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

My Lords, the Government have at present no plans to offer particular incentives to encourage exploration for hydrocarbons in the areas to which my noble friend refers.

My Lords, in thanking my noble friend for that reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that, by the end of next year, some 15 out of the 16 producing oilfields on the British continental shelf will already have peaked or started their decline? Is it not therefore very important that plans should be set on foot and incentives offered so that the deeper waters to the north-west of Scotland are explored?

My Lords, while the lead and lag times are both long in the oil industry, as my noble friend is well aware, I certainly agree with him that these are finite resources and the resource considerations will probably make exploration in deeper waters viable. When that time comes, the Government will certainly be prepared to consider incentives additional to those already obtaining.

My Lords, would my noble friend agree that the taxability of the companies investing in the North Sea is also finite, and that the impact of current taxation tends to drive them away to look for cheaper opportunities in other parts of the world?

My Lords, as I believe I have said to my noble friend and to the House before, I think we all regret increases in taxation, whether in a corporate or a personal capacity; but as I said to my noble friend on another occasion, I do not think that taxation changes are yet having a significant effect on the general level of exploration in the continental shelf. If and when they do, the Government will act accordingly.

My Lords, would my noble friend take note that the average period of time now required to drill a well in the North Sea is 25 per cent. longer than it has been during the previous five years, and should not that be focussing their minds seriously?

Yes, my Lords, I think it should indeed; but I believe we shall see a very different position as the world comes out of recession and as there are more general incentives to produce hydrocarbons rather faster.

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

My Lords, we are naturally aware of the worsening conditions of Mr. Shcharansky's imprisonment, and remain deeply concerned about his health. This case has been raised with the Soviet Government both bilaterally and at the Madrid CSCE meeting. The Government hope that the Soviet authorities will recognise the strength of the humanitarian grounds for releasing him.

My Lords, may I thank my noble friend for that reply, and may I ask him whether Her Majesty's Government will continue to make it clear to the Soviet Government that their maltreatment of Mr. Shcharansky and others who have been striving to establish human rights in Russia can only damage the reputation of the Soviet Government in the eyes of the world?

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend's sentiments. Our view of the Soviet record on human rights is well known; we of course take the opportunity on suitable occasions to put it across to the Russians directly, and will continue to do so.

My Lords, with the impending visit of the Foreign Secretary to Russia next week, as now reported, would that not be a very suitable opportunity to raise this case directly and personally with the Soviet authorities?

Yes, my Lords, my noble friend is to visit Russia on Monday next for talks with Mr. Gromyko, and a wide range of issues will certainly be discussed. But there is no agenda for this meeting, and I cannot of course guarantee or pre-empt what my noble friend might want to say.

My Lords, would my noble friend consider asking our delegate at the Madrid Conference, which is considering the outcome of Helsinki, to draw attention to the fact that Helsinki laid it down very firmly that human rights should be a matter of very high priority; and does not this particular imprisonment make a farce of the signature which the Russians put on that agreement?

My Lords, this matter has been raised at the Madrid Conference and its subsequent meetings no less than three times. The European Community, the United States, Canada and ourselves are co-sponsors of a proposal at Madrid for improved observance by participating states according to the Helsinki Final Act and its human rights provisions, which includes a specific reference to the work of Helsinki monitors like Mr. Shcharansky.

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord the Minister whether he would give an undertaking to draw to the notice of his right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary today's Question standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, and the comments made by other Members of your Lordships' House?

Yes, my Lords. I shall be seeing my noble friend tomorrow, and I will certainly give that undertaking.

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

My Lords, I understand from the Nature Conservancy Council that, as is the standard practice for sites of special scientific interest, the council has taken into consideration the flora, fauna, geographical and physiographical features of the area. I understand that the main factors which characterise the Berwyns are heather moors and mires, grassland and screes, and birds. The council has also consulted farmers and landowners in the area.

My Lords, may I thank my noble friend for that reply? Can my noble friend say how, in addition to the care and trouble that the NCC have taken in this matter—and, if it is designated, this area will become the largest inshore Site of Special scientific interest in England and Wales—the Government will be seen and heard by the inhabitants of the Berwyns to exercise their duty under Section 37 of the 1968 Act? That section reads:

"It shall be the duty of every Minister to have due regard to the needs of agriculture and forestry and to the economic and social interests of rural areas".

My Lords, I am aware of the provisions of Section 37 of the 1968 Countryside Act. I think that the best way to reply to him is to say that, on behalf of the Government, I have made it my business to find out; and I understand that the Advisory Committee for Wales, who are acting on behalf of the NCC in this matter, has deferred coming to a final decision on the extent of the SSSI to allow for further discussions to take place with farmers and other interests. I understand that the Advisory Committee for Wales are anxious that all outstanding problems should be resolved by consultation. I am sure that this is the right way to proceed.

My Lords, while supporting the work of the NCC, may I ask whether the noble Lord would answer three short questions: First, what constraints would notification place upon owners, lessees or occupiers of farms in this area? Secondly, are the resources available to compensate farmers for any restrictions placed upon them and what resources does the noble Lord think will be necessary for that purpose? Thirdly, have discussions been held with interested authorities in the area; that is, local authorities or branches of the two farmers' unions in Wales?

My Lords, in answer to the first supplementary question—about the constraints which notification of designation would impose—as I understand it, notification does not necessarily prevent agricultural and forestry development schemes. There is a requirement to consult the NCC if application is made for grant aid for such schemes. The response to such consultations would be taken into account in determining any applications for grant. It is open to the NCC, as I am sure the noble Lord will know, to negotiate management agreement with an owner or occupier; and where such an agreement is reached the council are able to pay compensation. But not all improvements will jeopardise the scientific interests in the area and, in those circumstances, there will not necessarily be a need for a financial contribution. Nevertheless, the second supplementary question stands. What about the resources for management agreements? I am advised that the NCC are confident that sufficient funds will be available to meet the cost of possible management agreements in the Berwyns.

So far as discussions are concerned, I cannot answer the noble Lord as far as discussions with local authorities are concerned. Perhaps I could write to him. So far as farming interests are concerned, the noble Lord will know that the National Farmers' Union for Wales put in a paper in advance of the Welsh Grand Committee's debate in another place on rural affairs which took place on 24th June.

My Lords, may I ask my noble friend two questions? First, does he not consider that to schedule 53,000 acres in central Wales, mostly for the sake of a few hen harriers and merlins (which are not a threatened species) is a bit excessive? Secondly, following the supplementary question of the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, could he tell us how much money the NCC have got to compensate farmers for possible loss of property values and also for foregone improvements to their land?

My Lords, the statutory duty under section 23 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 about notifying the appropriate planning authority of the existence of an SSSI falls to the NCC. In this case, it is the Advisory Committee for Wales who are acting as their agents. So when my noble friend asks, "Is it a bit excessive that this substantial area should be considered for notification in this way?", I think I must answer in that way. My noble friend asked about the actual amount of money that there would be for supporting the possibility of management agreements. I cannot give my noble friend an answer in cash terms, but I should like to remind him that the amount of grant-in-aid to the NCC has remained more or less constant in real terms over the past three years.

My Lords, while welcoming the clear statement in his original Answer about the scientific interests in this important area, may I ask whether the noble Lord could say when the NCC first considered designating this area as an SSSI and, therefore, how long consultations with farmers and landowners in the area have been going on? Could he say also how much of the proposed SSSI is currently threatened by proposals for afforestation?

My Lords, I apologise that I do not have the information on the first supplementary question asked by the noble Lord. So far as the second supplementary question is concerned, it is difficult to be precise about the extent of any damage or possible damage because of the very large area we are talking about. But of course it is with a view to avoiding this problem that the NCC have considered it necessary to propose to notify the Berwyns as a site of special scientific interest.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the NCC have declared that they are unwilling to accede to any afforestation within the boundaries of this SSSI? Is he also aware that in the area below 525 metres there are many areas suitable for small-scale planting which would not interfere with the habitats or the prey of these birds? Many of those affected are farmers with small farms who will resent this restriction.

My Lords, I must admit that I was not aware of the detailed question which my noble friend Lord Digby asks me. May I go back to almost the first answer which I endeavoured to give on this Question? I know that discussions are taking place between the Advisory Committee for Wales and all the interested parties, including the farmers and other interests. I feel sure that the points which my noble friend has just put to me will be taken into account in those discussions, which are continuing.

My Lords, as the noble Lord does not know when negotiations and consultations started, will he take it from me that conservation organisations have been extremely concerned about the length of time during which the NCC have been endeavouring to reach agreement with local farmers and landowners, without success? There is real concern that this very important area will be destroyed before the NCC even gets round to designating it as a SSSI.

My Lords, as this exchange is revealing, there is a problem of balancing different interests in these matters. The only way through a problem of this kind is for the body which are finally responsible—namely, the NCC, represented by the Advisory Committee for Wales—to go forward by way of discussion and, if possible, by agreement. That is what they are trying to do. That is the right way of proceeding.

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord regarding the discussion, which is obviously going to be highly controversial—and I read with interest the debate in the other place—who, in the end, has the authority to say to the NCC: "You cannot have this land"? Is the Minister of Agriculture the man who finally decides, or is he at the command of the NCC?

My Lords, the NCC has a statutory duty, by virtue of Section 23 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, to notify the appropriate planning authority of the existence of a site of special scientific interest, and the Secretary of State has no power to intervene.

My Lords, is my noble friend on the Front Bench aware that I should like my noble friend who sits behind me to have his eyes open to the potentialities of what left us as Clause 39 of the Wildlife and Countryside Bill of 1981, which will return to us shortly as Clause 49? Could he confirm that his right honourable friend in another place, Mr. Tom King, has given an undertaking that that clause, which left us applicable to national parks, will come back applicable to SSSIs? In view of that, would he not agree that it would be as well for all parties concerned to stand back from this issue and to see whether that clause, which was designed to help resolve these issues, cannot be applied to it?

My Lords, this is a serious question which my noble friend is asking and I hope that he will not think that I am being flippant when I say that the only thing that I am absolutely sure about as the result of his question is that it would be wise for us now to stand back a little from this difficult problem and possibly proceed to the next Question.

My Lords, may I ask my noble friend quickly whether he knows what the NCC considers to be the minimum number of merlins and hen harriers required to maintain a viable population for Wales? How many acres would be required per pair for feeding? If there are 20 pairs of merlins in the Berwyn Hills would they require 53,000 acres? Is all this the reason why yet another five sites are under consideration in Wales, near the Berwyns, for ornithology preservation?

My Lords, I can give a partial answer to my noble friend, in that I am advised that the Berwyns contain some 65 per cent. of the Welsh population of hen harriers and between 10 and 20 per cent. of the merlin population. This is one example of why it is an important area from a conservation point of view. It is a matter of balancing different interests. I ought to repeat yet again that this can only satisfactorily be concluded by discussion and, I hope, finally by agreement.

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

My Lords, the Government are fully satisfied with the present system of voting at elections to another place.

My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask him whether he agrees that there may well be a lesson to be learned from the fact that the Dutch and the Irish elections have ended up in a stalemate and all that that means, whereas the French, with their double ballot system, have a definite answer?

My Lords, I take the point which my noble friend is making. It is fair to say in reply that the particular form of voting which my noble friend has chosen for the subject of his Question is one which has been tried in several countries and it now only exists, so far as I know, in France, because it has not been found to be a suitable system in the other countries which tried it.

My Lords, we do not even have to have one ballot to get into this House. Are we really the right people to tell the other House that they ought to have two ballots?

My Lords, this is a question on which perhaps a modest silence is desirable.

My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that under the double ballot system which prevails in France the centre and right wing parties, which have secured over 45 per cent. of the popular vote, were allocated only 30 per cent. of the seats in the National Assembly?

My Lords, what the noble Lord has just asked me strengthens my conviction that what we should do well to do in an uncertain matter—because there is no agreement on the general matter which is raised by my noble friend's Question—is to hang on to what we have, which is a well-understood system which leads to direct and close representation. If I may put it in more human terms, sometimes an old and valued friend is worth more than a new and fleeting acquaintance.

My Lords, arising out of my noble friend's reply to that supplementary question, may I ask whether it is appreciated that the present clamour for the reform or abolition of the House of Lords might ring more true if people respected the franchise on which our Parliament is elected?

My Lords, I do not think that that is a matter on which I ought to comment.

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.

moved Amendment No. 1:

Page 2, line 3, after ("date") insert ("and to compensate for any failure to restore their value at the previous uprating").

My Lords, it would be superfluous to make a long speech at this stage of the Bill. With his usual thoroughness, the noble Lord, Lord Banks, has already explained the situation with the utmost clarity, but I am afraid I have to say that I was not made entirely happy by the answers given to me by the noble Baroness after I had proposed a similar amendment at Committee stage. She spoke of the power under Section 125 of the original Act and to this she coupled the Government's pledge to keep pensions and other long-term benefits in line with prices, and said in effect that that was a sufficient guarantee. It is clear that Section 125, as amended by this Bill, gives the Secretary of State power to make an uprating order which may be in excess of his original estimate. It is to be presumed that he will come forward with something more than the 10 per cent. referred to by the noble Baroness at Second Reading. My concern here is that at the time of the uprating order the Secretary of State may again underestimate and make an order for, say, 11 per cent. But if the outcome is 12 per cent. he will be stuck with the 11 per cent. uprating order as the basis for his next review and, if he is to keep the Government's word, then in the following Session he will have to bring forward another Bill which will say: "For 11 per cent. read 12 per cent". He may wish to do this, but there may be problems of time or of resources or he may have the Treasury breathing down his neck. It is not so easy to give back as it is to claw back. In the meantime approximately 10 million people will be waiting anxiously to hear what their rate is going to be in the next round.

By this amendment all this palaver and uncertainty would be avoided. He would be able to make an automatic adjustment to the last uprating order, thereby keeping faith and being seen to keep faith with his promises to the country. On these grounds, I consider this to be a thoroughly desirable amendment which does no more than make it easier for the Government to carry out what they are pledged to do, and I hope that if the noble Lord, Lord Banks, should decide to press this to a Division noble Lords on all sides of the House will support him in the Division Lobby.

My Lords, I rise to pledge the support of my noble friends and myself to this amendment. It seems only logical and fair that if we are to have this connection between the value of pensions and the amount of pensions paid, we certainly have to look at the value of the pension. We have had previous debates about the effect of the present Bill on pensions and other benefits. I shall not go over those arguments again but I must emphasise to the House that, if we look at the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum to the Bill, it says quite clearly that,

"The effects of Clause 1 will be to reduce public expenditure on those specified benefits to which section 125(3) and section 126(A) of the Social Security Act 1975 apply by about £60 million in 1981–82 and £165 million in 1982–83".

That means that the poor, the disabled, the recipients of these benefits, are going to be docked of £60 million this year and £165 million next year. Surely that was not the intention of the Government.

I like to believe in the compassion and understanding of noble Lords opposite, but unless they accept this amendment—which we fully support—the effect of Clause 1 will be to deprive the poorest and the most disabled people in this country of £60 million this year and £165 million next year. Those are not my figures and they are not my words. I am quoting from the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum to the Bill. It is with those thoughts in mind that I commend the amendment to the House, and I hope that Members on all sides will see that the only decent, compassionate and kind thing to do is to support the amendment.

My Lords, I have listened with great care to what the noble Lord, Lord Banks, the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, have said on this amendment. But the House should be in no doubt whatever that, if this amendment were carried, it would fundamentally affect the Bill and would alter in a very real way the Government's proposals.

As the House knows, the effect of Clause 1 of the Bill, if conventional timing is followed, will be that the benefit rates announced by the Secretary of State at the time of the Budget will be set out in the uprating order and will be the rates paid from the following November. The estimate of inflation, on which the rates are based, will be that made at the time of the Budget. This pattern, which is precisely that followed in practice for some years past, under a Labour Government as well as under our own, means that both the levels and the cost of the uprating are known well in advance, which has advantages for everyone. When there is no legislation affecting the uprating, the announcement and the uprating order are likely to be quite close to each other. But, in any case, the uprating process has to begin in May; that is, not much more than a month after the traditional Budget date.

As the noble Lord, Lord Banks, pointed out, the estimate of inflation could be wrong—everyone, I think, accepts that—and it is true whatever the timing may be. It is not always possible to forecast accurately, although in the past the forecasts of price increases have been remarkably accurate. However, last year the forecast of inflation was wrong and was too high. This year's estimate, although based on the best evidence, could, of course, prove to be slightly wrong in one direction or the other. If it were too low, there would be a shortfall in November. That possibility is not in dispute, and the same is true of all future years. But as I explained to your Lordships at Committee stage, we are fully committed to maintaining the level of pensions in line with inflation, and, indeed, to improving them beyond that level when economic circumstances permit.

I am sorry, but I feel it only right to repeat once again the pledge made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, who said in another place on 25th November 1980—and this has been repeated on very many occasions since then by her and by other Ministers—we shall price protect pensions over the lifetime of this Parliament, and this does, of course, mean making good any shortfall in one uprating at the subsequent uprating. The shortfall undertaking is quite clear and specific. I think it only right just to reiterate the arguments that we have had before, so that there will be no doubt about them.

In order to keep this undertaking, further legislation is not needed. There is already power, in the Social Security Act 1975, to which the noble Lord, Lord Banks, drew attention, for shortfalls to be made good. I have accepted that that is not a duty, but it is a power and it does enable a shortfall to be made good. Section 125 of that Act, as it is now and as it will be when it is amended by this Bill, sets only the "floor" to the uprating; that is, the price-protection from the previous uprating. It leaves it entirely open to the Secretary of State to do more than this—to make good a shortfall at the previous uprating or, indeed, for any other reason.

If I may say so, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Banks, misunderstood what happened when we made good a shortfall in November 1979 on long-term benefits. It is very important that noble Lords should know that the matter of the shortfall in that case was by reference to earnings, at a time when the relationship with earnings was being legislated out of the system. This does not in any way count against our undertaking to price-protect long-term benefits, which we did, and, indeed, in November 1979 we uprated 1·9 per cent. extra in order to make good the shortfall on prices. The shortfall that is being talked about is not a shortfall on prices; it is a shortfall on earnings. That is quite separate and it is a point which we have accepted and have put in previous Bills. Therefore, it is not a matter for discussions at this stage of this Bill.

My right honourable friend the Prime Minister's remark concerned pensions and other related long-term benefits, such as disablement benefits. It might be helpful to the House if I gave the list. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister's pledge includes, in addition to retirement pensions, widows' benefits, industrial death benefits (widows and widowers) war and industrial injuries disablement benefits, war widows' pensions, attendance allowance, invalid care allowance, non-contributory invalidity pensions, supplementary pensions, invalidity benefit and unemployability supplement. The invalidity benefit and the unemployability supplement are covered in the sense of price-protection at their existing levels until last year's abatement is made good, and price protection at the restored level once abatement has been made good. I should just like to say a brief word about short-term benefits—

My Lords, I appreciate the noble Baroness's courtesy in giving way. I am very puzzled about the Prime Minister's statement, in view of the fact that the financial effect of this Bill is to save £60 million. Where is that £60 million coming from, except out of the pockets of the poor, the disabled and the pensioners?

My Lords, I hope I can answer that point. I think that we are talking about two quite separate things. The point that I was answering from the noble Lord, Lord Banks, and the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, was a reference to the shortfall that we made good in November 1979. That was a shortfall on prices, which we promised to make good and we did make good. The noble Baroness identified a shortfall in November 1979, which I accept is a shortfall. It was a shortfall on earnings. The whole point about the pledge that my right honourable friend has given, and that we have repeated, is that long-term benefits will keep up with prices and I have identified these.

What the noble Baroness is referring to in regard to this Bill is that the "floor" on which we base the uprating this year, in regard to the total pension, will be 1 per cent. less than it would have been in order to keep up with the level of inflation, because last year it was 1 per cent. more. But that is in no way going back on the pledge, because in total the pensions and other long-term benefits will have kept up with prices over this period, and this Bill is regulating something which was a commitment to more expenditure last year. The savings, to which the noble Baroness has referred, are the savings from the difference between what is in this Bill and what would have been in this Bill, if there had not been the index change of 1 per cent. That is the saving. But it does not in any way invalidate the argument about long-term benefits keeping up with prices over the lifetime of a Parliament.

If I may comment on short-term benefits, before concluding my remarks, when we debated this matter in the Committee stage I said that if the situation arose the position could be properly considered only in the light of the amount of the shortfall and of the economic circumstances at the time. If I may take two benefits as cases in point, neither child benefit nor mobility allowance are dealt with in the main uprating provisions of the Act, but both are subject to review. We have made it clear that we hope to price-protect child benefit, as we did this year. My right honourable friend has given undertakings that, as economic circumstances allow, we shall continue to do so—something to which we all attach great importance. There has been a substantial increase in the mobility allowance—in fact, above the price rises that we have had. It will have gone up by 65 per cent. since this Government came into office. Therefore it has increased considerably more than other benefits. I quote these as examples of how these matters can work.

In preparation for the discussion on today's amendments I re-read very carefully our debate at the Committee stage. The House should recognise that we debated this matter very fully at the previous stage, that we voted upon it and that the Government's decision was upheld. I accept that the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, gave notice that he might raise this matter again. However, after the explanations and the assurances which I have given, that it is the Government's view that the existing power, taken together with our very firm pledge on price protection and on shortfall, makes these amendments quite unnecessary, I hope very much that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw them.

My Lords, the amendment is perfectly simple and clear and apparently expresses a principle with which the noble Baroness is in agreement. She has given the House some tremendously complicated figures which at short notice it is very difficult to follow and which seem to produce a result which is contrary to that contained in the amendment.

The amendment makes it perfectly clear people will be compensated for any failure to restore the value of those sums at the previous up-rating. This seems to be a perfectly simple principle and I do not yet understand how it can cost £65 million to carry it out—and £165 million on the second occasion is, I think, the Bill's intention. Surely the amendment is consistent with all the figures which the noble Baroness has given showing how the Government are carrying out this principle. All we want is that principle to be laid down in the Bill so that it is intelligible and clear.

My Lords, I hope the noble Baroness the Minister will not mind my saying that I think she has made this particular matter unnecessarily complicated. I recognise—the House will know the reason why—that matters relating to social security are so complicated that sometimes it is necessary for a Minister to erect a number of smoke-screens. But they do not help in this situation.

The issue could not be more simple: will the Government give an undertaking that in the event of there being a shortfall in pensions they will make it good at the earliest opportunity? I think I am right in saying that at the Committee stage, and again today, the noble Baroness said that it is the Government's intention to make good shortfalls because they are pledged to keep pensions in line with prices. She went on to say that this power is clearly set down in Section 125 of the principal Act, the 1975 Act. If that power is there it can be used, but the House wants a simple undertaking from the noble Baroness on behalf of the Government, who, we are told, are anxious to keep pensions in line with prices, that, in the event of pensions falling below prices, this Government will automatically come to the House and restore them to their proper level. It is as simple as that.

My Lords, I should like to thank most warmly all those noble Lords who have spoken in support of the amendment. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for her reply. However, it did not convince me that this amendment is unnecessary. The noble Baroness said that the amendment would fundamentally alter the Bill. I cannot see why this is so. In fact, in respect of a particular year the Bill says that since the level was placed too high for that year—there was a miscalculation—there must be a clawback in respect of that year. All my amendment says is that that principle should apply in reverse if there is a shortfall. This does not seem to me to be a fundamental departure from the nature of the Bill.

There is a pledge, certainly, with regard to long-term benefits. If there is a pledge, and one so strongly reiterated, one does not see why it cannot be incorporated in the Bill so that not only the present Government but successive Governments, until there might be some other legislation, will be bound by it. We know that there is a power to do this if the Government choose to do it, but we also know that they have not always done it in the past. The fact that on one occasion it was a question of earnings, not prices, seems to me to be irrelevant, since at that time it was part of the criteria, which it no longer is. In the past, therefore, the Government have not always chosen to use the power to act. We want to make sure that they always are obliged to do so if there is a shortfall.

I feel that the case against the amendment has not been made out and that the case for it is very strong. Because of that, I should like to test the opinion of the House.

moved Amendment No. 3:

After Clause 4, insert the following new clause:

My Lords, perhaps I may just say a word because the noble Lord referred to the International Year of the Disabled and I am the chairman for Scotland of the International Year—in fact, the only representative from the four parts of the United Kingdom who has been a Member of both Houses of Parliament. Of course, the noble Lord is right in saying that the system of benefits is extremely complicated for disabled people and I am one of those who have been advocating a rationalisation and simplification, but let us remember the reason for it. It is that the National Health Service and the national insurance system, when they first came in, simply did not apply to a large number of very severely disabled people; those, for example, who were born disabled or who became disabled in early youth, because if you had never worked, or been available for work, you were not in the national insurance system. You did not even have a national insurance number; people did not know you existed because there was no register of such people.

Therefore, the complications have largely arisen because a number of parliamentarians in this House and in the other House have pressed for the gaps to be filled. In those days there were no benefits which were non-contributory. There was only national assistance, now replaced by supplementary benefits and therefore it is because the gaps have now been filled by invalidity benefit, by mobility allowance, by attendance allowance—benefits which are non-contributory—that the system has become so complicated. When you take into account the fact as to whether some of these are taxed or not taxed, whether, if you are eligible for some of them you then cease to be eligible for others which have nothing to do with disability but are benefits, such as the family income supplement, that is what makes life so complicated.

