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

Moved, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the Enterprise Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:

• Clause 1,
• Schedule 1,
• Clauses 2 to 12,
• Schedule 2,
• Clause 13,
• Schedule 3,
• Clauses 14 and 15,
• Schedule 4,
• Clauses 16 to 20,
• Schedule 5,
• Clauses 21 to 67,
• Schedule 6,
• Clauses 68 to 82,
• Schedule 7,
• Clause 83,
• Schedule 8,
• Clauses 84 to 87,
• Schedule 10,
• Clauses 88 to 163,
• Schedule 9,
• Clauses 164 to 180,
• Schedule 11,
• Clauses 181 and 182,
• Schedule 12,
• Clauses 183 to 205,
• Schedule 13,
• Clauses 206 to 233,
• Schedule 14,
• Clauses 234 to 236,
• Schedule 15,
• Clauses 237 to 244,
• Schedules 16 and 17,
• Clauses 245 and 246,
• Schedule 18,
• Clause 247 to 252,
• Schedule 19,
• Clause 253,
• Schedules 20 and 21,
• Clauses 254 to 260,
• Schedule 22,
• Clauses 261 to 265,
• Schedule 23,
• Clauses 266 to 272,
• Schedule 24,
• Clauses 273 and 274,
• Schedules 25 and 26,
• Clauses 275 to 277.—(Lord McIntosh of Haringey.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

We had intended to move day five of the Committee stage of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill to Wednesday, 17th July, giving us the next two days in Committee next week. However, that would have caused a difficulty for a number of Front-Bench spokesmen. Therefore, discussions have been held through the usual channels and it is proposed to debate amendments on Part 5 after Part 8. It is likely that that will take place on Tuesday, 23rd July. The order of consideration at present before the House will achieve that.

Moved, That, notwithstanding the instruction of 1st July, it be a further instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill has been committed that the remainder of the Bill be considered in the following order:

• Clauses 42 to 48,
• Schedule 3,
• Clauses 49 to 68,
• Clauses 102 to 108,
• Schedule 8,
• Clauses 109 to 140,
• Schedule 9,
• Clauses 141 to 143,
• Clause 69,
• Schedule 4,
• Clauses 70 to 88,
• Schedule 5,
• Clauses 89 to 100,
• Schedules 6 and 7,
• Clause 101.—(Lord Filkin.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.

In this year's Budget, and with the legislation set in motion by the Finance Bill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has set out for the country the next steps on the road to a modern and productive Britain. Building on a foundation of economic stability, the Bill sets in statute important proposals on enterprise, innovation, the environment and the business of regeneration. Economic stability is the foundation of all that we seek to achieve. This Government have worked hard to establish a record of competence in the management of the economy.

Five years ago, our first Budget set out our objectives, our plans for reform and the disciplines to achieve economic stability, higher employment and sustained prosperity. This year, on 17th April in his Budget speech, the Chancellor was able to report that Britain had enjoyed the lowest inflation and the lowest interest rates for 40 years. For the first time for half a century, unemployment in Britain is lower than in America, Japan and Europe.

Last year, the main economies of the industrialised world started a synchronised slow-down. In the past, in such a slow-down it is Britain that has entered weaker and suffered longer, unable to act because of higher inflation and higher borrowing.

All that has changed. Britain faced this world downturn with low inflation and sound public finances, both delivered by our new monetary and fiscal frameworks. Therefore, this time the Bank of England has been able to adjust policy at the right time and in the right way, last year cutting interest rates seven times. With the support of fiscal policy, we have been able to safeguard both economic stability and growth. Our framework for monetary and fiscal stability has now been tested in the bad times as well as the good, and our policies have not been found wanting.

The challenge for British industry and investors at this time is to build on our hard-won stability and accelerate productivity improvements, increasing levels of output, employment and prosperity. While the economy has been stable, it can and must grow stronger.

There is a clear role for government in establishing the conditions necessary for economic growth. The UK is, and will remain, a low-tax environment. The Bill introduces important measures to modernise taxes, to keep pace with real world developments and with the global economy, to promote enterprise and to cut red tape.

Government are committed to addressing the longer-term challenge of enterprise through higher productivity and investment. The net effect of corporation tax changes introduced since 1997 is to reduce the corporate tax burden on business. We now have the lowest corporation tax rates in British history, and, since 1997, we have cut the tax bills of small companies by more than 30 per cent. That includes cuts in corporation tax and targeted measures, such as the R&D tax credit and permanent 40 per cent first-year allowances.

In this year's Budget and in this year's Finance Bill, we are keeping the momentum going. To enable investment in high growth, high technology industries, Clause 53 and Schedule 12 extend an enhanced research and development tax credit to all companies. That means a £400 million boost for innovation and research in Britain. Clause 44 and Schedule 8 set out an exemption for companies disposing of substantial shareholdings. That will enable companies to restructure without an essential business decision being constrained by the tax system. This new relief forms part of the Government's commitment to reform and modernise the corporate tax regime, ensuring that the UK remains a good place in which to do business.

The Bill establishes a new regime to provide relief for the cost of intangible assets, including intellectual property and goodwill. The new relief, set out in Clause 84 and Schedules 29 and 30, will encourage business to take advantage of opportunities in the knowledge-based economy. This is another important step in our programme of corporate tax reform.

Reform of the taxation of foreign exchange gains and losses, loan relationships and derivative contracts will create a more modern and user-friendly regime. It will give certainty to taxpayers and remove avoidance opportunities so that all companies pay their fair share of tax and compete on a level playing field.

We have consulted extensively on these measures. They have been designed through dialogue with the business community. As a consequence, they have been widely welcomed.

