or whether they could get better value for money. I believe they will, without a specific grant—because all the evidence we have shows this—maintain their expenditure on special education and children with special educational needs. I was myself in local government for a long time and I believe that those who are in local government and are concerned with children with special educational needs will not see integration as a cheap option; they will continue to be far too concerned about the needs of these children.

I confirm that the Government's expenditure plans reflected in the 1981–82 rate support grant settlement and the education grant-related expenditure calculations for each individual local authority take account of the additional expenditure demands imposed by these children—that is, those with special educational needs. LEAs are being given a new framework on which to reconstruct their service to children with special educational needs. They are not being asked to start from nothing. Far from it; they are asked to think very hard about the way they spend the very large sums which they control and the alternative ways in which the money might be spent to greater good.

That brings me to the whole question of falling rolls, a subject which was raised by a number of noble Lords, and I am conscious that some people are very worried that local authorities will immediately shut down a whole series of special schools. Not only did I indicate in my opening remarks that special schools will for the first time be subject to the same kind of provisions as ordinary schools are, and cannot be closed just like that, but we must recognise the fact that there will be (this is perhaps a good feature of the falling rolls) about 10,000 fewer children in the schools population with special educational needs. Of course, local authorities must look at these schools, as they would look at all their schools, to determine whether or not, given a certain size, it is appropriate that they should remain open or whether educationally it would be better if they closed.

This matter must be left for their determination, quite properly, but I would not want anybody to believe that LEAs were suddenly going to close a whole series of schools on some kind of whim; nor indeed are they able to do so. Furthermore, one other good piece of news is that medical advances in detecting potential disabilities before birth and in treating them are reducing the number of children whose problems are so serious as to require education in special schools, and there is likely to be a continuing tendency for LEAs to provide for special educational needs in ordinary schools.

I come to the question of integration, a subject raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, my noble friend Lord Renton, and my noble friend Lord Lucas (in his particular case about deaf children) among others. Clause 2 establishes a principle of integration and association which recognises certain factors which were not explicit in Section 10 of the 1976 Act, which will be repealed by the Bill. We start from the general proposition that children with special educational needs should be educated in association with other children. But the interests of the child must come first and we cannot accept that this principle should impose an unconditional duty on LEAs where they maintain statements for children. Indeed, I believe that the views expressed illustrated that; whereas my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lord Renton said there must be a case for special education for certain types of children with special disabilities, the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), moved very strongly that most children should be in ordinary schools, where adequate provision could be made for them.

As we see this as an evolving situation, I believe we shall reach a position where there will still be a need for some special schools, but a larger number of handicapped children will be educated in ordinary schools. Most important, however, the Bill requires that account must be taken of parents' views. This is important because not all parents will in fact wish their children to be placed in an ordinary school, and, secondly, the needs of the child, as revealed by assessment, must be met by the proposed placements.

I know we shall have a great deal of discussion about parental access to professional reports. These matters were raised by the noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, and many others and I was grateful to my noble friend Lady Faithfull for the point she made describing the best practice on professional reports and that consideration should be given to the needs of the whole family. It is a key feature of the Bill that parents should be thoroughly involved from the outside in decisions about their child's education. They will have the right to attend their child's examinations, and thus they will have every opportunity to ask questions of the professionals concerned. The very disturbing example that my noble friend Lord Lucas gave was, if I may say so, an example of bad practice, where the parents had not had the opportunity to discuss what lay behind a decision. The Bill also provides parents with an absolute right of access to their child's statement, and of course to comment on that statement when it is in draft. The statement will be in a form prescribed by the Secretary of State, and will contain details of the LEA's assessment of the child's special educational needs.

The issue of confidentiality has been debated at length in another place and has been an area where we have sought to find an acceptable legislative response to the concerns felt by parents. We have given two undertakings: first, to make it clear in guidance which will follow the Bill that LEAs should be as frank as possible with parents, as frank as circumstances will permit, and should discuss fully what is going on; and, secondly, to consider whether there is a possiblity of improving the framework for communication of information to parents without damaging the interests of some children, or endangering the frankness of professional reports, by giving parents an absolute right of access to them. After all, what we need is the best of professional advice. We do not want the possibility that the advice is not written down, that it is inadequately passed on, because a professional will not agree to someone other than another professional seeing it. No doubt this is a matter to which we shall return at length in Committee.

I think that a number of noble Lords were confusing the issue of non-maintained special schools with that of independent schools catering for handicapped pupils. As I indicated in my opening remarks, so far as non-maintained special schools are concerned, under the regulations we shall be able to provide for parents and teachers on governing bodies and indeed for making the provisions as similar as possible to those for ordinary schools.

But the position about independent schools catering exclusively for children with special educational needs is rather different. We recognise a need to impose on independent schools wishing to cater for pupils with statements standards similar to those imposed upon other special schools. But as we indicated in our White Paper, it is not proposed to require such schools to establish governing bodies. In the context of the regulations we shall examine whether independent schools can be encouraged to establish advisory committees. But the fact is that it is not realistic to expect the proprietors of the majority of these schools to surrender control to governing bodies which they do not themselves appoint and which are independent of them. A governing body controlled by the proprietors' family will, not necessarily I fear, be the kind of governing body that we visualise over the whole range of governing bodies which we expect in the education service. We believe that the objective would be better achieved through regulations and by ensuring that local authorities have proper rights of access to these establishments. There is therefore a difference between independent schools and non-maintained special schools.

Finally, I wish to say a few words about the national advisory committee. This matter, too, was debated at great length in another place, and I am sure that we shall return to it. I am aware of the concern that has been expressed about the establishment of an advisory committee and the need to write an amendment into the Bill. I should like to reiterate what has been said in another place; namely, that an advisory committee can be established under the Secretary of State's general powers in the Education Act 1944. Indeed, an advisory committee on special education existed for more than 20 years prior to the establishment of the Warnock Committee. The Government have not set their face against the re-establishment of an advisory committee in the future, but we do not require specific powers in the present Bill to achieve that.

For the moment we consider that there is much progress to be made on the recommendations of the Warnock Committee itself. Against this background and in the light of the Government's general view against the desirability of establishing new Quangos, my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary offered to arrange a conference of voluntary bodies to discuss the implementation of the Bill. The offer still stands, and I am happy to reiterate it this evening. It seems to me to be one way to ensure that the collective voice of the voluntary bodies can be heard over a range of issues.

I am conscious that there are many points that I have not answered, but I believe that we have had a very constructive, as well as lengthy, debate, and I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part. There can be few other places besides your Lordships' House where we could have had gathered together a high degree of personal experience and expertise.