So I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, to remember that it is because we have made progress over the past dozen years that the system has become so complicated. Let us by all means try to simplify it and to rationalise it in the future, but it should be remembered that Governments of all complexions have made the system evolve in this way. The result is a large number of new beneficiaries—for example, housewives who became disabled in the past had absolutely no benefit whereas now they receive benefit, subject to various medical tests and other things. None the less, it has made the system complicated.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, was good enough to refer to the Question which I am asking tomorrow, and I think I should mention that although my Question is related to the new clause moved by the noble Lord, it is in fact wider than that. There is a little overlapping, but my Question is a good deal wider because I am concerned not merely with those people who fail to claim; I am concerned with the very much larger number of people who try to claim, or on whose behalf a claim is made, but who are defeated by the utter complexity of the law. The law runs to something over 1,000 pages of statutes and regulations.

Mind you, my Lords, I think that Parliament has itself to blame; indeed both Houses are to blame for this, in that instead of clearly stating the purpose of the statutes and of the regulations we have enacted legislation, and Government departments have enacted it, in such a way as to try to cover every hypothetical case. That is one of the reasons—perhaps the main reason—for the complexity, and that is why I say quite frankly that I am not content with the noble Lord's new clause. I do not think it would get us far enough and I would hate to surrender the wider claim that I am making merely by having this new clause added to the Bill. I am asking for, if you like, a complete recasting of the whole of the law relating to benefits and allowances, so that, as my noble friend Lord Campbell has pointed out, there is a better hope of people who are or should be, entitled to claim being able to establish their claims instead of being defeated, time and again, by complete obscurity and complexity.

My Lords, I am sure that we have all listened with great interest, not only to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, but to the two speeches by my noble friends Lord Campbell and Lord Renton. I begin by saying that the Government have a great deal of sympathy with the principle underlying this amendment and I agreed with a great deal of what has been said. I agree, too, that the amendment is an improvement on the one we had before. I have considered the matter carefully, but I shall have to ask your Lordships not to accept the amendment. Before I go on to explain that, I should like to offer a positive suggestion to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, which I hope he will regard as being made in a helpful spirit, because it is designed to meet at any rate part of the purpose of his amendment.

First, it is not necessary to enact a statutory requirement to look at take-up and to report to Parliament on take-up levels and the measures adopted to encourage take-up. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services and his Department devote a good deal of effort to take-up issues—quite properly so, for all the reasons the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has put forward—and the results have been regularly reported to Parliament in response to questioning or in the course of debate. I do not think I am breaking any parliamentary secrets if I note that some of the questions in response to which details have been given seem to have been very conveniently timed in relation to Ministers' having information to give. Noble Lords will be familiar with this. But whether timed for the convenience or the inconvenience of Ministers, the process of parliamentary questioning has served very effectively to give Parliament an up-to-date picture of what is being done and the needs to which action is directed. It has also publicised independent reports when these have suggested that people are not claiming their entitlements. Family income supplement, one-parent benefit and supplementary benefit have figured prominently in recent Answers; but they have not stood alone.

There are two other guarantees that these matters are not overlooked. As your Lordships will know, the Social Services Select Committee in another place has been taking a keen and consistent interest in this subject and has been asking some very detailed questions. The questions and answers will be published and they enable the Select Committee to follow up and monitor progress—concentrating on problem areas, in respect of which it has already had details of publicity and information expenditure, and/or take-up. Secondly, the new Social Security Advisory Committee, set up as an independent advisory body under legislation last year, has been emphasising the importance of good communications and looking critically at forms, et cetera, during its visits and discussions, as well as concerning itself with take-up more generally. Its breadth of membership means that it is well placed, for example, to represent the special interests of disabled claimants and beneficiaries, members of the immigrant communities, and residents in the various parts of the United Kingdom.

I hope that what I have said may persuade your Lordships that it is not necessary to legislate further, but I promised to say to those who favour the principle of the amendment something which they might think helpful. I believe that what is being sought here is a general statement, based on operational experience, of where the problems are thought to lie, and about the overall take-up strategy—the strategy for information and advice—perhaps with special reference to the areas where problems have been identified. Much of this ground has already been covered in replies to individual Questions or to the Select Committee. I would suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, that he might care to table a Question before the end of the Session. We should then be glad to respond with a statement about the main social security benefits and the general approach to information and advice on social security. The possibility of handling the matter in the same way in future years, if this seemed to be a positive and helpful approach, could then be considered.

It might be helpful in response to the various points made to give some of the details on take-up. Quite a lot is already on the record. I have thought it right to respond at some length on the general issues. Family income supplement take-up has indeed been shown to be lower over a period of years than had been believed to be the case, the point to which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, drew attention. But it must be said that the latest evidence for the year ending September 1979, from the Family Finances Survey for that year, shows that the figures, as given by my honourable friend Mrs. Chalker in another place earlier this month, are in fact 50 per cent. Since then there have been two take-up campaigns at uprating time of which the 1980 campaign was particularly successful. In addition there are widely distributed posters, special notifications to those getting other benefits, plans for two new leaflets later this year, and a substantial increase in the publicity budget. Further steps are being considered.

With regard to supplementary benefit, the position is well described in the Supplementary Benefits Commission's paper on take-up. Broadly speaking, about 75 per cent. of those eligible claim and about 83 per cent. of the amount which could be paid is actually claimed. Notifications to contributory beneficiaries, widespread posters, vastly improved leaflets—and perhaps I might draw the noble Lord's attention to the one I have here, which is one of the simplest and clearest leaflets I have yet seen; the claimants only have to fill in the name and address and indicate that they wish to apply—clearer and fuller explanations, much greater publication of information about the scheme, have all helped towards take-up improvement recently.

With regard to one-parent benefit, the catalogue of measures is a long one. May I just say that special efforts are being made to contact those with other benefits who may be eligible for this one. Information has been distributed to social service and social work departments, clinics, courts, and of course the citizens' advice bureaux; and the change of name and the enhancement of amount have undoubtedly helped very considerably.

As regards benefits for the chronically sick and disabled people, and in particular the handicap benefits this special year is in itself providing a publicity boost. A number of conferences, for example the RADAR conference in October, are featuring cash benefits on their agenda. The department has co-operated with the Disablement Income Group in its production of two new leaflets for handicapped school-leavers, and with the Disability Alliance in its valuable handbook. The official Help for Handicapped People leaflet has been revised and I am glad to say that the revision has been praised. A lot of information is passed on by direct or indirect contacts between disabled people and their families; and the effect of research, such as that sponsored by the DHSS, into the use made of mobility allowance for adults and for young people, is to show the value of a benefit and to improve its take-up.

May I just say a word about fraud and abuse, which has been mentioned? Of course I recognise that exaggerated emphasis on either abuse or indeed on take-up can produce adverse effects in terms of one or the other; but there is nothing inherently inconsistent in the view that those who are entitled to benefits should get them and those who are not entitled should not get them. I understand that pensioners, unemployed people and disabled people with no political axe to grind have advocated strict measures against fraud and abuse, because they too are concerned that abuse will bring the whole scheme itself into disrepute.

My Lords, I have given a very long answer, but I felt it was right to go over the ground. I hoped to reassure your Lordships, to indicate the Government's thinking on these matters and the sympathy that we have expressed. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, will consider what I have said about asking a Question. I do believe this would meet the spirit of his amendment. I hope that with that assurance he will feel that his amendment is unnecessary.

My Lords, first I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Renton, for what he has said. I hope that I have not spoilt his Question. I hope that he receives a very favourable Answer and I can assure him of my very warm support in all that he does in that field. I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young, has been generous and sympathetic in her reply. I put down the amendment simply because I feel strongly about this matter. However, I am very pleased indeed that she has suggested that I put down a Question. No doubt we shall get some reasonable opportunity to get advice on the matter and the Question will be put down to suit the Government's convenience. I thank the noble Baroness very much indeed for that offer, which, naturally, I would rather accept than divide the House and take up your Lordships' time. This is a positive reaction and I thank the noble Baroness very much indeed. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendments Nos. 1 and 2:

Page 5, line 3, leave out ("organisational changes effected"') and insert ("changes in organisation made")

line 11, leave out ("organisational changes effected") and insert ("changes in organisation made").

moved Amendment No. 3:

moved Amendments Nos. 4, 5 and 6:

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. We shall today be debating the very important subject of industrial training and part of the framework necesary to enable us in this country to meet the special demands of the 1980s and beyond. Therefore, this is a subject of the very greatest importance to the future economic life of our country. It is essential that we get right the necessary future training arrangements for industries and that we do so as quickly as possible. The Bill before the House today is fundamentally an enabling measure which gives the Government power to modify the arrangements for organising training that is done by and for industry and commerce. However, I think that in order to see the Bill in a proper perspective we must take account of the likely trends in employment generally and the past history, in brief, of our training arrangements.

If, like I think most people in your Lordships' House, you belong to a group of people who consider themselves professional or white collar workers, you do not ordinarily want your children to look for jobs as soon as they reach the age of 16. You hope for higher qualifications, in some cases qualifications which are not attainable until the early or even mid-twenties. The burden of my theme is that in the next few years, if you think of yourself as a blue collar worker, you will also need to think increasingly along the same lines, for the job market is changing, irrespective of policy and changing, in our view, irrevocably.

There is a shift, for instance, in the balance of manual and non-manual jobs. There were in 1961—the year, for what it is worth, that I myself first came on the labour market—9·3 million non-manual jobs. Ten years later, in 1971, there were 10·2 million non-manual jobs. There are well over 11 million now, even at the depth of this recession, and by 1985 we would anticipate that non-manual jobs will equal and then subsequently exceed manual jobs. There is a disappearance of unskilled jobs. Over 650,000 such jobs disappeared between 1971 and 1978. We would anticipate that a further million would probably go by 1985—and that is not a very long time ahead.

There is a shift in the balance between manufacturing and service employment. Between 1970 and 1979 manufacturing jobs declined by 1·1 million; over the same period the service sector grew by 1·7 million. There is a steady decline in traditional skilled manual jobs. The numbers of engineering craftsmen declined by 3 per cent. between 1971 and 1978. Those numbers should fall by another 8 per cent. by 1985. There is a steady decline in jobs for those whose skills are narrowly job-specific or related to a particular firm or even related to a particular industry. The numbers of non-transferable craftsmen—for instance, miners or some in the shipbuilding or steel trades—fell by 19 per cent. in the 1970s and are expected to fall faster between now and the mid-1980s.

However, by contrast to that there is a greatly increased demand for those with what are called in our trade jargon "knowledge skills"; the professions, the managers, the engineers, the technicians and the office workers. Their numbers increased in the 'seventies. They will increase further, and in some specific cases—for instance, technicians—very much further again by the mid-1980s.

New markets are being developed which require a much more highly skilled, better-educated and more mobile workforce in which a large number of professional and technician staff are supported by a range of workers who perform a range of tasks and are not again so narrowly craft-specific. The old reliance on training some young people for set periods at the start of their careers and leaving others to pick up limited skills as they go, is rapidly proving inadequate to these great sea changes in the world of work. The apprenticeship system, in particular, relies too heavily on time serving rather than the attainment of qualifications and there is the need, therefore, to remove age restrictions and place far more weight on the attainment of recognised standards of performance. In short, this country's training for skills takes too long and is too rigid. The consequences are unnecessary expense and excessive lead times in training investment. Employers, therefore, are understandably deterred from undertaking sufficient training. That is perhaps why the country suffers from latent skill shortages even in times of high unemployment, like we have at present.

How do we stand on young people's preparation for employment? I think that it is well known that nearly half of those who leave school at the age of 16 get virtually no significant training or education in their first job. Even at school they are often less well prepared than they should be for working life. I am afraid that it is rather painful to think that in France over 80 per cent. of young people leave school for some kind of substantial training or education. In Germany it is over 90 per cent. The German economy, like our own though to a lesser degree, is experiencing difficulties in the field of adult employment and unemployment, but there is very little youth unemployment in Germany. Of course, the other side of the coin is that in Germany there is very little youth employment as we understand the term.

So we wish to move to a position where all young people under the age of 18 have the opportunity either to continue in full-time education or to enter training or a period of planned work experience, combining work-related training with education. Access for jobs for all who can demonstrate agreed standards of competence is the overriding aim of the Manpower Services Commission's A New Training Initiative, which we welcome and indeed back. In short, our plan is to try to provide links between education and training by a more systematic programme of vocational preparation based on our experience of the Youth Opportunities Programme and of the Unified Vocational Preparation Scheme.

What about training opportunities for grown-up people, for adults? The short answer is that there are not enough of these. For too long we have treated training and education as a once-and-for-all experience which you undergo at the start of your working life. Centuries old restrictions of skilled work for apprentice craftsmen have not helped liberalise things in this regard. Such rigidity in systems and attitudes is, in our analysis, no way to face an age of very rapid technological change.

The main improvements needed are those set out in the document that I mentioned called A New Training Initiative, which the MSC recently published. The commission also elaborates other objectives, apart from the one concerning young people which I have mentioned. It wants to open up training for skills, including apprenticeships, to young people of different ages and of different educational attainments, and to enable them to acquire agreed standards of skill. It wants to open up widespread opportunities for adults to acquire, increase or update their skills during the course of their working lives.

The MSC has called for comments by the end of September and for immediate action where this is needed. The Government are urging all those concerned to respond. To make progress towards improving the quality and quantity of training will, of course, demand effort and money, and we must ask squarely the question: Where will the resources come from? Will they come from the employer, will they come from the person undergoing the training, or will they come from the Government?

The answer must be to try to attain a plural system, and that the resources must come from all three. Training necessarily demands an investment of time and money by the employer and he, of course, will reap the benefit from his employees later on. The trainee needs to make an effort not only to learn; it is reasonable to expect a financial contribution, even if this is expressed only in terms of lower earnings, during the time that he or she is investing in training for a better future career. Of course, the Government have a clear interest in intervening at the margin to oil the wheels of the system, to ensure that there are adequate training opportunities for all, and to avoid the bottlenecking shortages of key and necessary skills.

That, then, is the background against which I commend this enabling Bill to the House. We are talking about quite radical change in many areas. Therefore, all the more reason why the change should start now if we are to exploit the opportunities and overcome the difficulties which Britain will face in the 1980s and beyond. In this context the Bill is quite a modest measure, but it is intended to try to get the institutional and organisational framework right. It is, therefore, an essential prerequisite to securing reforms of the kind that I have suggested are needed.

I turn now to the past. We have had a system of industrial training boards in this country since the Industrial Training Act 1964. According to that Act, a board's duty was to provide or to secure the provision of courses and other facilities for training for employees or for potential employees in an industry. Boards were required to impose a levy on employers and were empowered to pay grants to employers who trained satisfactorily, to obtain relevant information from employers, to conduct research and to apply selection tests or tests of competence. After their first year their operating costs were defrayed out of sums raised by levy.

By 1969 there were 27 industrial training boards established as well as the Foundry Industry Training Committee which, in practice, functioned like an independent board, The boards then covered 15 million employees out of a labour force of some 25 million. But already the system was attracting considerable debate and by the time of the previous Conservative Government—by 1971–72—the Department of Employment conducted a review. The findings were published in Training for the Future—a Plan for Discussion, which concluded that training had increased since 1964, but that it was not possible to say how far this was due to the industrial training boards, although some credit was no doubt due to them. On the other hand, it had also become clear that anything approaching a redistribution of training costs—that is to say, spreading the costs of training more fairly among employers, which was a fundamental aim of the 1964 Act—could not be achieved at levy rates which were bearable to industry. The ITB system was criticised, therefore, for excessive bureaucracy and for failing to deal with many of the training needs of the day.

The Employment and Training Act 1973 attempted to tackle these problems, and one of my first jobs as a Minister in your Lordships' House was to introduce it here. It set up the Manpower Services Commission to act as the focus for our national training effort and to co-ordinate the work of the industrial training boards. It also required the ITBs to exempt from levy those establishments whose training arrangements met their own needs adequately. Levy rates were limited to 1 per cent. of an employer's payroll, unless an affirmative resolution of each House was obtained. The operating costs of the boards were transferred from industry to the Exchequer, but, of course, the national training debate continued; it is by no means an unfamiliar issue, and it has to continue as training needs change.

The next major stage was reached in early 1979 under the previous Labour Government, when the MSC set up a working party to review the workings of the 1973 Act. The commission did so in accordance with its policy of regularly reviewing its operations. The present Government welcomed the review which was concerned with future policy as well as with the future of the organisational structure. We recognise the need for a new sense of general direction and for a new framework to meet the particular needs of the 1980s and beyond.

At present we have an extensive system of industrial training boards, with statutory powers, covering about 55 per cent, of the workforce. The review recommended that, broadly, the system should continue. The Government, however, are very much aware that there is continuing debate among employers and others as to whether these arrangements need statutory backing. We feel that in many sectors of industry adequate training arrangements can continue without the straitjacket of a statutory framework. We therefore asked the MSC to conduct a sector-by-sector review of future training arrangements. This Bill enabled the Government to act quickly following the outcome of that review.

May I now turn to the main provisions of the Bill. For the convenience of the House I have arranged for copies to be placed in the Printed Paper Office of an amended version of the 1964 Industrial Training Act, which incorporates the changes which were made in 1973 and which also incorporates those proposed in the current Bill. Later in the week we will also be placing in the Printed Paper Office explanatory notes about the Bill, which I hope will be useful to the House for the later stages.

Clause 1 is an enabling provision, allowing the Government to take decisions about the future of industrial training boards following the present review of training arrangements in industry which the Manpower Services Commission is carrying out. The clause proposes that the Government should have power to establish, abolish or change the scope of an industrial training board, after consultation with the commission, but not only (as at present) in accordance with a recommendation of the commission. Whatever our views about the need for statutory boards in one sector or another it is surely right that the Government, rather than the commission, should in the end have the authority to decide whether to have them and for what industries. The law at present means that if the commission is unable to agree on a recommendation (which is quite possible in view of its composition), or puts forward a recommendation with which the Government do not agree, the Government cannot act. So the Government have less than proper authority, and Parliament has less than its proper ability to influence events.

The Government want to move over to voluntary training arrangements wherever possible. But statutory boards will be kept where they are needed to meet essential objectives. May I have a word about these voluntary arrangements? As a matter of general principle, we believe that voluntary action is better than statutory compulsion. It reflects the fact that real responsibility for company training must rest with companies, whose competitiveness depends on having an efficient and well-trained staff. It accords with the present reality in many industries and for many occupations that it pays employers to train their staff to high standards and to co-operate in finding efficient ways of doing so. But this is not to argue that statutory boards have not made a significant impact on training by companies. In many areas they clearly have. They have made a major contribution too to improving the quality of training. Many firms have been stimulated to plan their training rather better. But we believe that even some of these improvements can now be maintained and extended in many sectors on a voluntary basis. Statutory training boards necessarily spend much more time and effort checking on training that is taking place in any case. Voluntary arrangements are likely to be more cost effective, rather more in tune with industry's needs, more flexible, and less prone to activity for activity's sake.

With these considerations in mind, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State asked the Manpower Services Commission to review future training arrangements in every sector of the economy. We have made it clear that the main test of whether voluntary training arrangements are adequate, and whether statutory boards can be dispensed with, is whether essential training needs will be met. We do not want to be left with inadequate arrangements in key sectors, with the risk of exacerbating skill shortages when demand picks up, or of allowing training standards to slip, or of being unable to secure the essential reforms sought through A New Training Initiative, and which I mentioned at the start of my speech.

The commission's report is expected in July. We are keeping an open mind about the future of training boards until we have the commission's recommendation. We hope to take and announce decisions as soon as possible after that. This review of the coverage of training arrangements will be the first comprehensive review of its kind, and the existing legal requirements for consultation, which envisage consultation with interested parties on specific proposals for change, are not apt for the purpose of such a wide-ranging review. Clause 1 therefore provides for a more flexible consultation procedure in future, and would allow the decisions resulting from the review to be implemented without unnecessary delay.

I would emphasise that the commission's review has been very thorough. It has sought views from some 2,000 organisations, and its officials have had discussions with many key organisations. Ministers, too, have been receiving views from very many people. All these will be taken into account when we come to take decisions on future training arrangements. The review is not just concerned with whether the statutory boards should continue or not, but is a thorough general appraisal of what training arrangements are needed in each sector of the economy. I hope that the commission will recommend in particular cases not merely whether a board can and should be replaced, but also what kind of voluntary arrangements should be fostered.

Clause 2 of the Bill enables all expenses of an industrial training board, including operating and administrative expenses, to be met from money raised from levy on employers, as was the position before coming into force of the 1973 Employment and Training Act. The clause would also enable boards to use to defray their operating expenses money derived from levies imposed before the enactment of the Bill. The Manpower Services Commission's review body said that in principle industry should support financially the agency established to meet its training requirements. State funding of training board operating costs got in the way of the boards' proper activities by blurring their true line of responsibility, by distracting attention from strategic issues and indeed by robbing them of some of their authority. We agree with the commission on this, believing that if industry is to pay for voluntary training arrangements it should equally pay for any statutory arrangements. The Government's present intention is to reduce Exchequer funding of training boards' operating costs in 1981–82 and to end it completely by 1982–83. This was reflected in the Government Expenditure White Paper last March. Nevertheless, Ministers recognised that some firms may find difficulties in meeting significant extra costs at present. We shall be prepared to look at the question of timing again once we have the commission's report.

I now turn to the question of training boards' policies governing exemption of employers from levy, which is covered by Clause 3 of the Bill. This clause represents a slight but important strengthening of the powers of training boards. On the principle that we shall need statutory training boards only in sectors where companies are unable to meet essential training objectives on a voluntary basis, we have provided that statutory boards should be able to use their duty to give levy exemption in a rather more flexible way, and to encourage companies to train to meet total industry needs, and to raise some non-exemptible levy rather more easily. This is particularly aimed at the kind of situation where there are essential skills which require lengthy and expensive training and which are easily transferred from company to company.

In Outlook on Training, the MSC's review body recommended that training boards should have discretion whether or not to introduce levy exemption. Clause 3 gives boards some greater discretion over their levy exemption policies, but we think it right that this greater discretion should be circumscribed. Accordingly the clause allows a levy of up to 0·2 per cent, of emoluments without exemption certificates conferring any exemption. But a levy of over 0·2 per cent, must be supported either by a consensus of the employers in the industry or an affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament. The clause also allows a consensus to apply to two levels in succession, and allows boards to set exemption criteria based not just on the needs of establishments as at present but on the wider overall needs of industry.

The remaining clauses of the Bill are reasonably straightforward and somewhat technical. While I am very happy to deal with them in answer to questions, it might save time at the present if I restricted myself to the primary meat of the Bill, which is the first three clauses. I look forward to the debate on the Bill. Much of the debate, I am sure, will turn on the need to tackle the inadequacies of our training arrangements in this country. We certainly need to take radical action about these problems if we are to get the skilled manpower we need for industrial recovery, and that is what the new training initiative is intended to bring about. The present Bill is not intended to bring about a radical change to the substance of training, and I doubt whether at this stage legislation can in any case do more than set the right framework.

The Bill is a limited enabling measure intended to permit the modification of the existing institutional framework for training in sensible ways. The effect should be to enable us to move to a more plural system of training in which companies, helped by a mixture of voluntary and statutory institutions, as is appropriate to a mixed economy, define and meet their own needs with the Government filling the gaps. The Bill is a significant step towards such a plural system and I recommend it to the House.

My Lords, I wish at the outset to thank the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, for offering us the incorporated version which will be available in the Vote Office and for the Explanatory Notes. I wish also to congratulate him on what is for him, I think, a vintage performance. As I listened to him summarising paragraphs 55 to 62 of A New Training Initiative, followed by paragraphs 21 to 230 of the Outlook on Training, I could see that we were in for a soft sell. And when he finally got on to three of the clauses in the Bill, it was quite clear that here we had a potentially dangerous measure introduced with the voice of sweet reason. But that, of course, is what the noble Earl did with his last Employment Act, which also had nothing to do with employment. Now he is doing it with his present Employment and Training Bill, which also has nothing to do with employment and very little to do with training.

Indeed, I do not know why the present Government have not this afternoon debated an Employment and Iron and Steel Bill, an Employment and Representation of the People Bill and an Employment and Everything Else Bill; all Bills begin with "Employment", but we do nothing about employment. The noble Earl is the master of the disarming growl. He can,

"roar you as gently as any suckling dove,"

or,

'roar you…as…'twere any nightingale,"

and, if he plays the lion, then,

"say, let him roar again."

The noble Earl says this is an enabling Bill. It enables the Government to dismantle the state-supported system of industrial training. He says it is a modest Bill. But it is very difficult, since it is an enabling Bill, to say what it is modest about. He describes it as a quick Bill designed to reassure—one might say, to put industry out of its misery—but since nobody knows what the Secretary of State intends to do with this modest, reassuring, quick, enabling Bill, it is difficult for us to be reassured.

In Committee, we shall of course try again to pin the Government down on specific points; we shall try to argue with what I might call flushing-out, probing amendments. But the House will expect at this stage, on Second Reading, that we on this side should address a number of general questions to the noble Earl, and I wish to address three general questions to him to see whether, when he replies to the debate, he can give me a little more information. My first general question, which is to some extent answered in A New Training Initiative of the MSC—which is not necessarily a consultative document of the Government; it is a consultative document of the MSC, and that is why I must ask the question—is whether he and the Government accept the need for an immediate and significant reversal in the downward trend of training in this country, the downward trend in quantity and, I would say—although on this matter figures are difficult to come by—the downward trend in quality.

Secondly, if the noble Earl accepts that, may I ask whether he thinks it is at all likely, in the midst of a depression, that what was not possible before 1964, in the 15 or so years before that when we relied on voluntary training to solve our problems, will somehow be transformed in the depression years of the 1980s? What reason have we for believing that if voluntarism would not give us sufficient volume and quality in the years before 1964, it will give us them in the years following 1981? If that is not so, then my third question is this: why should we accept this modest little measure at its face value? Why should we not seek to be a little sceptical about how modest it is and ask a few questions about how in fact it fits into the overall framework of the Government's economic policy?

