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

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many civil servants are employed full-time and part-time respectively on work on behalf of trade unions; and what is the annual cost to public funds.

My Lords, it is estimated that 287 non-industrial civil servants are engaged full-time as union representatives on industrial relations duties and trade union activities. A further 383 spend more than half of their time in these ways; and some 11,300 less than half. The current annual cost of the paid time-off arrangements is estimated at £12·3 million. These arrangements are part of the 1974 National Whitley Council Agreement on Facilities for Non-Industrial Union Representatives. As the result of a review of the operation of that agreement, it is currently being renegotiated with the unions concerned to provide improved control among other things.

My Lords, while I thank my noble friend for that extremely interesting Answer, is this an area of Government expenditure which is being critically looked at?

My Lords, yes. The agreement is being critically looked at in order to give greater control and accountability.

My Lords, on the opposite side of the coin, is there any help to employers and the CBI from these valuable civil servants?

My Lords, I am not quite sure that I fully understand the import of the noble Lord's question. I cannot comment on industrial relations in other industries.

My Lords, can my noble friend say what formula is adopted to adjudge what is half of their time and whether or not the unions ever make any contribution to the "half-times" for the cost of the work they do.

My Lords, my understanding is that this would depend on the circumstances. Different departments would, of course, have different arrangements.

My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that the maintenance of good industrial relations is dependent on involvement of employees in the affairs of the company in which they are involved, whether as civil servants or private enterprise employees, and that the release of people in this field is extremely important to good industrial relations?

My Lords, yes, I would entirely agree with what the noble Lord has said. Indeed, it is our wish to have good industrial relations. In fact, our agreement gives more than that which would be essential under the terms of the trade union legislation.

My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Baroness whether, in conveying this request for information to the appropriate quarters, she might also appreciate and take notice of the fact that trade unions, in fact, spend a great deal of time and manpower on Government work and that this is not at all a one-sided activity. In fact, most of us in the industrial world have encouraged tripartite examination of problems. There is not an industrial problem that arises without the TUC being consulted as to the effect on the workforce.

My Lords, in answer to that question, of course, the circumstances in each department of the Civil Service would vary, but it is generally estimated that 85 per cent. of the time that is taken up in these discussions is on matters related to industrial relations, and about 15 per cent. of the time is spent on trade union activities.

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

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many historic house owners have been allowed to break agreements into which they freely entered when obtaining public money in grants for repairs.

My Lords, the number of owners who fail to comply with conditions of grant is unknown, as it is not practicable to keep a continuous check on all properties which have received grant. However, relatively few cases of non-compliance are brought to the attention of the Department of the Environment. In these cases it is rare that some agreement cannot be reached with owners in the public interest.

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that reply. If these agreements can be broken with impunity—as clearly happened in the case to which he kindly gave me a helpful Written Answer on 9th February—that does not exactly encourage the others to stick to their agreements, as they surely should.

My Lords, that happened pre-1979, and, of course, since 1979 the Secretary of State has been able to reclaim grants already paid if conditions of grant are not met.

My Lords, is not the matter about which we are concerned that of agreements involving access to the houses? Is it not true that now the houses are advertised in the Historic Houses Guide? Does this include "by appointment" houses?—because, when I was a Minister in charge of the department, one of the problems was the "by appointment houses" which had received grants; sometimes it was very difficult for people to get in to see them. Is not one of the answers that, if people cannot get access to a house which is on the list and which can be visited, they should complain either to the Department of the Environment or the Historic Buildings Council as soon as possible?

My Lords, yes, indeed, public access to the property is one of the normal standard conditions, as the noble Baroness has said; and this should be advertised in two separate journals, again as she said. But whether or not that is so for "by appointment" houses, I am not absolutely certain. However, I shall check and confirm that with her. Again, as she rightly said, the very fact that the public complain, brings this to the attention of the department.

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

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make representations to the Government of the Republic of Ireland urging them to give to British subjects resident in the Republic the same rights and privileges, including that of voting in parliamentary elections, as those enjoyed by citizens of the Republic of Ireland resident in the United Kingdom.

My Lords, this is a matter for the Irish authorities. Both the last two Governments, however, affirmed their intention of introducing legislation to enable United Kingdom citizens to vote at elections to the Dail.

My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, can he say whether Her Majesty's Government consider that intention to be enough?—because this matter has been going on for 50 years, and surely reciprocity, at least between the two countries, should happen now. Is it not about time that Her Majesty's Government were a little firmer with the Government of the Republic of Ireland?

My Lords, we consider the intention expressed by the last two Governments of the Republic to be enough.

My Lords, is not this an intolerable situation? Is the Minister aware that only the other day we were informed in your Lordships' House that a British citizen going to the United States of America must be provided with a visa; whereas, Americans can come to this country without having a visa? Why should we have to suffer this humiliation? I do not object to Irish citizens coming to this country and voting in parliamentary elections. I do not object to it at all; it is democratic. Why should we not have the same privilege in the Republic of Ireland?

My Lords, Irish citizens have been able to vote here since the Republic left the Commonwealth. Our citizens can already vote in local government and European Parliament elections in the Republic. As I have said, the last two Irish Governments both undertook to enable our citizens to vote at Dail elections. It is true, of course, that there is some difference in the right to stand for the legislative assemblies in both countries. That would, of course, mean that the Republic would have to forfeit the delight of having the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, in the Seanad.

My Lords, is the noble Lord the Minister aware that the issues and the anomalies affecting British subjects resident in the Republic of Ireland were carefully examined and documented by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and, indeed, are contained in the second annual report of the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights, which was published on 24th February 1977? I understand that it was formally presented to both Houses of this Parliament and that a copy is in our Library. Will the noble Lord draw his noble friend's attention to the fact that the issues are not simple, that they are quite involved and require some consideration, particularly from the point of view of the Irish Republic?

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blease, both for what he said about the merits of the case and also for drawing attention to the fact that the Anglo-Irish joint study on citizenship rights, which was a joint study at official level between the two Governments, is a Command Paper which was published in November of last year. The conclusion to that study was that citizens of both countries enjoy virtually all the rights and privileges of citizens of the host country, reflecting the unique relationship between the two countries.

My Lords, can the Minister give us any timetable for the settlement of this problem, which has now been discussed for nearly half a century?

No, my Lords.

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

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government why there are so many two-lane restrictions on the M.1 motorway between London and Birmingham, bearing in mind that the carriageway is in good condition and that no work is taking place on much of the closed areas.

My Lords, the M.1, one of our oldest motorways and in use for over 20 years, now needs extensive repairs. Both major structural repairs and routine maintenance operations are in hand, all of which require lane closures. The reason for these closures, which are necessary to protect the travelling public and workmen as well as to allow work to proceed, may not always be apparent to the passing motorist. However, they are most necessary for reasons of safety.

My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, may I apologise for the short notice of this Question. It was put down only on Monday and this was the slot that was allocated to me. May I ask the Minister whether he has really looked into this problem? There are miles and miles which are coned off, no work is proceeding, and the carriageway is in perfect condition. Would the noble Earl not think that all that has been done is to let a contract without any consideration whatsoever for the motorist, so that as soon as the contract is let the whole of the area is coned off, and that this really is intolerable and has been done for administrative convenience without any thought whatsoever for the motorist?

My Lords, the Government indeed do consider this very deeply. I should like to refer the noble Viscount to a Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, in this House as recently as 9th February when we talked about the maintenance work then, and I note that there were some nine supplementaries on that occasion. The Government are always striving to reduce delays and accidents at repair sites. This year some new measures are being introduced on the M.1. For example, improved crossover arrangements, shorter working lengths, and shorter contract periods, all aimed to help the motorist.

My Lords, on another angle of this question, is the Minister aware that, having used this road since its opening, one owes a certain gratitude for over 20 years of using the safest road in the world from the point of view of traffic accidents?

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for those remarks. I am sure the noble Lord will equally recall that it was only meant to last for 20 years.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, having last week twice gone up and down the sister road—the sister road being the A.1—I was most impressed that in no one place was there more than one lane closed, and in no one place was the speed under 40 miles an hour, and I was impressed at the efficiency of the Ministry of Transport?

My Lords, I shall certainly bring my noble friend's remarks to my right honourable friend's attention.

My Lords, may I finally ask the Minister whether he would seriously look into the position as it stands today, bearing in mind that I came down the road on Monday and that nothing that he has said today satisfies me as a true explanation? Could the noble Earl look into what is in fact happening at the present time?

My Lords, I have actually looked at the maps and seen the work projected over the next few years, and seen the great care with which the Ministry and their officials have looked into this subject. If I can show the noble Viscount anything which will persuade him of the great interest we take, I shall willingly do so.

My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lord Trenchard will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement which is to be made in another place on the United Kingdom Trident programme.

My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to clarify the meaning of the Transport (London) Act 1969 by empowering the Greater London Council to make grants towards the current expenses of the London Transport Executive where such grants appear to the council to be required to provide or secure the provision of such public passenger transport services as best meet the needs for the time being of Greater London; to provide that such grants shall be treated as revenue of the Executive; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.

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

My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Representation of the People (Variation of Limits of Candidates' Election Expenses) Order 1982, which was laid before this House on 18th February, be approved. My Lords, the amount of money a candidate may spend on the conduct or management of an election is, as I need hardly say, subject to statutory limits. The Representation of the People Act 1978 empowers the Home Secretary to vary the limits on candidates' election expenses by order, subject to the affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament, to take account of changes in the value of money. The purpose of this draft order is to increase the limits on candidates' expenses at parliamentary elections and at certain local elections. It follows consultations with local authorities and all the political parties represented at Westminster.

The present limits for parliamentary candidates are £1,750 plus 2p per elector for county constituencies, and £1,750 plus 1½p per elector for borough constituencies. These were fixed in July 1978. The draft order increases these limits, in line with the rise in the Retail Price Index, to £2,700 plus 3·1p per elector for country constituencies and £2,700 plus 2·3p per elector for borough constituencies. This does not, of course, preclude further increases, if necessary, in time for the next general election.

The present limits for all local elections in Great Britain, save those to the Greater London Council, were fixed in an order made in March 1980 by my right honourable friend at £100 plus 2p per elector. The retail price index has risen by about 20 per cent. since then, and the draft order increases the limits for these elections to £120 plus 2·4p per elector. In addition, the maximum sum which may be spent by candidates at elections of certain City of London officers is increased from £750 to £900.

The order-making power in the Representation of the People Act 1978 does not extend to local government elections in Northern Ireland. Furthermore, the present draft order does not extend to elections to the Greater London Council; the GLC limits were increased for the GLC elections last year, and the next GLC elections will be held in 1985. As noble Lords will know, the penalties for overspending at elections are severe. For example, a successful candidate who overspends runs the risk of losing his seat. This order will help to ensure that candidates are able to conduct a reasonable campaign without being in danger of a breach of the statutory limits on expenses. We are bringing forward the order now so that it may come into effect in good time for the local elections in May. My Lords, I beg to move.

My Lords, we thank the Minister for explaining the order so clearly. As he said that its terms had met with the agreement of the local authorities and political parties which had been consulted, I need not delay the House for long in giving it support. There are, however, two matters I would raise with the Minister. First, would it be possible in future, instead of having such figures as 3·1p and 2·3p, to round off the increases either to whole or half pence and adjust the flat sum accordingly? It may be said it is easy to multiply by 0·3 or 0·1 but it would be simpler to use round figures and increase the flat rate accordingly, and that could be done without affecting the figure we desire to achieve to meet inflation.

Secondly, it is clear that with inflation—it may be argued that the incomes of everybody should rise accordingly, but life does not work out that way—the cost in a local election of some 10,000 electors will now be a maximum of about £360. That becomes especially difficult for independent candidates, and there are genuine independent candidates in some parts. In view of that, and of the fact that for any organisation contesting the whole 623 seats in the United Kingdom the maximum cost would be a little over £2½ million, may I ask if the Government would consider this an opportune time to consider the proposals of the Houghton Committee on financial aid to political parties; namely, giving aid, if not to central party headquarters then in assisting all candidates, party and independent candidates, with a proportion of their election expenses, as proposed by that committee?

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, we on these Benches have no real objection to the order, although in the submissions we in the Liberal Party made we asked for somewhat higher levels. I note with interest that the increase is about 54 per cent. for parliamentary elections. If one calculates the rate of inflation from the last elections, in May 1979, that takes us to September of this year. I wonder whether the Government are trying to tell us something—either that they are thinking of having an election then, or that they do not expect inflation to increase after that time.

We did our calculations on the basis of there being an election towards the end of 1983 or early in 1984, in which case the limits should be increased still further, and we suggested £3,000 plus 3·5p for county and £3,000 plus 2·5p for borough constituencies. I go along entirely with what the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, said about rounding up and rounding down. I know that professionals such as he can well do such calculations, with the wonders of modern electronics, but there are people who get confused, and splitting the money up in the way proposed seems a rather strange way of going about it. Rounding up or down in halfpennies would make a difference of only about £60 or £100 on the total limit for a county or borough constituency, and that would not seem to create a grave margin of error.

Although I have to be a little careful in view of certain things going on in certain quarters at the moment, may I ask if the Government would consider looking at the definitions of what constitutes an electoral expense in parliamentary elections? With changing types of electioneering and varying styles of campaigning, grey areas are appearing and a clearer definition, and perhaps an increase beyond the present limits to cater for those problems, might be of help to candidates. Having said that, we support the order.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Underhill and Lord Tordoff, for their support for the order. As for the point they both made about the desirability of rounding off the figures for the variable expenses, while I sympathise with the wish to keep the sums involved as straightforward as possible, my right honourable friend is permitted by the terms of the order-making power to vary the figures only to the extent justified by changes in the value of money. I am advised that any rounding of the variable elements to keep them in whole or half pence would therefore be outside the scope of the power under the order. The proposed figures, however, should not present returning officers and election agents with undue difficulties. The calculations will he no more difficult than those which were required under the Representation of the People Act 1974 and those which are currently required for local government elections in Northern Ireland. Having said that, I accept that two wrongs do not make a right and I take the point that it would be desirable to try to round them off. Moreover, I have explained the situation as we find it under the present order-making power.

The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, asked, incidentally, whether I was trying to tell the House something about the rate of inflation. What I am trying to tell your Lordships, as I said in my opening remarks, is that if any further increase is needed in election expenses, that will not be precluded by agreement to the order, if your Lordships agree to it, before another general election.