In introducing the Bill I am very conscious of the fact that I have been greatly blessed in life. Not only do I enjoy good health myself, but I have had the privilege of having three normal, healthy children. I recognise that I am fortunate, and I am sure that those of us in such a position appreciate not only the very moving point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), about those things that are loaded against children with handicaps from birth, but also the fact of how much more fortunate we are if we do not ourselves suffer from these handicaps. It is in that spirit that I commend the Bill to the House. It is offered as a contribution from the Government to the International Year of Disabled People. We want to see the Bill on the statute book as soon as possible, and we want to move as far as we can and as fast as we can towards the same true equality of opportunity for those children with special educational needs that we are providing for all the other children in our educational system.

rose to move, That this House takes note of the Report of the European Communities Committee on EEC fruit and vegetables policy (22nd Report, 147). The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. This debate deals with the Report of Sub-Committee D on Fruit and Vegetables and, at the outset, I should like to thank all those who have helped in one way or another to produce it. The witnesses who are listed in the report were uniformly helpful, and their expertise was of great value to the committee. The House will have noted the minutes of their evidence. I think that one point should be made in this context; namely, that while it is not thought necessary at all times to hear all potential witnesses orally, we do appreciate written evidence, and we pay the most careful regard to it throughout our deliberations. The fact that witnesses are not called before the committee does not mean that their evidence is regarded as second-rate. It is of the first importance, and we appreciate it. We were also helped and guided by our specialist adviser, and finally I should like to thank all my noble friends on the committee who worked their way with great determination through what is a complicated maze.

My Lords, first, I should like to say as a member of the committee that I have greatly enjoyed the work on it, particularly in sitting under the chairmanship of the admirable and noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos. I think he has given your Lordships a very fair summing up of the views of the committee, and I think he has put to the House a very necessary matter—that is, the basic objectives of the CAP. Of course, the basic objectives are that producers should get a fair living, that consumers should get food at a reasonable price and that the food supply for the Community should be assured. I think that these are very fair objectives; and the Community has chosen to implement them, really, by a protective system of the control of imports and of help to the producers to produce food at a reasonable price.

My area of disagreement with the committee—I have the chairman's permission to express my views on this—is that it does not take fully into account the essential objectives of the common agricultural policy. I disagree with the committee when it says that imports are unreasonably restrictive. Bacfid, Frucom, the Food Manufacturers' Federation, the National Federation of Fruit and Potato Trades and others all gave similar evidence; that they thought imports were restricted too much, particularly some varieties which they felt could be freely let in without any tariff or reference price because the other members of the Community did not grow this particular produce at that time.

In a way this is a fair point, but it is a fallacy because if the Community's policy is going to protect the grower it must also protect against massive imports of low-priced substitutes for fruits which are grown in the Community. I think it is perfectly fair for the Community to impose levies and tariffs on other fruits not grown in the Community if there is a flood of them, which could wholly divert the public to cheaper imported fruits and thereby affect very seriously produce from Community growers.

I must declare an interest, because I grow soft fruit in Scotland, but the Scottish NFU put forward what I thought was very conclusive evidence to the Committee and to the Government concerning the import through Dutch sources of pulp from eastern Europe at prices which were way below the cost of production. As we know, this is a regular device used by eastern European countries to obtain foreign currency. When we are looking at these matters we must take account of the general policy, which is to hold up returns to consumers, to keep up their standards of living, by reference to the market. We have to accept that this is what is done on the Continent and what has been done on the Continent for years. We are only a fraction of the EEC and therefore we have to think in terms of the Community as a whole. This is the essence of the CAP as it develops; that we are being far too nationalistic in our approach, but we are by no means the worse culprits. I believe it is well recognised that the French producers look to their own interests in an extremely clever and admirable manner, but they do not do very much good to the whole feeling of Community spirit. What the chairman of the Committee said was absolutely true; the Commission told us that they have a large amount of information on national aids but it was confidential and the only way that they could get it from certain countries was by promising to keep it confidential. That is no way to run the Community. Unless we start rationalising the national aids we are going to get nowhere. We have a great deal of evidence to suggest that our suspicions might have been well-founded; that national aids were being given which were not in the spirit of the Community and which where cutting across the Community's purposes.

I believe we have to improve our aim towards the market. We had a lovely illustration of this when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, came to the Box in an earlier debate about soft fruit and waxed lyrical about the crunchiness of Cox's Orange Pippins. That was probably the best piece of advertising one could have, and we should have broadcast that particular speech by the noble Lord to promote the sale of Cox's Orange Pippins on their merits. As the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, said we have fallen behind in the marketing of our excellent produce. We should always be able to sell quality and any aids that we are suggesting the EEC should give should take the line of helping the marketing of our fruits.

With regard to the withdrawal system, I believe it is full of pitfalls. The withdrawal system—in other words, the selling to the board of potatoes at a guaranteed price—could lead to people in this country quite happily growing for the board to take over. In the days before the board took over people were growing for the Government to take over and this was absolute nonsense. As the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, said, we must set any withdrawal price at a level which simply encourages it off the market and is of some small help to the producer. In vegetable growing we all know that for centuries people have realised that in times of blight one often has to plough down a field of cauliflowers, for example, and I believe that in the main aid should go into marketing, processing, and other methods of helping the producer.

With the expansion of the Community into Mediterranean countries, we have to watch in particular that the withdrawal system does not become a source of income and, indeed, abuse. We have already a complicated case in Italy concerning tomato concentrate, and I do feel that we ought to watch these affairs, particularly in some of the Mediterranean countries where the Civil Service is not as strong as the one that we have in our country and where the administration of such schemes can lead to abuse. I commend the report to your Lordships with slight qualifications. It highlights a situation which is highly dangerous and gives a warning of simplification and it is one that the Council of Ministers, who really have the power rather than the Commission, would do well to heed.

I should first like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, and his committee for this excellent report. It has drawn attention to an area of the common agricultural policy which is well overdue to receive further illumination. This report is fully of extremely valuable information, be it statistical or otherwise, and full of information which is in some senses sometimes even surprising. I was grateful to the committee for giving me the opportunity, as an apple-grower, to give evidence as a witness. I was most grateful for the courteous way in which my evidence was heard. Having read this report with, as your Lordships might imagine, great care, there are two points which I found to be spelt out with great clarity and which must be quite self-evident. First, the EEC's present support system for fruit and vegetables is strangely complicated.

The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, referred to the Hampton Court Maze and I think that describes the system very aptly, because the procedures are almost inpenetrable to anyone who might try to take an informed view of them. I do not believe that I need say any more about that because the report itself emphasises that any support system which is so complicated is by its nature likely to be poorly communicated and will probably give rise to many of the fears which exist among various sectors of horticulture and marketing to the effect that our competitors are pulling a fast one. If one does not understand the system, one is inevitably going to feel that more than might otherwise be the case.