As for my first question, surely the noble Earl must admit that the 1964 Act, which he summarised along the lines of the MSC document Outlook on Training, was a belated attempt to deal with the collapse of voluntarism after 20 years of post-war boom; that it injected a system of levy and grants into the industrial training field which, for the first few years at least, transformed industrial training in this country. Next —he may not agree with this but I should like to put it to him—looking back, is it not the general conclusion that we should come to (in the context of what has happened since) that the 1973 Act was a mistake—I would say a fundamental mistake—in that it weakened the cutting edge of the levy grant system, allowed too many, too easy exemptions which were easily fiddled and which themselves led to a very large part of the bureaucracy and legitimate charges of bureaucracy which are now levelled at part of the ITB system? Would he not agree that it allowed small firms to escape their responsibilities and that, whereas the 1973 Act represented a significant advance in the sense that for the first time we had a potentially powerful instrument in the Manpower Services Commission—a tripartite body at national level which was able to work out national priorities—in all other respects the 1973 Act represented a retrograde movement back into stagnation?

Surely the noble Earl will admit that in the middle 1970s—1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, at whatever date one wishes to take—the situation in relation to training in this country got significantly worse. It has become worse because it has been necessary to supplement more and more of the declining levy income by funds from central Government. It has become worse because a host of new problems developed in the 1970s which the 1973 Act was quite unable to deal with. I refer to the problems of cross-sector occupations which the ITBs found it difficult to solve; problems of local manpower shortages which were there in the 1960s and which we were told would be solved by the 1973 initiative but which that initiative failed to solve; new problems dealing with micro-technology and the need to introduce all kinds of new training schemes, many of which are now listed in A New Training Initiative.

Then, most importance of all, we had the onset of the depression, which made it more than ever illogical and increasingly stupid to expect even the blue chip firms—even firms like ICI, Unilever and large parts of the public and local government sector, which for generations have done far more than their fair share of training in this country—to go on providing training for other people in the context of a recession. And indeed, in large parts of the public sector, I am afraid as a result of the Government's policy it is impossible either for the colleges of further education to provide this initiative or for the National Health Service or local government to attempt in any way adequately to train for their own needs, let alone traditionally to provide great services for industry at public expense.

None of that is to say, and I do not stand here to suggest, that the industrial training boards have not made their contribution, even in the weakened position that they were in after 1971. The noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, who is to take part in the debate, will no doubt speak for the engineering industry training board. I think that anyone with any knowledge of the construction industry and of the size, the complexity and the number of small firms in that industry, and of the work of the construction industry training board, could not doubt that without the training board there would be virtually no training at all in that industry.

But there are many other training boards. There is, for example, the petroleum industry training board, which has concentrated on providing training for people working for small offshore companies. It has established the Montrose Training Centre, and has provided essential back-up services as well as a safety service for training in this vital industry, which it is impossible to believe would, and could, continue without the statutory back-up of the industrial training system.

So one is not suggesting that everything in training is fine. One is not suggesting that there is no need for a new initiative, or for new institutions, especially perhaps new institutions to deal with local labour market shortages and geographic occupational shortages. But the central question is: what are the Government prepared to do to make the initiative possible? I am afraid that as always that comes down to what the Government are prepared to do in terms of resources, in terms of money. I am glad to hear the noble Earl I think, say, "Hear, hear". It comes down to what the Government are prepared to put in. It is in this context, as an earnest of their good expectations, that we look at this Bill. Before the Bill was published the Secretary of State said in another place that lie hoped that there would be a return to the voluntary system. He said subsequently that he hoped that as a result of the Bill industrial training boards would continue in "a few key sectors only"—to use that constantly quoted phrase. Despite constant attempts in another place to get the Government to spell out what "a few key sectors" means, nothing has been forthcoming, and I do not suppose that anything will be forthcoming this afternoon; but if it is I shall be very pleased to receive it.

But if it is in fact the aim of the Bill to drive down industrial training on an industry basis to a few key sectors only, all we can say is that the Bill is very well equipped to do so. Clause 1 of the Bill enables the Government to abolish, or maim, any industrial training board, irrespective of the views of the Manpower Services Commission. Clause 4 totally exempts firms in enterprise zones, even if those firms are in industries in a few key sectors, say, where the Government want to keep alive three or four industrial training boards.

The new, amended Clause 6, in some ways contains the most serious provision—the noble Earl did not get that far. The clause in effect gives employers a veto on even a 1 per cent. levy. So in future it will be employers on the ITBs who will be able to decide whether there is any levy support system at all. Clause 8 makes it easier to wind up industrial training boards because of the new rules which relate to pension funds. It is of course true that part of Clause 6 transfers responsibility for the appointment of the staff of industrial training boards and for the terms and conditions of the staff to the boards themselves, and Clause 2 allows the levy to be used for that purpose.

If the rest of the Bill were adequate, if there were no limit, for example, on the 1 per cent. levy, if the Government were spending elsewhere the £50 million that they save, if some of the suggestions put forward by the Review Body of the Manpower Services Commission in its outlook on training were included in the Bill, then one would not want to object to this part of Clause 6. Indeed, the MSC itself, in its outlook on training, reported something of the kind. But in the context of the Bill, taken together with all its other provisions, one is bound to worry about a provision which in effect saves the Government £50 million and forces industry at this time, if it wants to maintain a statutory system, using the levy in any way, to finance its own resources and its own administration.

Even the CBI, which God knows! likes to see the Government cut public expenditure, is afraid of this system. It wants the Government to go back to charging industry for these things at the slowest rate possible. Certainly the TUC is not in favour of the system. The MSC is not in favour of it; and we all know about the 24 chairmen of the 25 training boards, or perhaps it was the 23 chairmen of the 24 training boards, who wrote to the Secretary of State in the following terms:

"A substantial majority of chairmen expressed surprise and disappointment that the key recommendations of the Review Body"—

that is to say, the MSC review body—

"… will not be fully implemented …

"Whilst many reputable firms will continue training, many others will make no such effort and [will] resort to the previous practice of 'poaching' their trained requirements from the more responsible firms".

That seems to me to be not a prophecy, but a self-evident truth.

So I come to my second question: what reason can the noble Earl give us at this stage for believing that voluntarism will make up this gap? If it did not happen in the boom years, if industry is in the centre of a depression, if most of the larger companies are cutting their training facilities like mad, if, for example, apprenticeship training is 10 per cent. down in the engineering industry this year while Germany, France and other competitor countries are flushing their industrial system with training money, what chance is there that the voluntary system in this country will make up the gap? I suggest that there is no chance—no chance at all.

There are in fact only two ways of explaining the Bill. One is that it is all presentational, in the way that we were told that the Employment Act was presentational. Sometimes the noble Earl, and sometimes the Secretary of State in another place, almost say this: "It is a modest little thing, we shan't really do very much with it". It is like the old Green Paper on trade union law. It is just a delaying tactic. It is one way of putting off the Queen of the Night. But we cannot be too certain about that because she has a way of winning victories.

There is a very good reason why we should move towards the other, the second, explanation for the Bill: that it is in fact a way of reducing the Government's commitment in the industrial training field. A New Training Initiative, published by the MSC, states that it does not anticipate that there would be a need for a substantial increase in spending on training; that is in paragraph 40. It goes on to pose the questions as they stand for employers (in paragraph 34.1) for employees (in paragraph 34.2) and for the education service, that is the local authorities, CFEs and so on, (in paragraph 34.3). However, to me it is highly significant that it does not pose this challenge to the Government. There is nothing in A New Training Initiative which poses to the Government this central question, and therefore one must pose it to them oneself: is there a real commitment to increase the actual volume of training allocation? Do you believe that if voluntarism does not work, the state must stand behind—and fairly quickly stand behind—the training provisions if we are not to have a collapse of industrial training in this country? That is the question that I should like answered.

Alternatively, is it the case that, as I have said, the Bill is part of the general economic policy of the Government? We are entitled to ask that question. We are in a period of rising unemployment. All the signs are that rising unemployment will provide a continuing strain on the public sector borrowing requirement until, and through, the next election. Yet the Government are committed to reducing the PSBR. The Government are committed to tax cuts. We have had cuts in public investment. We have had cuts in the social services. If we have many more cuts in the social services, there will not be a Tory council left in the country. There may be room for cuts in the National Health Service; certainly room is going to be made for cuts in higher education. Is it not reasonable to ask the noble Earl whether the basic aim behind this Bill is that training must take its share of the cuts? A cut in the overall Government training provision would be the most reasonable and the most plausible explanation of this Bill.

My Lords, as I listened to the noble Earl's opening remarks, before he started talking about this Bill, I felt a great deal of sympathy with what he had to say, and I began to believe that he, at any rate, was very much on the right lines. It is true that our training of young people, and indeed of older people, lags sadly behind that of our competitors. It is true that in many ways our training methods are grossly out of date; that we need to think anew and to think radically about the kind of training we need, starting with what goes on in schools, carrying through the bridging period between school and work and going into training while people are at work—and, indeed, the retraining which is needed as the rapid change in labour market demands means that new skills must be learned and new knowledge acquired.

The message was coming over from the noble Earl that he believes that this kind of radical alteration in training is needed, and that we must be able to hold our own, and more than hold our own, with what is going on in other countries. But, my Lords, what I find so difficult is to square what the noble Earl said—and I believe he meant it; I am not so sceptical about his integrity in this matter as is the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy; I believe that his beliefs are sincerely held—with this pathetic little Bill.

The essence of the Bill is that training must be pushed back on to the employers on a voluntary basis, and that the statutory backing for training must be cut down, if not totally removed. Like the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, I find it quite incredible that any Government can believe that industry, which by and large did not pay for training even before 1964—leave out the few leading firms which have always trained—should do so now, in the depths of a recession. In the halcyon days before 1964 the great mass of British industry fell behind, it never recognised that it had any obligation to train. It did not fall behind: it never got into the race. Why, then, should it be assumed that it is going to do it now? If it were that the training boards had been so magnificently successful that they had converted the whole of British industry to a belief in the importance of training, that the mission was fulfilled and the conversion carried out, even then I would not be too certain that they would not fall back over the years if there were no statutory organisation left to prod them.

The noble Earl seems to rely—and here, of course, there are echoes from other aspects of Government policy—on what I must say appears to me the most remarkably naïve argument from the market. I, more than the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, believe that the market is very powerful in its proper place, and rightly so; but the argument is that the market will lead employers to spend money on training at the present time. If you can believe that, my Lords, you can believe anything.

The noble Earl said that they would spend money in their own interests—a good market argument—because they would reap the reward of better trained employees later on. They will do no such thing: their competitors will reap the rewards of the people that they have so expensively trained—and if they are thinking in market terms, that is what they know full well. The fact is, of course, that in terms of training even the best employers, as the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, said, are cutting back on training. This is just a fact. They are desperate in their cash-flow situation, and they look around for what they can cut; and all of us who are at all close to what is going on in industry know that the chop soon comes, and has come already, on training, because in the short run, when you are desperate, it is easy to cut training.

As a financial consultant said to me when I was arguing the case for more training, "In the case of a number of the companies that I have been investigating, when they have met the obligations which they cannot not meet, which are absolutely obligatory in law like wages and the bills which are coming in, there is no money left, and if there is no money left they cannot spend it on training." So it is unbelievable that the Government really seriously think that in the present climate the market argument is going to lead employers to carry out training which they did not carry out when they were far better off, before the 1964 Bill.

A further very odd part of the Bill is that the Government are not content with saying that the employers ought to be paying for training inside their own establishments, which is all that was required of them under the 1964 Act. They are even saying that the obligation should be on the employers to pay for all the training needs of the industry in which they happen to be. That is surely an extraordinary added burden to put on industry, which is straining against increasing bankruptcies at the present time. How can the Government justify this additional burden which is being laid upon businesses?

There is another reason why it is lamentable that the Government are contemplating reducing the statutory backing for training and reducing public expenditure on training. It is more and more obvious to those of us who have been studying training at all closely that the best training is that which is done by the employer. This is increasingly important where there are conditions of rapid change, because only the employer, who is examining the markets and who is studying the demand for the new techhology, can know what new training requirements are going to be and can initiate them in time to be able to take advantage of the changes which are going on. Training which is not initiated and carried out by the employers always runs the risk, and too often falls into the trap, of being somewhat out-of-date, because by the time the information has been collected about what the new job needs are going to be, and by the time that has been translated into training programmes, then the scene inside industry has moved on and so the training programme tends to be outdated.

Therefore, we want the employers to take more responsibility, not less, for handling training in the country—yes, that is right, but it is going to be very expensive indeed, and it is a national need. If the Government really meant business in getting the economy going again, if they really meant business in cutting back on unemployment, then this would be the last expenditure of all for them to cut, because we all know that unemployment is going to fall most heavily (not just during the recession, but from now on, indefinitely) on those who are untrained.

The noble Earl himself quoted the difference in percentages as between the people who receive training in this country and the people who receive training in France and Germany. Unless we can narrow that difference, unless there is a real increase in the proportion of people trained here, not only are we going to be in an exteremely unfavourable position competitively, but we are going to face a society in which there will be a high percentage of people, youngsters now leaving school, who may never during the course of their working lives have a regular job. That is the burden of training in this country—to see that that does not happen; and it is not going to be carried unless there is Government money put into it.

Now we come to the abolition (question mark) of the training boards. As has been said, this is only an enabling Bill, and we do not yet know what is going to happen to the training boards. We are to some extent debating this in the dark. I have argued the case for continuing a statutory backing as against the folly of relying on voluntarism at the present time. Why will the Government not recognise that the best programme would be to build on what we have and on what is good in the training boards? I agree that there are many aspects of the training boards which it is possible to criticise. But do not let us get rid of them. Improve them, adapt them, change them! Start with the foundation that was laid in the 1964 Act and develop from there! They have their weaknesses. They are too bureaucratic, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, when he says, "Whose fault is that?—the 1973 Act".

The noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, remembers the 1973 Act well. It was his first big piece of parliamentary business. I remember challenging him from these Benches to say that this Manpower Services Commission which he set up will be free of entanglements and control by the Civil Service. He looked across the House and said, "I tell the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, again as I have told her repeatedly, that it will not be under Civil Service control". Yet, in the debate earlier this year in another place, the Secretary of State said that the training boards have to refer to the Manpower Services Commission, the MSC has to refer to the Department of Employment; the Department of Employment has to refer to the Civil Service Department—and why, in Heaven's name, the Civil Service Department, passes my comprehension—but that is the sort of "the king told the queen who told the dairymaid" kind of process which goes on.

Of course, it is bureaucratic; but who invented the bureaucracy? Why blame the training boards if the 1973 Act precipitated the levels of bureaucracy of this kind? The Government have Sir Derek Rayner looking into abuses. It would be a good idea to put him down that particular rabbit hole. Bureaucracy? Yes, it is there; but it is created by the 1973 Act, by the refusal to leave the training boards to get on with the job and to saddle them with layer upon layer of intervention. Then it is true that the training boards cover only about 60 per cent. of all persons employed in industry. This is very little. The noble Earl was right to say there will be a big shift in the kinds of employment in future; that the old type of manual occupation is becoming less and less and there was a whole variety of services growing in importance and that knowledge skills (to use the same jargon) are becoming for more people more important than manual skills.

But you can build this kind of training into the training board system. Why not? Some training boards have been very much more successful than others. It is possible that some degree of amalgamation between training boards would be beneficial. Also, it is true—and it was recognised before the 1964 Act that this was likely to be a problem—that the sectoral system, on which the 1964 Act was based, did not allow adequately for cross-sectoral training. The 1973 Act—and I remember the discussions on this matter—were intended to be able to lead to improvement in cross-sectoral training. It did not. This absence is a weakness and is something which badly needs to be put right.

These are all limitations, I accept; but they are not limitations caling for abolition of the training boards. They are limitations which call for reform, and reform in a number of directions. Your Lordships will have been inundated, as I have been, by communications from so many different training boards and employers that it is hard to remember even half the advice that one has been given in connection with this Bill. One proposal which has come in different forms from a number of areas requires a great deal of consideration. It is that there should be far more activity and far more organisation of training boards at really local level, at the grass roots. The training boards have not been particularly good at this. We need a system so that people concerned with the local labour market are organised in a way in which they can help to implement training from the bottom up, at the grass roots level. What I have not seen in all the papers sent to me is a really satisfactory administrative procedure which will make local organisation of this kind really work. Nor have I seen any indication as to how the public funds which, in my view, need to be channelled through to whatever is the institutional instrument for training, can best be funnelled through to the organisation at local level.

These are unanswered problems and these are the problems to which anyone concerned with training and employment should be directing their attention. As one of the papers put it, we need sectoral training, supra-sectoral training, sub-sectoral training and cross-sectoral training; and we need to organise so as to get the most efficient pattern of instituion to meet a variety of needs. You start with the training boards, you adapt them, you add new institutions as required. You do not scrap what has been, in the history of training in this country, still the most successful experiment in training instituions that we have had.

My Lords, the noble Earl has been most disarming and persuasive in his introduction of this Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, has said, the word "modest" fell from his lips as did "limited", "enabling measure", et cetera. That is the danger of it. What is the Secretary of State going to do with it? Is he quietly and diplomatically going to put it on the shelf, or is the Treasury breathing down his neck to implement it and save that putative £50 million a year as soon as possible? And if he does eventually save this money, will it simply go into the common kitty, or will he be able to spend some of it constructively, for example, on the new training initiative to which the noble Earl referred? This Bill should be seen against its historical background, to which a slightly different gloss might be given to that chosen by the noble Earl.

It is, or it could be, depending upon the next move, the culmination of a long retreat. For who was it that enacted the Industrial Training Act 1964 and set up the ITBs? Was it a nasty, interventionist, Left-wing Government, nibbling away at our sacred freedom to muddle through? No, my Lords. It was a Conservative Administration. Then, again, in 1973, it was a Conservative Government that brought in the Employment and Training Act. Admittedly, under pressure from employers, the levy-grant system was turned into a levy exemption system; but the ITBs were preserved and it was at this point that the Manpower Services Commission came to life, charged with overall responsibility for the nation's training policy. I do not know who chose the title, "Manpower Services Commission", which I, personally, do not happen to like very much; but there is, undoubtedly, implicit in it a commitment to some form of positive manpower planning.

Now we are told that there is to be a return to voluntarism with the Government intervening only at the margin, to use the noble Earl's words; that is, to leave it up to industry and to let industry get on with the job—a return by degrees to the pre-1964 position which was found unsatisfactory by the party now in power. The Government's own advisers are not in agreement with the main measures contained in the Bill. The MSC writes in paragraph 3.9 of their corporate plan:

"It is the Government's intention fully to phase out the Exchequer's contribution to the boards' operating cost by 1982–83 … and to apply a cut of £l1·4 million in the year 1981–82. The commission regrets that the Government's present intention is to implement these decisions in full by April 1982 while the economy is in deep recession. Implementing this major change so quickly will create problems of adjustment and may further depress training levels at a time when they should be sustained to prepare for the upturn".

In the same paragraph, the commission refers to the sector-by-sector review which it is proposing to carry out at the Government's request and which I think the noble Earl told us was due in July.

Is it sensible to take power for far-reaching changes in advance of this review? In case the MSC should be thought hardly impartial, there is also the view of the Central Policy Review Staff. They are not sparing in their criticism of ITBs on the grounds that

"they reflect the interests of some unions and management in preserving traditional systems of training rather than longer term needs as a whole".

This may be fair in some cases. I do not think anybody in your Lordships' House would hold that all ITBs are perfect and should be preserved for ever. But the Central Policy Review Staff go on to say:

"while recognising the financial and other constraints on the Government, we believe the Government will need to give a more effective steer to the training system".

They say this twice. In paragraph 31 they say:

"For the reasons mentioned above, we believe that there is now argument for the Government to give the training system a stronger steer".

That is to say the Government certainly cannot opt out.

If they are going to remove one tiller—the existing one—by reducing the MSC training services division and emasculating the ITBs, how are they going to steer the training system until they have manufactured another? I think that is the main concern of myself and of my friends on this Bench. There may be a case for re-fashioning the tiller and even engaging a new helmsman. The CPRS go on to say in paragraph 35 that

"the Government will need some instrument such as ITBs to provide leverage on training that is done by employers".

A little down further on the same page they say

"there needs to be a change of emphasis to a type of body which will both encourage reform of existing schemes and promote innovation in those areas which are neglected at the moment".

But there is not even a glimmer of such a new body in the Bill. In his introduction, the noble Earl referred somewhat disparagingly to "statutory straitjackets"—I think those were his words—and then he passed on. The noble Earl may of course very reasonably say that it is not the purpose of the Bill to define the new framework which the Government envisage, and one would accept that. But lack of certainty about the Government's intentions does not make it very easy for some of us to swallow the Bill as it stands.

Of course, it is only fair to say that there are quite a number of consultative documents and discussion papers around. I have two or three of them in my hand: Training for Skills, A Programme for Action. That was published under the last Government and still has a lot of good sense in it. More recent MSC reports still mention it with reverence. It is still the basis of their support for apprenticeships. More recently we have had A New Training Initiative, to which the noble Earl referred which is largely directed, at the needs of 16 to 19 year-olds. We have also had An "Open Tech" Programme, slanted more towards adult training and re-training which is also, of course, of crucial importance. A once-and-for-all ration of training is now completely out of date. I think that everybody recognises that.

Both these documents call for views and opinions of all interested parties by 30th September 1981. That presumably means that the Government have not yet made up their mind which of these schemes to back, or in what proportion, if any, to back them or with what funds. There is also of course the strong possibility that your Lordships' own Select Committee on Unemployment will come forward in the autumn with some constructive proposals in this field.

In the circumstances, I ask myself whether it is really sensible for the Government to bring this Bill forward at this time, when the whole question of training, whether on the job or off the job, whether at school, in a college of further education or on employers' premises is obviously due for a major review. It is my view, and I think that of most of my colleagues, that we should keep what we have got until we have devised something better, which we must undoubtedly do. But before we start scrapping we must, I submit, have a much clearer idea of what we want to build than we have at present. It is on those grounds that I find it difficult to welcome this Bill. It seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse. The whole approach is the wrong way round. Let us first work out what we are going to do about training, what the new framework is going to be, and then might be the time to bring forward a Bill of this nature to introduce the necessary statutory modifications as a basis for the new arrangements which we so desperately need. Though I find it difficult to welcome the Bill, I have no difficulty in welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, whom I am sure the whole House is anxious to hear.

My Lords, it is six weeks since I was introduced to your Lordships' House and I cannot remember a time when I have sat so silent for so long. But I felt that it was necessary to get the feel of your Lordships' Chamber and, conscious of the honour and privilege of making a maiden speech in this House, I felt I wanted to save my maiden speech for a subject on which I could make a modest contribution from my own experience.

The first reason why I have chosen this subject on which to speak is because it is central to the Liberal Party's industrial policy and has been for many years. The party is ever grateful to my noble friend Lady Seear for the work that she has put in in producing party policy in the field of industrial training. We are, I think it is generally agreed from all sides of the House a greatly under-skilled country. Again, it is generally agreed that the 1964 Act was a step in the right direction. There is also general agreement that the ITBs have become too bureaucratic and are greatly in need of reform. I do not think that there is much difference between various parts of the House on that. The question is whether this Bill is going to improve that situation. Frankly, I do not at this stage in a maiden speech intend to offer an opinion on that, but I must say I am very taken with the arguments of my noble friend Lady Seear.

What I am sure of is that Parliament and the Government have a great responsibility to ensure that there is an improvement in the training system and situation in our industries in this country, particularly at this time. We hear a good deal about the coming up-turn in the economy. It would be wrong of me to offer an opinion on the Government's attitude to that at this stage. Whenever that up-turn does come—and surely it will some time—there has to be a great deal of reinvestment; and we hear much talk of the money from North Sea oil being used to reinvest in new machinery, new computers, robots and the like.

Sadly, we hear rather less of investment in training. But unless there is a greater investment in skill training in this country—both in technical and management skills—then the opportunities are going to be missed and, however good the machinery, however good the computers, unless the men behind them are skilled enough to use them, then we will miss the benefits of the up-turn. So the Bill must be judged in my opinion on whether it is likely to improve the opportunities of those now working in industry and, more important, whether it is going to improve the chances of those people who are not working at the moment. One of the great sadnesses of the unemployment situation today is that many of those people who are unemployed are greatly under-skilled. As my noble friend said, they are unlikely to get jobs when the up-turn comes unless we can do something about improving their skills.

The second part of what I want to say concerns the ITBs. I recognise from the debate already that this is a highly controversial Bill, in spite of what the noble Earl said in his introduction. I do not particularly want to refer at this stage to the controversial aspects of the Bill, although at later stages perhaps I may be permitted to do so. Nevertheless, at this stage it is proper to declare an interest. I have for the past 30 years been employed in the chemical industry and am still so employed by a company which could be significantly affected by the passage of this Bill. Such knowledge as I bring to this Bill comes from that experience in the chemical industry and a slight knowledge of the Chemical and Allied Industries Training Board—CAPITB as it is colloquially known.

The chemical industry is a relatively young and still very vigorous industry. It has a good export record. Its positive balance of payments were over £2,000 million last year. It also has a fine record of in-house training, both technical and management. ft is not typical of many industries in this country. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, when he speaks on the engineering industry, will point to considerable differences between my industry and his. I nevertheless believe that because of that good history of skill training it also has a good record of industrial relations. I believe that is something that we should take on board when thinking of training. The better skilled our managers are, the better skilled our workforce is, I believe the better the chances of improved industrial relations in this country.