Small businesses account for 55 per cent of all private sector jobs—more than 10 million jobs in all—and nearly half the economy's output, totalling £1 trillion of economic activity. Small firms are important drivers of growth in the economy. Support for small firms is an important theme running through the Bill. In 1997, we cut the small companies' tax rate from 23 pence to 21 pence; in 1998, we cut it again to 20 pence, with a starting rate of 10 pence; and now, in 2002, Clause 31 of the Finance Bill takes it down again —to 19 pence, with immediate effect.

Clause 32 reduces the starting rate of corporation tax, also with immediate effect, from 10 pence to zero. That means that companies with profits of up to £10,000 will pay no corporation tax. That is the most favourable tax regime for small companies in any of the advanced industrial countries.

To fund the growth of our bright young companies, we need to increase the level of business investment. Private equity investment has doubled since 1997. That is an important contribution to an entrepreneurial economy. There is more to be done. To maintain the momentum, the Bill cuts capital gains tax to 20 per cent for business assets held for one year or more, with immediate effect. For business assets held for more than two years the Bill cuts capital gains tax to 10 per cent. That means that overall, Britain has a capital gains tax regime more favourable to enterprise than that of the United States.

I know that for many small businesses, the cost of compliance is an important issue. The Budget set out proposals to reform the administration of VAT; to help smaller firms comply with PAYE and to remove unnecessary regulations. Clauses 23 to 25 set out the steps we are taking in the Bill to simplify and streamline the VAT regime. We do not need to choose between economic growth and environmental protection. The emerging consensus around the idea of sustainable development is an opportunity for British companies. Investing now in energy-saving technologies and techniques is the best way of getting ahead of the game and gaining an important advantage over foreign competitors.

To improve business energy efficiency, the Bill sets out further exemptions from the climate change levy for electricity from combined heat and power plants and from coal mine methane in recognition of the environmental benefits of those technologies. To encourage the use of cleaner, more efficient vehicles and cleaner fuels, the Bill introduces several vehicle excise duty reforms and duty incentives.

It is only fair that foreign lorries pay their fair share for their use of British roads and the environmental and social costs they impose. The Government therefore aim to introduce a distance-based road user charge for lorries regardless of nationality in 2005 or 2006.

The way we deal with waste says a great deal about our standing as a society. As a responsible government aware of our obligations we are attempting to encourage the sustainable treatment of waste. The Bill increases the standard rate of the landfill tax from £12 to £13. Clause 122 sets out the details.

The Bill also includes important amendments to the operations of the aggregates levy and provides for the phased introduction of the scheme in Northern Ireland. We have responded to the concerns of the sector. The phased introduction will give them time to improve their performance.

It is not all business. Clause 58 and Schedule 18 introduce a package of tax reliefs for community amateur sports clubs and those who donate to them, supporting the valuable role played by community amateur sports clubs in promoting the health and cohesion of their local communities. Clause 97 extends the relief which the Government introduced in the Finance Act 2000 for gifts to charity of listed shares to gifts of lands or buildings.

Clause 98 introduces a measure to encourage giving through a reminder in the tax return providing a valuable boost to charitable giving. Those measures build on the extensive incentives for charitable giving introduced in Budget 2000, which have increased the amount of money donated to charity and enabled organisations in the voluntary and community sector to do even more good work.

I turn to VAT, taxation of cigarettes and alcohol, and estates. We did not extend VAT to essential goods; neither did we raise the rate of VAT. Duties on beer, wine and spirits are frozen. Airport tax, insurance tax and climate change levy are all frozen. For public health reasons, on cigarettes there will be the annual inflation increase. All estates below £250,000 will be exempt from inheritance tax. That is 96 per cent of all estates.

To ensure fairness for taxpayers and businesses, we must also act swiftly to close tax loopholes and be vigilant against tax avoidance. We have decided to act with immediate effect on the avoidance of stamp duty on property; to put an end to three artificial schemes for VAT avoidance, and to review the complex rules of residence and domicile.

The UK will remain a low-tax environment, favourable to business and enterprise. The overall tax burden is lower than the EU average and lower than each of our main EU competitors. The atmosphere is right for economic growth. The Bill is a register of our ambition and determination as a government. 'We are ambitious because we believe in a Britain where businesses can grow; entrepreneurs can flourish, and opportunity is open to all.

We believe in a Britain where the Government are responsive to the shifting interests of the business community and legislation keeps pace with developments in world markets. We believe in a Britain where the goals of economic growth and sustainable development are intertwined and where business is the friend of community regeneration. That is what the Bill sets out to achieve; I believe it does. I commend the Bill to the House.

Moved that the Bill be now read a second time.

My Lords, I declare an interest as an investment fund manager.

I am slightly surprised to be the only Back-Bencher speaking today in the debate. One of the reasons for that maybe the lateness that it was put down on the Order Paper. It appeared only early this week. When I inquired about the Speakers' List at the start of the week that also was not ready. That seems slightly at odds with the ambition to have more widespread debate on financial matters in this House. I also wondered why the Second Reading debate could not have been delayed until after the Comprehensive Spending Review is published next week.

I comment on the length of the Finance Bill, which at 500 pages is the third longest ever. Can we not have less lengthy Finance Bills?

I welcome the following features of the Bill: the cut in small companies' corporation tax rate from 20 pence to 19 pence; and the reduction in corporation tax for smaller companies with profits of less than £10,000 from 10 pence to nil. I ask the Minister whether the Government favour incorporation versus the sole trader. I further welcome the capital gains tax cut for business assets held for more than one year, which is reduced to 20 per cent, and those held for two years and more to 10 per cent; and the exemption of chargeable gains for disposal of substantial shareholdings.