Secondly—and this is perhaps the most important point to make tonight—this support system is not suitable for the United Kingdom. It is not designed for our requirements, neither for our consumers, nor for our producers and certainly not for the taxpayer. The figures in the report (which I have not seen before) certainly deserve to be repeated. The cost (calculated in the report) to the United Kingdom of this particular branch of the CAP is £79 million. The report refers to the year 1980. The sums received back from this particular support system are £1 million and the net budgetary deficit is £78 million—which is a fairly startling figure bearing in mind that horticulture (and apples and fruit and vegetables are what we are talking about tonight) is a not inconsiderable part of our own production and represents about 10 per cent., so far as I can ascertain, of the production of fruit and vegetables in the EEC. So we receive one quarter of 1 per cent. of the expenditure in this sector in return for producing 10 per cent. If that does not, on the face of it, appear to be an imbalance, then, surely, that would be a strange case to argue.

You may say that that is probably because we do not need support in this country but, again, the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, and the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, have referred already to the extremely difficult situation in which various branches of horticulture find themselves. I refer to apply growers but also to the vegetable growers who argue, equally strongly, that if support is to be given within the EEC then, surely, a more equitable system could be devised which would give us more than a quarter of 1 per cent. if we are to produce 10 per cent. of the product. This is something which I am sure that my noble friend the Minister would wish to refer to.

The strange thing is, as the report points out, that since our entry into the EEC, a totally distorted support system has got rather worse. There was the Mediterranean package of 1978 which produced production aid which, by its very name, obviously was not serving the interests of our producers. The Ministry witnesses, I see, suggest that it might have helped the consumer in some sense but I am certainly not persuaded of that. The argument was that the consumer could already buy, for instance, canned peaches at a certain price. If that consumer wanted to buy Italian peaches, then a subsidy would be given to the Italian processor and this would bring down the price of Italian peaches so that she could buy Italian peaches as well as peaches from another country. Quite frankly, the consumer was not greatly benefited except that there was a choice of two different sources of canned peach. When you bear in mind that these processing premiums absorb two-thirds of the expenditure that we are looking at today, then one suspects that really this is a system of support very largely designed for southern Europe that is, Italy and Southern France. Again, statistics would show that where it goes to supports this very strongly. Obviously, this Mediterranean package has no relevance whatsoever to us. Also, the export refunds which are available both for production and for processing are again, as the report demonstrates, of little relevance.

It is true that export refunds were at one time of a certain significance for processed products. That was when (as the report points out very clearly) the price of sugar on the world market was rather lower. Now that it is higher, there is no need to give an export refund on processed fruits which have a high sugar content; so that export refunds are really of no significance to the United Kingdom any more. But again there is a great relevance to those sectors of horticulture in the Common Market which are export-orientated and, of course, again we look to the exports of the Golden Delicious or the Italian tomatoes which have traditionally been exported, not just round Europe where export refunds would not be appropriate within the Common Market, but into third countries around the world.

Fair enough. They are doing an extremely efficient job in marketing their horticultural produce into these markets, but, let us make no mistake about it, when you come to assess the benefits which can be derived from export refunds and add it to the total package, at least to underpin the amount of income you would be guaranteed to get from EEC funds, it is a significant factor. The reason in top fruit, for example, why we are not exporters is because we have traditionally always been importing fruit from round the world; we are growing a rather specialised variety, low yield, high quality, and again this is certainly a difficult product to sell; although by no means impossible, as apple growers, by their expert marketing in many fields, have demonstrated. But I do not think it is realistic to expect export refunds from this sector to be very relevant to our requirements either for the processed products in future or in the fresh sector.

That, lastly, leaves the sectors we are looking at. If the Mediterranean package and the export refunds are of little relevance, that leaves the withdrawal payments which are paid to the producer. Again, I repeat the figures which I mentioned before: 10 per cent. production or thereabouts of fruit and vegetables. But in practice, while Italy takes 60 per cent. of these withdrawal payments, Holland 15 per cent., France 13 per cent., Belgium 6 per cent, Germany 3 per cent., we take 1 per cent. Again, page 102 of the report demonstrates that that goes half to cauliflowers and half to apples. So it is clearly the case: either English growers are not availing themselves very largely of these withdrawal payments or they are inappropriate, they are not designed to the needs of the producers. I cannot speak for cauliflowers. I think that probably we do reasonably well out of those. We seem to get a large share, anyway, of that expenditure; but for the top fruit we do not.

The committee spent some time exploring the reason why it was that these systems of support appeared to favour Golden Delicious and the South of France more than production in Northern Europe. The basic fault, from our point of view, is that the system of intervention supports a high-yielding variety because it is paid by kilo and not by hectare. Also, to add insult to injury, because you may say that there is no harm in supporting people with high yields, it rewards those who grow the larger fruit. That, if you think about it, is totally illogical. If there was some merit in growing a large apple or a large tomato or whatever, then by all means reward it; but, on the other hand, the discriminating consumer will tell you that if you want shelf life, if you want flavour, you do not go for the balloon which will break down, you go for the smaller apple. We happen to grow a smaller apple, we happen to grow apples which are lower yielding, we happen to grow apples which command a considerable premium in the market and, incidentally, I am able to assure the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, that the premium has increased over the last year, thanks to the success of marketing initiatives.

When you look at the level of support per hectare, because this leads back to the farm in Southern France, add to that the assurance which is available from export refunds bearing in mind that horticultural production by its nature is a chancy business if you can underwrite a large proportion of your direct costs, then it is of enormous advantage. The more risk you have, the less sure you are of your income year to year, so the greater has to be your margin for contingency. It is a case that, while I would not necessarily claim that people in the South of France are growing year by year for profit as fruit producers, they are, nevertheless, assured from all sources—I am talking specifically at the moment of sources from the EEC—of a very reasonable return on their direct costs. I repeat that they may not be getting a profit, but, equally, they are very little at risk.