The chemical industry itself has such comprehensive training facilities that I understand that over the sector covered by CAPITB, something like 84 per cent. of companies are regularly granted exemption from the levy, and in the chemical part of that sector I have heard the level put as high as 96 per cent. So it comes as no surprise to me to find that individual companies, and indeed the chemical industry's trade association itself, are very much in favour of the winding up of the industrial training board. What I do find very surprising, though, is that the companies are going to be expected to pay the winding up costs. In the case of the two largest chemical companies in this country I understand the total cost of that may come to over one million pounds between them. It seems a little hard that, having had, as it were, industrial training boards imposed on them and not having had much benefit from them, they are now expected to pay these large sums of money. I do believe that the Government ought to look at that again.

Let me now come to the voluntary sector. If we are going to go down that road, I believe that we have to take a little more time than has been offered so far. The noble Earl mentioned the consultations that have taken place, but I believe that ideas within industry have not really yet crystallised to the point where that consultation is necessarily complete at the end of the day. I think it would be a mistake to suppose that the consultations which have taken place so far ought to be considered as final in any decisions which might be made as early as later this year. There is a variety of needs within various industries, and even within my own industry the needs of different areas differ quite strongly. There is no single chemical company in this country that manufactures the whole range. We are very much an industry where we take in each other's washing. One man's finished work is another man's feedstock, and the consequence of that is that different areas of the country certainly have different needs. I very much take the point made by my noble friend Lady Seear about getting training down to the local level so far as possible, and therefore I tend to favour the suggestion that voluntary organisations might well be decentralised to the regions, at the very least. It seems to me in that way they stand a better chance of forming continual links with the further education systems and making sure that the skills which are applicable in their particular geographical area are those that are available.

Having said that, I must say I have grave reservations about the voluntary system. Even the good companies in these times of economic depression are going to find it difficult, as has been said, to maintain their levels of training; and the bad ones, those which still believe that training is a luxury—foolish they may be but nevertheless there are still plenty of them about, although in my particular industry there are fewer than average—those people are going to fail even more than they are doing at the moment to provide the necessary training for their employees and for the industry.

In the particular area of health and safety, I believe this is absolutely crucial. It may well be said by the Government that health and safety can be looked after by the Health and Safety Executive or by the Factory Inspectorate; but health and safety begin not with machines and not with codes of practice but in the minds of men and women, and it is only if they are trained to recognise the dangers of bad practices and of misuse of machines that we shall really engender an atmosphere in industry where good health and safety practice is a reality. So that is an area which I am absolutely certain cannot be totally left to the voluntary sector.

There are other areas, which I will not go into today, concerning which during the passage of this Bill through another place my right honourable friends put down a number of amendments. These included the criteria that should be applied to voluntary bodies, if they are set up. Sadly, that aspect was not accepted by the Government, but I am sure that my noble friends in this House will be seeking to reintroduce some of those provisions at a later stage of the Bill and I hope they will have a more successful passage through this House than in another place. I trust that the noble Earl who, as I have detected in my short stay in your Lordships' House, gives an ear to everything that is said, will take this on board and if at all possible allow himself to be persuaded that criteria are necessary if voluntary bodies are to be set up.

I apologise for not having come to any firm conclusions in what I have said, but I would not want your Lordships to suppose from that that I do not believe that this is a desperately important Bill, because the truth is that unless we get this training thing right we could well be facing a further decline in industry. The lack of training in this country could be a recipe for the obsolescence of British industry.

My Lords, I should like, on my own behalf and on behalf of the whole House, to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, on his maiden speech, which was, if I may be so bold as to say so, a most exemplary one, since it was brief and to the point and was spoken from a great wealth of experience. We shall look forward immensely to the noble Lord's contributions to debates on this kind of subject and indeed on all the other things on which he is known to be an expert.

The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, referred to the work of your Lordships' Select Committee on Unemployment. I am the fourth member of that committee to speak this afternoon, so I think it will give the rest of your Lordships some idea of where the thoughts of the Select Committee, under the distinguished chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, may be tending to go.

First, I welcome the Bill, and particularly welcome the excellent speech with which my noble friend Lord Gowrie introduced it. He did say that training was of central importance to the future of the country—something which I think is undeniably true. He felt that the general criticism which might be made of the training system, in so far as one exists here, is that it takes too long for young people to be trained and that the system is too rigid. I would add something else: there is not enough of it.

The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, said there would be universal agreement—and I think there is—that one of the things wrong with this country, and particularly wrong with industry, is that we are a greatly under-skilled people. We are a people of great talent and great human resources, but the facilities are not there for us, and I thought that the figures which were given by my noble friend were alarming. He said that half our 16 year-old school-leavers do not go on to any kind of further education or training worthy of the name, whereas in France it is more than 80 per cent. and in West Germany it is more than 90 per cent. Those are two countries very similar to our own, and I think it is a matter for very strong self-criticism that we should be in this position.

I thought that the attention which my noble friend gave to the problem of youth unemployment was most important and significant. He said—and I am sure that Hansard will quote him more correctly than I am doing—that the Government's view was that all young people should have an opportunity for education, training or for work experience which mixed up both. If that is a statement of Government policy, it is worthy of note and it is one which I think the whole House will welcome.

Clearly there will be a division of opinion about how such a policy would be implemented, but that such a policy needs to be implemented, I would venture to say by the end of the 1980s, cannot be doubted. It needs to be implemented on two grounds: first, particularly for young people because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, pointed out, unemployment among young people is going to be concentrated among the unskilled, with all the social problems that that leads to; and, secondly, because the nation needs more training at all levels and at all ages.

As a matter of fact, youth unemployment may not be the most serious problem. The demographic change, the structure of the population, is such that this year marks the peak in 18-year olds, as we noticed last week in our debate on higher education, which was opened so skilfully from the Benches opposite, and from now on, the 16 to 18 year old age group will be dropping quite sharply. So, I would guess that, just for that sheer demographic reason, the actual number of unemployed young people may diminish. That should not distract our attention from the fact that there is a serious problem there. But the even more serious problem may well be among the more mature people in their 20s and 30s, and I am sure—the evidence is over-whelming—that the problem of unemployment will be concentrated among the unskilled.

I do not know, and I do not suppose anybody else knows, whether or not unemployment is here to stay as a feature of Western economies. It crept up on us very suddently in the late 'sixties and early' seventies and it might steal away just as mysteriously. Perhaps President Mitterand knows how to cure it in France—we shall see. Perhaps it will disappear here, because of the Government's policies—we do not know. But I think it would be prudent to assume that, certainly for what is a reasonably foreseen future, some quite chronic level of unemployment may well be here to stay.

This is not a debate on enemployment, but it is a debate on industrial training, and I am convinced that the future of the British economy—not only of industry, but of the service sector as well—depends upon a greater level of skill, and, moreover, that we do not yet have the institutions to provide those skills. I think that the Manpower Services Commission document, A New Training Initiative, was, indeed, a most important policy document which, taken in conjunction with my noble friend's statement earlier this afternoon, begins to point the way towards which we should be going.

I am personally convinced of what the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, said in his maiden speech, that the industrial training board structure has proved in many cases too rigid. I think it has provided very important experience and a very important background to what we ought to do next. But let us not pretend that this Bill is the major next step. It is extremely important that whatever Government, of whatever political complexion, is in office for the next three or four years, some kind of hope is given to the nation on this question. We need to have some kind of national emphasis upon this crucial issue for our future.

I make no apology for saying it—this is the third time in a week that I have said it—but I think that the time has come for a re-think of the structures in Whitehall dealing with education and training. At the moment, it is a matter of complete chance whether a young man or woman, on leaving school, falls under the beneficent sway of the Department of Education and Science, under the Manpower Services Commission or under one of the schemes of the Department of Employment, and we know from the figures that my noble friend has given that most of them will slip down the cracks between those and other bodies. I cannot help feeling that the time has come for a powerful initiative. As I say, this is not a party political point; this is something which I feel is very strongly inter-party. A need has now arisen for a powerful initiative from central Government to try to overcome what is an acknowledged national scandal.

Moreover, I am convinced that it is the field in which the European Community should also be taking an initiative. The European Community has been bogged down in the fields and vineyards of Europe for far too long, spending most of its income on agriculture when it ought to be spending its income on training and skilled development of all kinds. We know from the experience of the Federal Republic and France that it can be done by nations not too dissimilar to our own. So in welcoming the Bill, which clears away a lot of structures which have probably outlived their usefulness, and which has given the opportunity for a new initiative, I particularly welcome the terms in which my noble friend introduced it to your Lordships' House this afternoon.

My Lords, may I, from this side of the House, join with the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, on his maiden speech. May I also say that it was made more remarkable for me, knowing full well the opinions of many important employers in the industry in which he has spent most of his life. May I couple with that appreciation for the contribution by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, whom we have much to thank for at the Engineering Training Board for support throughout the years. Your Lordships will know that I have to declare an interest as chairman of the Engineering Training Board and, I hope, quite temporarily, chief executive of that body.

Everything that is happening, and everything that has happened since our last debate, is proving—to me, at any rate—the decline in the wealth producing sector of our economy. There is no joy in saying that. It has been said many times, and I hope it can bear being repeated, that without that wealth producing sector any of the aspirations of a compassionate, feeling society—raising living standards, care of the sick and aged, pensions et cetera—will not be sustainable. Therefore, training is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end to bring those things about. Hence the interest of many employers, educationists and trade unionists who give up their time quite voluntarily to serve on bodies in spite of their being called quangos. It is the knowledge that that service can be backed up by some form of authority, by an ability to get into operation the things that they decide, that gives them their confidence and belief in those bodies. So I make no apologies at all for returning to the theme that, in our view, voluntarism will not work. I do not believe it will work in any of our major industries. I can say—I think without fear of contradiction from those who have been involved in the training—that it will not work in the engineering industry.

Let me give your Lordships a few facts at the expense of boring you. Based upon our own expertise within the board, based upon assessments by the University of Warwick, we have estimated that if the future needs of the industry are to be met—and I would remind your Lordships that boys and girls who are training today, whether as professional engineers, technicians or craftspersons, will not come on stream for four years —we need an intake of 20,000. The industry, based upon its order books, has recruited only 12,000, a shortfall of 8,000.

But by far the worst aspect is the growing inclination to dismiss young boys and girls during their first, second or third year of training; so much so that over 2,000 have been thus treated this year, making the shortfall 10,000, or 50 per cent. of the industry's requirement. If that is the position now, what is it going to be next month, when half-a-million schoolchildren leave school and when upwards of 100 applicants for every vacancy in the engineering industry will be commonplace? That is the magnitude of the problem. I give these figures to your Lordships in the belief that they speak for themselves and in the belief that they mean that there is a great need for continuance of the boards in their statutory form.

Let me turn to another aspect. It is an accepted fact that if we are to meet the challenge of new technology we have to get away from the idea that a boy or girl will be trained for only one particular branch of industry. They will need to be trained, retrained, and retrained again. Do we believe we can achieve that object if we abolish the boards as they stand at the moment? Do we believe we can overcome the other factor of getting away from the idea that a person can receive the status of craftsman only if he serves a given period of time, instead of applying the standards which obtain in any other calling or profession? Do we believe that we can achieve these ends without the co-operation of educationalists, employers and trade unions? And where else can we get acceptance of this idea except through the training boards? I repeat that we must get their participation. Although the members give their services voluntarily, they exercise a degree of authority when it comes to making a reality of things which are determined at board level. Above all, can we really expect people to serve if authority is taken away from the boards and if some messpot of voluntarism is substituted in its place? I believe not.

May I turn to the new initiatives. There are, of course, two. There is the open-Tech. I can say on behalf of the board and of most people I have met in the industry that this is welcomed, that it is overdue and that it must be encouraged in every way. For a number of reasons it is difficult at the moment to give a concise and definite opinion on the new training initiative. One can well understand why the authors of the document did not know what the future organisations to implement those statements were going to be. Therefore to some extent it appears to me that the document has been written in a style which accommodates all possibilities. Given that understandable factor, the initiative must be welcomed because it poses a number of questions.

First and foremost is the question of resources. I noted what was said by the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie: that there are three factors. Here I must part company with him. Over 50 years ago I could never understand the sacrifices which my mother told me she had to undergo in order that I could have an apprenticeship, because I received the magnificent wage of 10s. 6d. for working 47 hours a week. I repeat that if people judge entry into the engineering industry by the money that they will receive during training, that industry is the last place where they will go. To talk in terms of those boys or girls or of their parents making a contribution towards their training is almost asking the impossible.

My Lords, I agree with every word which the noble Lord has said on this subject, but I said that the trainee might make a contribution in the form of lower wages. The noble Lord, with all his experience, might share my view that perhaps adult rates "clock on" rather early in this economy relative to the economics of our competitors.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for his intervention. However, these are matters which must be argued out by both sides of industry rather than within the context of this Bill. I can only say—I hope that this is not taken as a threat, because if it is it is purely deliberate—that the trade unions have made it perfectly clear that they have no interest in resolving either the type of training, or the remuneration for training, or the multiplicity of training if they are not part of the general set-up, with authority to deal with training, and I believe that they are fully justified in taking that stand.

May I repeat the appeal which has been made by so many other speakers in this debate. Everything seems to revolve around the desire of the Government to save up to £50 million on the training programme. I tread here on very delicate ground indeed, because I have said that the new initiative is to be welcomed. Is, however, the amount of money which is being spent on the Youth Opportunities Programme, which will keep many a boy or girl off the street, anything to do with the long-term training needs of our country or of the economy? I suggest that it has little to do with that and everything to do with reducing the unemployment figures. If a little of that money could be transferred to the long-term interests of training, I believe that we should get a far better return for our investment. I make that appeal not to decry the initiative taken in respect of the Youth Opportunities Programme but to try to inject some order of priority when it comes to disbursing money.

May I now turn to the Bill. Of course we have to hedge our bets, because we do not know our fate. I do not want to say too much in case we are not placed in the voluntary situation. However, whatever Government are in power and whatever the fate of any board may be, the omnipotence given to the Secretary of State either to accept or to ignore the advice that is given by the Manpower Services Commission is, in my view, neither good constitutionally, nor good law, nor good industrial practice. If people are going to give advice, surely they want to know that their advice will be taken notice of and will be backed up by constitutional authority.

That is my first criticism. My second criticism concerns the levy. I do not know what compelled the Government to write into the Bill authority for employers to determine the levy. That is virtually what they can do. It is not necessary. Over the 17 years that the Engineering Industry Training Board has been in existence we have never had a vote. We have always got by by consensus. If I may put it in more blatant terms, the employers have always got their way ultimately. Why upset the atmosphere and why upset a body that by consensus—not by party politics, not by industrial differences, but because of its interest in training—has been able to bring about the desired result? More dangerous than destroying the atmosphere is the very thing that has been referred to by my noble friend Lord McCarthy. Even where boards are given statutory backing, it is possible to strangle those training boards by lack of funds, through the employers' ability to vote them insufficient funds for their operation. I hope that this aspect will be looked into.

I want to conclude with a point that was also made by my noble friend Lord McCarthy, in respect of the saving of £50 million. In terms of the future needs of this country it is almost unbelievable that we shall take steps to destroy all that has been built up over all these years in order to effect such a saving. I can only hope that even at this late stage the Government will have second thoughts and will recognise the unique value of the co-operation between educationists, employers and trade unionists which subsists within the existing training boards.

My Lords, it is a pleasure and indeed an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, in his position as president and chief executive of the Engineering Industry Training Board. One could not obtain a better knowledge of how things work than from such a source as he. I should also like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, for what was, as other noble Lords have said, a brilliant maiden speech and also for such a fluent maiden speech. When most of us start on this great track we sometimes lose our fluency, but not so the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff. I hope that he will address us on many occasions, even if we do not agree with all that he has to say; I am looking forward to a more controversial approach.

I am sorry to have to say to my noble friend Lord Gowrie that I was not here when he introduced the 1973 Act because at that time I was the director of the Distributive Industry Training Board and I applied the Addison Rules to myself because I so objected to the Bill and it so deeply affected my income because of the way in which it was formed. I thought that it was a quite disgraceful piece of legislation, which was passed under all sorts of pressures. I can sympathise with the Government, whom I supported in principle, of course, who were under tremendous pressure from their own Back-Benchers in the Commons. The Act really came at a most unfortunate moment—just as the training boards were getting off the ground, were getting clear of initial suspicion, and were starting to achieve something, they were pushed under the Manpower Services Commission, Department of Employment and Civil Service Department for a whole lot of things, because, poor things, they were centrally funded and the Treasury would not allow them out on their own any more.

I imagine that the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, will in part agree with me when I say that the result of all this is that an enormous amount of effort among the top people in the training boards made since 1974 or 1975, when the Act was brought into force, has had to be devoted to bothering with the Manpower Services Commission—not only on the money and policy side but also on the training side. I believe it would have been very much better had the Act been so phrased that the Manpower Services Commission—which has a very important job to do in the general area of manpower planning and the unemployed and has done it very well—had been able to leave the training boards to get on with the job of coping with people who are in employment.

We now find ourselves with the need to do something different again, because clearly the present arrangements have not worked. Even the Manpower Services Commission itself, in its comments last summer, admitted that one of the things that has not worked is the relationship between the Commission and the training boards. I really believe that something is due and to that extent I think it is right for the Government to introduce an enabling Bill which will allow certain adjustments to be made. On the other hand I do not believe that the flexibility which the Government have given themselves is the kind of flexibility that I personally should like to see them have.

At this point I must declare an interest because I work for a trade association, the Cake and Biscuit Alliance, and therefore some of the views which I shall express will be somewhat different from those which have been expressed by noble Lords opposite on both the Labour and Liberal Benches, I see this matter as being of great concern to industry, who would have been happy to continue the original 1964 Act with all the flexibility it contained. It is moderately unhappy with the present Act, but certainly does not want what it believes will come out of the proposed Act, if all the enabling powers are put into effect.

I have five points of concern. I am concerned about subsection 2(1), which clears the way for industry to bear expenses. I am concerned at the implication that industry will bear winding-up costs. I am concerned about the extraordinary new procedure for partial exemption, which is allied to what we have just been talking about, and on rather a different basis I am concerned at the widening to "persons employed in the industry". From my own practical experience of the training board with which I worked, I have always thought that except in a very few specialised cases (and I suspect this might apply to part of the engineering industry) the idea of industry-wide training was in many cases just "pie in the sky".

It is not like that, because different types of activity and skill are different not only within different relatively small sections of industry but also among different companies within the same industry. However good people's qualifications are, one has to retrain them to suit one's own application for the sort of work ones own company is doing. This is so in a whole range of industries, although I agree that there are some highly technical engineering activities where this does not apply. En general terms, if the change in the phrase had been less complete, I should have been much happier.

Finally, I am concerned at the implication that all industries must produce a collective voluntary training organisation if they do not have a training board. At least, that is what the implication seems to be to me. If I am reading more into the Bill than in fact is the Government's intention, then perhaps my noble friend will tell me so when he comes to reply at the end of this debate. I suggest that a collective training organisation, if one does not have a training hoard, is suitable for some industries but not necessarily for all industries.

In some industries rationalisation has taken place over the past 30 years, and the industry in which I work is a very good example of that. Rationalisation has left the industry with a situation in which about half the membership of its trade association, out of a total of 40 companies, are either very large companies in their own right or are medium-sized companies in terms of producing biscuits or cakes but are subsidiaries of very big companies. Of the remaining 20 companies, some two-thirds are below the cut-off applicable to the Food, Drink and Tobacco Training Board, so they have not been subjected to training board encouragement at all—much to my personal regret, and it is something that I have tried to put right. That leaves very few firms that perhaps could do with more centralised encouragement: not more than, say, ten in a whole industry which is in fact producing more biscuits and cakes now than it was in 1947, when there were ten times as many companies in the industry.

There are industries like that, and the big companies or the subsidiaries of big companies are, in their own very good sense, bound to continue the training practices that they had going before the training boards were set up, let alone that they have refined and improved since they have had the guidance of the training board to help them more. They are very well aware of the need, not only to develop their own, but wherever necessary to join up with other firms, both in our industry and in another, who initiate the particular type of training course that they find necessary.

This has happened. In fact the last time it happened was against the wishes of the training board, and it produced very good results. So there are industries which probably do not get any substantial gain, will not be kept doing any more training by being forced to be part of a training board or even to set up their own little local arrangement based on their own trade association. It may be that there are not many of us, although I rather think there are more than perhaps your Lordships would think. What is silly, is to put us, when we do not need it, in some sort of bureaucratic situation which costs money. If, after a period of time—and I recommended it in a speech in your Lordships' House back in 1969 or 1970—arrangements were made for some sort of inspection to take place, say at five-year intervals, because things do not change very fast either in a good way or a bad way, which could look at industries which have not got anything or at industries that have never had anything, there might be a good reason for having that sort of arrangement. The inspectors could report to the Secretary of State and say, "This industry has slipped back since the days when it had its training board; you had better do something about it". I think there is room for that sort of approach, but the key point is that the good training companies in the training board system have never paid a penny in the way of net levy. They have always got back at least as much, and very often more, in grant than they have paid in levy. Those are the good trainers, which usually include the biggest companies.

The cost of running training boards before the Government took it on under the 1973 Act was in fact carried by the bad trainers of medium size. The small companies never paid for it because they did not provide collectively enough; it was the bad medium-sized trainers. It always puzzled me that this was not rumbled. Of course I was not going to tell them because that is how they kept us going. That was one of the reasons, of course, why the Government felt they had to do what they did the last time; the only pity was that they did the wrong thing. A change was necessary, but not that one.

The point is that it is going to be very unfair if companies that have never paid a penny are going to be called upon to do so. What is more, those particular companies are aware of their good training, and they are spending a lot of their own money on their own internal training now. They have been prepared to do that because they have known very well that it has helped them to produce a standard which has enabled them not to have to pay a levy.

I have exchanged letters with my honourable friend Mr. Peter Morrison on this subject during the last couple of months and he has not reassured me on this point at all. He has said that the Government will think very carefully about this, they will do this and they will do that; but when one reads the Bill one finds that it is all about making it easy for industry to have to pay. I think it is jolly unfair and it will bounce in the Government's face, because if you want to have something that is new and for which there is no justification, nobody will readily accept it.

Fortunately, I am to be followed in the debate by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Fallowfield, who may be taking a stand on this point. I should have thought that some training boards, of which my own late distributive training board is a good example, could very well continue under the original 1964 rules, under which they were totally self-financing from their levy grant system, because probably in that industry there are still an enormous number of firms who have more to learn.

As I explained earlier, the one that I am now concerned with, the Cake and Biscuit Alliance, is the complete reverse. They are very small, tight, well-organised big companies, but the distributive industries are totally different, with hundreds of thousands of very small companies, and very few big ones. I should have thought they could still usefully go on under the old rules, but I am somewhat worried again about Clause 2(1), which I grumbled about in another direction, over the question of substituting "encouraging adequate training" for the words "raising money towards meeting its expenses". One of the key factors of the 1964 Act was that the training boards were to encourage adequate training. That was what they were there for. So I hope that amendment does not mean that part of the flexibility in this enabling Bill is not that they could, if they wanted to, put a board back in a 1964 situation, with all that went with it under the 1964 rules. I should be delighted if we could, and perhaps my noble friend could tell me whether that is an option that is open to the Government.

I will not speak for much longer, but I feel that I ought to remind the Government of my suggestion of last winter during the spendid debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, which is that the training boards have a value to the Government and the country almost irrespective of the training function. It is a wondeful area in which employers and trade union officials and educationists meet together on a subject which is, on the whole, non-controversial and which everybody agrees about. I believe that this in itself is a wonderful thing to have. I do not believe that NEDO, which is in a different framework altogether, meets that point, and I think it is terribly important from the Government's point of view that they should retain that approach.

So I should like to see the Government bearing the cost of the boards—just the boards, not the staff—and that the levy and grant staff should be wound up, except in the cases that I have just mentioned, where the boards have a job more to do—and maybe that applies equally to the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon's board. In the case of selected boards, we should keep the board going, have the liaison between the different branches of industry, wind up the levy and grant and put the training advisory staff on a self-supporting basis in three years' time. I consider that that should be possible, and if they cannot do it, then it would be found that the ones which could not keep going would naturally, and by their own selection rather than from direction at the centre, join up with others with whom they might be able to make a go of it. I think there is a great deal to be said for that approach.

I will not continue on that point because if my noble friend's advisers like to look at the relevant Hansard about 16th December they will see it in greater detail. But it would be helpful to know whether the Bill is flexible enough to allow that sort of solution to arise. If the rather different solutions that I think the Government are contemplating are still able to be achieved within this Bill, then I think it is splendidly flexible and that is a good thing. But if they cannot be, perhaps it would be wise for your Lordships to amend it so that it can. There may be other variations, which I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, can think of, where we could make it more flexible. Let us have all the options to get the best result, but for Heaven's sake! do not make the employers who have never paid, start paying now.

My Lords, my intervention in this debate will be very brief simply because many of the things I would want to say have already been said by those who have preceded me. May I say at the outset that I welcome this debate despite the fact that it arises from a Bill which in my view fails to recognise the full implication to this nation of what the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, described as the change in the job market. Certainly the Bill before us makes no real tribute to that change; indeed in my view it is a retrograde step that the Government are placing before the House in this Bill.

I welcome the debate, too, because it is about people, it is about the creation of wealth, and more than that, it is about the future of this nation as a trading nation. There can be nothing more important at this particular hour. I have to confess to some surprise, some apprehension and indeed some disappointment that the Government have seen fit to bring this Bill to your Lordships' House at this time. We have heard criticism of the industrial training boards. It has been said that they are too rigid; it has also been said in this House that they are too bureaucratic. There may be some semblance of truth in the two indictments, but I ask this House to compare the indictments that are being brought against the ITBs and the situation pre-ITBs, when the standards of training in this country were, with notable exceptions, very bad indeed, and, as many have said and found out in practice, totally inadequate. So, before we start criticising too greatly the ITB structure, the statutory structure in this country, I think we ought to keep carefully in mind what it superseded and what it has done in the period since its inception.