The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, asked whether the Government would consider the proposals of the Houghton Committee for financial aid to political parties. That is a matter which all political parties have considered. So far as Government are concerned though, it would, I suppose, be a matter for legislation, and I am afraid I have no more to say on that at present, except to add that I am aware that the maximum personal expenses that a parliamentary candidate can pay without going to his election agent are not dealt with in the order. They are not very satisfactory; they are, I should have thought any fair-minded person would say, too low, but again, they can be dealt with only by primary legislation, and although we accept there is a case for increasing the amount, which is £100, I am afraid I cannot give any promise that there will be an opportunity for an increase during this Parliament.

The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, asked if the Government would look at the definititions of what constitutes an election expense. Certainly we should be ready to look at that, and it may well be being looked at in the review which my right honourable friend has been undertaking of election procedures, and again we are talking about the scope of primary legislation.

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

moved Amendment No. 1:

I should like to say, briefly, that we very warmly support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness. As I said on Second Reading, local authorities are perfectly able to make decisions themselves about these matters. Nearly all the other clauses in the Bill are adoptive; this is one of the very few that are mandatory. As the noble Baroness has said, the question of whether the local licensing magistrates or the local authority should undertake licensing is a fairly open one. There are parts of the country where this kind of work is habitually done by the licensing magistrates; there are other parts where it would be a virtually unheard of procedure and extra staff would have to be taken on. But the basic point is that the provisions of the clause should be adoptive, not mandatory. If one believes in local authorities making their own decision about matters which concern them, then the amendment should be readily accepted by the Committee.

I certainly understand the case which has been put very clearly by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk. Like her, I should not wish to do anything that would detract from the vital importance of the work which magistrates do in the United Kingdom. It is vital and very important work. However, in Clause 1 of the Bill there is a point which I am sure the majority of the magistracy have appreciated. Indeed, as the noble Baroness very fairly said, the Magistrates' Association did not raise any objection to the proposal when it was put to them before the Bill was brought to Parliament.

The difficulty is this. At the moment we have in this country a patchwork system of controls over public entertainments. In some areas there are no controls at all; in others they may be exercised by the licensing justices, basically as an adjunct to liquor licensing, or they are exercised by district councils. The purpose of the controls which would be introduced by Schedule 1 (which goes with Clause 1) is threefold. It is to prevent disorder, it is to control noise and it is to impose satisfactory fire and other safety standards.

It is that last one that I would particularly put to the Committee. If your Lordships care to look for just a moment at paragraph 4(2) of Schedule 1, the Committee will notice that there is a requirement there that the licensing authority shall consult the chief officer of police and the fire authority before granting an application. When I say to your Lordships that in 1980, which is the last year for which I have any statistics, nearly 100,000 fires in occupied buildings occurred in this country, with enormous loss financially, your Lordships will realise that the fire and other safety standards of licensing are very important aspects of it.

Indeed, I say this. Were the first two considerations the only or the main ones—that is to say, the considerations of preventing disorder or controlling noise—the Government would be quite happy to leave it to individual councils to decide, in the light of local circumstances, whether controls over public entertainments were necessary. But where the safety of the public attending entertainment is at risk, we really cannot take such a neutral stance. I say that at a time when people are more mobile and more liable to gather, I think it is fair to say, in very large numbers for public entertainments in a way which many years ago they simply were not able to do. People's lives may be at risk from fire, and they really are entitled to know that proper measures are being taken for their protection. The only way we can ensure that such measures will be taken is to insist on a mandatory national system of control.

The noble Baroness, if I may just add this, made some play with the cost and the burden which would fall on the district council if the district council does not already have this system. But entertainment licensing in Clause 1 and Schedule 1 is intended to be broadly self-financing, and councils will be able to charge realistic fees to offset their additional costs. That is the effect of paragraph 5 of Schedule 1. Indeed, the noble Baroness asked why we do not leave alone the situation where magistrates are, in the noble Baroness's words, carrying the licensing function absolutely naturally. Really, if it is as simple as that, may I put it to the noble Baroness that I do not think the burden that would be shifted to the district councils will be as onerous as all that.

I wonder whether the noble Lord would give way on that. The point about the magistrates at the moment is that the magistrates are sitting every day. Applications for occasional licences are coming up before them all the time, so it is in the natural round of their duty. It just means that you have an extra case or application on your list This is the point about that. But I had moved (I hope the Minister realises this) from that position, that being one that was not acceptable to the Government, leaving well alone. The Government never do, as we know, ever leave well alone: so I have now moved to a different position, which I thought might be more acceptable.

The noble Baroness is very agile, and I shall obviously have to be swift in this Committee to follow her; but if I may put it to the noble Baroness, there is a little more to this than just taking an occasional licence application which comes up on the morning that the magistrates are sitting. The whole kernel and pith of the argument that I am trying to put across is that in modern times it really is important for the protection of the public, not only on disorder grounds and on the control of noise grounds, but also on protection from fire grounds, that proper study should be given to the giving of both yearly licences and occasional licences.

When one gets into this particular country I think it is desirable that a local authority—and the Government decided that they would go for the district councils as being really nearest to the local situation—should exercise these functions and should, during the exercise of the functions, consult both the chief constable of police and also, of course, with the local fire brigade. It is on those grounds that we feel it is necessary to give the function to the local authorities, and to make this one mandatory. If we do that, if Parliament agrees, it will mean that the patchwork of rules and regulations about public entertainments around the country will be brought into some sort of sensible uniformity, not done for its own sake but for the protection of the public.

I speak only as an individual magistrate in this matter, and I do not feel very strongly on it. Licensing justices, before they would grant a licence to premises for singing, music and dancing, would never do so unless they had obtained a certificate from the chief fire officer. It is as easy for a licensing justice to obtain that certificate as it would be for the district council. On the question of cost, because the premises are probably going to be licensed anyhow it is clearly going to be cheaper for the licensing justices to continue to do the job. As I say, I do not feel particularly strongly about it. The only real advantage that I see in the Bill in its present form is that it would provide uniformity throughout the country.

I think that when we are looking at this amendment we are looking at something much more fundamental than the one aspect that we have just spoken about. I think it was Lord Belstead who, on Second Reading, praised the major role that local authorities played in shaping this Bill. Those remarks were contained in column 461 of the report of the Second Reading debate. I think he explained quite clearly what the reasons were for this Bill, and he cited the criteria. The criteria were that the provisions should be well precedented in recent local legislation, and should be necessary and uncontroversial.

Under previous Acts local authorities had to bring forward their local legislation and make it much more homogeneous, and therefore Private Bills started to come forward from all the large local authorities. Many Members of your Lordships' House have sat on Private Bills upstairs, where provisions that we are talking about today were considered. In exceptional cases the results of those Committees sitting upstairs were brought on the to Floor of your Lordships' House; and in one case, on the West Midlands County Council's Bill, a vote had to be taken, even, upon the measures that they wished.

What worries me continually is that Private Bills coming from local authorities and containing good legislation are being completely disregarded by the first clause of the Bill before us. What concerns me is that, as noble Lords said on Second Reading, to promote a Private Bill costs time—parliamentary time as well as local government time—and it costs a great deal of money for the local ratepayers and the local councils. They bring their recommendations forward, the Government accept them and they are placed upon the statute book. Yet in many instances they have been on the statute book only 18 months, and for the very longest two years, before we come forward with a miscellaneous provisions Bill which takes away those powers from the local authorities that have only just had their legislation placed on the statute book.

So we get ourselves into the position where—and again I quote the noble Lord, Lord Belstead:

"If individual local authorities want powers which are novel or necessary for their particular area, they need to come individually to Parliament to ask for those powers". [Official Report, 16/2/82, col. 461.]

What I am trying to say is that local government brought their Private Bills, which were accepted by the committees, accepted by Government and placed on the statute book, and they are now, under the first clause of this Bill, losing the powers that have already been granted to them. Kent will lose some powers and, according to my research, Cheshire is given powers that it never asked for and there will be changes in the West Midlands Bill. What does a local authority do then to get those powers back? The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, says, "Bring your Private Bills". What a farcical situation! The local authorities have brought them, they have been taken away by this Bill and they are told to bring them back again if they want those special powers.

I would say to the Committee that we must have regard to local government in these measures. I appreciate what my noble friend Lady Birk has said regarding the justices and I would like to point out that there are difficulties that arise with licensing, especially the possibilities of disorder that arise from individual cases of drunkenness and serious offences that arise when crowd control becomes extremely difficult, especially in the cases where the entertainment has been on a particular premises for one occasion.

I am glad that the noble Lord opposite spelt out clearly that magistrates and the local councillors are all what we would call responsible people. Obviously, they will consider the fire and safety regulations and the police objections, if any. Sitting as a magistrate, I can say that, in every application that comes before the magistrates, the magistrates ask, "Are there any police objections?" and the police are in the court and they stand up if they have objections. They then ask, "And are there any objections from the fire service or any other statutory bodies?" The people with the objections are there in front of the court. It is to introduce a red herring to suggest that this is being done on the grounds of safety. The responsibilities of both bodies are carried out by very understanding persons.

I ought to emphasise the point which the noble Lord, Lord Evans, made when repeating what he said on Second Reading: that it is important that local authorities should be given some control over their local legislation because it is local. Therefore, making this part of the Bill manadatory offends, in my view, the general principle of local choice. I want to make it clear that on this side of the Committee we are not against the principles that are contained in the first Part of the Bill. I hope that what I have explained up to the present emphasises that, if local authorities have already got these powers under their local Acts (and I have read through several of them; and all the local Acts on the statute book so far regarding this have quite definite regulations regarding fire and safety), then why should they not be able to hold on to them?

What I would suggest in conclusion is that before the end of the discussion perhaps we could have the reply which was promised by the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, when, in winding up the Second Reading debate, he said:

"The question of the repeal of existing local Acts is more difficult and the Government are very alive to the feelings of local authorities who stand to lose current powers if no amendment can be made to this Bill. Therefore, although I cannot give an undertaking, I want to say that the Government are doing all they can to try and find a solution to the problem".—[Official Report, 16/2/82; col.500.]

All I am saying this afternoon is that, if local government is to remain local, then serious consideration must be given to our amendment unless we can get a reply which satisfies us following what the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, said on Second Reading.

I should like to endorse the point that my noble friend made about local authorities which already have in existence powers similar to those which they would be obliged to undertake after the passage of this Bill. On the other hand, I take Lord Belstead's desire for universality of endorsement, particularly in relation to fire regulations, which is important. From that point of view, I am with the Government's ambitions in this respect, but I think that, if some assurance could be given to my noble friend on the point about those authorities which have already got the powers, this would be satisfactory from my own point of view and perhaps, too, from that of my noble friend.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, for recognising the desirability of universality as far as public safety is concerned in the licensing of public entertainments. The difficulty is (and perhaps I may reply here to my noble friend Lord Fortescue) that if on public safety grounds one goes for a uniform system, as do Clause 1 and Schedule 1, then, as the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, in her speech made clear, there are many magistrates' benches which would not want to have these licensing powers. In deciding who should have the licensing powers, it really seemed impossible for the Government to go for the magistrates' courts when many benches had made clear that they took that particular view. On the grounds of good administration and common sense, the Government felt that the district councils were the people to ask to take on the licensing powers.

I would say to the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, that I was puzzled in her speech because I do not think I know of any powers which are going to be lost when Clause 1 and Schedule 1 come into force, except the power (for a very few local authorities) to license pop festivals—and that is something that we shall come to later in the afternoon. The noble Baroness complained that Private Bills are being disregarded. Not so far as Clause 1 and Schedule 1 are concerned. But, leaving that aside, the whole point of this Bill was that local authorities, knowing that, under local government legislation of the early 1970s, they were going to see their Private Bill powers fall within the next two or three years, came to the previous Government, who passed the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act in 1976, and came to the present Government and worked out this second Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, which, if it goes through will be a 1982 Act.

At Second Reading, the president of the Association of County Councils and other noble Lords got up and said that they hoped there would be another Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill before the next three years are out and the rest of the Private Bill powers of local authorities fall. It is a little hard to chide the Government with bringing in a Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill when this is the one thing that local government has been asking for in order to give powers which will relieve them of the necessity of having to bring forward local Bills and will relieve Parliament of the necessity of keeping on having to take local Bills.

The whole reason for Clause 1 and Schedule 1 is that, on the main point of public safety grounds, we have felt that this should be one of the few mandatory provisions in the Bill and that the sensible thing to do is to ask the district councils to undertake the licensing functions.

As to Schedule 7 and the repeal of these Bills—I am looking at Merseyside, West Midlands, Cheshire and West Yorkshire—are not the powers which they have under those recently enacted Acts of Parliament repealed under Clause 1? Have I misunderstood the Bill so much that I have misread that completely? Perhaps the noble Lord will tell me that I am wrong, but I concluded that under the first Part of the Bill those parts of the Bill that are before us in Schedule 7 would be repealed. Am I wrong?

The noble Baroness is not wrong, but it is not changing the course of the local authorities in this matter. The noble Baroness has quite rightly drawn my attention to the repeals—and I apologise to her and to the Committee for not making it clear that I was taking this into account. Schedule 7 is doing exactly the same job as Schedule 1, except with regard to pop festivals. It is perfectly true that under Schedule 1 the Isle of Wight will have removed from it a power regulating pop festivals. A few other local authorities will have some rather more peripheral powers with regard to pop festivals. They comprise a special subject which we shall be debating later.

I see that the Minister is pretty agile, too. When I cited my first example from my own court that our clerks and magistrates did not want to take on these functions, this was a case of choice. I was illustrating the importance of leaving some openness in this matter. The noble Lord will be well aware—but I must emphasise it again—that we are not suggesting in our amendment that any more functions should pass to magistrates. We are suggesting the reverse: that the onus is on the local authority to take on the functions where and when it will. It may be that gradually all of them will do so. I support what my noble friend Lady Fisher has said. She gave us a very good background and foundation to not only this amendment but the amendments that follow it. They are very important.

To come back to this amendment, my noble friend made it clear—as I hope I do—that when these applications go to the magistrates' court it is not just a case of occasional licences; these matters are checked with the police and the local authority. If they want to say anything about it, they do so. I am sure the Minister would not disagree that the fire authorities have a great responsibility which they exercise very properly all the time.

Unless the Minister can give some instances and evidence of catastrophies that have occurred in areas where the magistrates have been responsible for these powers, as compared with areas where the district councils have, then no case has been made out against accepting this amendment. The noble Lord is resting his entire case on the question of safety. This is the first time that I have heard of any doubt cast on safety regulations where the licensing powers have been in the hands of magistrates. If the noble Lord is saying that there is doubt, and if he can give us some examples of where things have gone badly wrong which would not have gone wrong if matters had been handed to the district councils, then the Committee will listen. However, if he does not have that information—and if, as I imagine, that information is not available because it is not the case—then he is projecting forward what he believes may happen in the future.