This is the basic reason why production of top fruit, particularly in Europe, is moving inextricably Southwards. It is not just the British producers who are complaining. It is also the Dutch, the Belgians, the Germans and even the Northern French who are all complaining that they are finding it impossible to stave off the floods of imports from the Mediterranean countries who, in turn, are apparently able to assure themselves of a much larger return from the various support systems. This makes me quite certain in my own mind that the package which the CAP have put forward over many years through many modifications is totally inappropriate for the consumer in Europe. It may be all right for the consumer in the South of Europe. It is certainly not appropriate for our consumer and certainly not appropriate for our producer. I think it is reasonable to ask of the Community from time to time if the long-term interests of the consumer were any way being advanced by their policies. Obviously, what is happening at the moment is that the choice which the consumer is afforded in the shops is being reduced. It is exactly the same as happened in North America ten years ago. As production moved to Washington state—which was the higher yielding, blander (if you like; that is the kindest description I can give to a Golden Delicious)—so the quality varieties in North America from New England, Virginia, disappeared from the supermarkets. This is happening in Europe, in Northern France; it is happening in England and it is happening in the Low Countries.

In England we complain about the loss of the share of the market for Cox and Bramley. In Holland you will hear the same story of Belle de Boskoop and in Denmark Ingrid Marie, and so on. What system of support would we, both as a United Kingdom consumer and producer, find more to our requirements? The intervention system should, I suggest, be phased out—and quickly—for all it has done is to keep in production varieties which are apparently in surplus year after year. Restructuring grants, the committee have pointed out, are overdue. They are certainly overdue in this country in the sense that restructuring is required. The age profile of the orchard is dangerously high. This is a point made by the Ministry, and I would entirely agree. I should declare here my interest as a fruit nurseryman.

Nevertheless, it is true that if we are to keep in plant some of the varieties which I suspect we can quite easily demonstrate are greatly desired in our markets, then we will need help in making sure that these varieties are put back into plant. I suggest that this would be a much more appropriate use for funds than the present system of intervention which seems to keep in plant unwanted varieties.

It will obviously be very difficult for a decision to be made as to which varieties should qualify for restructuring and which should not. It certainly would not be a job for a producer, let alone a nurseryman, to say which those varieties should be. I would ask the consumer. The consumer is vociferous in respect of his or her interests in top fruit. One saw this last season when there was so much interest in the so-called "apple war". I would think that it would be just as easy to discriminate in favour of one variety as it is, for instance, in hops, where there is income support on an acreage basis and by variety. There is a precedent and the problem is not insuperable.

Lastly, on national aid—and I must not speak any longer—I heartily agree with the committee when it says that the distrust and suspicion engendered by unsubstantiated allegations is not conducive to the harmonious development of the European Community. I made allegations as a witness which I was unable to substantiate. Of course, when one hears from the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, that the Commission may have this information but it is confidential and they will not allow the committee to see it, let alone a grower such as myself, it is not surprising that I find it somewhat difficult to substantiate. This is surely a situation which is totally unacceptable to all those in this House and in this country.

The people who are most in support of the Common Market should be the most vociferous in demanding that we are told specifically what national aid is available. We shall be told no doubt that it is complicated; that we have much assistance; that we are de-rated as farmers; we get free advice from ADAS and we get capital grants. All that is quite true. It may even be—if we move away from horticulture for a moment—that in some commodities it might be embarrassing to find the assistance that we get is perhaps in some respects equal or better than that available to our competitors.

That matters not a bit to me. I am sure that we should know and if we find that we are getting more assistance than we have given ourselves credit for, then we as producers should stop bleating. Where we are able to quantify, it will have to be an accurate assessment going back over a number of years in a perennial crop or a crop with a high capital input such as glasshouses. Where one can quantify if there has been a distortion over a number of years, as there will be when one starts with subsidised capital, then we should know and the Commission should accept that they have a responsibility to redress the distortion which they have caused.

I end by saying how much I welcome this report. It has shown that in this sector we are getting a particularly poor deal in a funding of a budget which we all recognise is seriously distorted. This may be only 6 per cent. of CAP but perhaps it is a microcosm of something which is basically unsatisfactory in so many other spheres. Let us hope that when the Minister speaks he will be able to tell us clearly what it is in the long run that we should like to see in the form of an income support system for fruit and vegetables.

My Lords, the report being debated today sets out details of the European Community régime for fruit and vegetables which appear somewhat complex. I believe that this applies mainly to details such as the method of calculating withdrawal price set out in Table 1 which I for one would certainly not pretend to understand at all. In essence, however, I believe that the régime merits the description of being "light" which was applied to it by the Ministry of Agriculture in giving their evidence, at least as compared with the Common Agricultural Policy as a whole. The reason is that from the very first the Community has been in effect self-sufficient in these commodities, with the exception of tropical fruits and some temperate produce out of season. Extension to the south, now in progress, will enhance this situation. There has been no need therefore for target prices calculated to stimulate production, and although there have been surpluses, the perishable nature of the produce has ensured that there have been no tomato or cauliflower mountains.

Thus late in the day, I would draw attention to three aspects of the subject. First, "state aids" dealt with in paragraph 57 of the report. As I understand it, these are not in themselves excluded by Article 92 of the treaty, and are certainly tolerated—indeed encouraged—by the Community itself in certain directions. I refer to such matters as research, help for hill farmers, measures for energy saving and the like. Article 93 of the treaty requires that all such aids should be monitored by the Commission, and no doubt there will be room in the future for their "harmonisation "—that great Brussels word. It must be recognised however that most industrialised states, such as ours, have vast urban populations who must be fed but who do not themselves produce food. In an emergency, all Governments would prefer that these people should be dependent for their food upon home producers, who are politically more controllable than foreigners, and can be counted upon to co-operate.

It is a different matter when state aids directly favour exports to another member of the Community, and when this occurs, such exports should be regarded as being more in the nature of dumping, which has always been condemned in international trade. The report makes reference to two such cases in paragraphs 57 and 58. In the second case quoted, that of the Dutch gas price, the Minister of Agriculture has acted since the report was printed to give temporary help to British glasshouse producers—for which the industry is most grateful—but of course the problem still remains.

Secondly, there is the question of consumer prices. Mindful of its remit, the committee endeavoured to establish how the CAP had affected these so far as fruit and vegetables are concerned. The Ministry of Agriculture was unable to help in this matter, for the very good reason that after eight years in the Community, no one could now tell what the level of prices in the United Kingdom would have been had we not been in the Community. It is thus a hypothetical question to ask how they would compare with the level of prices actually prevailing. This does not prevent critics of the Community hazarding a guess, and in the debate in your Lordships' House last week one speaker is on record as attributing to the CAP a 10·2 per cent. increase in our cost of living. However that figure was arrived at, I have no doubt that it cannot be applied to fruit and vegetables. Paragraph 61 of the report quotes British growers (of whom I am one) as maintaining:

"that prices are under pressure, sometimes severe pressure, from imports and that the régime has worked to the advantage of the consumer. They may well be right".