To present a Bill of this kind to this House at a time when the nation is confronted with sizeable economic difficulties is not, in my considered opinion, the right time to give the Employment Secretary unilateral powers to abolish statutory ITBs, and this, as others have said, despite possible recommendations to the contrary from the Manpower Services Commission. I believe that this Bill is untimely and unnecessary. Nor can it be right at a time when, by comparison with our competitors, particularly our competitors in Europe, in industry, trade and commerce, Britain's workforce is to a large extent even today under-trained.

Instead of breaking up the statutory framework, it seems to me that the Government should be seeking to improve and extend it. I think it astonishing that, at a time when the nation is facing a quickening pace of industrial and technological changes, and when maximum effort, quite rightly, is called for for greater efficiency, improved skills and cost-effective business and industry, the architects and defenders of this Bill are sanguine in their belief that we can hope to achieve and maintain these objectives by replacing statutory direction in training with a voluntarist, or please-your-self-how-much-if-any training scheme to be done by employers in business and industry. I do not share the optimism of those who believe that, as expressed in this Bill.

May I for a moment, in support of my view, ask this House to stop and look back for a few moments and examine what happened in one particular case during the life of a previous Conservative administration in respect to the Commission on Industrial Relations? The commission, facing a daunting task to try to restore a better and more peaceful relationship between employers and employed, did so under the umbrella of a statutory framework. After a period of time I think the record proved, albeit slowly, that some effective work was being performed. The Government then, as indeed I believe the Government are now doing, listened to the siren voices of those who wanted to change. Instead of the statutory framework, there was introduced into this country a voluntary approach to try to deal with the problems of both sides of industry. I believe the replacement of the statutory framework in the CIR by the then Conservative Administration proved a disaster, as I believe it will prove a disaster if this Bill goes forward as an Act in its present form.

Any attempt to return the large part of training in industry and services to voluntary arrangements will be a retrogressive step. History has shown that to leave industrial training to voluntary arrangements has, as many noble Lords have said in this House today, failed the workforce, the employers and the nation in the past. Of course I accept that there have been notable exceptions, and I believe that this Bill will penalise those notable exceptions. I believe that we shall see a return to the advertisements in trade magazines of one kind or another—advertisements by employers who have done no training seeking trained personnel, if this Bill goes through in the manner in which it is presented to us at the present time.

I believe that certain clauses within the Bill are what I would describe as short on definition of what constitutes an effective training organisation for each section of industry covered by that board which is capable of fulfilling the requisite criteria. But against that it is very long in its determination, despite all the experience carefully built up since 1964, to destroy a statutory obligation on employers to train their work force. In this nation, at a time when overall training compares unfavourably with some of our main competitors, it is not a question of whether we can afford to train our employees but of whether we can afford not to train and remain competitive.

My criticism of this Bill is conditioned to a large extent by an active participation in the industry to which the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, referred, in which he played a very instrumental part; I refer to the distribution industry. Lord Scanlon speaks knowledgeably of his experience in the engineering industry and as chairman and chief executive of the Engineering Training Board. I must say that nothing I have seen over a large number of years in the distributive industry, again with notable exceptions which can be counted on one hand, leads me to believe that a voluntarist approach to training in the future will improve the distributive scene overall and make it much more efficient than it is at the present time. Those who are familiar with the problems of distribution will know that it is Britain's second largest industry, sometimes often forgotten, which sets out its stall to recruit annually approximately 20 per cent. of the nation's school-leavers.

The participant within a variety of trades, and those who have a close association with the trade, will also know that it is a sizeable assignment—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, will agree with me about this—to discharge a satisfactory training arrangement for school-leavers in their first job. Experience has shown that this can best be done by a training board with statutory powers. Indeed, before the advent of the training board, in the industry to which I am referring—again with those exceptions to which I have referred and which can be counted on one hand—there was little if any training done whatever.

So I do not look with any great degree of satisfaction to a voluntarist approach to training in the industry about which I am talking. I hold that view as someone who welcomed the Industrial Training Act 1964 and who played an active role as a member of the Central Training Council, which, as provided for in Section 11 of that Act, had the duty of advising the Minister on the exercise of his function under the Act. There was no such provision then, as indeed we are asked to accept now, that if one called on the Manpower Services Commission for advice one could reject its advice although one had asked for it.

Additionally, of course, by virtue of my then employment, I was privileged to see set up an industrial training board for the industry of which I am speaking: I believe that it was the first one outside London. Therefore, I personally cannot overlook the importance of the ITB statutory framework to the future of that industry. Given the background that I have referred to, there is no voluntary system that I can envisage that will maintain and improve the standards already established by the Distributive Industry Training Board. To abolish or, indeed, to change the scope of the statutory board and replace it with a voluntary system will, in my view, do irreparable damage to the image of distribution and, yes, to the image of a large part of industry and commerce at a time when know-how and finance should continue to be employed in those industries as they are at present.

Therefore, like others who have spoken in the debate, I make my appeal to the Government to think again and to look back on past experience of moving away from a statutory framework to a voluntary framework and all that that has entailed for this nation. It merely means that we shall continue to talk about the problems that we set out to deal with many, many years ago.

My Lords, it is always very interesting to follow the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Fallowfield, because he certainly knows the problem and understands the subject. I found myself very much in agreement with the backward-looking view which he was taking of the matter and the way in which he related it to our real needs and what is in the Bill at present. I was also interested in the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, who has spent many years in the chemical industry and who certainly understands the problems. As he said in his speech, I have no doubt that he will have many contributions to make when we reach the Committee stage. I agreed very much with the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, who is not here at present, when he, like other noble Lords, indicated that this Bill is all right as far as it goes, but that something else is needed if we are to grapple with the tremendous problems which we still have to face if we are to get out of this period of recession and unemployment.

I should like to pay my tribute to the noble Earl the Minister because I think that he applies himself to the problems and comes to your Lordships' House and gives us very interesting speeches. I was also interested in a statement which the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, made, I think to the press, a few days ago and again in his speech today, that by 1984 we shall be short of 6,000 apprentices a year and that in 1960 we turned out 27,000 apprentices a year in the industries of this country—large industries, small industries, entrepreneurial industries and so on. This year the number is 12,000.

Whatever we may feel about this debate, we cannot face the future industrial problems, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said in her speech, unless something is done about the situation. I had the advantage of schooling in an industrial organisation in Cheltenham which the noble Lord knows very well. We could not afford apprentices, but we managed it. We made do; we found the money somewhere and we maintained the organisation. In fact, we almost turned our course into a technical university. People were not compelled to stay with us after they had finished their indenture—it might be four, five or seven years—they could go where they wished, but many stayed and many came back.

What happened?—with the outbreak of war we were able to establish shadow factories and to build up the technical war potential in the aircraft industry without which, before the Battle of Britain, we should have been in very serious trouble. After the war we were able to harness this technical force, this organisation, to a great policy for export and it is one of the biggest exporting companies today.

We talk about 3 million unemployed and reference has been made in the debate to the "gap". When the silicon chip and the big changes in large-scale and medium-sized industries take place, shall we have enough trained people, trained young men and technicians to be able to take up the cudgels and deal with the situation?

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey. I think that the Government need more than this Bill—they need an imaginative forward policy if we are to deal with the unemployment problem in recession. We need a dozen Cranfields and all the technology which they gave to the aircraft world, and we need Farnboroughs. Why not turn Chatham and Portsmouth into great training centres? Why not invest in them? That would be an enormous national asset which would come to this country's assistance when we begin our export drives and our trade revival. There are the undeveloped countries—the great continent of Africa. There are markets there. We should have an export drive and bring their technicians over here, train them and so on. That is the way ahead.

As regards defence, we recently had statements on the Trident and the change in the Government's defence policy. I remember the late Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Hives, who was the creator of Rolls-Royce, Sir George Dowty and Sir Roy Fedden, who created Bristol Aircraft, telling us before the war that Germany had trained and conscripted for machine tools a cadre of young people, while with us it was touch and go. If we have to take a risk, and we want to deal with this problem of defence, our real war potential is our technicians and our trained skilled people who are able to meet quickly the surprises which the enemy will produce, of which we know nothing today. If Vickers and Hawkers had not taken great risks in building up their engineering personnel and the employees in all their factories, we would not have had the Spitfires or the Hurricanes. Therefore, on defence alone, the Government need to tackle this problem with something afresh.

Certainly if we are to survive this recession—as many noble Lords have said in the debate—and if we are to escape having 3 million or 4 million unemployed with the advent of the silicon chip revolution, the Government need—as Lord Allen said, we certainly need this from companies—to take a risk. As the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, said in his speech, we should not be parsimonious. Therefore, although this Bill is of some help, I very much hope that the Government will take note of the debate and give us something in the future.

My Lords, I certainly agree with the remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Granville of Eye, who has just spoken, that the Government need more than this Bill. I would remind the House that I tried to make it clear in my opening speech that the Bill is simply a step—the creation of a framework—in what is a much larger total policy about training, and that it would, indeed, be disappointing if the Government were relying on this particular Bill to bring us forward into all aspects of training in the next decade. That is not the intention at all, and if noble Lords would be kind enough to check up in Hansard tomorrow on what I said, I think they will see that I made that clear. My noble friend Lord Vaizey spotted that and reminded the House of the welcome that I had given to the Manpower Services Commission's document, A New Training Initiative, as well as the earnest of intentions that comes from the very considerable resources that the Government put into training.

Again, in some of the anxieties about voluntarism—to which I shall come in just a moment—I think that there was a tacit more than an overt assumption by most speakers that the Government were seeking to escape from the provision of resources for training. At the moment the Government are providing upwards of £300 million a year for training of one kind or another through the MSC, and although we could all argue about what is the most cost-effective provision or whether the money is being spent in every case in the right way—and I am not altogether satisfied with every decision that has been made—I think that the earnest of putting one's money where one's mouth is is something that cannot be denied to the Government.

I, too, was very impressed by the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff. He obviously spoke with real experience and it is more than conventional politeness if I may say that I look forward to his contributions in this House, particularly to his contributions during the Committee stage of the present Bill. On the other hand the expertise with which the noble Lord spoke about training suggests that he may give me a certain amount of trouble at that stage, and therefore in that respect I do not look forward to his contributions so much.

The noble Lord was one of many noble Lords who took the line that when the recession bottoms out, when the recovery comes, we must be in good shape in training terms to take advantage of it. We are all crystal ball gazing in respect of the future at any time and I claim no special authority or wisdom as a crystal ball gazer. What I do know is that even if recovery or the end of recession in the Western democracies generally comes at a much faster pace than appears to be the indication, the sun will not come out of the clouds and shine on all sectors of this economy generally; and that even if we went back to the old average rate of growth in this country of 3 per cent. a year—which we used to contrast most unfavourably with the 5 per cent. to 7 per cent. enjoyed by the European Community countries, let alone with the 15 per cent. enjoyed by the Far Eastern countries—which now looks like riches beyond the dreams of avarice, that 3 per cent. would not guarantee an easy passage out of recession to all sectors.

I think that the mistake—if I may put it that way—which is being made by many speakers who are anxious about the voluntary principle is twofold. It is not that the Government are relying simply on market forces; it is that market forces are already doing a good job in a large number of industries which, while they are recessed, as everybody is, by the recession, are fundamentally not in any real trouble and are liable to enjoy an even better time when general levels of demand have improved.

Therefore, the point that I should like to make to almost all speakers who have expressed doubts about voluntarism—and the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, speaking for the official Opposition, started off here—is really twofold. The first point is that we shall not get rid of statutory training boards in those key sectors where we believe that essential training objectives will not be met without them. The other is that in the many years of their existence the training boards have secured significant changes which can now be expected to be permanent in many industries, particularly the successful industries. Statutory levy and grant are no longer essential incentives for companies to train in all industries. Most of them do very well without it. I think that this view is supported by the levels of exemption from levy in many industries where companies covering 80 per cent. or 90 per cent. of employees are given exemption from levy because they are, in fact, doing satisfactory training. In other words, I am not talking of some new dawn; I am talking of the position now, even at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s when life has been difficult in all sectors of the economy.

If you look at the back of the Manpower Services Commission's Review of the Employment and Training Act, the document called Outlook on Training (and it has been referred to many times) you will see—and please attach no significance to my choice of the particular boards as it does not bode in any sinister way for their future—that 96 per cent. of employers in the air industry are exempt from levy; 90 per cent. are exempt in the chemical and allied products in industry; 75 per cent. in the distributive industry, 83 per cent. in the engineering industry, 83 per cent. in hotel and catering, 90 per cent. in iron and steel, 72 per cent. in knitting, lace and net, and so the list can go on. That does not mean an instant justification for the winding-up of those boards, but it indicates that they are doing things all right, because they get exemption from levy on account of their size and because they are taking their own needs perfectly seriously.

My Lords, would the noble Earl allow me? Would it not be true to say that an alternative suggestion is that of course it is far too easy to get exemption, and that is one of the things that is wrong with the 1973 Act, and indeed that despite the fact that all these people have got exemption we still do not have nearly enough training?

My Lords, what I am saying is, and my opening speech suggested, that certainly all is not well in the field of training, but that we need plural solutions for training. I am not convinced—and it seems to me that these figures on exemption bear out the point—that industry is not capable in very many cases of responding without levy to its training needs. What the Bill is fundamentally doing is allowing the Secretary of State, who is, after all, in the last degree responsible for the money and responsible to Parliament, to exercise a judgment after consultation with the Manpower Services Commission, and after the end of the Commission's review, to wind up boards if need be.

My Lords, I do not want to hold up the noble Earl, but he is assuming that the standard would go on if the boards were not there to prod them. After all, exemption is conditional on the continuation of the standard, and the boards are there to see that the standard is maintained. If you remove the boards you remove the prod, and the noble Earl has not told us why he thinks that without the possibility of the disappearance of the exemption the same work would go on.

My Lords, that is exactly why I said that two points had to be considered; not only the point I have just made, which I only produced in evidence as an indicator that many industries do look after their training needs, but the point that we are not going to get rid of statutory training boards where these seem to be necessary; and indeed powers exist to form, or reform, boards if need be. I just want to disabuse people generally of the notion that the earnest of the Government's dedication to a particular problem or project must be found in their commitment—resource, or other kind of commitment—to a particular organisation designed to service those needs, because, as I said in my opening speech and as many other speakers have echoed this afternoon, the needs change rapidly. That is the context in which we have to look at this Bill.

I noted with great care the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Fallowfield, with all his experience, but I think he does me rather wrong in suggesting that in some way I did not place this Bill in a framework of other training needs and of a changing labour market, because that is in fact exactly what I did. I have also tried to make the point that the Government have made an enormous resource commitment in this field. I cannot see that there is any possibility of much reduction of resources in the field of training. But let us not fool ourselves; the provision of resources by Government has to be paid for somewhere—Governments do not of their own have the money—and industry also has other requirements of Government, and not least lower interest rates and lower taxes. We have to try to balance these things. But, as I have said, so far one can judge the Government by what they actually have spent, and that is very considerable.

The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, asked whether it was likely that voluntary arrangements in this recession would do better than voluntary arrangements before 1964. This point was also echoed by the noble Baroness. The situation has surely changed since 1964. Boards have improved provision of training by companies by getting them to plan better and by raising the quality and efficiency of training. I pay a strong tribute, as perhaps I should have done in my opening speech, to the work that boards have done. Sometimes when a Minister pays tribute to something it is thought that that is automatically in valediction. It is not in this case, and I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, looks somewhat reassured.

As to the quantity of training, the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, recognises that ITBs have not themselves solved all shortages. Government money is still required to fill gaps, and that is why again one has to look at this in the context of total Government expenditure, including the MSC expenditure in this area. I am quoting, the figures from memory, but I think we have so far put in £25 million to try to cope with what I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, is a severe crisis in the apprenticeship field, although of course I think he would acknowledge that part, though not all, of that crisis is in industries which have considerable structural problems regardless of policy or regardless of recession.

The noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, asked me how we could be sure of getting reforms to apprenticeships without ITBs. May I also pay tribute to his courage not only this afternoon but in his work consistently over the last few years in going against a central union opinion, or practice, on the issue of standards. I know that he has done heroic work in getting new attitudes to thrive. I hope that he continues successful in this regard. I cannot accept, however, that the reform of the apprenticeship system can only be secured through ITBs. The main instrument of reform is still collective agreements between employers and unions, and therefore is inately voluntary almost by definition.

The noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, said that YOP had nothing to do with training, and could not some of the YOP money, which he indicated was primarily to take people off the unemployment register, be switched to training boards or to other training provisions. The present Government, like the previous Government, join with the MSC in wanting to see a greater training element in YOP. We do not see in the foreseeable future that there will be any huge improvement in the job opportunities for young people immediately after they come out of school. The nature of work is changing and therefore we are looking towards a second term, so to speak, of vocational education which young people can take on while enjoying the status of adults and getting out of the classroom, as most of them want to. Although I am not satisfied with the degree of training provision that exists in YOP, which within my department I administer, we certainly have tried to improve it, and that is what the MSC are doing all the time.

My noble friend Lord Mottistone must rest assured that this time I shall try to steer a Bill through your Lordships' House which does not decimate his income. I did not realise that my maiden effort in 1973 had had such a devastating effect. My noble friend asked me a somewhat technical question about the 1973 Act, about which, if I may, I shall write to him. He asked me whether the Government were requiring a collective training organisation in all cases. The Government will not necessarily insist on collective training organisations in all cases. Where the bulk of training is in the hands of a few big firms it might well make sense to leave matters in their capable hands. So arrangements will vary from case to case and we are not going down the road of a single blueprint in what is, as I risk wearying the House by repeating, essentially a very plural field. But we stick to our essential objectives of avoiding skill shortages in any recovery and securing adequate quality of training, including agreed standards and meeting the needs of new technologies.

The noble Lord, Lord Allen, asked me about the Central Training Council. Of course, there was no express provision to the effect that the advice of the CTC need not be followed; there did not need to be, as there was nothing—as there now is in the case of another body, the MSC—which says the Minister cannot act except in accordance with MSC advice. The noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, also took up that point in relation to the MSC, no Government have ever felt themselves bound by the advice of any given organisation. In the last resort, they are responsible to Parliament.

I did not mention this earlier, but I am most grateful for the tribute which the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, paid to the concept of the Open Tech, which is a concept particularly dear to the heart of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, who has given it a great deal of his time and consideration, and he will welcome the noble Lord's words, which I will certainly draw to his attention.

There are of course always some difficulties for a Minister in bringing forward a measure in Parliament which contains a certain amount of uncertainty and rather wide-ranging powers for the Secretary of State, but I do not think this is one more step down the sinister road of an all-powerful executive, though that is an accusation I have sometimes brought against Ministers when they have sought enabling powers. It is, more, that we are trying to work out a very flexible and plural system for what are very rapidly changing needs. But, regardless of the speed at which needs change, and regardless of the kinds or mix of structures we end up with, it is, I think, certain that we in this country will have to move towards something nearer the continental system whereby young people do not go on the job market quite so early, where they do not obtain adult rates of pay quite so early and where a worker in the new industries is just as professional in terms of having received some higher vocational education as his colleagues in the white collar professions have been throughout this century. I hope, therefore, that the House will at least give the Government the benefit of the doubt in their intentions to try to get a flexible structure, because we share the House's concern for the importance of the issue.

My Lords, before my noble friend sits down and to put the record straight, may I reassure him that my salary was not decimated as a result of the 1973 Act? It was affected, which was the reason why I felt I had to apply the Addison Rules to myself. I should not like the record to give the impression that I was in penury because of my noble friend's Act.

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Before I describe the provisions of the Bill, I hope it will be for your Lordships' convenience if I refer briefly to the legislative history of the disqualification of prisoners. I wish also to refer briefly to the immediate circumstances in Northern Ireland which, in the Government's view, have made fresh legislation desirable, indeed essential.

It has long been accepted that certain people should not be qualified for election to the House of Commons, and noble Lords will be familiar with at any rate many on the list of those disqualified. Apart from Members of your Lordships' House, the list includes bankrupts, those under the age of 21, civil servants, members of the armed forces, policemen, judges, holders of various offices and clergymen of the Established Church. The common thread of the disqualifications is incompatibility; it is incompatible with membership of the legislature that a parliamentary candidate should be in the employment of the state or should hold an office of profit under the Crown. It is incompatible with the dignity of Parliament that its Members should be under age or bankrupt. It has been the trend of modern legislation to set out these incompatibilities in statute so that they applied generally and automatically, rather than that the House of Commons should be called upon to exercise judgment in every individual case whether or not to expel a disqualified Member.

But the Criminal Law Act 1967 made certain changes in this area which went against that trend. It was for many years the law of the land that a conviction for certain offences was also incompatible with election to Parliament. Under Section 2 of the Forfeiture Act 1870 a person convicted of felony and sentenced to a term exceeding 12 months imprisonment was automatically subject to various civic penalties. The most important of those were disqualification from sitting or voting in Parliament and disqualification for voting at all elections. That legislation applied in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but not in Scotland.

The Criminal Law Act 1967 and the Criminal Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1967 removed those disqualifications as a result of the abolition—recommended by the Criminal Law Review Committee in 1965—of the division of offences into felonies and misdemeanours. That committee recommended that there was no need to preserve any of the automatic disqualifications. The Government agreed, and with little substantive comment or debate the position was restored to the pre-1870 position, and disqualification following conviction became entirely a matter for the House of Commons to decide. It is easy to criticise those changes from the point of view of hindsight; but we should remember that Parliament in 1967 had a clear recommendation before it from the Criminal Law Review Committee, and the possibility of a convicted prisoner, let alone a convicted terrorist, being elected must have seemed remote 14 years ago.

But soon, second thoughts began to prevail. Shortly after the enactment of the 1967 legislation, it became clear that certain of the other disqualifications which had applied to convicted prisoners should be restored, and under Section 4 of the Representation of the People Act 1969, the Labour Government of the day restored the disqualification of prisoners from voting. Soon after that, under the Local Government Act 1972, the Conservative Government of the day disqualified prisoners from being elected as members of local authorities. A person is disqualified under that legislation if, within five years before the date of the election, he or she has been convicted and has been sentenced to imprisonment for at least three months without the option of a fine. That is a very rigorous disqualification and it was put into law by the Local Government Act 1972 for convicted prisoners at local elections. So the effect of the legislation which I have described was that Parliament decided to reimpose several disqualifications on convicted prisoners, but the disqualification for election to Parliament was not re-imposed, and the Bill now before your Lordships' House seeks to rectify that omission.

Even given the historical background and the precedents, your Lordships may well ask: Is this new disqualification right, and why now? The Government believe that it is right in principle, for two reasons. First, the election of a convicted prisoner to another place is arguably a pointless election It has not, I think, been suggested in any of the debates in another place that the popular will of the majority as expressed through the ballot box should be able to override the judicial process, so as to release a convicted prisoner, and let him enter the House of Commons and take his seat; so the constituency would go unrepresented.

No person can fulfil his parliamentary duties from inside a prison; and that would be the inevitable consequence for the whole electorate of the constituency, not just the majority, or even a minority, who elect a prisoner candidate. The choice of a prisoner MP effectively disfranchises everyone in the constituency. That might be the objective of those who do not believe in democracy, but it makes a mockery of the parliamentary process.

Secondly, if the argument that it is a pointless election holds water, we should ask, what are the motives of those who put up a prisoner candidate? Most probably the aim is to achieve publicity, to use the parliamentary election process not to secure its object—election of a candidate to the House of Commons—but to whip up public feeling in favour of a particular cause. The Government recognise that the seeking of publicity may of itself be a political aim. Indeed, there is an honourable tradition of candidates standing solely to press one individual issue, regardless of their chances of being elected. Those of your Lordships who have fought parliamentary elections and have represented constituencies in another place can, I am sure, think of many candidates who have stood in that way; and that is a perfectly honourable and accepted thing to do.

But there is a crucial difference between such candidates and prisoner candidates, such as the late Mr. Sands in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. In that by-election the electoral process was used to try to secure an entirely extra-parliamentary, undemocratic objective. A loophole in our electoral law was exploited in order to play on sectarian feeling and, in effect, to undermine our democracy. In immediate terms the Bill is aimed not at a hunger-striking prisoner, but at those who organise terrorism, who stand behind terrorism, and who are anxious to exploit any opportunity that we might leave them to make propaganda, regardless of the parliamentary consequences, even for their own supporters. That is the background to the Bill, the Government's case, and I now wish very quickly to describe the provisions of the Bill.

Clause 1 provides that the disqualification of convicted prisoners should extend to those in prison, or ordered to be detained, indefinitely or for more than 12 months, whether in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland. The term "indefinitely" refers of course to life-sentenced prisoners. The disqualification does not extend to prisoners on remand or detained while unsentenced. It does not extend to prisoners who have been released following the grant of remission, on licence or on parole.

In another place my right honourable friend did not claim that the disqualifying point of more than 12 months represented a fine judgment that those above that line were unfit for election and that those below it could be elected; nor do the Government rely exclusively on the precedent of 12 months in the 1870 Act. We felt—I admit this quite openly—that it would be more likely than not that persons in the category of those who had received sentences of more than 12 months had committed graver offences and that no injustice would be done by imposing a disqualification.