This is a matter of great importance. This is an extremely moderate amendment. It is not going nearly so far as many of us wanted when we spoke on the matter on Second Reading. The noble Lord will remember that many of us wanted to leave things as they are. Therefore, unless the noble Lord has an answer on these points, I am afraid that I shall divide the Committee on this amendment.

I think this might be a convenient moment to take the Statement. I beg to move that the House be now resumed.

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat the Statement which is being made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence in the other place. The Statement is as follows:

"With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a Statement about the Government's decision to modernise the existing Polaris force by replacing it, in the mid 1990s, with a four-boat force based on the Trident II D5 missile system.

"On the 15th July 1980 my predecessor announced the Government's decision in favour of Trident as the replacement force for Polaris; but, as I told the Defence Committee of the House in March last year, final decisions were still needed on the type of submarine and the choice of missile.

"We have now decided that our four Trident submarines, to be built at Vickers, Barrow, will have a larger hull section than previously planned, and will incorporate an advanced propulsion system and the latest sonars. And after detailed consideration here, and with the United States, we have now decided also to purchase the Trident II D5, instead of the Trident I C4 missile system, from the United States.

"The number of warheads that the Trident II D5 missile will carry, and therefore Trident's striking power, remains wholly a matter of choice for the British Government; our intention is that the move to D5 will not involve any significant change in the planned total number of warheads than we originally envisaged for our Trident I C4 force.

"The reasons for our choice of Trident II D5 are briefly as follows.

"Just as the Polaris system will, by the mid 1990s, have been in service for approaching 30 years and will have reached the end of its operational life, so the Trident system must remain a credible deterrent for a similar period and thus remain operational until 2020—that is 40 years from now.

"Our experience with Polaris and the decision—endorsed by the last Labour Government—to modern-ise the Polaris missile with Chevaline at great cost, has shown us the financial and operational penalties of running and developing a United Kingdom unique system.

"Following President Reagan's decision to accelerate the Trident II D5 programme, if we were to choose the C4 missile, it would enter service with the Royal Navy only shortly before it left service with the United States. This would mean that the United Kingdom would be alone responsible for keeping open special Trident I C4 support facilities in the US; and the United Kingdom alone would be forced to fund, as we have with Chevaline, any research and development needed to counter improved Soviet anti-ballistic missile defences. For these reasons our judgment is that the through life costs of Trident I C4 would almost certainly be higher than Trident II D5.

"Accordingly we have entered into an agreement with the United States to purchase Trident II D5 and an exchange of letters between the President of the United States and my right honourable friend the Prime Minister is set out in Cmnd. 8517 published today. together with an exchange of letters between the United States Defence Secretary and myself on the terms of the arrangements.

"The United States Government is selling Trident II D5 to us on more advantageous terms than Trident I C4. The missile will be purchased by us at the same price as the United States Navy's own requirements in accordance with the Polaris sales agreement. The additional overheads and levies will be lower than would have been the case under our 1980 agreement to purchase Trident I C4. In particular, the so-called R&D levy will, in fact, be a fixed sum in real terms, and there will be a complete waiver of the facilities charge which was part of the C4 deal. I would emphasise to the House that the terms protect us completely from development cost escalation. Finally, the United States will waive certain of the Buy American Act provisions and set up a liaison office in London in order to advise British industry on how they can compete—on equal terms with United States industry—for subcontracts for weapon system components for the D5 programme as a whole, including the American programme.

"When I appeared before the House of Commons Defence Committee I made it clear that the range of options which we still had to study for the Trident system, over and above the total cost of £5,000 million then given, could be confined within an additional £1,000 million at 1980 prices and exchange rates—and so it will.

"On this basis the initial capital costs of the Trident II D5 missile system will be an extra £390 million above the Trident I C4 missile system which represents an addition of about 7 per cent. to the total cost. And we have now decided also to fit the latest propulsion system, the British pressurised water reactor 2, already under development, and improved sonar systems which together with the larger hull will add about a further £500 million to the cost, which will mean additional work for British industry but within the £1,000 million total increase. These changes will greatly improve the efficiency and the quietness of the submarines: as a result we are planning to run our submarines for around 7 years between refits so that the availability of the submarines for patrol can be greatly increased. This will allow us to maintain three boats in the operating cycle for a high proportion of the time. The Trident II D5 missile should also have an in-tube life within the submarine of at least seven years, a much longer period than for Polaris, thus greatly reducing maintenance which will be largely carried out on board.

"At September 1980 prices, therefore, we will spend on Trident about £6,000 million. Updating the price basis to September 1981, which reflects a much lower exchange rate than in September 1980, adds a total of about £1,500 million. So the total cost over the procurement period will, at 1981 prices, be £7,500 million against an estimated total defence budget over the same period of approaching £250,000 million; that is, just over 3 per cent. of the total defence budget. This means we will spend on Trident at current prices an average of somewhat under £500 million a year against total defence spending of £14,000 million a year.

"I am making available now in the Vote Office a document explaining the Government's decision, which also shows on page 8 how the cost of Trident compares with the anticipated capital expenditure on our conventional forces. This information has not been published before. From this it can be seen that Trident expenditure over the next 15 years is a far smaller amount than our planned expenditure on equipment for our major conventional capabilities, such as anti-submarine warfare or offensive air operations. With the 3 per cent. growth in the defence budget until 1985–86, several billions of pounds extra in real terms will still be available to spend on our conventional defences in future years.

"Mr. Speaker, for about 3 per cent. of the defence budget we will be modernising the British independent nuclear force that successive Governments have considered to be essential for our national security over the past 30 years. Nothing has happened to change that need—rather the reverse.

"The Government remain convinced that no other choice but Trident will provide a credible nuclear deterrent into the year 2000 and beyond; no other use of our resources could possibly contribute as much to our security and the deterrent strength of NATO as a whole. To choose a system lacking in credibility to an aggressor or, still more, to abandon unilaterally a capability we have now maintained for three decades, would be a futile gesture that would serve to increase rather than diminish the risk of war".

My Lords, that ends the Statement. May I mention to the House that the two documents mentioned—the exchange of correspondence as a White Paper, and the second open document on the Trident programme; the first was in 1980—are now available.

My Lords, the House is grateful to the Minister for the Statement, which is one of great importance and will need careful study. I have quickly looked at the White Paper, if I may call it that, and it is a document which also needs careful study. This Statement is the second of great importance this week, the other being the Budget itself. Indeed, this Statement can be seen as part of the Budget Statement, for the Budget was formulated with the Government's defence priorities very much in mind.

May I ask the Minister: does he not accept that if Britain, or, indeed, any other world power, uses or threatens to use a nuclear capability independently, other countries will seek the same right, with all the terrible consequences for the rest of mankind? Taken with a Statement made a few days ago about reserve forces, which the Government admitted had run rather low, does this not indicate that the Government are paying less attention to conventional forces and much more to the nuclear?—a situation which will alarm some of us, in that we may go nuclear right from the start of an emergency.

Before we get committed to this new stage, had there better not be much more effort to get the SALT talks going again and to press for mutually balanced force reductions on all sides, in order to avoid escalation? I should like to know the progress being made on that front and on the Geneva talks. I had a promise from Ministers that they would give further information about how these talks have progressed.

Is not this kind of independent defence potential rather contrary to the collective security that we have as members of the NATO alliance, where members should contribute to the whole according to their means, not seeking to emulate each other in what can be done alone, with all the risks involved? May I ask the Minister what consultations have taken place with our NATO allies? Will the Minister say more about the job situation in this country in the joint effort with the United States? Also, what cost escalation does he anticipate over the development and production period to the cost, also, of other priorities? I hope that I may have answers on those points.

My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware that this project is absurdly unsuitable and extravagant for this country? Is he also aware that greater priority will be given to our conventional forces by an Alliance Government, which would have little hesitation in cancelling this project? Is he aware that three of the four political parties in this country strongly oppose the project, that not all the members of his own party are supporting it and that strong reservations are felt about it in the armed services, which have the closest understanding of the disastrous effect in the long-term that it will have on our conventional strength? Will the Minister tell the House, not what proportion of the cost of the total budget it is but what proportion of the total equipment budget it will be, in which year that proportion reaches its maximum, and what that maximum is? Finally, is the Minister aware that it cannot be right to launch a hush national defence project like this on the basis of such narrow political support?

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition and the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, for keeping their comments brief on such a very important subject. I am sure that we shall discuss it in the future. The noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, asserted that if a future Government were made up of other parties they would not be in favour of this and would cancel it. Since my right honourable friend was in balk, so to speak, for quite some while before the Americans made their decision on their nuclear deterrent and we were thus able to have discussions with them and make our own decisions, I hope that Members opposite, and their parties, will not make up their mind until they have looked at the facts. I believe that some reactions are tantamount to saying, "I've made up my mind; don't confuse me with the facts".

The noble Lord, Lord Peart, suggested that proliferation could result from this decision. The Statement makes it very clear that we are but maintaining and modernising (as we have had to do before) what successive Governments have done. We do not believe that the maintenance of our existing position—a position, in terms of strategic missiles, of some 3 to 4 per cent. of the Russian quantity of strategic missiles—will be a cause of proliferation. The position would be different if we were to go out, and it would have dangers which are recognised by the whole of NATO and by the United States.

Turning to the noble Lord's point about consultation with the allies, we have consulted them about Trident, as I have made clear in this House on previous occasions—and so has my right honourable friend. Our allies were aware that we were discussing with the United States the form of the Trident missile which we would take.

So far as the very important and strongest member of the NATO alliance is concerned, noble Lords will have an opportunity to read in the White Paper the views of President Reagan and of Secretary for Defense Weinberger, who both regard this move by us as of great importance and as strengthening the defensive NATO alliance for the free world. Both noble Lords mentioned the effect on our conventional forces. The Statement makes it clear that as a result of the policy of this Government our spend on conventional forces in the future will still go up by several billion pounds. That is against a 3 to 4 per cent. increase.

So far as the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, which related to the percentage of the equipment budget is concerned, the 3 per cent. becomes approximately 6 per cent. when expressed as the equipment budget. Regarding his question concerning the peaking of expenditure, the noble Lord will find in the open Government document a very helpful graph which shows this. However, let me say at this stage that the peaking is seen to be a little over 10 per cent. of the equipment budget, which compares with the peaking of Tornado at round about 17 per cent. of the equipment budget.

So far as the arms control talks are concerned, I have to say to the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition that we shall report from time to time on the progress of the arms control talks. We have said before that the fact that the arms control talks have got started at all is in part due to the firmness of the NATO alliance which has at last brought the USSR to the conference table. Finally, the possession and modernisation of this weapon which we have held for years is necessary in order to maintain a deterrent against any thoughts of aggression. I believe that this has been a powerful contribution to peace over the past 35 years.

My Lords, the Government are being both careful and clever in this negotiation and in their presentation of it. It seems to me that good negotiation has led to an advantageous deal, particularly as there is the prospect of much more work for this country than there was in the Polaris programme, and a much higher proportion of the work will be for both American and British forces. For this the Government would be congratulated if we wanted the product. However advantageous, though, the Government cannot be congratulated on a deal which obtains a product which we do not need. And 10 per cent. of the equipment budget at the peak is pretty high. I do not emphasise that as the gravest disadvantage. The Trident system itself is too big. Each boat is too big. Would not the Government agree that each boat, looked at in a certain light, is too big? There is a quantum in these matters and that quantum is too big. It is bad for disarmament. We need only a minimum deterrent. There is nothing minimum about Trident.

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but could he put his points in the form of a question and not make a speech? It is a Statement which we have just had.

My Lords, I apologise if I have got the custom of the House wrong. I thought it was in order for those speaking for parties to put their questions in the form of a statement, but as it is not I will proceed by putting them in the form of questions. Is not this vertical proliferation with a vengeance? Is it not time for Governments to cease acting unilaterally in the political sense in these vast defence purchases and to take, I do not say other parties but the House of Commons into their confidence at an earlier stage (which was not done on this occasion) thereby decreasing the risk of inflicting cancellations at a later stage, which can only be unwelcome to the armed forces?

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, suggests that this is a product which we do not need. I do not think a single suggestion has been made by his party, which includes in its leadership a number of those who have taken part in the independent deterrent decisions of the past, that we do not need a deterrent which is capable, in the opinion of all the experts, of producing the same degree of deterrent power as we have had in the past. In suggesting that all we need is a minimum deterrent, the noble Lord and many others outside the House are, I believe, guilty of wishful thinking.

Her Majesty's Government have examined and re-examined, as the open document makes clear, whether we could have an adequate degree of deterrence which would be credible as an independent deterrent at the end of the century, or in the next century, in any other, cheaper way. I hope that the noble Lord will read our reasoning in that document. Again I say that I hope we shall not have a situation in 1982 (which we have not previously had in this country regarding matters of defence, which are highly delicate—this touches on the point of consultation) where all the responsible parties do not look very closely at the alternatives which are offered. We have now put out two "open Government" documents on this subject, which is more than many other Governments have done in the past.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that there is a noticeable difference between the sensible, careful and considered position taken in this House by the official Opposition who, like all of us, would like an opportunity to study these two very detailed documents before coming to a final decision, and the Labour spokesman in the other place, who made instant and emotional threats to cancel the whole thing before there is time to make a study? The same view has been taken from the Liberal Benches in this House, surprisingly. Most of us would like time to consider this. Could my noble friend tell us how the 3 per cent. estimate for our deterrent compares with the similaestimate for the cost of the French independent deterrent? Does he have any figures to suggest how many jobs would result from this programme, not just at Vickers Barrow but also in the engineering industry, among contractors and sub-contractors, as a result of this ambitious project?

My Lords, I agree with the first part of my noble friend's remarks, as I have already made clear. With regard to expenditure by the French on their independent nuclear deterrent, the estimate we have is that they spend on their independent nuclear deterrent some 20 per cent. out of their total budget. With regard to jobs, we do not have a precise estimate. The Vickers Barrow line will continue into Trident submarine production following SSN production. There will be new capital equipment required and therefore an increase in jobs at the Vickers yard.

As far as jobs are concerned in relation to the particular opportunity for British firms to offer their goods in sub-contracts for the whole American D5 missile system, this entirely depends on industry. We shall take every step, and the American Administration has agreed to take every step, to try and make it possible, although in this highly specialised world it will not be easy, to compete on fair terms with our American counterparts.

My Lords, can the noble Viscount explain, in order that we may comprehend what this new system means, how many warheads we shall have, and what will be the yield of each warhead in kilotons or megatons? May I ask the noble Viscount if his Statement means that the Government are now reconciled to the prospect that the present escalating arms race will continue for 40 years? Does he seriously believe that we should live through those 40 years without the catastrophe of a nuclear war?