Certainly the annual cost to the EEC of the fruit and vegetable régime in the United Kingdom (paragraph 54) at £1 million is truly negligible when compared, say, to the proceeds of the tariff which, as the noble Earl, Lord Selbourne, has remarked, is estimated at £79 million. But in the meantime the area in this country devoted to horticulture has been, and is, declining and so is the net annual income of the growers. If I may quote the Motion for a resolution on the common agricultural policy which was recently submitted to the European Parliament by their Agricultural Committee, chaired by Sir Henry Plumb, it is accepted as a matter of principle that—

"The aim of insuring adequate supplies of foodstuffs to consumers at reasonable prices has been attained in recent years to a greater extent that the other aim of the common agricultural policy, which is to enable farmers to participate in the general growth of earnings".

Finally, there is the question of overseas aid. Many of the ACP countries affected by the Lomé concessions, especially in Africa, are very interested in the supply of tropical fruits and the out-of-season temperate fruits and vegetables to which I referred earlier, and have the capacity to supply them. While I agree entirely with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, about competition within the horticultural market itself between one type of produce and another, I also feel that so far as imports are concerned this should apply mainly to imports from other developed countries. After many years of direct involvement in this particular matter, I have seen for myself how much better trade is than aid for the developing countries, and I would commend the Lomé initiative and what it has already achieved.

My Lords, the EEC fruit and vegetable policy has never been the subject of inquiry by the Select Committee as a separate issue. This fact alone makes the report of some significance. However, the budgetary cost of this policy is not small. In terms of expenditure by the European Agricultural Guidance and Guaranteed Fund, fruit and vegetable is the fifth largest category receiving support. This puts the policy into perspective rather more clearly than saying that fruit and vegetables take roughly 5 per cent. of the total EEC price support.

The policy itself, as the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, has already stated, covering both fresh and processed produce, is aimed at achieving

"a balance between supply and demand at fair prices to the producer, account being taken of trade with third countries, while encouraging specialisation within the Community".

In other words, the price support system is designed to give varying degrees of protection to Community producers. The question is: How far is the policy suited to the Community's production of fresh fruit and vegetables and to the needs of the consumer?

As your Lordships will appreciate, Community production, because of the climate and the changes in the seasons, cannot meet consumer demand all the year round; yet third countries are subject to import tariffs under the EEC fruit and vegetable policy. In 1978–79, the Community imported from third countries and associated states 12 per cent. of its vegetable consumption, 66 per cent. of its citrus fruit consumption and one-third of its consumption of other fruits, according to the submission from the consumers in the European Community Group.

As far as the United Kingdom is concerned, we rely more heavily than the EEC as a whole on third country imports. In view of this reliance on imports these tariffs are difficult to justify, particularly where there are levies on products which are not grown in the Community or whose season is over. For example, a 20 per cent. tariff is imposed on imports of bananas: yet none are grown in the EEC. Peaches are produced only during July and August but imports are taxed, when there is no EEC production. In the report the committee conclude that there is no need to tax out-of-season produce so heavily. Such import arrangements are unduly restrictive. The import tariff should be reduced, if not removed, when Community production cannot meet off-season demand or where there is a low self-sufficiency ratio.

The other main plank of the policy for fruit and vegetables has already been referred to; namely, the withdrawal system—the equivalent of intervention for other commodities. It removes surplus produce from the market to maintain a pre-determined price for the produce in times of glut. This policy has been the subject of much criticism. Many assertions have been made of producers deliberately growing for withdrawal, but the Ministry of Agriculture in their evidence said that this was very difficult to prove or disprove. It is a fact, though, that the greater proportion of this withdrawn produce is destroyed and is unavailable for human consumption, even though it is of marketable quality. In 1978–79, the cost of withdrawal for the nine products amounted to nearly £42 million. It is hard to believe that more of this produce is not suitable for processing by freezing or canning.

The committee heard evidence that led them to conclude that the withdrawal system should be kept under review, offering only a safety net. The National Federation of Fruit and Potato Trades in their evidence called for a freeze on withdrawal prices. Others advocated that the system be phased out over a period of five years. In the case of apples, the National Farmers' Union believed that withdrawal should be abolished as it is the only fruit that is in structural surplus. One witness asked in evidence: Could not the expenditure involved in the withdrawal system be directed towards marketing and the consumption of produce in abundance? It is not better use of resources to encourage consumers to eat more fruit and vegetables?

May I turn to what, in my view, is the most important aspect of fruit and vegetable policy; that is, quality standards? The evidence we heard in committee led to the conclusion that Community policy has not been of significant benefit to the United Kingdom. However, improvements in marketing and the maintenance of consistent standards and presentation are the means of improving Britain's competitiveness. Early this year, after visiting Nine Elms fruit and vegetable market, one of the Minister of Agriculture's marketing advisers stated at the Oxford farming conference that the tattered lettuce was British, all the dirty celery was British and even the English Cox's apples seemed very second-rate against the Dutch imports. The lady in question may have been unlucky in her experience. However, it is generally recognised that it is easier to control quality and freshness when produce is for export.

We have to realise that the marketing efforts of our European competitors are of a very high standard. Besides this, there has been the revolution in long-distance haulage of fresh produce, with containerisation, refrigeration and the development of the roll-on/ roll-off ferry links, which enables continental produce not only to arrive in good condition, but to reach the market nearly as quickly as United Kingdom produce. The intensity of competition from imports has grown since our entry into the Community. Our United Kingdom marketing system needs to respond both to competition and to the needs of the consumer. There is now a trend among consumers away from value for money measured in terms of greatest volume for the lowest price, towards value for money in quality-for-price terms. We need to meet this in the home market by raising standards.

I appreciate that I have not covered all the points raised in the report; for example, the lack of sufficient data and information on national aids, which has already been referred to by several speakers, as well as the inequality of treatment between individual growers and producer groups and the important subject of enforcement. They have been covered by other speakers and I have already spoken for too long. I realise that I have made a dull speech, but it is difficult to go into flights of oratory on what is a complex subject; namely, the study and understanding of the Community's régime for fruit and vegetables. I hope that I have at least shed a little light rather than darkness, and that the report will serve a useful purpose.

My Lords, I shall be very brief, indeed, because so much has already been said with which I entirely agree. But I should like very much to pay my tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, for the way in which he conducted his committee. I know of no other chairman who gets so much information out of people who come and give evidence as he does, and all the evidence which is printed in this report is fascinating and very useful for the Minister and for our Department of Agriculture. I should also like to say that the evidence given by my noble friend Lord Selborne, which is printed on page 21, was one of the most important moments in our committee, because he speaks with such authority. Not only he, but his father and, I think, his grandfather, too, have been responsible for growing apples in this country.