Also to be praised is the extension of the research and development tax credit to large companies. I congratulate the Minister on the extension of reliefs for intellectual property and intangible assets.

This year's Budget, which raised taxes to fund the NHS, was every bit as significant as trailed. It will go down with some of the other big tax-raising Budgets in history. Its overall effect will be to increase net taxes by £6.1 billion next year and £7.6 billion in 2004-05. That, according to a BBC Budget commentary, equates to an average of £6 per week for every household in the country.

While the good news was that the tax rises do not come into force until next year, the bad news was on national insurance where there was a 1 per cent increase on employees' contributions below the upper earnings limit, and an additional 1 per cent levy on earnings above the limit. Employers' contributions have also been increased by 1 per cent. Thus the top rate of tax on earnings has been surreptitiously raised from 40 per cent to 41 per cent. That has broken an election pledge not to raise income tax. It could also be a licence for further increases in national insurance if enough money is not raised to fund the health service.

Aware of the impact on middle-class voters, the Chancellor on the other hand extended means-tested benefits to households with up to £58,000 total income, in the form of child and working tax credits, which operate in a complicated way.

Higher national insurance contributions will disproportionately affect companies with large work forces, at a time when profits, particularly in manufacturing, are under pressure. There must therefore be concern, as expressed by KPMG in its Budget summary, that that will make the UK a less attractive place to which to locate in the long term, as those extra costs reduce the attractiveness of the UK as a business location.

The Chancellor made a major assumption that he will obtain extra revenues by predicting an increase in the expected growth rate of 3 per cent to 3½ per cent in 2003 and 2½ per cent to 3 per cent in 2004. For 2002 the growth rate is assumed to be 2 per cent to 2½ per cent. The figures for 2003 and 2004 look optimistic in view of the UK first quarter GDP figures which showed growth of 0.1 per cent, although the second quarter figures were a little better. What particularly worries me is the continued weakness of the stock market and its effect on consumer spending.

The Ernst & Young Budget commentary states that:

"The main worry about the Treasury forecast lies in its view of household spending. Real disposable incomes slowed from 5 per cent growth in 2001 to 1½ per cent this year. The Treasury suggest that consumers will dip into their savings to keep spending growing at 3¼ per cent. We are not so confident now we have seen the shape of the Budget".

While most commentators accept that the Budget commitments are sustainable in the short to medium term, they also query whether the Chancellor's long-term commitments on spending will require additional tax increases in the future in order to continue to meet fiscal rules. Martin Wolf in the Financial Times commentary states:

"The Budget promises are certainly bold. Over the five years to 2007–08, the plans are for total spending on the NHS to rise at 7.4 per cent a year in real terms. Excluding spending on health, current spending is to grow at 2½per cent a year in 2004–05 and 2005–06. Total growth of current spending over those years is to rise at 3.3 per cent. Meanwhile, net public investment is also forecast to rise from 1.8 per cent of gross domestic product in 2003–04 to 2 per cent in 2005–06".

Also on the subject of possible tax increases the Financial Times of llth July, states:

"Taxes will probably have to rise by £12bn a year, the equivalent of an extra 4p on the basic rate of income tax, if the government is to meet its ambitions to improve health and other services in the next parliament, according to economists at PwC, the professional services firm".

Commentators also note that the Chancellor's assumptions are based on an upward revision in the trend rate of growth. Groups, including the OECD and the respected ITEM Club, have queried the Chancellor's growth forecasts. It is clear that the Chancellor's upward revision of the trend rate of growth is crucial to determining the extent to which he will have to increase taxes beyond 2005. The Budget 2002 document includes a separate publication on trend growth. That states:

"The analysis concludes that the neutral rate of trend growth over the period covered by the Budget 2002 is 2.75%. However the public finance projections continue to be based on a cautious assumption of a quarter of a percentage point below the central forecast".

That is an annual trend growth of 2.5 per cent.

The IFS highlights the importance of the change of assumptions on trend growth in relation to the Chancellor's ability to appear relatively prudent despite announcing such significant spending increases. It states:

"The net effect of the Budget is to loosen the fiscal stance by £9 billion by 2005-06 relative to what it would have been had not the Chancellor introduced any of the measures contained in the FSBR … It might seem surprising that the fiscal loosening is possible given the Chancellor's desire to meet his fiscal rules with a particular degree of caution. In part, this has been made possible by an increase in projected tax revenues [estimated at £4.6 billion by 2005-06] flowing from more optimistic assumptions about economic growth".

The OECD's recent assessment of the UK economy also queried the Treasury's estimate that the trend rate of growth had risen to 2.75 per cent. The OECD's forecasts for growth are below the bottom end of the Treasury's for this year and below the bottom end of the range for next year.

In addition, the prestigious forecast group the ITEM Club has—using the Treasury's model of the economy—questioned the Chancellor's forecast for economic growth. Peter Spencer, its economic adviser, has strongly queried the Chancellor's decision to raise his estimate of the trend rate of economic growth—the long-term rate consistent with stable inflation—from 2.5 per cent to 2.75 per cent. He argued that that allows him to raise his long-term forecast for expected growth in tax revenue, giving the Treasury free rein to plan higher spending without breaking the golden rule. At the end of April, Professor Spencer told the Financial Times:

"The upward revision seems the opposite to the evidence, which is that the trend rate of the UK economy has been falling rather than rising. The leeway the Chancellor had to cover himself when things went wrong is simply not here now".

The ITEM Club forecast growth of only 1.8 per cent this year—below the Chancellor's forecast range of 2 per cent to 2.5 per cent. Next year's ITEM forecast of 2.8 per cent is still below the Chancellor's estimate of 3 per cent to 3.5 per cent.