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, asks about the number of nuclear warheads. The Statement makes it clear that we plan, on current intentions, to have the same number of warheads as we would have had on the C4 system. We do not disclose the details of the size of the warhead, although I believe there is no major difference. As regards the "escalating arms race" as the noble Lord mentioned it, the United Kingdom has maintained its deterrent in a world in which modernisation requires change, and is not escalating. The Soviet Union has in all areas escalated very fast in recent years and that country's total defence spending has increased very greatly.

With regard to the noble Lord's question about whether we can see what he perhaps rightly called an armed truce situation continuing indefinitely, our answer is, no. Economics and the determination now being shown by the NATO defensive alliance are two things which provide a better opportunity for progress on arms control and reduction than there has ever been before. But the noble Lord must remember the figure I gave and keep the matter in perspective; this deterrent is equal to some 3 or 4 per cent. of the strategic weapons possessed by the Soviet Union.

My Lords, Are the Government aware that, in the opinion of many noble Lords on this side of the House, the one redeeming feature of their proposal to produce an expensive weapon which would be superfluous in the event of a war in which the Americans were on our side and useless if they were not is that, having opted for the more expensive version of Trident, they will have then to spend less during the initial stages, which will make it easier from the financial point of view for an incoming Government to cancel the project when they come to power in two years' time, as will doubtless be the case?

My Lords, the noble Lord suggests, as he has done many times before, that the possession of this kind of independent deterrent by us is useless. Yet, many noble Lords have pointed to what they regard as the excess levels of nuclear weapons in the world's armoury as a whole. One cannot have it both ways. The deterrent we have had in the past and the deterrent we mean to maintain is sufficient on its own to cause quite unacceptable damage to any aggressor. It is the key characteristic of an independent deterrent that it should have that power on its own, and it does have that power on its own. Provided that it does, it will never be used, because, in fact, this country will never be attacked in the way that will require that response.

The noble Lord described the D5 system as the "more expensive" system, as indeed I heard the BBC do last night—and the BBC had increased their estimate by £500 million by the 7 o'clock news this morning. The Statement makes it clear that the route we are following on a "through-life" basis is almost certainly less expensive than the C4 route would have been. I believe that for the percentage of budget which it represents, it will continue to provide the best deterrent value in the whole of our budget.

My Lords, we have now spent more than half an hour on this matter. I should like to suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Hill-Norton, who has been trying to speak since the very start of these proceedings, might now put his question and that we should then return to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill.

My Lords, I should like to ask—

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hill-Norton, has been trying to ask a question from the very moment that the Statement was concluded.

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness. I should like to ask the noble Viscount whether he and his colleagues—not only at the Ministry of Defence—will take exceptional steps to make quite certain that the arguments produced in the Statement by the Defence Secretary are widely disseminated throughout the country, because they are simply not understood—as almost all the questions asked in your Lordships' House this afternoon have made quite clear. May I further ask the noble Viscount that when doing so, he should make quite sure that the percentages occupied by other large programmes such as Tornado are drawn in comparison with the costs of this vital component of our defence policy?

Finally, may I ask the noble Viscount whether he may tell the House the extent to which the possession of an independent British nuclear deterrent is welcomed by our European Allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation? And perhaps I may say, as a critic of some aspects of the Government's defence policy, that I think this is the best news I have heard this year.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and gallant Lord for those questions and his final comment. I agree with the noble and gallant Lord that the position is not understood in the country. I have found, travelling up and down myself, that there is just no comprehension of the fact that the Trident cost has little or nothing to do at the present time with the problems of paying for modern weapons in the conventional area. The critics are chasing the wrong fox, and they are a fairly motley pack. I can assure the noble and gallant Lord—

My Lords, may I intervene to say this to the Minister. We all have a great respect for the noble Viscount, but I think that type of language is the wrong language to use.

My Lords, I am corrected by the noble Lord, and my old friend, if I may say so. I was referring to the critics up and down the country and not to noble Lords opposite. I think if the noble Lord looks at Hansard he will find that that is correct. The Tornado comparisons and the comparisons with the expenditure on other roles are clearly set out in the open Government document. A welcome from NATO was given by all countries at the time the basic Trident decision was taken. I think I have no more to say.

My Lords—

My Lords, I, of course, will be guided by the House in this matter. We could, of course, go on taking a great many more questions, and I recognise that this is a most important Statement, but we do have a great deal of other business to do this afternoon. I would have thought that now that we have been very nearly 40 minutes on this Statement it is time to move on to the next business. I would hope that that would be the view of the House.

My Lords, would not the noble Baroness the Leader of the House agree that the answer to the last supplementary question did open a whole new series of subjects and that it ought to be possible to challenge some of the statements made in that answer.

My Lords, of course it is a very big subject. There are a great many facets that cannot possibly be covered in the course of a Statement, or in questions following upon a Statement. I recognise that many noble Lords feel very strongly about this issue; we have had a lot of Questions in the House on it. I feel there will be other opportunities to discuss this matter, and I do think we should now move to the next business.

My Lords, is the noble Viscount the Minister aware that, subject to certain conditions, I welcome this Statement. The conditions are, first of all, that the Government, having taken the best advice and after mature consideration, have reached a decision, and I hope it will be the end of the controversy so far as the Government are concerned, although undoubtedly there will be certain implications. The other condition is this.

My Lords, the noble Lord is not asking a question; he is now on a second statement. I think we had concluded that the House now wished to return to other business. I think we should do that.

My Lords, I have ventured in the past to express opinions on this subject, and I have also been chairman of the House of Lords Study Group. I think I am entitled to express an opinion, but I am merely asking a question. My second question is this—

My Lords, while there are very many noble Lords on this side of the House, and I think on this side in general, who profoundly disagree with a great deal that the Government have said in this Statement, the House accepted the collection of views, taken by the noble Baroness the Leader of the House on three separate occasions, that the discussion on the Statement should conclude. Although I must say again that we disagree with a great deal of what the Government have said, I think we must abide by the conventions of the House.

had given notice of her intention to move Amendment No. 2:

I have been taken rather by surprise at the brevity with which the noble Baroness has introduced this. On my reading of this Amendment No. 3 when taken in conjunction with Amendment No. 4, which I think one is bound to do, it is really tantamount to introducing a licensing system for pop festivals. Before we go any further, may I ask the noble Baroness whether I am right in thinking that?

Yes, the Minister is right, but nevertheless even if there had not been an amendment following it we would have wanted to put in "or political" in any case. I may have made a mistake myself, but that is how it struck me. I was going to speak to them together, but I thought they were two separate things. I will carry on and speak to them together.

We must be in order. The Question before the Committee is that Amendment No. 2 be agreed to in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, "Page 2, line 14, leave out subsections (5) and (6)".

I am sorry. That amendment is not moved because it is consequential on the amendment which has just been lost.

moved Amendment No. 3:

Before calling this amendment, I should have put the Question, That Clause 1 stand part. Perhaps I may now do that. The Question is, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?

The amendment now proposed is in Schedule 1 at page 44, line 17, after "religious" insert "or political".

I should like to say briefly that I recognise the problem and the way in which the noble Baroness has tried to get round it. I think that what the noble Baroness and I, and many others of your Lordships, would want, is the introduction of some kind of control of entertainments which take place wholly or mainly in the open air, as they are at present controlled in Greater London. If one did not exclude political and religious meetings and bazaars and other harmless occupations of that kind, one would sweep a whole lot of perfectly commendable public entertainments into an area where they had to be licensed.

As I see it, the purpose of these two amendments is to say that an entertainment held wholly in the open air should be licensed except for the exceptions of a,

"religious or political meeting or service…as an incident to a bazaar, sale of work, garden party, fete",

and so on. Although I do not seek—I do not think that the noble Baroness seeks—to ban pop festivals, I do seek to give the local authority, if they have a licensing procedure, the opportunity of making a decision as far as the district is concerned in which the pop or similar festival is to take place, about whether they can cope with the kind of trouble that very often goes with these kinds of entertainments—for example, litter and other hazards. It seems to me that, although possibly this is a rather laboured way of doing it, as things stand at the moment the noble Baroness has found the best way of trying to deal with the matter.

I would like the Minister to explain to us (I am sure that he will try to do so) why what is good enough for Greater London—namely, the control of festivals of this kind—should not also be good enough for the provinces. Some of us have the good fortune to live in the provinces and think that we are at least entitled to equal concern about our lives being disrupted, or possibly being disrupted, by some of the more advanced pop festivals which, I understand, since the 1960s have passed, are not so frequent as they used to be.

On first reading the amendment one concluded that the noble Baroness was trying to press the Government—who were apparently in favour of religious meetings, but not in favour of political meetings—to broaden their outlook. If noble Lords think that religious meetings are no trouble and cause no difficulty, I would invite them to come to the part of the world where I live, because I can assure them that religious meetings can be even more noisy and even more troublesome than political meetings. The general purpose was to try to control in the provinces entertainments which take place wholly and mainly in the open air, and to make exceptions of the two groups of entertainments referred to. I have much pleasure in supporting the proposal which the noble Baroness has put before your Lordships' Committee.

I should like briefly to add a few words of support to the amendment on behalf of the Association of County Councils who I think were very glad to see this amendment before the Committee. In seeking such powers as have been very well described by the noble Baroness, the ACC would not be trying to stop pop festivals in any way, but merely to see that they are subject to proper control, to safeguard both those who take part and, of course, the local neighbourhood. In the past I believe that the Home Office has allowed quite a number of county councils to have such powers in various local Acts. It seems illogical if the Government are now going to oppose the amendment because they already have the powers. If the Bill goes through unamended a great many powers will lapse and several authorities which have taken the considerable time, trouble and expense to acquire these powers will, therefore, lose them. I hope very much that the Government will be sympathetic. On Second Reading we all understood that nothing contentious should be brought forward at this stage of the Bill. I do not believe that this is contentious and I hope that the Government can help us.

On Second Reading I spoke about what is the best way to reconcile the young music enthusiasts who want to have pop festivals with the interests of the local residents. The arguments for and against this being best achieved through the local authorities controlling pop festivals seem to me to be as follows. The major argument is that the cause of the pop festival could be very much strengthened if it were felt that the local residents' interests were represented by local authorities.

If I owned a field in Essex, for example, and a group of young people resembling very closely my own children, came and asked me if they could use my field to hold a pop festival in, I would immediately wish to know whether they were going to have help in organising the pop festival. I would like to think that there would be help as regards the traffic arrangements—which would be enormous—the litter arrangements and, indeed, the safety arrangements, which I think the Minister brought out when discussing Clause 1. Fire regulations and safety regulations, even out of doors, are something that should not be left in the hands of what is mainly a very youthful group of people. Therefore, as I say, I should have thought that the sympathy of local people, who would be very much affected by the holding of a pop festival, would be much stronger if they knew that the local authority was, in all honesty, representing their interests through organising the pop festival.

Of course, the arguments against are that in some places local authorities would be completely against such an activity and would wish to place an embargo on a pop festival. But, again, I do not think that this would be very probable. As the noble Viscount who preceded me said, it has not happened in Greater London. I do not think that there is very much scope for outright refusal. If, indeed, for some reasons a local authority did put an embargo on a pop festival, then, of course, there would be the right of appeal both to a magistrates' court and to the Crown court. So surely, as my noble friend Lady Birk said, the local authority would always want to lay down guidelines; these would state exactly where the festival should happen, its size, and the best arrangements that would fit in with the interests of the local authority.

Another point which has been made is that several local authorities have, indeed, gained powers to control festivals, and they have only just gained them at great expense and time. It would seem a strange anomaly if they were to approve the provisions of Schedule 6, under which they would lose such powers. After all, these young people indulge in what is a very popular activity, and compared to many of their activities it is an extremely harmless one. Therefore, on balance, I think that they would be better represented if local authorities had power to give them guidelines, and to steer these pop festivals through in the most harmless and peaceful way possible.

When we had a working party on pop festivals, it split down the middle as to whether we ought to be asking for legislation to license or whether we should leave things as they were. For my part, I can see no difficulty whatever in licensing for the genuine commercial pop festivals. But the problems will arise with the so-called "free" festivals, when they invade some farmer's land without asking permission; when there is no one person against whom one can issue writs or against whom one can put out summonses, or with whom one can negotiate. Once the negotiations become a little difficult, that person vanishes and one has to find another person.

Although I think that the licensing of commercial festivals would be workable and would probably be acceptable to local authorities, that will not solve the problem of the "free" festivals; and if they still take place, there will still be itinerant people moving around the countryside until they are able to persuade a farmer that it is in his interests to leave them alone and let them have their pop festival. Then someone has to pay for clearing up the ensuing damage. I only wish that we could find some form of co-operation between the people who run the "free" festivals and local authorities.

In our working party we decided that we could not recommend legislation at that time, but we hoped that there would be much more co-operation and, in a sense, a wider welcome by those who wanted to run "free" festivals, to try to do so with the co-operation of the organisers of the "free" festivals and the local authorities concerned. However, there is a tremendous amount of hostility to break down, which has built up over the years, before we can reach that situation. I hope that local authorities will go on trying to co-operate with the organisers of "free" festivals, and I hope that when local authorities are planning their leisure pursuits, they will also plan open spaces in which events like pop festivals can take place without causing too much annoyance to the countryside around and to the people who have to live in it. Although I think that there will be no problems at all as regards licensing legitimate and commercial festivals, I also think there will be tremendous problems in trying to license "free" festivals, and making it stick.

My Lords, when the Bill had its Second Reading, I and my noble friend Lord Bellwin gave assurances to your Lordships that the Government were considering whether it would be possible to introduce some sort of control with regard to pop festivals. Since then we have gone into this at some length and given detailed consideration to the problems. But I felt that we ought to hear the views expressed by your Lordships on these two amendments.

The Committee may think that that was not a very adventurous way of approaching the problem, but I think that the Government can be forgiven for hesitating. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, who has just spoken, of course, chaired a committee during the time of the previous Government. Although the noble Baroness had just told the Committee that her committee was split down the middle on this particular subject, none the less I think that the committee of the noble Baroness, under her skilful chairmanship, reached a main recommendation, that pop festivals should not be licensed. However, that was followed by a secondary recommendation, that if one local authority took private Act powers to control such festivals, the Government should make licensing powers available on a national basis.

I say that only to show that, clearly, there were different thoughts in the minds of the noble Baroness's committee and maybe in the mind of the noble Baroness herself. Probably, for very much the same reasons as persuaded her committee three or four years ago, the Government, again, were not entirely sure on this matter. If I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Evans, we are also not entirely sure when we look at the example of London, which the noble Lord put specifically to me. Arguably, the events which are permitted in London by the Greater London legislation are not confined to pop festivals, but are open-air concerts, no different from open-air classical music concerts, which also take place in London during the summer. In looking at the Greater London legislation, it is a little difficult to think that there is an obvious example which should be followed outside London.