I should like to underline one or two points very quickly indeed. The question of withdrawal prices, which we stressed, should be watched very carefully. French Golden Delicious can be withdrawn which, in consequence, means that far more are grown than are needed. I agree with the National Farmers' Union that continuing to encourage the growing of apples in France, when they are not wanted, simply adds to the complications of the trade. In paragraph 54, we point out that the common agricultural policy spends £443 million on fruit and vegetables and that the United Kingdom gets slightly less than one-quarter of 1 per cent. of that, which amounts to £1 million. On the other hand, the customs duties that we pay amount to £79 million. So that the United Kingdom pays out £78 million net, which seems a very large sum.

We questioned what state aids were being provided in other EEC countries and, as noble Lords have said tonight, we were met with very unsatisfactory answers and far too much secrecy. We all know that very strong aids are being given in France, in Belgium, in Germany and in the Netherlands, which falsifies to some extent the cost of production vis-à-vis the British who do not give these great aids. I am very strongly in favour of getting more information from countries—and I think that the EEC has every right to ask for it—rather than that all this should be kept secret.

We in this country know what a devastating blow the rise in fuel prices has been to our glasshouse industry. In the Clyde Valley in Scotland, which I know quite well, there are big centres which used to grow tomatoes and fruit in glasshouses. Today, those glasshouses are used only in the spring and summer, when they are unheated, and not at all in the winter. On page 35, there is quite interesting and important evidence, which I commend to the Minister, from the National Farmers' Union of Scotland on the devastating effect of the high rise of production costs in the glasshouse industry. If we cannot get the other EEC countries to declare what they are spending on these subsidies, I think that we could ask the Government to look at the situation in this country, because we have unfair competition from Europe.

In paragraph 65, we point out that the United Kingdom has not benefited very much from the policy of the EEC on fruit and vegetables. This is before the advent of the new countries—Spain and Greece, in particular—which produce fruit and vegetables. We should take this very seriously. If we are going to take some action—and I hope that we are—we should take it as quickly as possible, because we are going to be caught up in a network of complications the moment these other countries come in. This is something which the people in Brussels ought to look at immediately. I hope that our Government are well aware of the problems. Our Secretary of State, Mr. Walker, and our Minister of State, my noble friend Lord Ferrers, are both practical people who really know about the importance of these matters. I urge upon them very much that the time to take action is now, before the position gets any worse. If we can do that, we shall be doing something which is of value for this important part of the agricultural industry.

My Lords, before speaking to my notes, may I pay a tribute to my noble friend Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos. I knew him when he was Minister of Agriculture. He did so much for the farming industry in the Community at that time. His introduction of the Committee's report was admirable. I pay a real tribute to him in the best sense. I am very proud of him. I want to thank my noble friend and his Committee for all the work that they have done. It is not an easy subject. It is different from the larger aspects of the common agricultural policy. Like any other policy, it has its deficiencies. Nevertheless, when you wade through the statistics you see how difficult a subject it is.

I should like to stress the importance of the Committee's recommendations in paragraphs 63 and 64. The Committee have expressed their opinions on, first, allegations of unfair competition, causing distrust in the Community; secondly, the problems of intervention and withdrawal; thirdly, the need to enforce quality standards and to monitor imports; and, fourth, the need for better marketing.

This is one of the problems which we have to face. It is no good always blaming the foreigner or the Community. We must look at ourselves. I am not now one of those who always blame the Community and wishes to destroy it. As an agriculture Minister, I changed my mind a long time ago. As we are in the Community, I believe that we must make it work. It would be very wrong of us to think otherwise.

I would refer to the importance of the views of the National Farmers' Union. Most noble Lords will have seen their views in the report which has been put before them. It is an important document. The union are concerned not only about producers. They are concerned also about those who are employed in agriculture and horticulture. More Government aid is needed for research for good varieties and good produce. There is also a need for good presentation and marketing.

As this is such an important question, may I ask the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, what the Government are doing about both. We have got to put our own house in order. If we are to compete successfully in the Community we must be efficient. I should be grateful if the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, could endorse this. If he cannot do so tonight in detail, no doubt he will be able to write to me.

Both noble Viscounts mentioned the produce of Spain, Portugal and Greece now that they are members of the Community. We accept that this will create difficulties, but now that they are in the Community I hope that they will be partners who will make a contribution to the Community. There is, therefore, a need to ensure effective enforcement of fair competition in the Community, especially now that these new countries have joined it. May I therefore ask the Government what they are doing about the report, and how soon? I do not want to go on arguing about the matter. This is a very fine document. It has been well produced, and I should like to pay a tribute to MAFF for it.

I had been hoping for a wider discussion of this subject. Why is it not possible for horticulturalists to make use of some of the surplus power which comes from our power stations for heating purposes? I know that they are worried about the high cost of oil. This is something which the Apple and Pear Council, which I had the privilege to set up, thinks should be done. It is important to site glasshouses near to power stations in order to make use of the waste which now trickles away in other directions. I should like to know whether we are going to do something like that. Perhaps a study group could be set up to go into the question. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to give me a sympathetic answer. We must appreciate that there are difficulties about it. Nevertheless, there is something in this suggestion which I hope will be considered. May I thank my noble colleague and all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. It is a fine report which contains a tremendous amount of detail. It needs to be studied carefully. It is a report which is worth reading and studying.

My Lords, it is a remarkable example of your Lordships' House that a report like this can be produced on one of the most complicated, complex and detailed subjects and yet can be discussed in the way in which it has been discussed this evening. Our debate has been condensed into something like an hour-and-a-half and a great deal of information and knowledge has been expressed. The noble Lord, Lord Peart, congratulated his noble friend Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos. I should also like to do so, with the greatest of humility. I think he said that this report was a microcosm of what happens in the whole fruit and vegetable régime in Europe. If I may say so, his speech was a microcosm of his report in 10 minutes; I thought that was a quite astonishing speech and I admired it enormously. I should like to think that I could at least try to emulate it but I know that I shall not succeed.

I know that your Lordships will be particularly grateful to the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, for having gone into this subject in such detail because it really is almost a biblos, not only for the United Kingdom but for Europe and even for third countries as to how the fruit and vegetable régime works. It is very important and I believe it will become a text book. We are of course dealing with highly complicated subjects. We are not dealing with large commodities such as we normally deal with, like beef or grain, where we can be fairly broad in our considera tion. We are dealing with a number of relatively small crops produced, relatively speaking, on a number of small places with a variety of climatic and husbandry conditions, and very often with a totally different marketing position where they end up. Yet the individual item, be it an apple or a mandarin or a pear, is what the housewife is concerned with, as opposed to grain, where she may be concerned with a loaf of bread but she is not concerned with the individual grain. That is where I believe this is a subject of great importance and complexity.