I have several questions for the Minister about the other detailed measures in the Budget. First, why is there a need to tighten up on the United Kingdom branches of foreign banks? Secondly, why is there any need for extra oil company taxation? The Chancellor himself stated in the Pre-Budget Report 2000:

"While it has been put to me that North Sea oil companies, earning higher profits from higher oil prices should be subject to special taxes, I can tell the House that I am determined not to make short term decisions based on short term factors. The key issue is the level of long term investment in the North Sea. And this will be the approach that will guide budget decisions in future".

By this tax rise, he seems to be going against those comments.

What is the message behind the tightening up of the rules on controlled foreign companies? Is that a measure to penalise the tax regime of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man? Finally, what is the purpose of the review of residence and domicile?

In summary, I praise the measures in the Budget that are favourable to business. I accept that the National Health Service needs more funding, but I fear that it may be a bottomless pit. The approach needs to be changed to that of a more zero-based budget exercise, with a national debate about what the state needs to pay for.

My Lords, debating in your Lordships' House the Government's economic and fiscal programme is a little like waiting for buses: we do not debate the subject for weeks or months on end; but suddenly within three weeks we have three debates on it. If it is a Friday morning in July, it must be time for the Finance Bill. At least it now seems likely that this will be the last time that the House will limit its consideration of the Bill to a few minutes at the end of a Session. Despite the rather alarmist reports in some newspapers earlier in the week, I understand that the plan to allow the Economic Affairs Committee to consider the Finance Bill from next year and to make recommendations to government is to come before your Lordships' House for approval next week. We welcome that.

The economic background against which the Government's taxation and spending plans must be set is more uncertain now than at the time of the Budget. We have several pieces of good news. The pound has depreciated against the rising euro. Manufacturing output has risen for two successive months, and now appears to be coming out of the slump— possibly because of the pound's changing rate against the euro. Consumer spending has come off the boil and the balance of payments is improving.

But against that, the precipitate fall of the stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic places places a major question mark against the outlook for both the US economy and our own. Confidence in the system has also been rocked by accountancy problems. That is likely to have a knock-on effect on consumer confidence.

The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said that in good economic times and bad the Government have not been found wanting. I fear that that statement, of the kind to which we have become accustomed from the Chancellor, has all the hallmarks of sounding slightly complacent at present—not least in respect of the growth rate. Although to some extent I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, about the growth rate, I disagree with him about the change in the trend rate forecast by the Government.

The change in the trend rate is due almost entirely to expected changes in the level of immigration—or, rather, to a continuation of the higher than usual levels of immigration into the United Kingdom of recent years, which have now been projected forward. Funnily enough, that is one of the few areas in which government policy can determine an outcome. If the Government continue with their current policy of welcoming people with skills in short supply, we will undoubtedly have a higher rate of economic growth. My worry about the growth rate concerns riot that expected change from 2.5 per cent to 2.75 per cent but whether the argument that underlies the figure of 2.5 per cent will be sustained in the face of a major collapse in both the stock markets and consumer confidence.

Of course, in the short term, there is virtually nothing that the Chancellor can do to affect many of the variables that we are discussing today. We accept his oft-repeated principle that long-term stability of direction should be the aim of macro-economic: policy. Unfortunately, the Chancellor does not apply the principle of stability to the tax system itself. This Finance Bill, 494 pages long and including 141 clauses and 39 schedules, is the second longest produced by this Chancellor and, as the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, said, the third longest ever. It brings to almost 2,500 pages the total provision for additional taxation introduced by this Chancellor since he came to office.

As with previous Finance Bills, many of the measures in this Bill require immensely complicated drafting and are of dubious value. They are often either introduced without consultation or ignore completely views expressed during consultation. Let us consider the tax relief on vaccine research. It has 14 pages and two schedules devoted to it, but it is highly unlikely to produce any of the beneficial consequences for which it is intended. Let us consider the proposal to tax the branches of foreign banks based in London. Whatever the details merits of that proposal, it has been completely ineptly handled by the Government. There has been no prior consultation and the timetable for its introduction next January almost certainly means that it will cause maximum disruption and loss of good will from the sector, which is crucial to the long-term future of the City.

Let us consider the changes in North Sea oil taxation. The Government consulted with industry on that for a prolonged period, but then they introduced the 10 per cent supplementary charge on North Sea profits, which completely ignored everything that the industry said. The effect will almost certainly be that exploration and appraisal activity, investment and, as a result, employment in the sector will fall. The net consequence will be that the Government will not collect anything like the level of additional tax that they predicted in the Budget. They will also do significant damage to a major sector of the economy, especially of the economy of the North of Scotland.

I have one question about that change for the Minister. I believe that the long-awaited consultation paper on the abolition of royalty was published yesterday, but that no date was set for the abolition itself. Will the Minister undertake to urge the Treasury to set that date without further delay, so that at least one area of uncertainty can be removed?

My final example of a tax measure that is not all that it seems concerns community amateur sports clubs. The Government have gone a substantial way towards enabling community amateur sports clubs to gain tax relief, but in order for them to gain the maximum relief, they will be required to become charities. For months, the governing bodies of the principal sports argued that that approach would be too costly and burdensome. The Bill now contains welcome provisions under which clubs can gain certain forms of tax relief. However, in order to gain mandatory rate relief—for many clubs, the most important form of tax relief—they must go for charitable status. The problem is that the Charity Commissioners can and do behave in an authoritarian, patronising and unreasonable way.