Having said that, and having listened to the Committee debating this matter for the last 20 minutes, on behalf of the Government I should like to say that I accept that there is a case for some controls to be provided and I would be prepared to bring forward amendments on Report. I say that in no way wishing to sweep aside the amendments which the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and her noble friends are putting forward; but because I think that there are some matters in these amendments which perhaps need some attention. If I may say so, I do not think that the exemptions go quite wide enough in some respects. For instance, I do not think that music incidental to sporting events ought to be controlled, and I think that that is what would happen if these amendments go through unamended. Nor do I think that there should be an exemption for music incidental to political meetings, which, of course, is the subject of the first of the two amendments, as this would put local authorities in the invidious position of having to decide whether a meeting was primarily political or primarily musical. In other ways, the proposed controls are perhaps a little too wide.

Although local authorities are forced to make whatever reasonable licensing conditions they choose for indoor entertainments, we think that there is a case for restricting any powers which they might be given to control pop festivals to their basic aspects. In saying that, I am thinking particularly of the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, who felt that sensible, straightforward rules to ensure that proper standards to be followed by young people who want to have a pop festival would not be unreasonable; of the speech made by my noble friend Lord Ridley, who, if I may say so, said very much the same thing; and, indeed, of the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, who said that pop festivals should be conducted "in a civilised manner".

If we could go down that road, that would mean confining the licensing aspect to such things as public health, safety and noise, and the provision of access for emergency vehicles. I am also persuaded in this, bearing in mind the speech which the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, made earlier this afternoon, by the effect of the repeal of local legislation. Although it is interesting that the Isle of Wight legislation—which I believe is the only specific pop festival piece of private legislation to be found on the statute book—has never been used by the Isle of Wight, none the less there are about seven more important local authorities which have private legislation on the statute book—the noble Baroness is right on this point—which trenches on how to regulate outdoor entertainments.

If those pieces of legislation are to be removed by this Act, and it is being done because it is so terribly difficult to unpick the bits that relate to pop festivals from other bits in the local legislation, then it is arguable that those local authorities could say, "Well, we do look towards local government in this Bill to put something in its place." I should therefore like to make an offer to the Committee. If the noble Baroness would consider withdrawing the amendment, I should like to be allowed to take this matter away, and then, perhaps in correspondence with the noble Baroness and her noble friends, to put forward a suggestion for a Government amendment, or amendments.

If the noble Baroness and her noble friends, and other noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate, do not feel that the Government amendments are sensible, provided there is time we would have a meeting to see whether we could thrash out an agreement, and then get an amendment down on the Marshalled List for Report which might command the acceptance of the whole House. That is the offer that I should like to make. I hope that it will help to take the matter forward.

May I make one short comment on what the noble Lord said. First, to welcome it very much, and to ask him, if he is thinking of extending the exemptions, to bear in mind military tattoos as another possibility.

Certainly.

May I draw attention to one small matter. These two amendments that we are talking about relate to two quite different matters. The first amendment—and the noble Baroness who moved the amendment I think did not refer to this at all—

I did.

If the noble Baroness did, I beg her pardon. I did not hear it. The first amendment is to insert the words "or political" after "religious". If I understood what the noble Lord was saying from the Front Bench, he is disinclined at the moment to accept that. When he comes to reconsider the whole matter, I hope he will think better of that. It is an important matter. If the political meetings are not included, then it would be dangerous for the Labour Party to conclude their conferences by singing the "Red Flag", because that would clearly be incidental to a political meeting. They would be opening themselves to penalties for not having applied for a licence. I hope that the noble Lord will in due course consider that it is right to include political meetings.

He was saying that it would be difficult to decide in any particular case whether a political meeting was mainly for musical purposes or only incidentally. I do not think that that difficulty arises because in Schedule 1 the relevant paragraph would read:

"performed as an incident to a religious or political meeting or service".

It seems to me that there would be no greater difficulty in dealing with a political meeting than in dealing with a religious service, because in each case the music has only to be incidental.

I should like to thank the Minister for that helpful and generous reply. I am afraid what happened on the first amendment was that I got into a bit of a muddle over the amendment and I moved it briefly before one that should have been moved previously, so perhaps it was not heard. I hope that the Minister will be persuaded by what the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has said, which was really on the lines on which I was going to speak. We are talking about a political meeting with music as well as a religious meeting with music; not a musical meeting with religion, or a musical meeting with politics.

I agree that to open this out more would improve it. As I indicated, this was more of a probing amendment, to see whether we could find something. It was an amendment that I certainly would not have been happy with myself had the Government accepted it in its present form. The important thing is to try to find some means by which much greater mutual trust and co-operation is established between people who are trying to organise these things and the authorities on the other side. Could one try to do that.

We know from what the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, has said, that it is difficult to bring this about. I know that from my experience at the Department of the Environment. But I hope we could do it From what the Minister said about access and keeping down to the practical critieria, and things which are of importance both to residents and to the people participating themselves in the festival we might go a long way. I am grateful to the Minister. It is with great pleasure that I withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 5:

I understand the concern which the noble Baroness expressed and I assure her that I was aware that such concern existed. However, I am rather worried by the amendment. This is an area of social control where the issues are complex and sensitive and it is necessary to consider how far it is right to interfere with business activities which are not inherently unlawful and to consider the extent of the mischief complained of, the scale of interference which might justifiable and the effectiveness with which the proposed controls might be enforced. I do not intend to go into those matters in depth; in fact, I shall pick out only one of them, and the noble Baroness, Lady David, talked about the extent of the mischief complained of.

I do not know to what extent the troubles about which she told the Committee are a social menace. I take absolutely what she said as being the case, but in my mind is the fact, as the Committee will know, that crazes sweep the country from time to time, and it is possible that playing on video machines may be one of those. A few years ago it was difficult to pick one's way down the street with safety without being bowled over by somebody on a skate board. We do not see many skate boards today, but we do see an enormous number of young prople on roller skates. Suppose, in our wisdom, Parliament had decided to pass some form of legislation to do with skate boards. We might have looked as though we were a little out of date a couple years later. What, in effect, I am saying therefore is that we might just find in only a year or two from now that we wished, instead of legislating for video machines we had legislated for something else.

There is another point which might lead the sponsors of the amendment to consider the matter further. It is slightly odd from a drafting point of view that the amendment should have been put in with a subsection dealing with public contests—exhibitions, displays of boxing, wrestling, judo, karate and similar sports—and therefore from a drafting point of view another subsection would probably have been desirable. On those grounds, the noble Baroness might wish to think further about the matter and ponder whether we might be falling into the trap of legislating for a passing phase. She mentioned the honourable gentleman Mr. George Foulkes who, in another place, had a Bill under the 10 minute rule procedure to do what the amendment seeks to do. Leave was refused to that Bill, and possibly another place had the same thoughts that passed through my mind on looking at the amendment.

I have listened carefully to the Minister's reply. I am prepared to accept that the drafting is not ideal and that the amendment may not have been applied to the most correct place in the Bill. I am not altogether convinced that it is a passing phase. Too much money is made from these machines for the people running them to let them go out of fashion; they will find different sorts of games to play and will keep the craze going in that way. As gaming machines are dealt with in legislation, it would not seem different to deal with these machines. However, I shall read in the Official Report what the noble Lord said and consider whether to return with a slightly different amendment on Report. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 7:

I should like to support the noble Baroness in her amendment. If I may declare my interest, I would say that I am the president of the parish councils' association for the county in which I live—Devon. Over the years your Lordships' House has tended to forget the importance of the parish as a unit and in particular its village hall, and I believe that the amendment is one way in which the balance can be slightly restored. The tendency towards centralised rule is a great mistake, and I should like to quote a story told by my late noble friend Lord Amory. When several years ago he was talking on a local government Bill, he gave an example of two neighbouring parishes in Devon where they were considering amalgamating. One councillor got up and said, "Us don't want to have nothing to do with they there roundheads".

The history of a parish is of special local significance to people in the parish and generally the parish hall has been built by the local people. In more recent years some village halls have received government grants in aid. Some of your Lordships might remember that we had a little trouble, luckily settled in the time of the late Government by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson. A local parish had collected all the money due to it under the grant system, and then the Government proposed to abolish the system, which would have meant many more years work for the parish. I hope that the Government will accept the amendment because it would add to the local sense of responsibility for the parish hall. It would also remove a grievance felt by local people that others, higher up, are trying to tell them how they should organise their own affairs. The Government should accept the amendment.

Does not the Minister consider that, as drafted, the Bill reduces the privilege of charities? Bearing in mind what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, and the noble Lord who has just spoken, I would point out that those of us who are very much engaged in raising money for charities are all too aware of the great problems facing us at present with VAT. To have imposed yet another problem would lead to real difficulties for charities, two aspects of whose work I would mention. One aspect is the involvement of the local community in the charity and its precepts, and the other is the fun of living in a village and being able to run these kind of affairs. Therefore, I support the noble Baroness in the amendment.

I should like very briefly to support the noble Baroness in her amendment. As chairman of the trustees of the village hall in my village, I sympathise very much with the tone of her amendment. Our village hall is of course a charity. I come fresh from rasiing about £5,000 in order to repair the roof and redecorate the hall, and this has been quite a mighty effort for a small village. We received a grant of about £500 towards it; so we had to raise £4,500 ourselves. We did it all right, and it was no bad thing that everybody took part in the effort.

The fact is that the village hall is the centre of the life of the village and everything depends on keeping it going. The noble Baroness is quite right—it is a real struggle to keep a village hall going. From time to time you have to have a whip round to raise the money for any major expense. Therefore, the last thing the village halls want to be faced with is an additional fee, even in a small matter such as this. So I hope that my noble friend will aceept the amendment and insert in the Bill the word "shall" instead of the word "may".

I should like to add my voice to the universal support for the amendment which has been so well moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman. I speak as president of the community council of my own county of Northumberland, where we have at least 150 village halls, all of which are run by charitable trusts. They have been built with charitable funds and are run by charity. People who run the halls are frightened of the Bill as it stands.

They feel that it would make a considerable difference to the potential fees that a local authority could charge. I shall not repeat the arguments that have been so well presented to the Committee, but I think that it would be universally popular if the Government can accept the amendment.

I understand that in a certain part of the country—I am not able to say where—a local athority has apparently stated that when it receives the powers under the Bill, it intends to raise the fee for a licence for public entertainment to £100. That would of course be possible under the Bill as it stands, and that is why I strongly support the amendment and hope that the Government will give way to what looks like universal pressure to accept it.

I fear that I shall introduce a rather different note into the discussion. I want to ask some questions about the matter, since I am slightly worried about it. In general my heart is with the amendment, but I think that the situation is not quite as simple as it appears. All noble Lords who so far have taken part in the debate have spoken as though the amendment refers only to village halls—and with that aspect I have no quarrel at all. I think that village halls should be let free of charge and the licence fee should be remitted on every occasion.

The schedule refers to,

"any part of such fee where in the opinion of the authority the entertainment in question…is of an educational or other like character; or… is given for a charitable or other like purpose".

I take it that that applies to any building within the area of the local authority and any event which is of an educational or charitable nature. I am looking for the maximum discretion for local authorities and for help for the voluntary organisations as well, and I understand that for many authorities the actual licensing will be a new function. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, referred to various authorities. I have here a list of them—taken from the 1980 Acts. Presumably such authorities would continue to remit the licence fees.

What worries me is whether the definition of charity would cover registered charities. I do not think that any of us should like to see a situation in which licence fees were remitted for an organisation which went under the cover of charity or semi-charity and which in fact ought to be making its own contribution. Does the proposal take into consideration the size of the charity? If the noble Viscount is right—I have no reason to believe he is not—and the fees are to be as high as he mentioned, and if there is no question of a mandatory remit (I shall be a little worried unless that point is clarified further) then some of the smaller charities could be put to great expense.

I am thinking of this on two grounds. I think that certainly the village hall ought somehow to be exempted from licensing anyway—that is one thing. Then, when we get to the other charities and educational purposes, there is a much wider field there. I do not know whether the Minister could answer some of the questions I have raised on that point.

The first thing I should like to say is that I appreciate the concern which the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, has expressed so far as village halls are concerned in relation to Schedule 1, paragraph 5, and indeed which every single Member of the Committee expressed until, quite rightly, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, put her finger on the fact that the debate had been perhaps couched in rather narrower terms than the effect of the amendment. I agree with the noble Baroness in that.

May I secondly say that I am sure that councils would in practice use their discretion properly so far as educational or charitable bodies are concerned, and it is certainly the Government's intention that they should do so. But I am a little concerned that the authorities should not be prevented from keeping fees when the entertainment is organised by a body which could perhaps very well afford to pay a licence fee. In that respect, perhaps I could just say to my noble friend Lord Ridley that my understanding is that the fees asked in Greater London, for instance, are nothing of the order or of the kind that my noble friend has been led to understand could be asked for the licensing of a village hall.

Having said that, the views expressed have been so overwhelmingly of one kind in this debate that I feel I really must respond by giving an undertaking, which I am going to give, that if the noble Baroness would agree to withdraw the amendment we will certainly do something so far as village halls are concerned. I give that undertaking. Secondly, I ask that the noble Baroness might consider withdrawing the amendment because I am a little worried about the second amendment, No. 8, which could have the effect, I think, of enabling some organisation which is by no stretch of the imagination charitable—it might be any organisation that one could think of—using the premises of a charitable body and then saying that of course it should fall totally outside the scope of licensing and not have to pay a fee at all. I would go no further this evening but say that I think that really is something which would make one want to hesitate and think a little more before one wrote that sort of provision into the Bill.

Finally, may I come back to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, who drew attention to the fact that the amendments would be a good deal wider than the village hall point. Indeed they would, and it is because I think the Government would want to consider seriously exactly where we would try to draw the line that I should like a little further time to think. I repeat the undertaking I have given, that we must and we will do something so far as village halls are concerned. I think it is possible we can go a bit wider than that, but how wide I am not sure. If the noble Baroness will give me the time to do so, we shall try to think.

Could I ask the noble Lord the Minister to bear something in mind when he is considering village halls—and I go along with the sympathy which has been expressed in that regard? In the large urban areas there are big housing estates where they have what is called the small tenants' hall which serves exactly the same purpose as the village hall. All I would ask is that perhaps the definition of a village hall might embrace that kind of hall as well in the noble Lord's considerations.