Of course, the horticultural industry always has been one of entrepreneurial activity, and remarkably it has succeeded in this country with very little price support from the state. Its success or its failure has depended upon the talents and the competitiveness, the vision and the dedication, of those who are engaged in the industry, and that will still continue to be so. They have the ability to face up to the vagaries of the climate and the uncertainties which it creates, both on supply and on demand. No Government have, or can be expected to have, simple solutions to these many great difficulties.

In addition, many of these products are highly perishable and one cannot expect simple solutions to them all. But I should like to come to the item which I think has been stressed by very nearly every noble Lord who has spoken, and certainly the committee referred to it in great detail. I am referring to the allegations that there is unfairness within the European Community and that some countries are not doing what they should do. The committee expressed strong concern about the suspicions that arise from these allegations and the harm which is done to the development of the Community. Clearly any partnership cannot prosper in an air of mistrust and doubt, and I am convinced that at the moment a great deal of energy is wasted by the industry—not just the horticultural industry but even the agricultural industry—in worrying unnecessarily about what others might be doing. It is important that every country should—to use the colloquial English expression—play the game, but I believe that we are in danger of expending a vast quantity of energy, almost carrying out a witch hunt, to try to see what the others are doing and to see whether what they are doing is wrong, as if, even if that were substantiated, that in itself would solve the problems. I do not believe that it would.

I think it is certainly correct that we should try to ensure that wherever possible there is fair and reasonable and proper competition and that there should not be unfair subsidies. I think we all know of doubts about this, but I really do think that the industry as a whole should not direct all its energies into trying to find out what the others are doing and telling them not to, because all you do is to expend your energies in that direction instead of expending them in trying to compete.

Here I agree so much with the noble Lord, Lord Peart, that what we in this business have to try to do is to see that our product competes. It has to compete with other people, some of whom have advantages of climate, some of whom have advantages of soil; but in the end we have to compete, and in order to do that we have to market. The noble Lord, Lord Peart, is absolutely right, and that is why I have found that one of the most stimulating things about my short tenure of office in this Administration and in this particular Ministry is that so much effort is expended on trying to encourage marketing.

Before we always felt that the producer has to produce the food and there is the nation ready to eat it. That is not so. Communications of every kind—I think the noble Lord, Lord Peart, referred to roll-on roll-off ferries—have become far easier. It is easier to move stuff from one country to another, and little is gained by complaining that our competitors have advantages over us if we are not making the best use of our opportunities. Having said that, I can assure your Lordships that my right honourable friend is taking every possible step to ensure that where there are substantiated evidences of unfair competition he will report those to the Commission.

The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, and I think my noble friend Lord Selbourne and the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, also said, "Why cannot we have a list of all the aids produced by other countries?" Well, I think there is a list at the moment, in a number of different languages, which extends to 6,000 pages. I think there are seven different languages in use in the Community, and if they are all going to be translated into each language we shall end up with a volume of about 42,000 pages. Then you are going to have a host of people reading through all these pages to see what the others are doing which is so wrong, and that is going to involve a vast quantity of people. In the end what we are doing is really doing the job of the Commission, because it is their duty to ensure that State aids are fair and just.

My Lords, as a matter of fact on our visit to Brussels we were told not that the list was available but that the list was confidential. Surely the noble Earl would agree that information, in peace as in war, is very vital.

My Lords, I agree of course that information is always vital, but it is the Commission's responsibility to be told what aid is being given and having been told to decide whether it is fair or not. It is their duty then to inform member states where such aids are not fair and not just. All I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Mackie—I absolutely take his point—is that we want to be careful that each member state does not find it its duty to look at each aid which is offered by each other member state, because otherwise we shall be going round in concentric circles. It is the duty of the Commission. I do not wish, in saying that, to devalue the point made so forcefully by your Lordships: that the whole essence of the system is that there must be fair and reasonable competition.

When the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, says there has been very little benefit to the United Kingdom from the Community's policy on fruit and vegetables, I am bound to say I would share that view. It seems probable that the more tangible benefits have gone to importers and consumers rather than to producers, since the régime is largely geared to assisting the Mediterranean production. My noble friend Lord Selborne referred also to the cost of this régime, as did my noble friend Lady Elliot. It is perfectly true the régime has been very expensive to the United Kingdom, but I think it is a dangerous thing to look at one tiny sector of the whole CAP and say because that has been expensive to us therefore it ought to be changed. Of course the fruit and vegetable régime was designed when there was a Community of six, and it was recognised that there were those countries further south who did not have the advantage of the more temperate climates of the North, and that is possibly one of the reasons why the régime was so adjusted. What we have to do now is try to readjust where possible. Having to get the consent of so many other partners is not an easy task, but I can assure your Lordships it is one which my right honourable friend intends to pursue.

The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, asked very succinctly, as is his characteristic, are we satisfied with grading, marketing and the quality of produce? I am bound to say my answer to that would be, No. I believe this is an area to which we ought to pay far greater attention, because in the end it is in the way the produce is marketed and presented which is what attracts it to the buyer. Far too often, as the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, pointed out, we find the produce is not of good enough quality when it reaches the consumer. The noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, also referred to an example of British produce which was very bad indeed. I saw some British produce—namely lettuces. I would only draw the noble Lord's attention to what happened to what one might describe as the "lettuce industry" about six years ago. It went through a complete revolution: it marketed itself and produced its crops far better and it now competes with the Dutch in presentation and, indeed, in many instances, in marketing requirements. I think that that is a good example of what happens when people address their minds to the situation.

Of course there ought to be a reasonable level of enforcement throughout the Community as regards inspection. The Commission reports irregularities which are recorded in trade between the member states. In addition, member states are required to report on home-grown produce which fails to meet the required standards on the domestic market. Records are kept of all inspections which are carried out. One might say that ideally a large proportion of home-grown and imported produce should be inspected, and at every stage in the distribution chain. That would, frankly, be impossible because it would need a great army of inspectors and the Government would be assuming the responsibilities which are really, in the last instance, best undertaken by the trade itself.

Our own inspectorate has recently been subject to the searchlight of a Rayner-type review and my right honourable friend will shortly be announcing—and the noble Lord, Lord Peart, asked me about this—his decision on the recommendations in the report of the review. I could not anticipate what is likely to be said then.

Many noble Lords referred to the difficulties of the withdrawal of produce. I think that one must face the fact that in the triumphs and disasters of the climate we must accept that, in some years, there will be abundant crops and in other years shortages. That is particularly true in the horticultural sector, where, because of the highly perishable nature of most fresh produce, storage is not practical. It follows that one consequence of the concern of the industry to meet the demands for fresh produce at all times is that there will be periods of glut and some of this produce will inevitably be wasted. I think that it offends against the conscience of everyone when, in a world in which two-thirds of the population are short of food, we see good food wasted, but I am afraid that far too often that is one of the laws of supply and demand in perishable produce.