I shall take the example of Banbury Cricket Club, which has, for decades, benefited from income from a charitable trust. Recently, the Charity Commissioners decided to send an investigating officer to inspect the club. Despite the fact that the club had 32 different local users, the officer said that it must not plan fixture lists in future because that would undermine the club's ability to offer facilities to other community groups. Such a move would, obviously, be impossible for any serious sports club, such as that in Banbury. The officer also suggested that the club should allow the grass to grow on the pitch to a length of 6 to 12 inches, should place picnic tables on it and should encourage people to have picnics and—I quote—"paint butterflies". That is not charity: it is madness. It is hardly surprising that the England and Wales Cricket Board and other governing bodies urge their members not to become charities, as the Government wish.

That measure and the others that I have raised this morning expose deficiencies in the way in which tax law is formulated and implemented. From next year, your Lordships' House will have the chance to examine the Finance Bill and suggest to the Government ways of improving it. In doing so, we are not seeking to undermine the Parliament Act 1911; the Commons will still have complete control of the rates and structure of taxes. However, we will, at least, be able to expose the Bill to serious scrutiny and play our part in making the tax system more efficient and effective.

My Lords, these days, politicians receive little praise. Usually, they get off-hand and uninformed criticism from people who wonder about their motives and their behaviour. So I must say, first of all, that the Hansard reports of the well mannered and illuminating debates on the Finance Bill in another place bear witness to the fact that the House of Commons is overwhelmingly occupied by intelligent and responsible people honestly striving to pursue, by their own best lights, the ideals for which the place stands. It is odd that these days a statement of something that we all know to be true comes almost as a surprise.

Secondly, I must thank the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House. As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, this is, perhaps, the last occasion on which your Lordships' House will be confined to such belated and cursory consideration of the Finance Bill. From next year—if the House adopts the proposals put to the Procedure Committee by the noble and learned Lord following his group's review of working practices—we will have new procedures allowing noble Lords far greater opportunity to comment on the Bill.

That reflects ideas put forward by several noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Peston and Lord Barnett, and the noble Lords, Lord Newby and Lord Jacobs, from, respectively, the Labour and Liberal Democrat Benches, as well as well as several noble Lords who sit on these Benches. They drew attention to the financial expertise in your Lordships' House and the value that it could add to the Budget process. It was, surely, an act of disinterested statesmanship by the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House to open doors that had been closed for a century and, on behalf of the Government, to invite your Lordships' House to consider the Finance Bill at a much earlier stage. I am sure that everyone with an interest in the effective administration of the national finances will join me in thanking him.

We look forward to the establishment, as envisaged by the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House, of a sub-committee of the Select Committee on Economic Affairs to review next year's Finance Bill and make comments and recommendations on it. The sub-committee will not, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, consider the incidence or rates of tax; it will none the less have much of value to say. It will need to take evidence. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, with his normal courtesy to the House, will confirm that Treasury Ministers and officials are to give evidence to it. It is a historic step and a clear sign that, as the House is reformed, it can fairly and legitimately claim to exercise functions and roles that the previous—mainly hereditary—House, so despised by the Government, could not. I cannot put it better than the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, who dared to hope that the Treasury would take,

"some notice of the improvements and amendments that our committee will propose. We will not roar; we will not have teeth; but we will speak with authority and relevant practical experience, and we will be heard",—[Official Report, 4/7/02; col. 427.]

That said, are we mad to want the extra role or is there method in what we are doing? I think that there is. My noble friend Lord Northbrook touched on the matter. On Monday, the two volumes of the Finance Bill arrived majestically in your Lordships' House. The Bill's 1,092 pages of clauses and notes—there are 494 pages of the Bill itself and 604 pages of what are laughably known as Explanatory Notes—arrived neatly tied in green ribbon. As the Bill approached the Table, its weight drew gasps from the assembled Peers. I was reminded of Hilaire Belloc's poetic puff:

"No person, says he,

Will be truly content without purchasing three.

While a parent will send for a dozen or more

And strew them about on the nursery floor".

In fact, the magnificent scale of the Bill is only a continuation of a trend we have witnessed over the past live years. It is worth remembering that the first Finance Bill of my noble friend Lady Thatcher's government, which was commended to the House of Commons by my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon, ran to just 22 pages. The Bill now before us assures the Chancellor of his place on the Olympic weightlifting podium. He holds gold, silver and bronze medals for raising the three heaviest Finance Bills of all time.

As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, the trend towards ever more complex and lengthier Finance Bills is serious. When the Minister talked about modernising tax, he was referring to the fact that, to accommodate that so-called modernisation, Tolley's three standard tax manuals—I gather that they are the bible of tax accountants—now include 855 new pages to explain the Government's new thoughts. The guides, which run to 3,414 pages, are longer than London's residential and business telephone directories put together. Apparently, Tolley's has even had to reduce the print size to cram in more.

So far—I hope that things will be different in a moment or two, but I doubt it—the Government are oblivious to the general clamour about its addiction to meddling, tinkering and over-regulation. Those are the principal complaints of individual and corporate taxpayers alike, for whom the editor of the Financial Times speaks when he complains of a regime of "paralysing complexity". Somebody must hold a torch for simplicity in the system, and it may as well be your Lordships' House. It is true that we will not have the legal power to change anything, but we may, as the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, said, have the power to embarrass governments into a better performance.

My honourable friends in another place voted against the Third Reading of the Bill, partly because of the unexpected and unwelcome appearance of the supplementary charge on the UK oil and gas extraction industry, something to which the noble Lord, Lord Newby, referred. On the other hand, the Government listened to some of the comments by our party in Committee, and I am happy to repeat the thanks that my noble friend Lord Northbrook gave for certain aspects of the Bill. However, that should be set against the £6 billion a year of extra taxation with which business has been burdened in the past five years, not to mention the additional £5 billion a year in extra regulatory costs, which were not mentioned in the Minister's speech. A new regulation affecting business has been introduced every 26 minutes of the working day since the Government came into office. That rate is exceeded only by government press releases, emission of which occurs every four minutes.