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for offering to take this back and have a look at it. I could not possibly refuse the invitation to withdraw my amendment and let him do that. I hope that perhaps we may get together before the next stage of the Bill.

Yes, I will of course write to the noble Baroness.

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment

moved Amendment No. 9:

I thank the Minister for replying to the point I made. I must point out that the magistrates in the areas where they have the authority to give licences go round and inspect places, and they go round with experts from the local authority. Particularly if it is a new building, the magistrates see it and the local authorities also are asked by the magistrates, and, very often, by the police, about the safety side. I can see the Government will not budge on this aspect, but, please, do not let us have some unnecessary—and I am sure the noble Lord is not meaning to do this—and misleading reasons for turning this down.

As there has been a great deal of stress on the question of fire possibilities, I should be grateful if the Minister would have it on record that the fire services will be consulted—not that the local or district councils have to take heed of them but that they will consult them—and that it is considered that the fire authority and, therefore, the fire service are the responsible bodies for fire safety matters. I think the fire service would like to have this on record.

May I say a word or two in support of fire precautions? It is some time since I was actively engaged in practice before a magistrates' court, but my recollection of licensing law is—and I think it is the same today as when I was practising—that whenever an application is made for the grant of a licence, or whenever an application is made by a licensed premises for some physical alteration in the premises, it is incumbent upon the magistrates to take the opinion of the fire officers upon the proposed alterations or upon the state of the premises as a whole. Therefore, I cannot see there is very much virtue in the argument which the noble Lord was making. As far as I know, these arrangements, which have been in existence for a long time, have worked satisfactorily and there is no reason to support that the magistrates are not a satisfactory body for making decisions of that kind.

The other matter is the point made by the noble Lord about the right of appeal. With respect, again I see no merit in that point. He says that under the provisions of the Bill, if an applicant is refused a licence, he will have a right of appeal to somebody—forget whom; I think it was the magistrates and the Crown court. It would be simple to provide a right of appeal against the refusal of the magistrates and a right of appeal to the Crown court. That could simply be done and that would follow the ordinary course of proceedings before a magistrates' court, where on most matters, if there is a right of appeal at all, it is a right of appeal to the Crown court. Of course, the Crown court being in the locality it would have the capacity to decide a matter of that kind as much as any local authority.

Another matter—it was I think the noble Lord's first point—also seems to have little or no merit. If I understood him rightly, the noble Lord said that it is not universal throughout the land for the licensing of music and dancing to be in the hands of the licensing magistrates. He said that where that prevails it is as a result of some local legislation or, in some cases, the licensing power is already in the hands of the local authority.

Let us accept that that is so. What the amendment of the noble Baroness would do is make the system of licensing by the justices universal throughout the country. It would get rid of the noble Lord's difficulty altogether. The licensing of places for music or dancing would then be the prerogative of the magistrates. Nobody would have to go elsewhere. It is noticeable—is it not?—that when the noble Lord was responding to the noble Baroness he was suggesting that she was wrong. For the moment what I was going to say has escaped my mind. I am inclined to go on speaking until it comes back!

To try and sum the matter up, the three main reasons which the noble Lord advanced seem to have little or no merit. What I meant to say has now come back to me. The point made by the noble Baroness which the noble Lord did not answer was as follows. If one is going to carry through the provisions of the Bill as it now stands, one is going to have this absurd situation, that in many cases people will have to go to the licensing justices for one licence and go to the authority for another one. It was noticeable that the noble Lord, no doubt taking reasonable precautions, did not go into that matter at all.

I suggest that we are entitled to have some kind of answer upon that matter which is one of very considerable importance. The system of licensing places for music and dancing has been in the hands of the licensing justices, where is has prevailed, for very many years. So far as I can remember, that has been substantially the situation during the whole of my lifetime. I do not know that anybody up to now has ever complained that it does not work. I do not know that anybody has ever suggested that the system does not work or is antiquated or does not meet the modern world. No arguments of that kind have been advanced; but for some reason or other, presumably in order to bring uniformity into the system and to deal with public entertainment in the same way as it is proposed to deal with sex establishments, it is proposed to abandon a system which has worked perfectly well over the years and to introduce something new and, in doing so, to introduce all the complications of having two authorities which are giving out licences for the same kind of premises.

We are treading over familiar ground because we debated this earlier on, I say in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Foot, that we are not debating uniformity for its own sake; we are debating the principle of uniformity because the Government believe and the local authorities feel that on grounds of public safety in a modern world it really is necessary to have some standards which can be relied upon, particularly with very large gatherings of people for public entertainment in a modern world, if one happens to be meeting in one end of the country or the other.

I am sure that the noble Lord will not think I am being discourteous when I say that his very skilful speech consisted of points which are a matter of opinion. The noble Lord and I would disagree on the points which he put forward. What is a matter of fact is that if we are to have a system of licensing, what has become quite clear this afternoon is that some justices in the country would accept to become the licensing authorities, and some justices would not. The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, very fairly made this absolutely clear at the beginning, of the proceedings of the Committee.

However, the Association of District Councils have made it clear to the Government that the district councils would accept the licensing function if it was placed upon them by statute. The noble Baroness asked me one direct question: the position of the fire service in all this. May I direct the attention of the noble Baroness to Schedule 1 paragraph 4(4) where the following is set out:

"In considering any application for the grant, renewal or transfer of an entertainments licence, the appropriate authority shall have regard to any observations submitted to them by the chief officer of police and by the fire authority".

I said in the light of earlier discussions that at this stage this was a probing amendment to find out the Government's views and whether they had progressed any further since Second Reading. Therefore I shall be withdrawing my amendment at this time. I shall read Hansard and consult with those who supported me this afternoon to see whether we can come back at the next stage with a further amendment and hope to put a little more pressure on the Government.

From my knowledge of the fire service in my own locality, they are always consulted as a matter of course by the magistrates whenever they are considering licences, when they are looking at new hotels, looking at new halls and that kind of thing. The fire officer is there in person, not just the certificate. The fire officer is there in order to look at the fire prevention and security side. I am sure that this procedure is generally carried out over the country. I am glad to see that it is written into the Bill, and whoever finally finishes up as the licensing authority will have to consult with the fire service. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment at this stage.

The Question is that Schedule 2 be the second schedule to the Bill. An amendment by Baroness Birk?

I shall not move this amendment.

moved Amendment No. 10:

moved Amendment No. 11:

I have to advise your Lordships that, if this amendment is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendments Nos. 12 and 13.

I should like to support the amendment put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, inspired no doubt to a considerable extent by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent. I should like to speak a little more plainly about these sex shops than many of your Lordships seem ready to do. I visited one the other day—I visited a number some years ago—and I am under the impression that very few of your Lordships have made such visits. I did meet one noble Lord this afternoon who had, but he was employed to visit them in a somewhat professional capacity. But there is a strange sort of embarrassment about visiting these places, and we have discussed the whole matter in terms of self-determination of local government, and such topics.

In my opinion, sex shops in almost every case would be a social evil. I think anyone who went into one and anyone who saw one or two of the gadgets that I have brought away—I shall not produce them to your Lordships—would agree that they are instruments of perversion. We can perhaps all feel sorry for a happily married couple who are unable to perform the sexual act and need a little stimulation; but that is not the stock-in-trade of a sex shop. There, anybody who goes into one and looks round will find himself being asked whether he wants to put on a harness and that kind of thing. So that anyone will realise we are dealing with very shocking enterprises.

I say nothing about the motivation. The motivation is just making money, which I suppose is respectable—even making profits is something one cannot exactly despise—but here it is making money out of human weakness and stirring up human lust in a perverse direction. As far as I am concerned, every step that can be taken in this Chamber to make it difficult to buy these things is a step in the right direction. No doubt a number of tactical issues will arise here, but I would only say that I support the amendment and I hope it will prevail.

I should like to follow the noble Earl who has just sat down by supporting this amendment very strongly. whether the Government choose to accept it as it stands or whether they are going forward on their own line, I feel that some amendment of this kind is very necessary, although I agree that the necessity for it hangs on whether or not you consider sexual promiscuity to he a bad thing. There are those who will say that that is merely a matter of personal opinion. but I cannot agree with that. There are certain things that are definitely good and others that are bad, which cannot be questioned as a matter of personal opinion.

I do not think anybody could question that what has happened to our nation as a whole, since some Minister of Education—I cannot remember who it was—decided that sex education should be introduced in our schools, is a bad thing. Abortions have absolutely soared in number; sexual attacks are a matter of everyday news; crimes associated with sexual motives are heard of everywhere, and the damage done to family life has been absolutely irreparable. Therefore, I certainly think that it is a very bad thing.

There is nothing in this amendment to force local authorities to impose a total ban. I know that we do not want to live in a police state, but I cannot help voicing a slight private opinion that I sincerely hope that many authorities will take advantage of this right to impose a ban. The question of the freedom of the individual is often raised. As I said, we do not want total police control of our thoughts or actions, but on freedom of speech there is such a thing as slander and total freedom of speech is, of course, controlled by that.

Are we going to allow local authorities to set up colleges of burglary or something like that? Is burglary a good or a bad thing? Is that merely a matter of opinion? Or, perhaps, they could start courses on slander and libel. Are those bad things or merely a matter of opinion? Or, possibly, they could have courses on shoplifting. I do not know whether or not that is considered a bad thing. But there is such a thing as a definite standard of good or had, which is beyond just a personal opinion. Therefore, I sincerely hope that the Government will either accept this amendment or themselves take steps along the same lines.

I should like to follow the noble Lord, Lord Somers, because it is time that somebody said he was not in favour of this amendment. Many of the things which the noble Lord, Lord Somers, has said are incontrovertible, are, in fact, controvertible. To equate sex with burglary seems to be a somewhat false analogy. I oppose the amendment, but not because I am against the Bill; the purpose, of the Bill seem to me to be wholly admirable. That these establishments should be brought under control is something with which we on this side of the House will, I am sure, wholly agree. But what is proposed by the amendment is to change the nature of the Bill.

Instead of bringing establishments under control, it will have the effect of giving power to abolish them. The noble Lord and I might disagree about whether or not this is desirable. But what is incontrovertible, if I may adopt the noble Lord's word, is that this amendment is outside the Short Title, and even, I think, the Long Title of the Bill, and in another place it would not be accepted for debate because, in my submission, it is out of order. The limitations of the Bill are quite clearly set out. This is not a Bill to deal with obscenity, as the noble Lord implied. This is a Bill to give local government certain powers. It is a miscellaneous provisions Bill.

If we were engaged in the business of altering the obscenity laws—and many of us think that that ought to be done—we should have a Bill to do just that. But what the Government seek to do in this Bill, and I support them, is to bring these establishments under control and make it possible for local authorities to regulate establishments within their areas, in such a way as may seem appropriate to them. I want to suggest to the noble Lord that what might be appropriate in Soho is hardly appropriate in Sussex. Therefore, what one set of councillors may decide was in order, so far as they were concerned, would be totally out of order in another area. What the Bill seeks to do is to regulate, according to the circumstances of the case. For this reason, it seems that the Government have it right in the Bill and that the amendment has it wrong, so I hope that your Lordships will not carry the amendment.

My noble friend said the other day to me "If you didn't exist, you would have to be invented". That is no longer true, because, following my noble friend Lord Jenkins, there are at least two of us who are opposing this amendment. I am sure that we are not alone, or we ought not to be alone, in thinking that the constant indulgence of ageing noble Lords in this House in condemnation of the sexual activities of others is really a little unseemly I have said before that we have no qualifications for it, either by age or by current experience. So I think we might leave it to others who have a closer interest in what we are talking about—

May I interrupt the noble Lord for one moment? Would he also consider the constant efforts of noble Lords—ageing noble Lords, perhaps—in this House, myself included, to abolish cruelty to animals a bad thing?

That deals with the conduct of other people in inflicting cruelty on other species, which is an entirely different matter, morally and politically. But here we are dealing with sexual activity, which is on the human plane and relates to the conduct of individuals. This is another example of a lot of people getting worked up over sex and panicking into repressive legislation.

I am not going to anticipate what the Government's amendments mean—whether nil is a number, anyway, or what is the definition of a "locality". I shall therefore, concentrate on the amendment which is just plain suppression. That is really what it amounts to, and one of the duties of your Lordships' House, on which we are qualified, is to safeguard the liberty of the subject. That is one of our important roles.

The plausible case for this amendment, though I do not think it has yet been put in quite this form, is that it fortifies local democracy. People in a particular area should be able to judge for themselves, through their elected representatives, whether or not they have sex shops in their locality. But I doubt whether local authorities have the representativeness and the real authority, in all cases, to reach the kind of decision that they are allowed to reach under this amendment. Local authorities cannot totally ban licensed premises. Local authorities cannot ban betting shops, slaughterhouse, riding stables or even the obscenities of butchers' shops. All those are lawful activities, and no local authority can ban them completely. They may be given the power to license, and that implies some control, some discretion. But even then there are checks against abuses.

If noble Lords had served, as I did, for three years on the Royal Commission on standards of conduct in public life, they would have heard a good deal of evidence about the tyranny of local authorities, with a built-in majority lasting for years and years for one political party. It is dangerous to allow even an elected local authority to have absolute power. Some check on the abuse of that power is essential in the interests of liberty. That is why the right of appeal is given against refusal of licences in other connections.

Licences generally are for regulation and control. A moment ago, my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney referred to the implication of this amendment: that it is for prohibition, not for regulation and control. This section of the Bill deals with regulation and control, not with prohibition. I doubt whether, off the cuff, one could think of any lawful activity which it is within the power of a local authority totally to ban without the right of appeal. I do not know of one. I think a very dangerous principle is embodied in this amendment.

I said a moment ago that I am strongly in favour of banning activities which may involve cruelty to animals, to children, or to anybody. Cruelty is perhaps the greatest crime of all. But we are not dealing with cruelty. Therefore the amendment must be firmly rejected. The Bill is littered with authority for local authorities to issue licences. It is all about the issue of licences. It is not about prohibition.

Another point against this amendment is that it is discriminatory. In making by-laws the Home Office are always careful to guard against by-laws being made which discriminate unfairly as between one section of the community and another, or between certain interests in the community and others. The aim is to keep some kind of balance. Control, Yes, but not prohibition. When I deal on Monday with the County of Lancashire Bill, we shall be looking at the principles which the Home Office have followed in deciding whether or not to confirm by-laws which local authorities wish to introduce. Therefore this amendment is to be rejected on all counts.