I do not believe that there are many people who grow simply in order to have their produce made the subject of withdrawal. I know that one or two of your Lordships have suggested that this evening. The withdrawal price is, in fact, well below a normal market price. At best, it is no more than a minimum safety net for a very efficient producer. I think that it is unlikely that many people would grow simply in order to see their produce being withdrawn.

My noble friend Lord Selborne has played, if I may say so, a quite remarkable part in the apple industry. He it was who was Chairman of the Top Fruit Working Group which produced the remarkable document which has, in fact, guided the whole of the apply industry over the last 18 months. I should like to pay a tribute to him and to his colleagues for what they have done. Many of the recommendations have been acted upon, and the Apple and Pear Development Council took up the challenge in a most dramatic way. Its "Kingdom" scheme, with the assistance of a grant of £300,000 from the Government, fired the imagination of the industry and it greatly helped to increase its returns. I believe that what happened in the apply industry is an example that many others, both within and without the agricultural industry, could well follow.

Having been assaulted by the import of Golden Delicious apples, growers were prepared to say, "It is our job to fight back, and we will"; and they did. It is a great tribute to what they have done and shows how an industry, when it is being persecuted, can have the guts to pick itself up and fight back. My noble friend said that the Community preference is for large apples and I agree with him—I do not like having to eat something the size of a football. That is a perfectly good advertising point which could be made over the Cox; it is not as big as some others, and that is a very good thing too. It also has the benefit of flavour because it is grown in a country which is subjected to cold winters, and it is the quality of the cold winters that gives the apple its flavour. That is not so with Golden Delicious.

My noble friend Lord Selborne said that our orchards were old and that there ought to be restructuring grants for orchards. He knows that restructuring grants for all orchards would be a very expensive business. At the moment Ministers are examining with the industry how such restructuring could be tackled, but I can give him no promise of how this will be done or whether any public funds will be available for it.

My Lords, the point I was trying to make was that this should be funded from EEC funds and not necessarily from national funds.

My Lords, I am very glad that my noble friend has made that point clear. I was not fully seized of it and I shall certainly look into it. The noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, referred to the question of import tariffs. Of course, questions relating to tariffs and third country import arrangements are generally for the Community as a whole to decide, taking into account all the interests and all the circumstances which are involved. Where there is a strong case—and, as usual, the noble Lord pointed to a very good case—we ask the Commission to investigate the possibility of negotiating tariff reductions. But I could not hold out great hopes of immediate results because as he will realise, international negotiations between the Community and third countries are a matter for the Community and it is, of course, all part of the GATT system and, therefore, those discussions tend to be of rather longer nature than one might wish. But I certainly take the noble Lord's point.

My noble friend Lady Elliot, and I think the noble Viscount, Lord Sidmouth, referred to glasshouses and to the difficulties which they have experienced. I share the concern expressed by the noble Viscount and by my noble friend that the glasshouse industry has gone through a very difficult and testing time. It is perfectly true that the Dutch glasshouse growers have had the advantage of what is described as unfair competition. The Commission was asked to investigate it; it did, and it considered that the competition was unfair. As the noble Viscount will know, we have been able to give an adaptation aid of £5½ million this year, which is the extent and the limitation under the EEC rules, as aid to the industry.

I recognise that it does not solve the problems, but the Dutch have recently announced increases this year in the price of gas to growers, with further increases to follow. This package of increases will not fully remedy the situation. My right honourable friend has assured both the president of the National Farmers' Union as well as Members of Parliament that he will continue to press for the preferential tariff to be ended before April 1984, which is the date currently planned.

The noble Lord, Lord Peart, asked: why do we not do something about using waste heat from power stations? I can tell him that this is being done. I have seen myself the result of some of this work at the Drax power station where the heat from the power station is used to heat greenhouses. It is an impressive system; it is a new system. I have no doubt that it will have its own teething problems, but I can assure the noble Lord that that method of saving heat and using it for agriculture is being used. I would also let him know in that context that I believe there is quite a possibility of using energy by methods of anaerobic digestion, which is another means whereby agriculture can use, or can provide, its own energy, but again that is very much long term.

I would conclude by saying that I appreciate greatly the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, introduced this debate. I appreciate enormously, as indeed the whole House does, the work which his committee has done because it has been a mammoth work and it will be of great benefit. I would, if I may, thank as well those who have been good enough to give evidence, because when you go to give evidence to a committee such as your Lordships' committees, you do not just roll up and speak, you have to do a lot of homework to make quite certain that the evidence upon which your Lordships' decisions are going to be taken is correct. I should like to thank the noble Lord for having introduced this debate, and your Lordships for having made it so interesting.

My Lords, I shall not detain the House for more than a moment or two, but I should like to say that, although this has been a short debate, it has been an extremely valuable one. On behalf of the members of the committee, I should like to say how much we appreciated the generous remarks which have been made about the committee's work, and about this report in particular, by the noble Earl the Minister and by my noble friend Lord Peart.

It is quite remarkable when we regard the debate in general how fortunate we are as a committee structure and as a House that we have so many specialists in this field who can speak in a debate of this kind. It is a tribute to our committee system and to this House as a second Chamber that we have noble Lords who speak with such authority that the industry and the country must listen to them.

The noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, in fact referred to tomato concentrate. I think I should in fairness mention that the Food Manufacturers' Federation, which provided us with valuable written and oral evidence, are a little concerned that the report, as they think, did not spell out with sufficient clarity why Italian producers of tomato ketchup have been enabled to undercut the price of ketchup produced in this country by 4p to 6p a 12 oz. bottle.

The report goes into this matter in some detail in paragraphs 45 and 46, but the federation have submitted a note since the publication of the report, and I should, as a matter of equity, place this on the record before we come to the conclusion of this debate. This is what the FMF said:

"The solution to this problem advocated by the FMF, with the support of MAFF, is that the table of coefficients used for calculating production aid for tomato concentrate should be amended so that the coefficients are directly proportional to the dry extract content of the fresh fruit equivalent. This would put production aid payments on a more equitable basis, and enable Italian and British ketchup manufacturers to compete more fairly".

I think that in fairness to the FMF I should say that at the conclusion of the debate. I am extremely grateful to the Minister for the constructive way in which he wound up. He walked delicately through the minefield of state aids. I could say a great deal to him about that, but I will forbear at this moment and tell him privately what I think about it.