As a result of what the Minister called modernising the corporation tax regime, UK corporate taxation is now 13.2 per cent of GDP, versus 12.7 per cent in Germany and 9.5 per cent in America. This Bill will take the UK proportion even higher. Meanwhile, individual taxpayers will be poorer as a result of the Bill. The Inland Revenue apparently now projects an increase in the number of people paying the top 40 per cent tax rate from 2 million in the last year of Conservative administration to 3 million next year. Meanwhile, the freezing of basic personal allowances, the oldest stealth tax in the book, has prevented those allowances being where they should be, at roughly double their present level.

The total tax take will therefore rise by many billions of pounds as a result of this Bill. The Government claim that all that is for the benefit of public services. However, no one seems convinced. I gather that in word association tests, the word that people now choose to reflect their view of the Government is "disappointment". Presumably, that is because in the past five years taxes have gone up and public services have remained the same or deteriorated.

The fact is that when the Minister spoke of a low tax environment, which I think was his phrase—I know that he will not contradict it, although his words gave a completely different impression—he perhaps overlooked the fact that tax revenues have increased by £100 billion per year over the past five years. If allowances are made for the changes in accounting practices, the actual share of GDP taken in taxation, according to the Government's own Red Book figures, will have risen by 5 per cent between 1997 arid 2006, from approximately 35 to 40 per cent.

Economists, doctors and the public alike are rightly sceptical that the increase in NHS spending without reform of the system will succeed in improving the delivery of healthcare. They are not wrong. The Government's own figures show that they expect wage and price inflation to eat up most of the extra cash. That is because since 1999 public sector wages have increased 4 per cent faster than those in the private sector.

I conclude by considering two omissions from the Bill, which your Lordships may consider striking. First, the Bill does not address the pensions crisis which perhaps has arisen as a direct result of the Finance Act 1997. The £5 billion per year tax on dividends introduced by that Act created a vicious circle. It directly reduced pension entitlements by the amount of tax and, by greatly reducing the attraction of equities relative to all other asset classes held by pension funds, reduced the demand for equities and therefore contributed directly to the price falls now seen in the stock market. The only reference to pensions in 1,000 pages appears in Clause 29, which provides for a measly £55 million-worth of allowances to be given to pensioners aged 65 to 74.

The other striking omission relates to national insurance and the increases that formed a key part of the Chancellor's Budget Statement. Those were not mentioned by the Minister in his opening remarks either. The charm for the Government of putting tax increases into a completely separate National Insurance Contributions Bill, rather than in this Finance Bill, is the public's complete lack of understanding of the working of the contributory system, which the noble Lord, Lord Newby, called "complex and opaque". As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby said in your Lordships' House the other day, putting tax rises in the National Insurance Contributions Bill, rather than in this Bill, is merely a device for exploiting public ignorance and raising money less visibly, because people dislike the idea of paying straightforward income tax.

By such errors of omission and commission, the Bill threatens all the theoretical economic foundations on which the Chancellor's framework is built, of which the Minister is so proud. The framework's main pillars—the independence of the Bank of England, the symmetrical inflation target and the code of fiscal stability—are all much less solid than the Minister may like to think. Incidentally, any idea that the European code may save us has been dashed by the new French finance Minister, Francis Mer, who said:

"Le code de stabilityé européan n'est pas inscrit dans le marbre".

That is probably just as well, because the reality of our economy is that the private sector, for the first time since 1992, has registered two consecutive quarters of negative real spending growth. The UK has recorded the slowest pace of economic growth of any G7 country in the first quarter of this year.

It is perhaps even more to the point that a more detailed output breakdown, for which I am indebted to my co-author, Dr Peter Warburton—I find this very worrying— reveals that the so-called hot private sector service sectors, that is, business, financial and telecommunications services, have delivered half of all the output growth in the UK economy in the past five years. The other 80 per cent of the economy has grown at 2 per cent per annum or less in every year since 1994. That over-reliance on the output growth of the hot sectors, which is now decelerating sharply, threatens to undermine the Government's objective of steady and stable growth, of which the Minister made so much.

New Labour was right to break away from the simple equation that higher tax rates equal better public services and greater social justice. With this Finance Bill, it has begun to slip back into the old ways of thinking. Only two things are needed to bring back to life the dead body of old Labour. This Bill provides the first—tax. In Monday's comprehensive spending review, we shall have the second—spend. By Monday night, the resurrection will be complete.

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this short and rather concentrated debate.

I begin with a matter of housekeeping. The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, complained about the short notice of this debate. The rules of the House do not allow us to include in the Minutes of Proceedings or future Business any legislation that has not arrived from the House of Commons. This legislation was passed by the House of Commons only late on Thursday night. It therefore came to this House for First Reading on Monday, and the speakers' list could not be produced until that time. I appreciate the inconvenience that that must have caused.

The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, also referred to the bad timing of the Finance Bill coming here before the comprehensive spending review, which will come before us, if the Opposition choose to have the Statement repeated, on Monday of next week. The timing of the Finance Bill has been known for some time and has been included in the forthcoming Business for all that time. The timing of the comprehensive spending review became apparent only during the middle of this week. Neither the House authorities nor anyone else could have done anything about that. It would have been preferable to debate them jointly—I am not sure in what order—on the same day.