If I may be permitted to say just a word or two about the movers of this amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, has had his great parliamentary triumph. His finest hour was on seat belts. Why does he go in search of another? Why can he not rest on his laurels and leave this new battle to be fought, if I may say so by more juvenile hands? Coming to the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, his triumph was in getting through your Lordships' House on two occasions a most comprehensive Bill of reform for the protection of laboratory animals. His triumph has not yet come. When the Government legislate, that will be his finest hour. Why can he not wait patiently for it instead of chasing after new notoriety, new fame, new grandeur in parliamentary affairs? If I may say so with great respect, I think that both should retire from this sex business—and allow me to retire from it, too.

I think it is time that somebody spoke again in support of the amendment, and I should like to do so. But I support it faute de mieux, because I am sorry that the Government, to which the people of this country look for a lead in these matters, will not ban sex establishments outright. But half a loaf is, after all, better than no bread.

The demand for sex establishments comes from a very small section of the population. The majority of people in this country are decent people, contrary to what one might suppose from reading the newspapers. Are their wishes, their feelings, the welfare of their children and the safety of their wives and daughters to be disregarded because a few depraved people want these establishments, and others have discovered that they can make fortunes by catering for them? If everyone must always have everything he wants, however harmful to himself and to others, why do we not have laws enabling local authorities to license opium dens and the sale of hard drugs? My noble friend Lord Somers has given some other instances, and I think he is quite right. That argument just does not hold water. Make no mistakes: the aim of these establishments is to stimulate desires which then require satisfaction, and assault and rape are frequently the means by which they are satisfied.

In the 10 years after pornography became easily available, rape—which had begun to decline in the early 1960s—increased by over 100 per cent. Every day now we read of cases, and those are only the ones which are reported. I n the Daily Mail of 18th February there is a report of an 89 year old widow being raped in a secure housing unit in Southwark. It is a horrible story. Nowadays in London, and in many other cities, women can no longer go about in safety.

When I was young, pornography was virtually unobtainable, and in most parts of most cities in this country a woman could walk safely through the streets at night. And that is how it should be again. It is not only in their contribution to increasing rape and violence that they are harmful. Quite innocent young people will go into them, in the first instance out of curiosity, and will be corrupted—who would otherwise not have been. Therefore, if the noble Lords whose amendment this is choose to press it, I shall be very happy to follow them into the Lobby.

I should like to say how very much I was impressed, as I think many of us were, by the speech of the noble Lady behind me. In many ways it would have been appropriate for the debate to finish on the note which she struck, but I thought I ought simply to say that the interpretation of liberty of the subject given by noble Lords on this Bench is not one which I share.

The more I listen to current debate the more do I begin to look extra carefully at those who try to put forward a case on the basis that it is for the liberty of the individual. What is restriction for one man may be liberty for another. What is liberty for my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby is not liberty, as I see it, for many others in this country. I want the liberty of walking down a street without seeing some of these offensive establishments. I want my children and my grandchildren to be able to walk down these streets without being offended by some of these establishments.

The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, is very careful to put forward this battlecry of liberty of the subject, but I notice that he wants to restrict the liberty of the individual subject in many ways when it comes to his cruelty to animals legislation. I notice, too, that he wants to restrict the liberty of the subject when it comes to the question of unborn children. I do feel that he was unfair on the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, and the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury. Personally I greatly respect the courage they have shown in putting forward ideas for us to discuss and this amendment.

Cruelty can be defined in many ways. There is an element of cruelty in society today which was probably not so pronounced when first I entered political life. I believe that this cruelty has been enhanced by the permissive legislation we have seen in recent decades. I would like to think that the tide is now beginning to turn. I believe that the Government, with the amendments they have brought forward, have themselves responded to this new feeling in society. I feel certain that the amendment proposed by the noble Earl is also in response to this new feeling. After all, this is not a question of prohibition. This is a question of people being able to elect a local authority with the right to say whether there will be certain establishments in the locality or not.

I was surprised that my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney said that although he was in favour of control, he was not in favour of taking it to the lengths suggested by the noble Lords opposite. If one is going to have the power to control, surely one should be able to control matters to the extent of saying that a certain type of establishment will not be allowed in this place or that place. As the noble Lord said, it may be that councillors elected in another part of the country will take a different view. As I see it, the Bill before us now—even as amended by the noble Earl's amendment—would still allow a properly elected local authority in one part of the country to take a different view from that which I personally would take in my area.

Perhaps my noble friend will allow me to explain the difference between us on this point. It is not that I wish to limit the powers of councils to do as they please; it is that I do not wish to give them an overall power under which, for reasons quite separate from those laid down as being appropriate under local government legislation, they would be able to take steps on moral grounds. That is not what we are about here.

One day, I shall have to have a debate with my noble friend about what constitutes moral grounds. I believe the interpretation can be very wide indeed. We are talking about the judgment of local authorities in saying whether or not a certain type of establishment is appropriate in a particular locality. All I am saying to my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney is that, if one is going to give local authorities the power to stop something happening in a particular locality, it is quite wrong to say that in other localities they must agree with that thing happening. That is what my noble friend is saying, in effect. All we are saying is that if the local authority has the power to act in one locality it should have the power to act also in a neighbouring locality, provided that it comes within the council's area. I hope that the noble Earl will see fit to press his amendment. Certainly I for my part will be prepared to support it.

I would like to support this amendment. As we all know, sex shops exist and the object of this Bill is to control their existence. It seems to me that from this amendment stems the capacity of local authorities to do exactly that.

May I come back to the point of this amendment? At the present time, the number of sex shops in this country is growing considerably, and local authorities do not have the power to control that growth. Sex shops are a form of environmental pollution. Your Lordships' Committee should give adequate powers to local authorities. That seems to me to be the nub of the matter. Is the "juvenile" noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, aware of what is happening; that large sums of money are being made by the proprietors of these sex shops throughout the country? It is our duty to give local authorities the power to control their numbers and location, and whether we take the amendment moved by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, or the Government's amendments on the Marshalled List, is not the point.

The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, said that we must have a sensible form of definition of the area of control. I do not consider that the relevant area in paragraph 4 of Schedule 3 is a reasonable way of dealing with this. For one thing, whatever the definition, it must be one that will apply to rural areas as well as to urban areas. The locality definition certainly would not apply to some of the more remote areas which are worried at the moment by the threat of the spread of sex shops. I hope that between now and Report stage, whatever happens to this amendment, the Government wil look at the definition and see whether it is effective.

I want just to take up one point mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby. I can well understand how people can hold varied views on the amendment; but how anyone can say that cruelty is not involved, I cannot understand. If we were dealing just with immorality, that would be one thing; but in my submission it is the sadistic aspect of some sexual material which is the serious aspect of this problem.

I should like to make one point which, although not being entirely relevant to the amendment, is very relevant to the issue. Although I am not concerned so much with whether a local authority should be able to ban or not ban, I am concerned with the degree of the shop itself. There is no doubt that there are many varied degrees and it is not only my noble friend Lord Longford who has found out about this. Where I live, in Chelsea, there is a very discreet establishment and I went to talk to the gentleman who runs it. He held very strong views about the type of shop which operates in Soho. In fact, I could not see how he was going to make very much money because there was nothing very expensive in his shop. He told me about the people who visit his shop and mentioned with great pride the lady who dropped in on her way back from Ascot last summer to pick up something she needed. I feel it is a pity that this particular establishment should be "knocked in", with the other kind. From my modest investigation, it became quite clear that there are two kinds of establishment; one would possibly fit in with today's world but the other is that with which cruelty and degradation is associated—although it seems that in our minds we see them both falling within the same category.

As one known to be in favour of the greatest possible degree of individual freedom, let me say at once that I do not oppose all the restrictive amendments relating to sex shops which appear on the Marshalled List. For instance, I find that Amendment No. 34, which would prevent people under the age of 18 patronising or working in sex shops, highly commendable and I would certainly support it. But I believe that the amendment we are discussing now is the thin end of a dangerous wedge of censorship, which I have always opposed, and therefore I must oppose the amendment.

When the Indecent Displays Bill promoted by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, was going through Parliament only a few months ago, assurances were given that this was not the start of a puritan backlash or of some puritanical crusade to put the clock back 25 years and prevent adults from buying or reading whatever they wished. It was on that assurance, I believe, that the noble Lord's Bill received the degree of support which it did.

However, Amendment No. 11 is not concerned with the public nuisance aspect of sex shops, nor with whether the shop is sited in close proximity to a school or some other place where young people tend to gather. This amendment provides that a sex shop may be driven out of business even if it has a plain, inoffensive frontage, which could not possibly offend the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, or members of his family, and even if it is sited well away from schools or residential areas. It would be put out of business solely because its mere existence offends some pressure group.

This is analogous to the argument used in the mid-1960s against the Bill introduced by noble Earl, Lord Arran, to liberalise the law relating to private male homosexual behaviour following the recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee. Opponents of that Bill argued that the mere knowledge that such activity was taking place somewhere, even though it might be behind closed doors, which by definition it had to be, was offensive to them and should therefore be banned. Luckily, their arguments lost the day, and I do not think there are now many people who would wish things to revert to the pre-1967 situation in that regard.

Of course, if it could be proved beyond doubt that sex shops were harmful, as opposed to merely irritating, there would indeed be a case for an out-and-out ban. But obviously there is no such evidence; otherwise the Government would be duty bound to take steps to ban such shops outright and would already have started to do so. Might it, on the contrary, be the case that distasteful though these establishments are—certainly I have no wish to defend them—they may have one useful function? (Here I am afraid I must disgaree with my noble friend Lady Saltoun, although it is purely a matter of judgment—nobody can be certain) I understand that these shops cater for those whose particular proclivities cannot easily be satisfied elsewhere. If these people's desires are frustrated through the removal or closing down of sex shops, is it not possible that innocent women and children are going to find themselves put more at risk from rape and indecent assault than would otherwise be the case?

As one of the more juvenile Members of your Lordships' House, I should like to support this amendment, first, because I am not very fond of sex shops in any case, and, secondly because I think it is very much clearer for the layman reading the Act which this Bill will become than is the Government's own amendment. Having myself on occasions had cause to thumb through various Acts of Parliament to try to find out what they mean, it is sometimes very difficult. I think it is essential that it should be as clear and as easy as possible for the layman. The people who are going to have to work this Bill when it becomes an Act are laymen, the vast majority of them with very little legal training. They may have advisers, but they themselves have to make the decisions

I feel also that every authority must have the power to say that they wish to have no sex shops in their areas. I do not think sex shops do a great deal of good. They may help some people. But one reads in the newspapers of more and more marriages breaking down because of the odd sexual behaviour of one partner or another, and I am sure that this is encouraged by sex shops and the perverted objects they sell, the magazines and books they produce. They are perverting the whole idea of sex and turning it into pure self-gratification rather than an act of love between two people. I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will see his way to agreeing to the amendment proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, in place of his own. I wish it well.

I should like to say a few brief words, as I did refer to this in my speech at Second Reading. First, every noble Lord who has spoken has referred to sex shops, but the amendment deals with sex establishments, and that includes sex cinemas. One has to link that up with what is described as these "activities", both the sex shops and the sex cinema, in the terms of Schedule 3. It is the activities listed there to which many noble Lords, including myself, take great exception. It is not a question of freedom of the individual. It is a question whether there is freedom of the individual to interfere with other people and to affect other people and other people's lives, and to affect children's lives by affecting their outlook. I think that is very important.

The only other point I would mention is this. If one accepted the logic of some of the arguments, including that of my noble friend Lord Jenkins, it would mean that the local authority representative could say, "Well, as we must not have an umbrella ban, although people want it, it is good for the south ward to have this, but it is not good for the north ward, where I live, to have it". I think this is putting local authority members into an impossible situation. If the people of the area believe that this is offensive and dangerous for themselves or their children, I think they should have the freedom to make that decision.

This amendment would give a local authority the right to impose as a matter of general principle a complete prohibition on trade in the materials covered by the schedule. I think the speeches which have been made in this debate on this amendment have shown that there are deep feelings generated by this particular subject and also by this particular amendment. I think the problem with the amendment is that, even though the trade which would go on in those places could be entirely lawful under the general criminal law as the law stands, what we should be doing in a local government regulation Bill would in fact be altering the general criminal law. Having said that, I do hope that the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and indeed my noble friend Lord Nugent, who has not yet spoken to the amendment, will not be under any misapprehension that the Government, in taking the view which we do, which I am going to explain very briefly, are any less concerned to ensure that local authorities are provided with fully effective powers to control these premises.

My noble friend Lord Tranmire, in speaking pretty trenchantly about this amendment, said that one thing he was absolutely certain of was that there should be adequate powers for local authorities. May I just set out very briefly the powers which we have put down from the Government point of view? The grounds for refusal provided in the Bill by paragraph 11 of Schedule 3 are extensive. In particular, as Amendment No. 31—which the noble Earl wished to he discussed with this amendment—proposes to make clear, the local authority would be able to form the opinion that it would be inappropriate to have any sex shops at all in the locality to which the application relates. The local authority would be able to refuse to issue a licence on that ground alone, saying that nil would be the correct number of sex shops for the locality. That would be the effect of one of the Government amendments, Amendment No. 31. We have also put down Amendments Nos. 37 and 39, which propose that the local authority's judgment on the question of whether a sex shop is appropriate should be final; in other words, on that question there should be no appeal. We have put down those two groups of amendments in the light of concern expressed before this debate took place that, as has happened in other fields, a local authority's judgment might be overturned by a court which is less familiar with local circumstances. That really is the effect of the Government's amendments, which we have not yet come to. I should like to return to what I consider to be the main purpose of this amendment—

If I may intervene, will the noble Lord be good enough to say something about the definition of "locality"? If it is to be a narrow definition, Amendment No. 31 makes absolutely no difference to the Bill at all.

With respect, I do not agree with the noble Lord. As my noble friend Lord Tranmire pointed out, "locality" is defined in Schedule 3, paragraph 4. It says:

"the relevant locality' means—

(i) in relation to any premises, the locality where they are situated".

It will be for the local authority to decide exactly what is the locality. It will not be possible—and I am absolutely at one with the noble Lord in wishing to make perfectly certain that there is no loophole—for an application for a sex shop to be able to slip through a loophole because in some way it can say that it does not belong to a locality at all. The local authority will decide, in its wisdom, what the locality is for each application and will be able—because of the Government amendments to which we have not yet come—first, to decide that it is possible to say that for the locality the number will be nil; and secondly, to say that, incidentally, their decision (if that is their decision) on the inappropriateness of the application for a sex shop shall not be overridden on appeal. Let me come back to what I believe is the main purpose of the amendment.

I wonder if my noble friend will give way? I wish to raise a matter on the question of "locality". Does it include the whole of a local authority's area or does it only refer to parts of it? Can a local authority decide that the whole of its area is a locality or will it only have the power to ban sex shops in certain parts?