In another place my right honourable friend also made a significant addition to Clause 1. As your Lordships will know, citizens of the Republic of Ireland, as well as British subjects, are entitled to be elected to the House of Commons. It therefore seems right that the disqualification following imprisonment should at least extend to prisoners in the republic, which is such a near neighbour of ours. Although when preparing the Bill my right honourable friend had been anxious to keep it as simple as possible and to confine it to its primary object, he was persuaded that the inclusion of the republic would not complicate it unduly, and Clause 1 so provides.

Clause 2 of the Bill provides that if such a person is elected to the House, his election will be void, and if a Member of the House becomes so disqualified, his seat will be vacated. In addition, a convicted prisoner's nomination is also to be declared invalid. The Government considered very carefully the case for leaving the disqualification of a convicted sitting Member of another place solely in the hands of the House of Commons to decide. However, given the trend that I have sought to describe, towards expressing these matters in statute, we do not believe that that would be appropriate. After all, as I have attempted to say, a person in prison cannot represent the interests of constituents. It seems to the Government that it is no part of Parliament's function to revise or to qualify the verdict of a court.

The other significant aspect of Clause 2 to which I should draw attention is the disqualification of nominations. This part of the Bill will not only prevent a disqualified prisoner from being elected to, and sitting in, the House of Commons, but will also void his nomination. At the moment a parliamentary returning officer may reject nominations on the grounds that they are not in proper form, or are not subscribed in the manner required by law. The returning officer is not entitled to reject nominations on other grounds. In his consent to nomination a candidate is required to sign a statement to the effect that he is not disqualified under the provisions of the House of Commons Disqualifications Acts, but the validity of that declaration is not a matter for the returning officer. However, the Government decided that it is not unreasonable to ask returning officers to reject nominations made on behalf of persons known to be in prison and serving a sentence of more than 12 months. Imprisonment is a matter of fact; it is not a matter of judgment which would involve the returning officer's discretion or prejudice his impartiality—matters to which we must attach the very greatest importance.

Among the very many representations which the Government received following the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election, there was a widespread sense of outrage at the fact that the nomination of a convicted terrorist should be allowed to stand. We should also not overlook the considerable benefits which prisoner candidates acquire, in common of course with all other candidates, from the act of being nominated and standing for Parliament: the free post facility, whereby all electors may receive an election address free of postal charges; the free use of rooms for meetings; and the many extra opportunities for broadcast and press coverage. For all those reasons it seemed to us reasonable to impose a new obligation.

The returning officer will, of course, reject nominations only when he is sure of his grounds. If he has doubts—if, for example, sufficient information is not available in time from the prisons to confirm that a potential candidate is disqualified—a nomination will stand. The election of a candidate who goes forward in those circumstances, but who is in fact in prison and is thus disqualified will, of course, in the end be void. If the nomination of a candidate were to be wrongly rejected because the returning officer thought that someone was in prison—really a most unlikely circumstance—the aggrieved candidate would be able to petition for a fresh election.

To assist the returning officer, Clause 3 and the schedule to the Bill make certain changes to the parliamentary elections rules in the second schedule to the Representation of the People Act 1949. In consenting to nomination candidates will be required to give their dates of birth so as to make easier the checking of records. The statement of persons nominated will be published in draft if necessary to enable objections and representations to be made. While making these changes we have also removed the anomoly whereby Saturday can be considered a working day for the purposes of parliamentary elections. The net effect is slightly to lengthen the overall timetable of parliamentary elections.

My Lords, this is an important Bill. It has been introduced to remedy a defect in our electoral law revealed by a particular situation. It puts right an omission which has been ruthlessly exploited. In doing so it will ensure that elections to the House of Commons are not used as occasions to exploit the electoral rights of the people of the United Kingdom. I commend the Bill to your Lordships, and I beg to move that it be read a second time.

My Lords, the House always admires the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, deals with Bills which are in his charge. Tonight he has been a model, if I may say so, in making a clear summary of an undoubtedly important Bill in such measured and quiet tones that your Lordships might be led to believe that we are not being asked, in extraordinary circumstances, to pass a constitutional measure which alters the whole law relating to the election of Members of Parliament. I make no apology if, tonight, I speak for longer than I normally do because of the importance of this measure.

If I may quote for a moment from the speech that was made by the Minister of State on the Second Reading of this Bill in the other place, he said:

"It is certainly a Bill which gives rise to unusually important issues".

He was also frank in another place when he continued by saying why it was that this Bill was being brought forward at all at this stage—and again, if I may, I am quoting from col. 100 of Hansard of 22nd June, on the Second Reading. The Minister said:

"We should be deceiving ourselves if we supposed that we should be debating the Second reading of the Bill tonight were it not for recent events in Northern Ireland, were it not for a general feeling in the United Kingdom that those events constituted a dangerous and damaging abuse of our electoral system, and were it not for the fact that in the near future they could be—and, if the law is left as it stands, almost undoubtedly would be—repeated in the same constituency and perhaps in other constituencies not once but repeatedly".

My Lords, one would not have imagined, in those circumstances, that a Bill which is acknowledged to raise important issues would be rushed through Parliament in a manner which shows, if I may say so with moderate language, scant respect for this House. It is not for me to talk about the respect paid to another place. The Bill was printed on 12th June; it received its Second Reading in another place on 22nd June; it had its Committee stage, and indeed went through all other stages, on 25th June; it came up to this House on 26th June; we are having the Second Reading debate on 30th June; and, my Lords, it is planned by the Government to have the Committee stage the day after tomorrow, thus completing all stages of the Bill on Thursday and giving precisely 48 hours after the Second Reading debate tonight in order that amendments should be put down to a Bill described by the Minister of State at the Home Office as one raising very important issues.

So, my Lords, it is my duty to try to tell your Lordships how I conceive this Bill to be wrong—wrong because of its timing, wrong because of its format and wrong, possibly (but that is a question of judgment), in giving a propaganda advantage to those whose activities every single Member of this House deplores, hates and abominates. About that, there is no difference of opinion, I would imagine, between anybody sitting in this Chamber tonight. My Lords, that is a question of judgment. Personally, I hold the view that this Bill might well become known as the Sands Bill, and in my judgment that is not a memorial to which Mr. Sands was entitled.

Having said that, may I please deal with the history that the noble Lord the Minister dealt with rather briefly? This Bill has its historic origin in the Forfeiture Act 1870. In that Act, it having previously been provided that goods and lands which belonged to a felon or a traitor were escheated to the Crown, it was provided that that should no longer take place but that there should be certain disabilities upon anyone convicted of felony. One of those disabilities—and the noble Lord the Minister, if I may say so with respect, skated over this—was that a convicted felon who was serving more than a 12-month sentence in prison (there were also certain matters referring to penal servitude, but we need not concern ourselves with those tonight because penal servitude has gone) was not allowed to sit in Parliament. That was a provision which applied to both Houses: he was not allowed to sit in Parliament. He could be nominated, he could be elected, but his election was obviously then subject to disqualification. Of course, if he happened to be in that position after being elected to the House then it was the province of the House of Commons to expel the Member if they so decided.

I do not think it is proper for a Member of this House to go into any amount of detail or argument as to whether another place has by its will very recently deprived itself of a right. That is not my object tonight, and I do not intend to spend any time upon it. But I want to remind your Lordships again that the Forfeiture Act 1870 said that a convicted felon who was serving a sentence of imprisonment of more than 12 months was disqualified from sitting as a Member of the House.

In 1965, a committee—it was the Criminal Law Committee, a very august committee—sat in order to look into the question of whether there should be a difference between misdemeanours and felonies, and they recommended that there should be no difference. As the Minister frankly said (but this was not frankly dealt with in another place in the debates), they recommended that there was no need to worry about the disqualification provisions that would go if that part of the Forfeiture Act went which differentiated between felonies and misdemeanours. That was, in fact, enacted in the 1967 Criminal Law Act.

When that Bill was before another place—and in various organs of the press many learned editorials have been written on this subject, editorials which said, quite wrongly, that Parliament did not notice that the disqualifications were removed—this matter was specifically raised by an honourable Member there, Mr. Rees-Davies. I will, if I may, quote precisely what he said in the Second Reading debate on the Criminal Law Bill:

"It is a little unfortunate that at this stage of the week the Government should put forward a measure in which it will be quite all right for criminals of seven to ten years' standing to enter Parliament. Indeed, any criminal even though he has served a sentence of imprisonment will hereafter be allowed to hold any office of profit under the Crown or in the Army or the Navy. That is because the Bill abolishes Section 2 of the Forfeiture Act 1870".

The Minister replied to that—and I am quoting again from the Second Reading debate at that time—by saying:

"May I reassure honourable Members who expressed anxiety about felons joining the House of Commons. In fact the change of law is not very important because the felon was formerly disqualified only while he was serving his sentence and disqualification ceased to operate after that".

So, my Lords, the matter was fully considered. When it came before this House, nobody sought to concern himself with the removal of this disqualification. And, of course, it did not matter. Since 1870, there have been seven cases of Members of Parliament who have found themselves disqualified as a result of being convicted of a felony. Each and every one of them was an Irish rebel. The House then took the view, one would have thought rather wisely, that you do not legislate for one section of a very wide community when you have precedents of that kind which show that really the problem arises only in that one connection, as it does today.

That Bill was passed, and nobody has worried since. In fact, when the Minister quotes two subsequent Acts, as he did in his admirable speech, he is quoting Acts which are common sense Acts which have nothing to do with what we are discussing today. It was found obviously inconvenient that people should be able to exercise a vote while they were serving a prison sentence; and so it was decided that they could not vote. It was also obviously sensible where dealing with local government, where local councillors have the right, (as they have especially in the small authorities) to vote on contracts, where certain people can get benefits and where there is an opportunity for exercising all sorts of fraudulent acts if you happen to be a rogue, that that Act went much further than does this Bill tonight. As the Minister pointed out that Act says that you cannot be elected not—"nominated" but elected—as a local government councillor if during five years before the date of the election you have been sentenced to a term of imprisonment (without the option of a fine) of three months. That legislation has nothing to do with what we are considering tonight.

What am I trying to say to the House at this moment of the importance of this rushed measure? I am not going to deal with the question of whether or not the Bill is sensible in aiding the propaganda of our enemies at home or abroad. That I am not on. I happen to hold a view and I have expressed it. What we are asked to do in this rushed-through legislation is to throw aside a bit of the historic right of our people. May I say very briefly why I make this point? This Bill, for the very first time, enacts that a person cannot be nominated if he is serving a sentence of over 12 months' imprisonment. It is an extraordinary thing; but the right to stand as a candidate has an extraordinarily important traditional ring about it when you look at our parliamentary history—even though the person who is nominated knows perfectly well, and the electorate that nominates him knows perfectly well, that he cannot be elected.

Does this House remember the story of Bradlaugh, who stood for a principle—not one that would be welcomed by the right reverend Prelates in our midst, I have no doubt—a principle that he wished as an atheist to have the right to affirm. The electorate knew perfectly well that, because he could not and would not take the oath but wished to affirm, Bradlaugh could not sit as a Member of Parliament. The electorate decided to show what they felt about a matter of principle by electing Bradlaugh not once, if I remember, but twice—

Four times!

My Lords, I am grateful for that correction. Does one remember a more recent case, that which enabled, if I may say so, a very distinguished Member of this House to become the Prime Minister of England? Does one remember the fight of a certain Lord Stansgate in 1960, concerning a title which is not necessarily one by which he is recognised today in certain circumstances? But does one remember that fight in 1960? The electorate in Bristol knew perfectly well that he could not sit as a Member of Parliament, but they wanted to show that from their point of view this was a national matter which ought to have national attention. They elected Lord Stansgate as a Member of the House. Obviously, he was disqualified from standing.

Does one remember—I say this with some feelings, as your Lordships will appreciate—the case of Baron Rothschild, another example? His constituency elected him time and time again. He could not take his seat (and they knew he would not take his seat) because, as a Jew, he could not take the oath as a Christian. In principle, he came before Parliament, and was not allowed to take his seat because he would not take the oath. But the nation was showing, and his constituency, in particular, was showing, that this was an injustice; and they elected him time and time again, even though they knew he would be disqualified —until the time came when he was allowed to take the oath in accordance with his religious conscience.

These are examples which cannot lightly be set aside. In this Bill the wedge has been driven into the right of an electorate to receive a valid nomination and to show precisely what they feel as a result of it. If one looks in the future, can one detect the possibility that a clergyman of the Established Church, beloved in a certain area, might again want to fight for a principle in spite of the fact that he is represented in this House by the bishops? He might want to fight for the right of a clergyman to sit in this House. A civil servant might want to fight for the right to stand for election and then resign as a civil servant on being elected. These are ways in which we have managed to bring matters of great public importance before the nation and before Parliament.

This Bill kills that right and it is the thin edge of the wedge. It deals with this one issue of the person in prison. I have time to give only one other example, if your Lordships will permit it, of the injustice and the absurdity, if I may say so, of this Bill being rushed through as it is. First of all, because this is a principle that we have never dealt with before, do your Lordships realise—I say this with the utmost respect, and I would be so glad if the Minister would deal with this here-after—that one of the things that can happen as a result of this Bill is that somebody may be in prison on the day of nomination and come out of prison the day afterwards, having served a sentence, of more than 12 months' duration. On nomination day, his nomination cannot be accepted but he comes out of prison the next day. According to the Minister, the only reason for this Bill is that it is wrong that a Member should be elected who cannot sit. But in such a case that Member could sit.

Sometimes, prison sentences are imposed because people do something which they regard as being in accordance with their conscience, but it happens to be against the law. I do not want to take any narrow view. We have had some trade union legislation passed quite recently. We have had other legislation —I do not want to limit it to trade unions—where matters of conscience can make somebody break the law. It is possible that, if in the view of a judge it be a serious breach of the law, a prison sentence of more than 12 months may be imposed. I am not necessarily talking about somebody who is fundamentally a rogue and quite definitely unsuitable to be a Member of the House.

My very last point—and I promise this is my last—is to show exactly why it is that it is so wrong to rush legislation through in this panic and in this piecemeal fashion. Has it been realised by your Lordships from that gentle opening speech of the Minister that there is such a thing as a wrong conviction and that there is a right of appeal? Can your Lordships remember reading quite recently in the press the terrible injustice done to somebody who has committed, so it was said, a very serious crime? He was convicted of murder. It has been found that it was a mistake.

I remember that some years ago there was a Member in another place who was convicted in the court below. He went to the Court of Appeal and the judge in the Court of Appeal called him into the well of the court and said: "I want it known publicly that you have been completely exonerated by this court. You have been found not guilty. You should not have been convicted."

There is a provision in this Bill which robs an electorate of the right to elect the man they want, robs people of the right to nomination in the circumstances I have described, and there is no provision here that, if there be an appeal and the appeal reverses the conviction or the sentence, anything can be done about it at all. He is disqualified, and that is an innovation in our law. My chief protest, as I have said, is that, when one is dealing with a constitutional matter of the representation of the people, one should not get panicked by the IRA, and one should give proper consideration to a measure which deserves the consideration of your Lordships' House because it deals with the fundamentals of democracy, since it deals with the representation of the people.

My Lords, I have listened, as always, with great interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said. I have listened with fascination to the constitutional discourse of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. I hope that the House will now bear with me if I concentrate largely but briefly on the Bill as it affects Northern Ireland. When the problem of what to do with Maze prisoners who wanted to stand for election to Westminster first arose, I had little doubt that they should be debarred in future by law, as was formerly the case and as was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Belstead. That seemed the obvious course to follow; but, as I have considered the question more carefully, I have come to believe that that is not the right one. Let me make my case. I speak for myself, although I trust my noble friends will not disagree with my conclusions.

I have been surprised for some time now at references to the idea that the Northern Irish react according to what they believe to be the truth rather than necessarily to the truth itself I was surprised because I should have thought that, apart from the comparatively few who deliberately distort the truth, that was what we all do willy-nilly. What I say now is certainly based on what I believe to be the truth, taken from information supplied by the television and the press; but I have found that my occasional visits to the Province have left me with a much greater feeling of optimism than I should otherwise have had.

Those imprisoned in the Maze prison are there because of terrorist activities, often brutal and sometimes involving murder. It is right that they should be there and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, agrees on that point. My party fully accepts that it would be quite wrong to give them special category status with all that that involves. Conditions there are very good and it is sad that at this point of time, Mr. Haughey should be suggesting that we have only to make a few concessions, and so on. I fully agree with the Statement on prison conditions made by the right honourable gentleman the Secretary of State in the other place this afternoon. So much is largely agreed in this country; but that is not the question before us today. What we have to decide is whether or not the electors should be allowed to express their opinions freely by voting for a convicted criminal.

That the result of the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election recently shocked and disappointed moderate opinion is beyond dispute for it showed quite clearly the so-called "polarisation of opinion". Bobby Sands, after all, had only a small majority over his hard line Unionist opponent. For myself, I should have liked to see an Alliance candidate stand and prosper, for that party is doing most, I believe, to bridge the gap between the two communities. But it was not to be, and unfortunately things worked out quite otherwise.

The attitude of the Republicans amazes me. They set out deliberately to elect to sit at Westminster a man who would never be able to represent them there and who was breaking the ruling of the Catholic faith, which many of them hold, by committing suicide or who, if they do not like it put that way, had been callously sentenced to death by his so-called leaders. It seems that the attitude of the electors is much to be regretted. Their vote was a clear message to the outside world that, despite all the disadvantages their policy involves, they prefer that rather than support a hardline Unionist. In this case they chose to use the ballot rather than the bullet, and I believe we ignore this at our peril.

It is argued that if this Bill is not passed the IRA will be able to put forward another candidate, with all the electoral privileges of free post, time on television and so on, that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has mentioned to us. But I believe that Milton was not mistaken when in his Areopagitica, his brilliant attack on the censorship of the written word, he said:

"So Truth be in the field: we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple! Who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?"

I accept there may be difficulties in the "free and open encounter". What we need to do is to see that the problems are brought into the open where myth can give way to reality and fear to trust. For the truth, as I see it, is less depressing than we are often led to believe. There is a solution and there is much to admire, even in the Northern Ireland of today.

The use of violence and intimidation is vicious, but as Alf McCreavy, the distinguished journalist, so movingly puts it in his book Profiles of Hope:

"Almost undetected there is a pollen of peace spreading over so many parts of a scarred but still fertile land".

Or, as another writer puts it in the same book:

"I believe that through the violence of Northern Ireland you can see God working. Some good has come even from the death and tragedies affecting my own colleagues. It has come through the changed lives of people and I hope that I am a better man as a result."

To me, the courage of many of those who have lived through the last 10 years in Ulster is an inspiration, and I find it very moving to read of those who have suffered the tragic loss of a loved relation and come through without bitterness, saying, "I would rather it was my son who died than that my son had brought suffering on another."

Gerald Priestland, the distinguished broadcaster said through the BBC in 1978 that the English ought to visit Ireland more often and went on—

"Then they might begin to understand how insensitive we often seem to both communities, swinging between boredom and brutality, lacking either tact or patience or subtlety, determined only not to lose face.".

That may to many seem an unfair comment, but I believe it has in it more than a grain of truth.

This Bill, of course, originates in the Home Office and not in the Northern Ireland Office. I would very much like to believe that the Province would be a better place for its enactment, but I do not. I believe it will only check a symptom and not cure the disease.

My Lords, I am sure that this Bill has been introduced with the best of motives, but, in my view, it is a hastily contrived and a hastily drafted Bill and one that we cannot look at solely from the aspect of Northern Ireland. I believe it is a bad Bill on three grounds. I do not believe it will improve the situation in Northern Ireland; it is also a bad Bill because it introduces very far-reaching constitutional change; it is a bad Bill because I believe it is unwise to deal with important changes of electoral law in this way.

As has been made quite clear, the Bill is being rushed through in order to change our electoral law so as to deal with one particular situation. I think we can all understand that the public generally feel outraged that a convicted gunman can stand for Parliament and be elected; but surely the issue of real concern is that 30,000 voters in Fermanagh and South Tyrone voted for such a candidate and they acted in precisely the same way in 1955 when they elected another person who had a 10-year sentence. Each noble Lord will have his own opinion, but I do not think that this Bill will improve the situation in Northern Ireland. On the contrary, I feel that it will enable the IRA to have as much publicity and opportunity for building up sympathy and support as was given to the election of this particular candidate. Rightly or wrongly, the electors of Fermanagh and South Tyrone voted for the person they wanted, as they did in 1955—for what reasons I do not know, but that is what they did. If a constituency chooses to elect a person who will not be able to sit and vote in Parliament, that has been a matter entirely for the electors concerned and that has been the situation which has existed for far more than 100 years. The Fermanagh electors knew who the candidate was and what he was. If this Bill becomes law the IRA could then say: "Now the British will not let you vote for whom you want", and a good propaganda campaign could be built upon that.

Under the schedule to the Bill, a person nominated may be disqualified and the name would not be included on the ballot paper, but that will not be determined until after the close of nominations. There will be no opportunity to put forward an alternative candidate, and so again there could be a good propaganda campaign conducted to the effect that the United Kingdom has prevented the electors from having before them particular views. I have not heard it suggested anywhere that a member of the IRA or a convicted terrorist should be allowed to take his seat in Parliament if elected; that is not the issue before us. The Bill will disqualify a person only when detained in prison. A person convicted and sentenced to more than 12 months' imprisonment, say, for a firearm or similar offence, who has served his sentence remains free to be nominated and elected to Parliament.

Even though such a person may be subsequently expelled by Parliament, he could stand in a consequential by-election without disqualification, and such a person could be a former Maze prisoner or a violent gunman. So there would still be an affront to the public which would not be removed by this Bill. So why are we attempting to do it in the way the Government have prescribed in this Bill? The Bill is not bringing back the position to what it was before the 1967 Criminal Law Act. My noble friend Lord Mishcon has made that absolutely clear—that the changes which are made go far beyond what the position was before the 1967 Act. Therefore, I will not go over that point again because his case was powerfully put.

There are other grounds for disqualification for membership of the House of Commons and in no other case will there be a similar provision for the rejection of nomination or an automatic exclusion from the House of Commons. They will have to be dealt with either by a decision of the House of Commons or by electors' petition. I will not weary your Lordships by going through all the previous cases. My noble friend has listed a number of them to show that there have been innumerable examples where the electors have decided whom they will have and whom they will elect, even though the person may be debarred from actually becoming a Member of the House of Commons. I have mentioned the position in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, where the people have done this twice. In 1955, the same year that that constituency took this action, Thomas Mitchell (who was also sentenced to 10 years for a raid on an army depot) was elected for Mid-Ulster and re-elected at a subsequent by-election. I do not justify this but I note from the excellent reference sheet in the Library of the other place the following quotation:

"However nonsensical this may sound, it must be admitted that the Bill removes an option which is at present available as regards all types of disqualification and which was also available in the past as regards disqualification of convicted prisoners. In this sense the Bill is undoubtedly a constitutional innovation".

As my noble friend has said, the Government are endeavouring to rush this measure through Parliament, even though it is a great constitutional innovation. The Bill could be a very dangerous precedent. It could be that the denial of the right of electors to vote for whom they choose at some time might be extended to other categories of persons. The intention of the Bill may be to disqualify imprisoned terrorists, but its provisions will apply to all persons while serving a sentence of more than 12 months.

The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, whom I also greatly respect for his general views, said that what the Government are trying to do is to avoid the mockery of an election. Let us see what could happen as a result of this Bill. There could be persons of otherwise good character who sincerely believe a law to be unjust and who feel that they must act against it. There are nationalists who have been burning cottages. Nobody supports that, but an automatic denial of their nomination would be a lovely propaganda weapon for the nationalist cause, if they wished to stand in a constituency. I read in today's paper that a member of the Welsh Language Society was sentenced to nine months for trying to damage a radio transmitter. If the sentence had been just over 12 months, and if for some reason he wanted to stand in a constituency, he could not do so under this Bill. What a lovely propaganda weapon that would be for a political party, if he were denied!

Then, again, a trade union leader may believe, perhaps wrongly, that he must stand against one of the labour laws and he may be convicted for more than 12 months. The people in the area in which he lived may feel that they want to show their support for that man, but under this Bill they cannot do so. There may be individuals who wish, maybe wrongly, to take action against the development of nuclear energy, as is happening on the Continent. If a person with such beliefs were convicted for more than 12 months, he would not be eligible to stand under this Bill. This is a complete departure from what we have had in this country for so long. The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, referred to local government and disqualification from being elected a member of a local authority, or from being a member of a local authority. But what has not been mentioned is that there is no disqualification of a nomination. If a person is not qualified to be a member of a local authority, or to be elected a member of a local authority, the matter can be dealt with only by an election petition. Therefore, that point is completely irrelevant to what we are discussing this evening.

Finally, the Bill proposes not only a fundamental constitutional change but a change in electoral law. The noble Lord explained the two points on which a returning officer can, at present, invalidate a nomination paper. But those of us who have been concerned with elections have always stressed that the returning officer does not reject a person's nomination; he rejects only a nomination paper. He has no power whatever to determine the qualification of a person to be nominated. The Bill would change that. For the first time in modern history the returning officer is now given the responsibility of determining whether or not a person is in order to be nominated; not whether his nomination papers have been properly subscribed.

There are also proposals in the schedule for altering the timing of nominations and objections. The only point I wish to make on that is that, as the noble Lord has explained, the schedule proposes that Saturdays be treated as excepted days for election proceedings. That may be good, so far as it goes, but I believe that all this has been decided without consultation with the political parties. It has not been before a Speaker's Conference, although it may be that a Speaker's Conference is not appropriate at this time. But it also has not been before an electoral advisory conference, because the Government terminated the existence of that conference. Therefore, so far as I am aware, the Government have made this change on their own. The effect will be to change the last date for the receipt of absent vote applications. At present, 12 days have to be given before the day of the poll, excluding excepted days, for the closing of applications for the absent vote. This is now to be changed, because Saturdays are being excluded.