All three noble Lords referred to the length and weight of the Bill. It is true that it is lengthy. However, 300 pages—60 per cent of the total—were published in draft, or consulted upon, substantially before the Budget. That is the benefit of a Pre-Budget Report in November, before a March or April Finance Bill and Budget Statement. Therefore, the opportunity for consultation has been much greater than it was in previous years, when there was no Pre-Budget Report. In addition, the Bill abolishes 200 pages of financial legislation. We therefore have to take the net figure, not the gross figure. In practice, it has worked well. In a press release produced at the end of May, the Chartered Institute of Taxation praised both the Finance Bill and the process of consultation. It felt that, where there has been consultation—it is not always appropriate—it had been carried out well.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, for his welcome to a number of aspects of business taxation. He asked whether this meant that we favoured incorporated over unincorporated businesses. The answer to that is no. The difference between incorporation, non-incorporation and sole traders varies under different circumstances. For example, on occasion an unincorporated business can do better in terms of tax relief for losses or pension contributions than can an incorporated business. I have done that myself by using a partnership instead of a limited company for exactly that purpose. The advantage for non-incorporation remains in place. In addition, some of the provisions in financial legislation, such as capital allowances, apply both to incorporated and unincorporated businesses.

The noble Lord and other noble Lords referred to the rises in national insurance contributions. Some criticisms were expressed that those had been introduced in a separate Bill. They had to be introduced in separate legislation because, under the rules set by the House of Commons over many years, the Finance Bill does not deal with changes made to the National Insurance Fund. I should have thought that noble Lords would welcome the fact that the National Insurance Contributions Bill was so transparent and that it drew attention to the changes in national insurance contributions rather than their being buried within a long Finance Bill. We certainly have nothing to apologise for, either in the way that the rises in national insurance contributions have been implemented or, indeed in implementing them at all. They follow the Beveridge principle that those in work should contribute for the benefit of those not in work. If we had introduced, for example, increases in the tax on pensioners' incomes, I think that there would have been some justified complaint. We might have seen lobbies led by Jack Jones outside the Palace of Westminster.

Both the noble Lords, Lord Northbrook and Lord Saatchi, referred to the existence and the treatment of tax credits. Again we have nothing to apologise for in the existence of tax credits, the Tax Credits Bill which has recently passed through Parliament—it will make a major contribution to the reduction of poverty in this country—or for the way in which it has been done in terms of the treatment of tax credits in the national accounts. I do not know whether it is fully realised that because we have adopted generally accepted accounting practices in all of these matters—we are practically the only country in the developed world to have done so—tax credits in particular count as income tax only in very limited circumstances. Only 12 per cent of working families' tax credits count as negative income tax and therefore affect what the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, calls the "tax burden", but what I call the "ratio between gross domestic product, taxes and social security payments".

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister. I accept completely that the public accounts now conform with generally accepted accounting principles. Why did it take the Government five years to reach the position they are in today?

My Lords, with the Government Resource and Accounts Act 2000 we had to bring to a successful conclusion the process of the move towards resource accounting, started by the previous government and faithfully carried through by this Government. It is to be implemented this year. One can have generally accepted accounting principles only if one has proper resource accounting instead of cash accounting. I should have thought that by now that would have been a fairly non-party point.

Perhaps I may turn back to the points put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook. He thought that we have been optimistic in our forecasts of growth rate. I shall respond by saying that I do not think so. Our neutral estimate of trend growth for the 2002 Budget, medium-term projections, is 2.75 per cent, which falls within the range of forecasts made by respected external organisations such as the OECD and the International Monetary Fund. The IMF Article IV Consultation, published in 2001, stated that the UK economy would average potential growth of 2.8 per cent over 2001-05, up from an average potential growth of 2.5 per cent over the previous five years. Furthermore, our public finance assumption has been declared reasonable and cautious by the National Audit Office.

Of course we are alert to the risks of the recent fall in the stock market, as we were to the fall which took place after September 11th. We have been exceedingly cautious in our forecasts. We are aware of the potential effect on consumer spending, to which the noble Lord referred, although it must be said that that has not happened yet. We think that there are now clear signs that growth in the economy is strengthening, in particular for manufacturing industry, according to the most recent figures. Furthermore, we are not alone in those beliefs.

The noble Lord queried my comment that the UK has the lightest tax burden. I suppose that he was referring in the main to business tax, although I am not sure. However, it is not true: the UK business tax burden at 7.3 per cent is significantly lower than the European Union average of 10 per cent. That was the figure for 1999, which is the most recent figure published by the OECD. We are confident that our estimates are correct.

The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, went on to ask me four specific questions. His first question concerned taxation of UK branches of foreign banks. We have made those changes because the OECD stated that we were out of line with international practice. We believe that it is right to be in line with such practice.

The noble Lords, Lord Northbrook and Lord Newby, both asked about oil company taxation. The answer to that question is that there have been two elements of change to oil company taxation. First, there has indeed been a 10 per cent rise, but that increase is justified by the profits being made by oil companies. Of course they are all doing so because they have licences from the UK Government. Secondly, neither the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, nor the noble Lord, Lord Newby, appeared to recognise that at the same time we have been encouraging further exploration by offering the extension of 100 per cent first-year allowances. On balance, those are prudent policies.

The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, also asked me about controlled foreign companies, in particular with regard to the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. We have to provide protection against harmful tax practices wherever we can, and that is what we have been trying to do. But these are reserve powers that will be brought into effect only if it is found to be necessary.

The noble Lord asked me about the purpose of the review of the definitions of "residence" and "domicile". This has arisen as a direct response to complaints that have been made by tax planners. The existing rules are unclear. After extensive consultation, therefore, we would aim to make them clearer.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, referred to a number of aspects of good macro-economic news—for which I am grateful—although he accused us of complacency. I hope that I answered that accusation in my response to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, about growth rates. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, approved of our policies for longer term stability. I am grateful for that and for a number of his other comments.