I think that my noble friend Lord Swinfen really answers the question by asking it. Obviously, if in relation to any premises the locality is clearly going to be the whole of the local authority area, that is the locality for the particular application. But if the local authority on receiving an application decides that the locality is a particular area in a town, then that is the locality. However, I repeat: I do not believe, when one reads Schedule 3, paragraph 4, that it will by any stretch of the imagination, be possible for an applicant for a sex shop licence in some way to slip through the licensing procedure because the applicant can find a locality which is not covered by the definition.

Will the noble Lord give way? What the noble Lord has said seems to me extraordinarily important and has a bearing on the proposed amendment on Report which I foreshadowed. If I understand him correctly, it lies within the authority of a local authority to say, "So far as we are concerned our area is one locality". Do I interpret the noble Lord correctly?

I repeat that, if one looks at Schedule 3, paragraph 4, it says:

"the relevant locality" means—

(i) in relation to any premises, the locality where they are situated".

It is, therefore, for the local authority, who must decide the application, to interpret that. It can only interpret it, presumably, by deciding two matters: first, the nature of the application; and secondly, the local authority's own understanding of the way in which its area is made up. I do not think that I can go further than that at present.

Will the Minister allow me to intervene?

I shall give way once more.

It is rather confusing. The noble Lord mentioned the definition of "the relevant locality" but we also have the definition of "the chief officer of police". It says:

"in relation to any locality, means the chief officer of police for the police area in which the locality is situated".

So there is very considerable confusion in the noble Lord's explanation of the powers of a local authority to define "locality" differently from what the Government themselves state is the meaning of "locality" in respect of the chief of police.

I do not think that it is entirely easy to interpret. What I am absolutely certain about is that the chief officer of police does not, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Ross, have anything to do with it at all.

It is the question of "locality".

Obviously, localities will fall within the force area of a chief constable. As regards that point, it is as simple as that. As regards the point which we have been discussing in question and answer, I would just add the following. Flexibility is needed, in that almost certainly "locality" does not mean the whole area of the local authority district, because almost certainly there will be applications for different areas. However, I repeat what I have said before: first of all, the local authority will presumably have to take into account the nature of the application. That must persuade the local authority as to what the locality for that application is liable to be. Secondly, the local authority presumably must consult its own officers as to what it believes the correct locality is. Thirdly, I repeat, I do not believe, therefore, that there is any possibility—but I would obviously like to look at this again and will certainly do so as a result of this brief exchange—of an application in some way slipping through a loophole by being able to suggest that it does not belong to any locality covered at all. I shall certainly give way to the noble Earl.

Frankly, slipping through loopholes is not the point on my mind. I am concerned that the process of being refused a licence would go on and on from locality to locality instead of a simple decision being taken.

May I look at the matter again? I think that I have said as much as I can and the noble Earl, and, indeed, any other noble Lord, can return to the matter. I shall return to what I believe is the main purpose of the amendment. It may very well be that, as a matter of policy, a district council will wish to have no sex shops in a particular locality. But in a local government Bill and in a schedule dealing with control by licensing, I think the Government believe that the authority really should be required to look at each application, although, as I have said, the Government intend to ask your Lordships to make it crystal clear in the Bill that the authority has the right on each application to decide that no sex shop may be established in a locality and has the right not to have that decision overturned on appeal. I hope that that shows that, although noble Lords, and the Government are approaching the matter in different ways, it will enable licensing authorities to reach the same conclusion in the end, if that is their judgment.

I hope that, with that assurance, the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, and the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, may feel that it would be right at least to have a look at the Government amendments, to which we have not yet come, and to withdraw this amendment at the present time, always of course leaving themselves free, without commitment, to decide how they will proceed on Report.

Before the noble Lord sits down I wonder if he would make one matter clear? He has said that he will look again at what is meant by "locality". Those of us who have read the Bill notice that the word "locality" occurs three times in that paragraph of the schedule. At one point it relates to the police area and at another point it is not quite clear to what it relates. My noble friend says that he will look at it again. Is he telling us that if the present amendment were to be withdrawn and, therefore, his own amendment comes to be called, he will, in fact, withdraw it, and will come again with new phrasing at the Report stage?—or is he going to push on with his own amendment, if the one that we are discussing fails?

I must make it absolutely clear to my noble friend Lord Lauderdale that I think that it is highly important—I am absolutely at one with the noble Lord, Lord Halsbury, and the noble Lord, Lord Nugent—that one of these amendments should go on to the face of the Bill. I think that, on the grounds that I have tried to deploy, the Government's amendments are the more appropriate. I know that Governments are very fond of saying that they want their own amendments. However, I do think that in a local government Bill, which is a controlling measure, to put in an amendment which in fact would change the criminal law would be less appropriate than putting into the Bill, if your Lordships agree, amendments which would tighten the control in this area on which many of your Lordships feel so deeply.

I was waiting to hear what the Minister had to say and I had intended to speak on the Government amendments, as I thought that there was a possibility that the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, would withdraw their amendment. But the Minister has now said fairly specifically what is in the Government's amendments, and it seems to me that this has become almost one general debate.

First, I do not like the amendment moved by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury. Secondly, I do not like the Government's amendments. However, I think that the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, is more frank and more honest in its intention than the Government amendments. The Minister has just said that he thinks it would be quite wrong in a Bill of this kind—which is (and we must keep remembering this) a local government Bill—to have something in it which makes a general ban and which comes almost into the area of criminal law.

So, instead of a straightforward:

"A local authority may resolve that sex establishment shall not be permitted in their area",

we have an amendment which, apart from the inelegance of its language, seems to me to be much more fudgy:

"Nil may be an appropriate number for the purposes of".

that particular paragraph. This is a completely backdoor way of dealing with something which should be in public legislation. The Minister has said that this is not the intention, but this is what is happening and what will happen. I have listened very carefully to what every noble Lord has said and, particularly on a subject like this, everyone must take a personal view and express a personal opinion. But to try to do something in a Bill which has no place for it, seems to me to be a matter of principle, which is rather different from talking about sex shops, or what we are talking about.

This schedule is trying to restrict where it can, and trying to give local authorities the power to decide and to say that in their area, no matter what some people may feel about it—and, after all, in a democracy the views of the minority are important; there are also views of a vociferous minority who may be against sex shops in a particular area; and all this needs to be taken into account—there shall be no sex shops. This is in spite of the fact that today sex shops are legal. We are talking about something that is a legal activity. I think that we must remember that and concentrate on it.

Having said that:

"Nil may be an appropriate number…",

I listened very carefully to what the Minister said about "the relevant locality". He said in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, that it clearly could be the whole local authority area; he then said that it does not mean the whole area of the local authority; he then said that they must also consult their own officers. Where I felt at one with the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, was when he was trying to elicit what this meant, as, indeed, were other noble Lords. It is still not clear.

I would certainly go along with the proposition that a local authority may decide that in a particular locality within its area—meaning a particular district, a particular location, or a particular group of streets or roads—it did not want any sex shops. But that is entirely different from saying that in the whole of Hackney, in the whole of Islington, in the whole of Westminster or wherever you like, we can decide that there will he no sex shops at all. This seems to me to be getting very close to—in fact, to be getting right on top of—the whole problem of censorship. This is not the Bill for it. If the Government feel as strongly as this about it, the right place for this to be is in public legilsation, for sex shops to be made illegal, if that is the will of Parliament, and for the Government not to deal with it in this way.

Together with the nil proposition or the proposition of the noble Earl and the noble Lord whose amendment this is, there is also the taking away of the right of appeal. My noble friend Lord Houghton is absolutely right about this. It is now a completely closed box. On the one hand, a local authority can say that there should be no sex shops or sex establishments; on the other hand, there is no right of appeal. This is getting round any intention of valid licensing at all.

The Government are trying to base this on the gaming law. This is not a proper analogy. First, the control of gaming lies finally within a central authority, the Gaming Board. There is no sex board or sex shop board—no quango to deal with sex, at least not yet. There may be one, but there is not one at the moment. Therefore, the Gaming Board can represent its views to the licensing magistrates when a licence is applied for or when there is the question of an appeal.

Therefore, if the Government are to follow the approach of the gaming legislation, there must be this sort of global authority which has overall supervision and can monitor what is going on. Throughout, on everything, if you look at the gaming Acts, there is a right of appeal. To have such a licensing system without a right of appeal is, I repeat, a matter of very important principle. For a moment we must forget, if we can, that this is about sex; this is about an activity that is legal, which a number of people want and make use of. Yet the Government are to make it possible for it to be banned in an area and, at the same time, there will be no right of appeal.

When the Government borrow all this procedure from the gaming legislation, they seem to forget that in the past gaming has had a long history of penal legislation which, of course, sex has not—certainly not in this sort of context. So for myself—and even speaking on this side of the Committee it is perfectly clear that I can speak only for myself, for many of my noble friends take an entirely different view, which I totally respect—I find that I cannot go along with the amendment which we are at present discussing; nor can I go along with the Government amendments that will be moved later.

My noble friend Lord Longford has said that sex shops are a social evil. There are a great many things that one could call social evils. He has said that people are making, money out of human weakness. People are making money out of drink. I have even seen my noble friend have a drink; I have had some very pleasant drinks with him. People make money out of the human weakness of vanity when they sell us clothes. There are all sorts of examples of this. I do not think that this is enough. If he wants to say that all sex shops must be banned, a different route must be followed. The noble Lord, Lord Somers, asked: what has happened to our nation as a whole since sex education in our schools? I shall not delay on that because that is a slightly different subject, but if we are to put such a premium on ignorance and believe that that will help young people, God help us all and the youngsters in the future.

The noble Lord, Lord Tranmire, spoke about environmental pollution. There are some environmental pollutions that are very much worse in this country today. I think that the effect of lead in petrol and some of the catastrophies that we have had with waste material have caused more harm than sex shops, especially if there are now to be controls on them. Nobody has to enter them. People may not like the look of them, but not all of them are as garish as those we see in Soho. People have the right to patronise them or not, as they think fit. I have no affection for them. They neither attract me nor do I particularly like them, but we should not get quite so hot under the collar if other people find that they supply a need for them, which I do not think is really any of our business. I would say, let us have a licensing system, let us have control, but not prohibition and not allied with a system from which there is no means of appeal.

On behalf of my noble friend Lord Halsbury and myself I should thank my noble friend Lord Bestead for his reply to our amendment, which has promoted an extremely interesting debate. I should like to thank most warmly those who have been good enough to support our amendment. Turning to my noble friend's Amendments Nos. 31, 37 and 39, in my opinion, by a circuitous route, they achieve the same end. They will allow the local authority to deal with proposals, with applications for sex shops, as they come along and will enable them to decide not to have one if they feel that it is not appropriate for their area, and they are protected in that decision by Amendment No. 39 which will deny an appeal to the applicant.

I believe that, albeit by a circuitous route this in substance meets our amendment. Many noble Lords and noble Baronesses who have spoken would obviously have preferred the direct approach; the direct power in the local authority to pass a resolution. However, there is weight, which I recognise, in my noble friend's point that our amendment would change the criminal law on obscenity, and therefore there is a constitutional objection there. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, was on the same point. Therefore, I would feel that we should accept the amendments which my noble friend is going to move later as being adequate in meeting the purpose that we had in mind.

The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, delivered—I am sure in a jocular fashion—an attack on me and my noble friend Lord Halsbury, and charged us with being notoriety seekers. I do not really believe that anyone in the Committee would agree with him on that. Neither of us has any interest in seeking notoriety. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Halsbury's objective in coming here is exactly the same as mine; we are here to serve as well as we can. If I achieve a minor success in getting seatbelts made compulsory, I am glad to do so, but it is only in combination with everybody else here and elsewhere. I am certainly not going to be deterred by the fact that I am getting older from taking on subjects like this one, which are particularly unpleasant to tackle.

The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, must have felt when he was listening to the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, speaking behind him—she is about half his age—that he was pretty adequately answered. How many people seeing these sex shops think how dangerous they are? My noble friend Lord Swinfen, again a young man compared to the rest of us, expressed a similar view. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, is very experienced himself and certainly is not deterred by age from having a go too, and if notoriety was the only thing that was to prevent us having a go he would have stopped long ago because his fame goes far and wide for the causes he takes up.

In this particular context we are taking over a Bill in which these proposals for licensing were only looked at in the House of Commons at the end of the Report stage. They were never looked at in Committee stage. Therefore, we have a special duty to look at the Bill in detail here and to improve it in any way we can. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has read the debates in another place. The general trend of almost every speech made was that the Bill needed strengthening.

One of the precedents that was picked up was that referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, of the proliferation of betting shops, and how objectionable it is that all over the place, on almost every corner, you pretty well fall over them. We have far more than we need. Because the machinery of appeal operated to detach the final decision from local considerations to the Crown Court, so decisions were taken in many cases to allow licences where, in the view of everyone in the locality, they should never have been granted. This is one of the reasons why the opinion was so strongly expressed in the House of Commons—and noble Lords have expressed it again tonight—that the power of appeal should not be allowed in the case where the local authority has taken this decision.

I would feel that my noble friend Lord Belstead has tried to meet the sense of the majority of us here. He has also tried to meet the sense of the almost universally expressed opinion in the House of Commons that something of this kind is needed. It is in that spirit that I am accepting my noble friend's amendments, and advising noble Lords and noble Baronesses on all sides who have been good enough to support us that we should accept this as being adequate. I hope when we come to the point later on in the Marshalled List the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, will not feel quite so savage about these amendments and might even accept them. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

May I just say that I agree with my noble friend Lord Nugent, and associate myself with his Motion to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment No. 12. I must tell your Lordships that if this is agreed to I shall not be able to call Amendment No. 13.

moved Amendment No. 12:

Perhaps it would speed matters along after the long debate we have just had, which has covered so much of the ground, if I spoke to the next amendment in speaking to Amendment No. 12. Certainly the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has put his finger on an important drafting point. "Section" ought to read "Schedule", and it ought to read "Schedule" for a good reason, because people will want to know what is the schedule which is the operative part of the Bill so far as the rules about sex establishments are concerned. But, with respect to the noble Lord, if the requirement for a notice is confined only to paragraph 1, that would not be satisfactory. There would be no obligation to give the date on which the licensing controls are to come into force, to give one example. But more generally, I think that without taking up a huge amount of print in the local press it would not be beyond the wit of the local authority concerned to make up a pro forma, before they ever start considering licensing sex establishments, which would be succinct and short and would give just a brief outline to people who wanted to know what was in the schedule. For that reason, we should prefer to refer to the schedule rather than just to paragraph 5(1) of the schedule.