I am certain that members of the party opposite will be as much concerned with this as other noble Lords in this House. We have only until Thursday, and we do not have the regulations before us, but somehow I propose to table an amendment to ensure that this is reduced to 10 days, in order to keep the period as it is at the moment. I should be very happy if the noble Lord could say in reply that the Government appreciate this point, and that they themselves will bring in an amendment to meet it. But this indicates the rush way in which this Bill has been contrived, and I emphasise that not only does it change this important electoral law regarding the power of the returning officer, but it changes a great constitutional practice. I am certain that every noble Lord who puts his hand on his heart will feel that this is wrong and that this Bill should not go through. Unfortunately, we do not vote against Second Readings in this House, but, somehow or other, we must see whether we can bring in some sensible amendments at Committee stage.

My Lords, while being very glad to be able to make my contribution to the debate this evening and, more especially, to stress some of the points already made, I should like to say how sorry I am that I shall be unable to stay to the end of the debate, and I apologise to your Lordships for missing the ensuing speakers. As has already been said, this seems, on the face of it, to be an eminently reasonable Bill. Indeed, who in their right minds could possibly disagree with the principle that any society should do its best to make provision for ensuring that its representatives are fit for public office, and that these people who are placed in a position to rule and make laws should, at least, have some claim to moral authority. There are, of course, the antecedents which have been mentioned for excluding certain types of people from this elective office, and judged from this principle it could hardly seem more appropriate to add murderers and terrorists to that list.

However, although, as I have said, this Bill appears at first sight to commend itself, I should now like to point out what, in my view, represent certain disquieting aspects, mainly concerning Northern Ireland. As my noble friend Lord Mishcon said, this Bill has been constructed in very great haste—too much haste. It has been introduced with an urgency for one reason; to prevent what recently happened in Fermanagh and South Tyrone from happening again. I refer to that by-election at which, as we all know and as the noble Lord the Minister stated, the motive of the prisoner candidate was to use the parliamentary election process, not in order to secure its object—namely, election to Westminster—but to whip-up feeling and public emotion in a political atmosphere and to achieve the maximum amount of publicity to the self-formed cause of the provisionals. I do not have to describe the sense of outrage, horror and disgust which this manoeuvre created in the minds of all thinking, caring people.

However, before I comment on the likely practical consequences of this Bill towards Northern Ireland, and how it might affect the already grave situation existing there, may I first make one point about the principle behind the introduction of this Bill, a point that has already been made; namely, how alarming and unwise it is to introduce a general constitutional provision to deal with a particular localised case. It cannot be right suddenly to invent a general theory in order to deal with an individual difficulty, and there can be no doubt in any of our minds that this is what has happened here. There can also be no doubt in our minds that it has happened at very great speed.

May I now say a few words—and I say them with a great deal of feeling—about how this Bill will affect the cause to which every single one of us here in your Lordships' House can but be committed; namely, the cause of a just and peaceful settlement of Northern Ireland's problems, and an ending of the tragedy which has entered into the lives of so many of its peoples. First, let us reflect on how this Bill might appear to them, to the Northern Irish people, for, after all, this has been designed to deal with a specific problem which has occurred in Northern Ireland. So it would seem both right and wise to try to look at this legislation through their eyes.

As a result of recent events, the minority Catholic community must at this moment be in a state of very great anxiety and bewilderment. They are a community whose trust and confidence the Government badly need to foster. Those are people who, by a very large majority, still give their allegiance to the ballot box rather than to the gun. And long may that last! However, on the basis of the intractable situation surrounding them at present, they have little cause to look too optimistically towards Westminster for a constructive solution to their serious security and social problems. Thus, their confidence in the democratic process of government should not be further tested by removing the right of total freedom of choice in the selection of their representative. The fact that the law should, does and will continue to prevent such a representative, should he be a convicted criminal serving a sentence in prison, from carrying out his representation and parliamentary duties on their behalf is a matter for them, and them alone, to face. Thus, this Bill proposes to interfere with people's rights to select their Member of Parliament although in effect with no practical consequences.

Unlike my noble friend Lord Blease, I do not live in Northern Ireland and therefore am not in constant contact with its people. Nevertheless, I understand from certain of my friends and contacts engaged in the work of reconciliation and the pursuit of peace that they have deep misgivings about the implementation of the Bill. As was described by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, in such very moving terms, these are the people who have the responsibility before them. It is their responsibility to build the future and it is for us to give them every possible help that we can.

Now may I turn to the argument of the greatest importance: the one regarding the consequences of such legislation on those enemies of democracy and freedom, the terrorist forces. First, speaking generally, may I say that in my view such a law could only give justification—spurious justification though undoubtedly it would be—to the one argument which worldwide terrorists, whether it be the PLO, the Red Brigade, the INLA, all use; namely, that it is because they cannot get representation through the ballot box that they have to resort to the gun and to the bomb. This argument is frequently put forward by terrorist forces and it has almost become a conventional justification for their crimes.

Finally, may I take the more specific example of the Provisional IRA. There can be no doubt whatsoever that this organisation, having drawn to the full the utmost publicity value out of the Fermanagh by-election, will now move on and use the disqualification provided by the Bill as a powerful propaganda weapon. They will use it not only with their own community whose interests they so callously claim to represent but also to feed their highly organised propaganda machinery overseas, notably in the United States of America, by way of manipulation of this Bill to make it appear to be an imperialistic instrument designed to prevent them from representing the true interests and wishes of the Northern Irish Catholic Community, a community which already attracts so much support and sympathy from its expatriates in the United States, support unhappily expressed not only by sentiment but more dangerously through funds and arms.

So, as I said at the start, although the Bill may appear to have so much to commend it I fear that far from assisting us in our campaign against terrorism and violence it may well have the opposite effect. We all know the ominous and daunting task that is facing the free countries in their war against terrorism. We all know how impossible it is within our democratic structure to subjugate terrorism. All that we can do is to protect as best we can members of the community from their destructive forces and to render the work of the terrorist more and more difficult. Therefore, I oppose this Bill because I very much fear that in the present climate of tension in Ireland the terrorist may contrive to use this legislation to help him in his grisly task.

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Ewart-Biggs has dealt most comprehensively with the substance of the Bill, as indeed have other noble friends on this side of the House. Therefore I shall not attempt to match what they have said. However, I should like to say one or two words about the form which the Bill takes. Before doing so, may I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for the fact that I missed the opening sentences of his introductory speech which was very properly praised by my noble friend Lord Mishcon, with the qualification that he felt, and I think rightly felt, that it was perhaps a rather low-level speech which sought to present a Bill of very considerable importance as though it were a minor measure of no great consequence. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, is an expert in this line. He is capable of presenting a nuclear explosion as though it were a firework. I have had occasion to criticise that on another occasion, and I hope to do so again.

Here we are faced with a rather extraordinary Bill. I suppose the view might be taken that we in this House are ill-fitted to criticise or comment upon a Bill which has to do with elections. Some of us have never been elected and some of us are no longer elected. However, none of us is subject to the process. Therefore, the view might be taken that perhaps we are not the best people to express opinions upon what ought to happen in another place. I do not take that view, because it seems to me that the proper function of a second Chamber is to look at legislation, to see what is wrong with it and possibly to cause the primary Chamber to think again, and perhaps to cause the Government to think again. The cogent arguments which have been put forward on this side of the House seem to carry such weight and such force that I hope the Government will be persuaded to think again. The arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, will no doubt be expressed in terms of amendments, which I hope and believe will be of such value and coherence that the Government may be persuaded to accept them. If not, I hope that we shall press them through the Lobbies.

As I said just now, this is a most extraordinary Bill. I doubt whether so many peculiarities have ever been included in such a short Bill. To take Clause 1, a person may be found guilty of one or more offences "whether before or after the passing of this Act". That means that this will be retrospective legislation. That is the first peculiarity. Grave exception has been taken from time to time to retrospective legislation. Clause 1 goes on to speak of that person being found guilty of one or more offences "whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere". Therefore, the finding of guilt may take place anywhere in the world: not in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland, but in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.

It is very strange that we in this country apparently are to take account of guilt which may be determined anywhere in the world. In other words, so far as we are concerned we shall abrogate the question of judging whether or not a person is guilty. We shall not rely upon the courts of our own country to make that determination; it can be determined anywhere else in the world. There are various parts of the world in which we regard those who are found guilty as not guilty. In fact, people have been found guilty in various parts of the world where we feel that it is a privilege to have been found guilty. This is a very peculiar thing to include in a British law. Clause 1 goes on to say that this person shall be disqualified from membership of the House of Commons while detained anywhere in the British Islands or the Republic of Ireland. Therefore, for the purpose of detention, one foreign country—and the Republic of Ireland is a foreign country—is selected out for the place of detention. This is a most extraordinary Bill. I doubt whether anything quite like it has ever been placed before the House.

Turning next to Clause 2(2), if a Member of the House of Commons becomes disqualified by this Act, his seat shall be vacated. Consider the question that arises here. If the seat became vacant in the middle of a Session of Parliament, by the time that the next general election took place the sentence could have been served and the Member concerned could again present himself for re-election. But if the vacation should by any chance fall towards the end of a Session of Parliament and overrode the period of a general election, then not only would the Member be disqualified from one Session of Parliament but he would also be automatically disqualified for the next Session of Parliament, because the period of disqualification would overlap the two.

This Bill is really an absurdity. I sincerely hope that we shall be able to drive some sense into the Bill at Committee stage, but I have doubts that we shall be able to do so, for the reasons which have been put forward so adequately by my noble friends on this side of your Lordships' House. It seems to me that the Bill is wrong in principle and wrong in detail. It ought not to have been brought before your Lordships, and I hope that as a result of the proceedings in your Lordships' House the Government will decide to take back the Bill and think again.

My Lords, I ask the indulgence of your Lordships' House in speaking, not having put my name to the list of speakers. I speak largely because no Back-Bencher on this side of your Lordships' House seems to have thought that this was an important enough matter on which to address you, and also because I regret that so few on this side of the House have been present to hear the arguments. It does seem to me that this Bill is being rushed. It is a constitutional matter and it is not one that should be rushed. If we are to have disqualification—and that may be necessary—then I myself should much prefer that there should be disqualification from sitting in the other place rather than from standing for the other place.

My Lords, as other Members of your Lordships' House have indicated, the Bill we are debating is a comparatively short one; but as the noble Lord the Minister has already said, there can be no doubt that the measures proposed in the Bill loom large in their importance as political issues. Certainly the Bill raises serious matters concerning our electoral system and about the principles governing parliamentary representation.

Like other noble Lords, I have read with interest the Official Report of the debates in the other place on the 22nd and 25th June, on the Representation of the People Bill. What impressed me most about these debates was the strong and vigorous defence by all elected Members of Parliament who took part—both those for the Bill and those against it—of the rights of the electorate freely to express their opinions through secret ballot and free elections. Whatever may be the need for a review of the electoral law and the law on disqualification, there is no doubt that we should not be debating here today were it not for the recent election events in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. Several noble Lords have mentioned the fact that Fermanagh and South Tyrone has given rise to this particular Bill and the fact that it is wrong, in their view, as it is in my view and in the view of many others, that legislation should be enacted to deal with a "one off "situation or a singular instance. Why should one constituency out of 635 be the subject of a particular piece of legislation?

In this connection, I believe that the honourable Member for Walsall, North, Mr. David Winnick, fairly stated the case when he referred to the two distinct campaigns which have been waged in Northern Ireland during the past 12 years: the campaign of terrorism, and the propaganda campaign. Mr. Winnick, together with others—including Members of your Lordships' House—has condemned the callous campaign of brutality and terrorism perpetrated by the para-military units. Mr. Winnick also questioned the effectiveness of the Government in countering the dishonest claims waged in the propaganda campaign. This point was also covered by Mr. Roy Hattersley when he declared that all want to see the IRA and everything it stands for replaced by genuine democratic debate and political discussion in Northern Ireland. The fear is that this Bill will not bring about that end.

I join with my noble friends who have already spoken in disputing most strongly the need for this Bill. Is it not the position that when Mr. Sands was elected to represent Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Members of the other place had more than adequate powers to prevent his taking his seat if, in the individual case, that was considered to be the correct course of action? In other words, I am saying that powers already exist within Parliament by which a person in a similar situation to the person who was elected for Fermanagh and South Tyrone can be disqualified.

I repeat what others have declared: that as a matter of general principle we must not alienate people from the ballot box. It is for the constituents, not Parliament, in the first instance to choose. Constituents do not live in a vacuum. We must respect their right to select the candidates of their choice. On a more specific level, I believe that this Bill is a failure and it cannot and will not obtain the objective for which it is promoted; that is, prevent the misuse of democratic election procedures. The infamous loophole which allowed convicted prisoners incarcerated in the Irish Republic to stand for election has been plugged, but that is not the only gap in the measure. Within the borders of Northern Ireland it does not, as I imagine it was intended to do, prevent all prisoners held in prisons in Northern Ireland from standing for election. The Bill relates only to convicted prisoners and not those who are remanded in custody and awaiting trial. Given the rate of conviction in the Diplock Courts and the time lag involved, a large number of persons in this category are going to be found guilty of scheduled offences, and in the case of a by-election it cannot be doubted that the IRA or the IRSP would so choose its candidate as to ensure a guilty finding which, in the event of the nominee's election, would lead to disqualification. A further election would then be required when, again, a prisoner in remand could be nominated.

I know that it may be difficult for some noble Lords to understand the sort of situation that exists in Northern Ireland, but it is not impossible that the kind of situation which I have presented could occur and recur. May I ask the noble Lord the Minister whether the consequences of this Bill are as I have portrayed them? If so, can the Bill stand up as it is, without amendment?

Another level on which I would question the wisdom of this measure relates to Article 3 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states:

"The High Contracting Parties undertake to hold free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature".

I would again ask the noble Lord the Minister whether or not the Government have considered the compatibility of the Representation of the People Bill with this provision, and if so what conclusions have the Government reached?

Noble Lords have mentioned Northern Ireland particularly in connection with this Bill, but I was pleased that other noble Lords drew attention to the fact that the Bill has wide repercussions and wide-sweeping applications for the whole of the United Kingdom. It is not only concerned with Northern Ireland; it is a Bill which has serious consequences for other parts of the United Kingdom. I would ask the Minister this question: is this not the first piece of United Kingdom legislation to disqualify a prospective candidate from nomination for election? Does not this open up a whole area of law on disqualification in electoral law and is it not an unsatisfactory piecemeal approach to the needs in this area of law? I understand that the Home Secretary has now completed a review of electoral law, but would it not have been better to wait for this comprehensive review before proceeding with this unhappy and hurried measure?

Finally, as a citizen of Northern Ireland I cannot accept the view expressed by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland that this is the right type of measure for Northern Ireland. Despite the polarisation reflected in the recent local government election results, all parties welcomed the high turnout and commitment to the ballot box. That commitment must be fostered and not discouraged. The result in Fermanagh served a valuable political end. It drew to the surface what previously might have been suspected but not generally believed: that there is a degree of support for the H-Block campaign. No matter what one's personal views may be in this matter, this is a political reality. Indeed, it was confirmed in the recent Irish Republic General Election. Is it not better that we should know the facts by the ballot box and that they should emerge in that way rather than at the end of the barrel of a gun? In conclusion, my Lords, I think there is a better way to uphold and protect democratic parliamentary representation than this Bill provides.

My Lords, this has been an important debate. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, referred to this Bill as being an important constitutional measure and I would respond by saying that the Government do not lightly withhold the right to be elected to the House of Commons from any group of people. But I think it is important, in the light of the speeches that have been made by your Lordships this evening, for me to make the point that the question of basic principle here is a basic principle which, in the main, goes back 14 years and, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Blease, it is not cutting a new furrow in constitutional history. It is important to remember that our predecessors have disqualified from membership of the House of Commons those they have considered to be incapable of serving there, and that was the law until it was changed in 1967. In saying that, of course I realise that I am disregarding the fact that in this Bill we are making new law so far as nominations are concerned. I will come to that later.

In addition to that being the law up to 14 years ago, when I was speaking earlier in the debate I sought to remind your Lordships of some of the present grounds of disqualification; and in addition to those which I mentioned disqualification applies also, of course, to those who are serving any sentence for treason and to those who have been convicted of certain electoral offences. As I have said, as recently as 1967 persons convicted of a felony and serving a prison sentence of more than 12 months were disqualified.

To your Lordships who have said that none the less this Bill should not go on the statute book, I would ask this question: what would noble Lords who take that view put in the place of this Bill? From many of the speeches which I have heard this evening, I have taken it that many of your Lordships would put nothing; that you would accept the state of the current law and would rely on the expulsion powers of another place.

My Lords, the noble Lord the Minister has asked a question, and it is only right that there should be a frank reply from the Front Bench of the Opposition. One of the alternatives that the Government had and did not take was to realise that this was to deal with an Irish situation, an ad hoc one and a serious one, and to make this a Bill of one year's duration, then to be re-enacted by an order of the Secretary of State if confirmed by both Houses of Parliament, on exactly the same lines as the terrorist legislation which exists now. That would have been a very practical alternative that the House could at least have considered, away from this constitutional alteration.

My Lords, I am interested to hear the noble Lord say that. I am sure the noble Lord will acquit me of any discourtesy when I say that that was not the impression that I gained from the speeches that I heard this evening. Until the noble Lord made that interesting suggestion I had not heard it made at all. The burden of the speeches which have been made in opposition to this Bill has been that this is a matter, not which is wrong as a matter of timing, but one which is wrong as a matter of principle; and therefore, not unreasonably, I come back to asking whether, as a matter of principle, this Bill were not to be put on the statute book would we then put nothing? The reality of the matter—

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. The Government could quite easily have restored the position to what it was prior to 1967 without going any further with this Bill. They could have brought in a Bill to do that.

My Lords, I am coming to that in just a moment; but before doing so I should like to point out that the Government have to deal—and indeed Parliament has to deal—with the reality and not with the theory of the situation. The reality is that unless we pass this legislation the near certainty is a repetition of the events that we have seen in Fermanagh and South Tyrone: the nomination of someone who has been put up—and that is the only expression that one can use, because the unfortunate man in that case was in fact in prison and was therefore nominated in that way, with all the attendant publicity—and then, if elected, not being able to take his seat, and in being elected his constituency, in such a case, will be effectively disenfranchised. This is a situation which the Government really feel that the country cannot tolerate and we believe that Parliament should not tolerate it.

I think it would be only fair for me to refer to the extremely skilful and interesting speech which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, made when he referred to the Bradlaugh case, to the Baron Rothschild case and to the case of Mr. Tony Benn. The noble Lord suggested that their candidature, or indeed the candidature of a clergyman or a civil servant, would be on all fours with the candidature of a convicted prisoner. I am glad to see that the noble Lord is shaking his head, because then we can agree that there is a fundamental difference in those two cases. The people referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, stood in a genuine attempt to be elected and, at least one day, to take their seat in the House of Commons; and their campaign was to change the electoral law, as they saw it, to improve democracy. But no one in this debate has seriously suggested that the late Mr. Sands should have been released in order to take his seat in Parliament. His candidature was quite different. It was simply an attempt by people who were manipulating him to gain publicity; not a genuine attempt to gain membership of the House of Commons.

My Lords, I do apologise to the noble Lord for interrupting again, but this is such an important Bill. So that the House gets the reality he has asked that the House should get, does he appreciate that there is absolutely nothing to stop an IRA man who is not presently detained in prison, but who may have served a sentence and completed it, from standing with the name of Bobby Sands at the next by-election? Has he realised that this is obviously a ruse that can be employed, and that therefore all this Bill and all this constitutional change is for nothing?

My Lords, the noble Lord is most uncharacteristically being a little naive. The noble Lord realises, and I realise, that there is a very great deal of difference between someone, whoever he may be and whatever his motives, putting up for election for another place and someone who is on hunger strike and in prison being used by evilly-disposed people, with all the attendant publicity of an election campaign, and simply using the campaign for totally other reasons.

If I may say so, I do not find it surprising that the disqualification of prisoners will by no means be unique to this country. Similar provisions apply, for example, in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and in many European countries.

If I may respond to the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, and indeed other noble Lords, it is true, of course, that the Bill goes further than the Forfeiture Act 1870. However, we are not bound by the decisions of our predecessors in these matters, and we must do what we believe to be right in the light of the circumstances that prevail. The Government are putting to both Houses of Parliament that they believe it not right to make available all the election facilities—which, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Underhill understands far better than I do—which are the right of a Parliamentary candidate in contesting an election, and all the publicity, which is the real objective, incidentally, in these cases of terrorism. When the noble Lord, Lord Blease, asked me whether powers did not exist to prevent someone from taking his seat in the House of Commons by a decision of the other place, of course the answer is, yes, the noble Lord is absolutely right. But that would not prevent nomination, and it is important, I think, to prevent nominations in these particular cases.

My Lords, I have been asked several direct questions. The noble Lord, Lord Mischon, referred to the hard case of a person in prison on nomination day but out of prison by election day. That is a perfectly fair point. But it applies to all forms of disqualification—for example, a person who holds a disqualifying office on nomination day, such as a member of a state board or tribunal. If a person is disqualified on election day his election would be void.

The noble Lord, Lord Blease, raised with me the Northern Ireland point, which again is absolutely valid; I admit immediately that there is validity in both points, the point that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, made and the first point which the noble Lord, Lord Blease, made. The noble Lord asked about those who are on remand in Northern Ireland, who will not be touched by the Bill. The noble Lord told the House that, in his view, there was a difference in Northern Ireland, because, owing to the weight of business on the courts, remands can be for a considerable length of time. But, my Lords, we can only do our best. It would clearly not be right, in the Government's view, to disqualify a person who had not been convicted of a criminal offence. We appreciate that this may mean that some undesirable people may be able to stand, but it is not the purpose of this Bill to disqualify undesirable people, but to disqualify convicted prisoners from standing, anywhere in the United Kingdom, for the reasons I have sought to set out.

The noble Lord asked me specifically about Article 3 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It does, of course, guarantee the right to free elections. The disqualification in this Bill, which is similar to the disqualification of prisoners in many other European countries, does not, in our view, offend against that right.

The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, referred to the drafting of Clause 1, particularly the expression "convicted in the United Kingdom or elsewhere". This is to cover persons convicted in the Republic of Ireland and detained in that country, persons convicted in the Channel Islands, or the Isle of Man, or persons who have committed grave crimes in one of our dependent territories who have been transferred to this country under the provisions of the Colonial Prisoners Removal Act 1884. There are at present less than a dozen such prisoners detained here under the 1884 Act. It will not, contrary to the suggestion of the noble Lord, apply to prisoners convicted in other countries, since they would not be serving their sentences here.

There is one final point I should answer, and that is the question of appeals, which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, raised. Again, I admit that it is the case that, under the provisions of the Bill, the disqualifications take effect on sentence and the disqualifications are not suspended pending the outcome of an appeal. This was a matter which was debated extensively in another place. It may very well appear to be an injustice if a person is prevented from standing because he is found guilty and later on appeal proved innocent, and the sense of injustice will be most acute if the person affected is a sitting Member who has had to vacate his seat and a by-election has been held.

Against that, the fact is that a person sentenced for a period of more than 12 months has been found guilty of a serious offence. He is treated as guilty in our prison system and in the reporting of the case. He will not be able to continue with his duties as a Member of Parliament, and to provide for suspension of the disqualification pending appeal could leave a constituency unrepresented for a substantial period. I would only say in addition to that that I do not find it surprising that the Forfeiture Act 1870 had exactly the same effect as the effect which has been written into the present Bill. As I understand it, the Forfeiture Act bit immediately a conviction was imposed, and not following appeal.

My Lords, again the noble Lord the Minister is being most courteous, and I obviously put this to him not in the way of an informed opinion but as a respectful view. I think he will find that the Forfeiture Act would not have applied to a sitting Member of Parliament in the sense of declaring his seat void. That was the privilege of Parliament itself. All that it would have prevented him from doing—and that was a factual matter which would be obvious—was from sitting as a Member of Parliament. That is the vital difference here: the whole power has been taken from Parliament; it is now an enactment and the seat will automatically become void, irrespective of an appeal or anything of that kind.

My Lords, I shall, of course, look very carefully at what the noble Lord says, and this is no mere politeness, because I do endeavour to do so when the noble Lord is speaking of legal points, and indeed others. Although there is little point in raking over ancient history, I am advised that the disqualifications under the 1870 Act were automatic. Perhaps I may refer the noble Lord to the case of Alfred Lynch in 1903, where the disqualification in that case did not require a specific resolution of the House. I am advised that that was the case with the 1870 Act in each case. I will look at what the noble Lord has said, and perhaps the noble Lord would care to glance at what I have said in reply.

Since 1967, prisoners, unless convicted of treason or of certain electoral offences, have not been disqualified from membership of the House of Commons. This has not until recently been a matter of practical concern. May I make that absolutely clear, as the Minister of State did in another place. Your Lordships will not need me to say that the practical considerations, not the principle of the matter, have changed in recent months. We have recently witnessed the candidature and election in Fermanagh and South Tyrone of a convicted terrorist serving a sentence of 14 years in one of our prisons for possession of firearms. This has brought to public attention the loophole in our law, which has been exploited quite cynically by people who were not seeking the return of a Member of the House of Commons. They were intent on something very different. It is to close this loophole that I have moved the Second Reading of this Bill in your Lordships' House this evening. I can do no more now than commend the Bill to your Lordships' House.

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I should like to make one point only by way of clarification. The noble Lord knows from the speech that I ventured to make to the House that I felt personally that this was a bad Bill in the sense that it would have the opposite effect in Ireland to the one we all want. I expressed that view perfectly frankly even though it may be a view which other noble Lords may disagree with. When I answered the question which the noble Lord addressed in his final speech it was to give an alternative, that even if the Government were right about Ireland at this moment and about the effect that this Bill would have, it should be a temporary measure. Then we would have a chance of looking properly, as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton said, at the constitutional issues involved, whatever might be the final decision.

My Lords, this is a matter which we can take up again at the other stages of the Bill. I think that it would be wrong if I did not make it clear on behalf of the Government that I do not agree about the desirability of the course which the noble Lord is putting forward. But I think that it would perhaps be tedious if I explained in any detail why that is so. My reasons, I hope, are clear for believing that this, as a matter of both practice and principle, is a timely Bill to bring before your Lordships House.

rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will hold further discussions with the Argentine Government concerning the Falkland Islands in order to find areas of co-operation which would help to resolve the dispute over sovereignty.

My Lords, the noble Lord has given us so comprehensive a speech for an Unstarred Question that I do not think I shall need to make a very long speech. Since most of my remarks are to be gloomy, I should like to begin with one or two remarks that are not. First, I would pay a tribute to those public servants who have been out there, in particular the governors, such as Governor Parker, Governor French and others, who have carried a very lonely and a very difficult job. I do not know whether we always acknowledge the service that they render. The second tribute that I wish to pay is to the noble Lord, Lord Buxton of Alsa, himself—or perhaps I should really congratulate his daughter, Cindy Buxton —for the marvellous films on the Falklands that they make. This is rendering a great service. It is making clear the significance of the Falklands. It strengthens the case, which I should certainly support, and I think the noble Lord would—we might not have time to debate it this evening—that possibly the whole, or the bulk, of the Falklands might be made a nature reserve, though under controlled conditions. I think that these films are very valuable.

I am not sure that I entirely agree with the noble Lord as to the nature of the various farms. I have in fact visited every single farm in the Falklands, and not all of them are like Goose Green, which I think is the one which fits the description that the noble Lord gave. Many of the farms are very lonely places indeed. But the Falkland Islands have a great appeal, and certainly anyone who has visited them develops a feeling for them, all the more so because of their extremely British nature, to which the noble Lord referred. The noble Lord has set out the various problems that confront the inhabitants of the Falklands.

I should like to take a quick look at some of the developments of the past three or four years since my report was published. I appreciate the remarks of the noble Lord regarding the report. Sometimes I thought that the report was so long that it was almost unreadable, and those who compliment me on it have probably decided that it is easier merely to say that it is jolly good, rather than to read the whole of it. None the less the noble Lord clearly has absorbed the arguments very fully, and has deployed them to your Lordships' House. If we look at the situation now, we find certain changes. The prospect of oil under the sea is drawing nearer. I have always been sceptical. I have always thought that though the structures were favourable, it was yet to be shown that oil would be found in the area within the Median Line. None the less, this does seem likely, though it may not be an unmixed blessing to the Falklanders.

There has been more interest in deep-sea fishing in the South Atlantic, and even less action by Her Majesty's Government—and in this respect I do not differentiate between either the present Government or the previous Government in their failure to follow the examples of so many other countries which are now exploiting original scientific work of discovery and investigation, and others who are going to harvest krill and other of the abundant fish life. I could go on at great length about the fish, but I shall not. Incidentally, I am not sure that I would have said the sea trout were all that good. As the noble Lord knows, they are brown trout whose kidney function has changed and who now go down to the sea; and I must say that I have caught better sea trout in Scotland than I have in the Falklands. An interesting point for noble Lords who are fishermen is that, although there are no fly, the keenest Falkland Island fishermen actually use fly when they fish for trout; and I am sure there is a very profound moral in that particular development. It shows that fish are silly enough to take a fly even when there is no good reason to do so.

My Lords, some progress has been made. Although I would still maintain my position to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, that the substantial majority of the major recommendations have not yet been implemented, nonetheless, there has been some progress. We are beginning, in small ways, to discharge a duty to the people of the Falkland Islands, though I am bound to support the noble Lord in saying that, if the people of the Falkland Islands had been other than white, we should never have got away with the exploitation that we have applied to the Falklands. However, the hostel in Stanley is, I believe, nearly finished; the road to Goose Green is under way, not very fast; and Green Patch has now been broken up into farms. One of our major recommendations related to the nature of the people was that, while still preserving the main structure of the big farms, the 400,000 acres and others, there should be a number of smaller farms; and I am very glad to hear that Roy Cove, which is one of the best of the stations—a very impressive place agriculturally—is also to be turned into smaller farms. So there is some progress on what I regard as one of the major recommendations. I believe that the Grassland Trials Unit are still doing a good job, and are making some progress. On the other hand, regrettably, tourism has not been a great success, and the British Alginate Company has more or less given up hope of developing anything, although I understand that American companies are in fact interested.

I really want to turn now to the major consequences and the lessons that we learn by the decisions of the Government with regard, effectively, to the South Atlantic. The noble Lord referred to the decision to phase out HMS "Endurance" in 1982. This really is a disaster, and one of the tragedies of the present defence review, on which I do not intend to comment in any detail, is the slaughter of activities. It is not only HMS "Endurance". I should say that I am told that the Hydrographer is going to lose two vessels. The hydro-graphic study report is going to be abandoned. HMS "Endurance" is in some way related to this, and here I would ask for a reply from the Minister. Obviously, HMS "Endurance" is not a very powerful force, although I believe she did send her helicopters up when the royal research vessel "Shackleton" was pursued into the Falklands. Nonetheless, the fact is that "Endurance" is a proper ice patrol ship. It is not an ice-breaker; it is an old ship from the Lauritzen Line, of a kind that has been used in keeping Danish bases in Greenland. It is suitable and it is a very cheap operation. This really is a folly; because we know that a frigate with its thin skin will not be able to penetrate the ice. Such a ship will not be able to visit Faraday, Halley or Signy or many of the bases. We shall have to rely upon the British Antarctic survey ships "Bransfield" and "Biscoe". These are civilian ships; they are not a British naval presence. And this we are doing at a time when the Germans are building a big icebreaker and the Argentines have a big icebreaker—and I shall not even talk about the Russians and the Americans.

This is a part of the world where we have had an interest. In many ways, I wish there was no question of exploiting the Antarctic for its natural resources, but they are going to be exploited. This is the moment when we are choosing effectively to remove our presence. Furthermore, HMS "Endurance" practically earned her keep last year when she towed "Biscoe" after she damaged a propeller in ice. I had a propeller fall off in ice in the middle of the Atlantic after hitting ice off Cape Farewell. Towing "Biscoe" into Montevideo, a distance of over 1,000 miles, saved enormous cost and probably paid for the costs of HMS "Endurance" for that season.

Also I hear—and this is relevant to the Falklands—that we are likely to give up one of the British Antarctic survey bases and this may be Gritviken in South Georgia. If one thinks that the Falklands are beautiful, then South Georgia is the most beautiful place I have ever been in the world. It is a lovely island, admittedly on the same latitude as Manchester, but with glaciers coming down to the sea. It is the centre of krill and, in the past, of fishing and whaling, though I hope that we shall not see a revival of whaling. It has been occupied by the British for 100 years. It is part of the Falkland Islands and by no stretch of the imagination can it be called Argentinian or Spanish or even French, as at one time the Falklands were for a short while.

It could be that South Georgia could be used as a forward base for exploitation. There is no airstrip, but one could be built. There are hundreds of thousands of pounds-worth of equipment rusting there. If you want to see a ghost town, then go to South Georgia. It would be tragic in its implications for Britain and, I would say, the western alliance if we remove our base even if it may be, as I understand, at Bird Island. The saving is negligible. I am sure that the Foreign Office are not in favour of this particular economy.

I believe that the oil reserves (looking at this wide area and not just in the vicinity of the Falklands) in the Antarctic may well be very large. To abdicate our presence in this area when other countries are walking in seems to be really pretty tragic. However hateful may be the exploitation, none the less I hope that it can be controlled following the excellent treaty which has been signed recently by the Antarctic nations. I would say only this on the political side. The noble Lord was very frank about the Argentine. It is a proud nation and ought to understand; and I hope that the British still have some pride left. None the less, they are an expansionist nation. They have people in uniform in the Antarctic bases. Recently, at the International Oceanographic Committee they alone among the nations demanded a much wider area for their own suzerainty in scientific and other terms. In the end not a single other nation supported them. I do not see how we can possibly cede the Falklands whatever the arguments, economic or otherwise; and I cannot believe that the Argentine cannot see the strength of our argument and of our British case. The demands are growing. I should certainly be prepared to entertain and to negotiate on a long lease but the conditions would have to be very, very strict indeed.

I urge the Minister—who I know has had to reply before and has sympathy—that he should himself act. There have been two Ministers at least who have been down there. Let us make him the third or the fourth so that he can get the feel of this. Mr. Ted Rowlands went down and did feel very strongly. Mr Ridley has become interested. There really is interest. There is a need to understand. My own experience in the days when I had to represent this country as a Minister in certain situations is that until you actually go there it is very difficult to get the full significance. I hope therefore that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, will approach this in a sympathetic way. I myself find that the situation is a very depressing one.

My Lords, I intervene briefly although there is really nothing to say, but I wanted particularly to endorse what my noble friend Lord Buxton said, covering all the ground in exactly the way that I would, too. I should also like not only to tell the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, that I read when he produced it, all his report, including the annex, but I so much endorse what he had to say about the "Endurance". I shall come back to that subject on 20th July.

In the meantime, I should like to ask my noble friend Lord Trefgarne whether, if the "Endurance" is being withdrawn, this means that the Royal Marines are being withdrawn too? If he could reply to that I should be most grateful. In conclusion, I hope that the Government listened carefully to all that my noble friend Lord Buxton said and will take heed of his advice, and that in the end the Flakland Islanders are allowed to live their lives in the way that they wish.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Buxton, has drawn our attention to a problem which, as he says, not very many people in this country follow continuously. Every now and again—usually as a result of some action of the Argentine Government—we give it close and rather excited attention. There are two facts from which one starts. First, it is entirely unreasonable for anyone to expect that Britain wuold abandon sovereignty of the Falkland Islands against the obvious wishes of all the Islanders.

When I was in charge of foreign affairs I made that clear throughout to the Argentine. I am sorry to say this, but since at certain points the noble Lord, Lord Buxton, was rather polemical, I shall say that my task was not always made easier by certain Conservative Members in another place who spread the story that it was the Government's intention to abandon sovereignty of the Islands. That caused a good deal of distress among the Islanders themselves. Long ago as it is, I take this opportunity to say that that was entirely untrue; neither I not the Government of which I was a member would have accepted the abandonment of the sovereignty, except for the absurd supposition that the Islanders themselves might some day decide to be Argentine citizens. Of that I see no more sign now than I did then. That is one point that is clear.

The other point is this: through sheer geographical proximity and the fact that the Falklanders being comparatively near to the Argentine and such a long way away from everywhere else, it was in the power of Argentina to make life difficult for the Falklanders. That was true at the time that I was dealing with the problem, as it is true now. That is why I cannot accept the proposition that we ought to have "slammed the door"—I think that was the noble Lord's phrase—and refused to discuss the problem with Argentina.

I found when I was in charge of foreign affairs that I was often being criticised by the other side of the House of Commons for engaging in conversations with the Argentine Government, only to find of course that the succeeding Conservative Government did exactly the same thing and for exactly the same reason—that it was a sheer necessity. One had got to try to reach some modus vivendi between ourselves, the Argentine and the Falklands. I must reject the idea that this could ever have been resolved by "slamming the door". It has to be resolved, if it is resolved at all—and by its nature the case is extremely difficult—by a prolonged process of discussion with the Argentinians, and making quite sure that we are closely in touch with opinion and feeling among the Falkland Islanders themselves.

I shall not make a long speech, but I believe that the key may be found in the phrase used by the noble Lord who opened this debate, when he spoke about "things we can do together". I remember when once it was my task to assist negotiations between the colony that was then British Guiana (and about to become the independent country of Guyana) and its Venezualan neighbour. There was a boundary dispute there and we were able to take the heat out of it considerably by considering the things that the two countries could do together to develop resources on their borders. It is there, if anywhere, that I think the solution is to be found.

I need not, I think, go over the other things since they have been put forward very well tonight by my noble friend Lord Shackleton, and of course his report is a great source of information. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, will be able to tell us what further progress can be made in that field in the concept of the joint interests between Argentina and ourselves in the development of the South Atlantic, with the Falkland Islanders being a beneficiary of that process. I hope also that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, will be able to say something about HMS "Endurance" and the hydrography and the general problem of trying to keep the Falklanders more in touch with the outside world. There are, of course, the enormous difficulties of distance and technique, but I think one particularly important form of aid which the British Government ought to give to the Falklanders is to see that they have a greater opportunity to know what is going on in the world and to be assured, I hope, that if in the nature of things the Parliament at Westminster cannot always be discussing their affairs, it certainly does not forget them.

My Lords, this is very much an issue which arouses deep emotions and rightly and understandably so. I am sure that when Islanders read the record of what has been said today they will be gratified by the support they have been given. It is important that this dispute and the Islanders' situation should be understood as widely as possible to ensure that their interests are safeguarded and their wishes respected. This is at the root of the Government's policy.

Let me outline our position. First of all, Her Majesty's Government are in no doubt whatsoever about the legitimacy of British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. They have been settled continously for nearly 150 years by people of British stock —the Government, legal system and way of life are all unmistakably British. We, and all previous British Governments, have rejected the Argentine claim absolutely and without reserve.

Rejecting it, however, sadly does not mean that it has gone away or will go away. The dispute has long overshadowed the Islanders' daily lives. It hinders the proper development and diversification of the Islands' one-commodity economy, it prevents the exploitation of natural resources in the surrounding ocean; most of all, perhaps, its unsettling effect has led to a continuing decline in an already tiny population.

If we accept, as we must, that the dispute is the direct cause of all this, then our prime aim must be to resolve it. Successive British Governments—and the Islanders themselves—have acknowledged this and have sought to establish, through negotiations with the Argentinians, whether a solution can be found which is acceptable to all parties. This Government have held two rounds of talks at ministerial level with the Argentines and we hope to hold more. For the first time ever, representatives of the Island Council participated in both rounds as members of the British delegation.

What are these talks about? The dispute affects so many aspects of Islanders' lives that it would be very difficult to detail all the subjects that need to be discussed. We are particularly interested in discussing areas of potential co-operation to benefit the Islanders' economy and development; but it is no secret that the Argentines are principally interested in the question of sovereignty. Other issues are subsidiary for them. All attempts to secure Argentine agreement to proceed with economic co-operation, while leaving the sovereignty issue on one side, have come to nothing.

The choice for us is clear: whether or not to be prepared to discuss sovereignty. And we have to accept that if we are not willing or not able to sit down with the Argentines and the Islanders and discuss sovereignty, then the Argentines may see no point in continuing talks. If the Argentines felt that we were no longer prepared even to discuss the issues with them, then it could not be ruled out that they would look for other means of obtaining what they want. As I have said, the dispute already makes Islanders' lives difficult, but none of us should be in any doubt that the difficulties could be much greater. We are, of course, pledged to support and defend the Islands to the best of our ability. I repeat that pledge now. But there are limits to our capability in this respect which cannot be ignored.

The Government therefore took the view, after the talks held in April 1980, that we should be prepared to discuss sovereignty with the Argentines. But it was not enough for the Government to decide that An important premise of our policy is that nothing will be undertaken which is not acceptable to the Islanders. Accordingly, we sought the Islanders' views. My honourable friend the Minister of State (Mr. Ridley) visited the Islands for a week last November and discussed with councillors and other Islanders how best to make progress. He explained Her Majesty's Government's thinking, described the various options we had identified—about which I shall say more in a moment—and invited them to let us have their views.

Your Lordships will know the outcome. The Island councillors voted in favour of a continuation of discussions and gave Her Majesty's Government a mandate to try to negotiate a so-called freeze of the dispute; that is, a mutual agreement to put the sovereignty issue on one side for an agreed period of time, during which both sides could co-operate to develop the Islands' resources. Talks were duly held in New York in February this year; but the Argentines made it plain that a freeze was unacceptable. This was a great disappointment; but we have to live with it.

Our position now is that we continue to believe that a negotiated settlement to the dispute should be sought and that further discussions should be held. But those discussions will have to cover the sovereignty issue and we have to decide how we should approach this. One idea which, as your Lordships know, was discussed with Islanders last November is that of leaseback: the granting to Argentina of the title of sovereignty, coupled with the simultaneous leasing back to Her Majesty's Government of all territories and maritime zones for a substantial period of time. There may be other possibilities worth exploring. But the main point is that before we propose anything we need to have the Islanders' agreement to negotiate and to obtain a new mandate from them. We are waiting to hear from them. No deadlines have been set—in any case, the impending elections to the Falkland Islands Legislative Council make it difficult for decisions to be taken which would, one way or the other, affect fundamentally the lives of all Islanders. But once the elections are over, we hope the Islanders will be able to agree to a new round of talks.

I have heard it asked why we pay so much attention to the wishes of the Islanders. The dispute is, after all, directly between Argentina and the United Kingdom. The answer is simple. It is the Islanders' future which is at stake. We have consistently supported at the United Nations the Islanders' right to self-determination, in the face of virtually unanimous opposition, and we shall continue to do so.

It has been further suggested that it is enough to continue to hold discussions: that it is not necessary ever actually to solve the dispute. I believe that that is wrong, for two reasons. First, it is not possible to go on discussing even the most complicated of subjects ad infinitum. We cannot hope to bore the Argentines into giving up their claim. Nor can we expect that, if we simply tell the Argentines that there is nothing more to talk about, there will be no consequences. Whatever our view on the merits of their claim, we have to recognise that the issue is one which gives rise to deep and long-standing emotions in Argentina. In considering a refusal to talk further, we have also to consider the possible implications for the Islanders.

Second, this suggestion—that it is not necessary to solve the dispute—implies that the status quo is acceptable. But it is not. So long as the dispute and the present climate of uncertainty continue, it will be extremely difficult to attract new development and investment and impossible fully to exploit the martime resources of the Falklands—notably the fish in the waters around the Islands and any oil which may exist on the continental shelf. We cannot move to declare a 200-mile fishery zone for the Falklands or their dependencies and establish a licensing régime if neither we nor the Falkland Islands Government can enforce it. Similarly, the presence of oil on the Islands' continental shelf can only be determined by exploration. And only the ending of the dispute will establish the conditions of confidence necessary for commercial companies to investigate and exploit the possibilities. In short, the status quo seems to offer few benefits and many disadvantages. It will lead to a continuing decline in the Islands and a drift away of the already small population.

May I deal now with some of the points which have been raised during the course of this evening's discussion? My noble friend Lord Buxton of Alsa, in his most comprehensive opening speech, referred in particular to the Nationality Bill which is currently before your Lordships and the position of the Islanders. Under the proposals contained in the Nationality Bill at present before your Lordships the Falkland Islanders would become citizens of the British dependent territories. Those who have the right of abode in the United Kingdom would additionally become British citizens. The relationship between the Falkland Islands and the United Kingdom is not, of course, affected by the Bill; nor are the Government's obligations to the Falkland Islands and their citizens. The Islanders have made it clear that they are concerned about the proposed new legislation. They have been given assurances by the Government, most recently by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in another place on 28th January, that the Islanders could depend upon the most sympathetic consideration of their position in the event of an emergency.

The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, referred again to his most comprehensive report. At the risk of goading the noble Lord to his feet, I shall not repeat again the statistics which I read out to your Lordships nearly two years ago about the various recommendations which he made. Suffice it to say that a good many of them have been implemented. I shall leave it to the noble Lord to decide whether or not he accepts that as being a majority. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, referred also to the question of oil around the Islands, a point which I touched on a moment ago. There have been two seismic surveys of the continental shelf around the Islands. Unfortunately such surveys alone cannot prove the existence or absence of hydrocarbon deposits. At this moment, therefore, it is not possible for me to be more specific. We are always ready to consider applications from oil companies who wish to undertake exploration, but while the political dispute continues it will, as I said before, inevitably be a constraint upon any active exploration programme.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord the Minister. There are continual rumours about actual oil strikes—admittedly a good deal further West, off Rio Gallegos, but as far as I know there have not been any strikes in the disputed areas we are talking about, unless the oil companies are keeping them very secret. Perhaps the noble Lord the Minister would care to comment on that?

My Lords, that has been my information too—that there have been no oil strikes. As I have said, there have been two seismic surveys, which are not at all the same thing and which simply, as I understand it, indicate the likelihood or otherwise of oil being present.

My noble friend Lord Buxton of Alsa also asked how the views of the Falkland Islanders on any solution to the dispute would be determined. This will be for the Falkland Islanders themselves to decide, whether by a referendum or by some other means, in effectively judging the views of the people. The noble Lords, Lord Buxton of Alsa, Lord Shackleton and Lord Mottistone also referred to the position in respect to HMS "Endurance". I can confirm that HMS "Endurance" will be paid off in 1982 on her return to the United Kingdom, following her deployment in the South Atlantic and the Antarctic region later this year. There are no plans to replace her. However, the Royal Marines' garrison in the Falkland Islands will be maintained at its present strength, and from time to time Her Majesty's ships will be deployed in the region.

The final point I should like to deal with is that raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham—although, perhaps, it was hardly a point. He recalled the position with regard to himself and his colleagues when he was Foreign Secretary. He described how Conservative Members accused him of a policy which he was not following and that, in any event, his policy at that time is now the policy of the present Government. I certainly accept that the noble Lord described the position accurately but, speaking from memory in this matter, I recall that there was some disquiet among my noble friends on what was then the other side of the House, that the Government's policy was not as they were describing it. I fear the difficulty was a misunderstanding over the words which were used at the time, and I certainly accept that the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham, and his colleagues never had any intention of abandoning the Falkland Islands, as some people feared at the time.

Some say that if we are not satisfied with the present situation, why do the British Government not do something about it; and indeed that was the tenor of the speech made by my noble friend Lord Buxton of Alsa. The question is asked, for example, why do we not adopt a more generous attitude towards giving financial assistance to the Islands' economy? Some would have it that this in itself would give an added stimulus to development and would remove the economic arguments for settlement. I doubt the validity of this particular scenario. The Islands are already in receipt of substantial aid. Over the past five years, the Islands have received an average of £735 per annum per head of population—the highest figure for any recipient of British aid in the world.

Whatever happens we will continue to support their economy within the limit of our own available resources and within the ability of the Islands to absorb and administer aid. But it has surely to be recognised that such aid can only be a palliative and cannot of itself stimulate the conditions necessary for economic expansion. For example, the extension to the airport, which is sometimes put forward as a possible means of opening up the Islands and of prompting a tourist industry, would be very expensive. Its capital cost would represent another £5,000 per head of the population of United Kingdom aid. Equally, it has not so far aroused the interest of any commercial airline operators. I understand that there are those who believe that the runway should be extended so as to reduce the Islands' dependence on Argentina.

But the practical problems would remain and, given the Islands' geographical position, we should also have to take into account the various logistical difficulties which might arise and I think my noble friend was aware of those. The reality is that the United Kingdom is 8,000 miles away, Argentina less than 400. It makes sense to involve the Argentines in helping to develop the Islands' economy. For example, the Argentines already provide the only air service and most of the fuel. I know some Islanders resent having to depend on the Argentines in this way, but few, I imagine, would wish to lose these services. Neither could be replaced without great difficulty, not to mention cost and inconvenience to the Islanders.

Another school of thought is that by merely announcing our willingness to discuss the issue of sovereignty with the Argentines, we are indicating that we are not convinced of our sovereignty and that we accept that the Argentine claim has some validity. That is not so. I repeat: we are in no doubt whatsoever about our sovereignty over the Islands. All our discussions with the Argentines have been held on the strict understanding that our position on sovereignty is not prejudiced. By talking to the Argentines we are not accepting their claim; we are dealing with a situation that exists. If the Islands' decline is to be halted and, we hope, reversed, this dispute has to be solved. There is no other way.

There has been much speculation about what form that solution might take. It is not possible to be specific about this. Many different systems of administration have operated and continue to operate around the world; some are successful, others less so. We have been looking and shall continue to look, at them all to see whether there is one which provides a model for a settlement of the Falklands dispute which would be acceptable to all concerned. But there are certain basic requirements on which we should insist. The British administration, legal system and way of life would have to be preserved, perhaps not for ever and a day, but at least for several generations. An agreement would have to involve provisions for assisting the Islands' development and exploiting their resources. And it would have to have cast-iron guarantees from the United Nations or other suitable bodies that there would be no infringements.

None of us can be happy at the prospect of even discussing new sovereignty arrangements when we do not and cannot accept Argentina's claim. But I would ask those who say we should refuse even to discuss the issue to consider who will suffer. It is the Islanders, not us. That is why they must decide for themselves. There can be no question of our acting in some way behind the Islanders' backs. We are a long, long way from the sort of settlement which would provide the guarantees sought by the Islanders and ourselves; but if and when the day comes when we are satisfied that all the criteria have been met, that would not be the final chapter. We have pledged ourselves to submit any agreement to the test of public opinion in the Islands and to Parliament here. It would be hard to devise more comprehensive safeguards to ensure that any agreement is acceptable to all.

The answer to my noble friend Lord Buxton, therefore, is that we have every wish to continue the discussions with the Argentines in order to solve the sovereignty dispute. The decision does not, however, lie entirely in our hands: the Islanders have to decide for themselves which avenues they wish us to explore for them, in the knowledge that the situation has to change if the dispute is not to be allowed to stifle all hopes of development. The Islanders have to be the best judges of their own interests. We await their decision.