As to the noble Lord's question in regard to royalties, we have been in consultation on this issue for a considerable time, even though a formal announcement was made only last week. He asked us to set a date for abolition. Several dates have been suggested but we believe that propriety dictates that we should set a date for abolition only after the formal consultation is complete. In other words, we should hear from everyone before making up our minds.

I am baffled by the noble Lord's reference to community amateur sports clubs and charitable status. I had no idea that the Charity Commission would behave as it has towards Banbury Cricket Club. I shall make inquiries into the matter and I shall write to him about that and the more general issue of whether it is appropriate for community amateur sports clubs to take on charitable status in order to benefit from the changes made in the Budget.

I am grateful for the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, in regard to the Committee proceedings on the Bill in the House of Commons. It added greatly to the comity between the two Houses, which we are all keen to preserve. I do not have any comments to make on what either he or the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said about the report of the Leader's Group and the Procedure Committee. That is a matter for the House to consider on 24th July. Like others, the noble Lord queried the argument in regard to the low tax environment. I hope that I answered his query when I responded to the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook.

I am surprised that the noble Lord also queried whether we were tackling pensioner poverty. Yes, of course there was a period some years ago in which the rigid adherence to the formula gave rise to a 75 pence increase in the basic state pension. That created a great deal of anger. But, if we look at the policies as a whole, we can defend the way in which we are tackling pensioner poverty. We are offering extra financial support to the poorest pensioners through a minimum income guarantee; we are rewarding those who have saved for their retirement through the new pension credit, which will take effect from 2003; we are helping all pensioners by guaranteeing a minimum increase in the annual basic state pension; we are providing additional help with the cost of winter fuel; and we are creating a sustainable system of support which will enable today's workforce, tomorrow's pensioners, to plan ahead and make decent provision for their retirement, protecting themselves against poverty in the future. I shall not stray into the debate on pension regimes, which started yesterday and which, no doubt, will continue.

I have dealt with the criticisms made by the noble Lord about tax rises being in the National Insurance Contributions Bill rather than in this Bill.

The noble Lord made comments, as he has done on a number of occasions, about regulation on business and the number of statutory instruments. I should remind him that more than 90 per cent of statutory instruments have no impact on business and that many of the remainder—such as road traffic orders—have only a local or temporary effect. A better measure of the burdens imposed by regulation is the number of regulatory impact assessments produced by departments showing which proposals would have a significant impact on business. In 2001, only 3 per cent of all regulatory measures, including primary legislation, had a significant impact on business. This has been true for a number of years. I am not saying that we should aim only for stability; I am saying that we should aim for a real reduction.

Returning to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, about charities, the issue of rates relief is for individual authorities. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has issued a consultation paper. I shall write to the noble Lord on this issue.

The contributions made in the debate have been, on the whole, helpful and realistic. I hope that the House will agree that they have not dented the claims that I made in my opening speech. This Finance Bill is in line with our reputation for stability and prudence and with our ambition for greater wealth, prosperity and justice in our society.

On Question, Bill read a second time; Committee negatived.

Then, Standing Order 46 having been dispensed with (pursuant to Resolution of 9th July), Bill read a third time and passed.

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.

In doing so I want, first, most warmly to congratulate my honourable friend Rachel Squire on piloting this humane and long-overdue measure through the House of Commons with such skill and success. Speaking as a serial legislator in this policy area—both as a Private Member and a Minister—I hold her achievement in the highest admiration. By all my tests of the good MP, she is a parliamentarian par excellence. Rachel acknowledged, as I do now, the unfailing support of Caroline Ellis and her team at the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB); of the Government and particularly of Melanie Johnson; of the copyright directorate; and of parliamentarians of all parties in another place. I want also to acknowledge the invaluable help of Rhodri Walters of the Public Bill Office in this House and of Mary Robertson and Chloe Mawson of the office of the Leader of the House.

For me, this is a deeply evocative moment. It recalls the warmth of the all-party support I received, 33 years ago, after publishing my Private Member's Bill that became the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. The RNIB today describes the Bill as having,

"marked the beginning of a long revolution in the life chances of all disabled people".

It was not a personal achievement. A wide fellowship of people worked with me to enact my Bill. They included many distinguished parliamentarians without whose unfailing help—notably that of my good and abiding friend Jack Ashley, as he then was, the late and much revered John Astor and the ever resourceful Lewis Carter-Jones—it could never even have begun to achieve its purpose. Naturally I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Ashley and I are as one again in this debate.

Of course, both of us well recall that the RNIB also played an important part in and after 1970 and I pay tribute today to two other fellow campaigners and longstanding friends of ours: Colin Lowe CBE, who now chairs the RNIB, and Professor Ian Bruce, its Director-General. To their kind assessment of my Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill, my response is that this Bill too marks an historic turning-point, one that will open up for visually impaired people throughout the UK—over 3,000 in every parliamentary constituency—a world of information and culture from which they are mostly and quite wrongly now excluded.

Visually impaired people cannot simply walk into their nearest bookshop and choose a book in large print or Braille. While there are a few commercial publishers of large-print and audio books, most publishers do not make accessible copies of works for people who are visually impaired. The most recent research shows that only 5 per cent of the 100,000-plus titles published in the UK in 1998 were available in formats accessible to Britain's 2 million visually impaired people a year later. The majority of accessible copies are produced by voluntary organisations or teachers of visually impaired students. Yet even their ability to make books, magazines and other materials accessible and readily available is massively constrained by current copyright restrictions.

Before accessible copies of a copyright work can be made the explicit permission of the right-holder is required. This is usually granted but, typically, there are significant delays of anything from a month to two years and, occasionally, some outright refusals. When permission is delayed or refused, visually impaired students are unable to complete coursework and members of churches, community and reading groups find themselves excluded from social and cultural activities. Visually impaired people are distressed and rightly feel aggrieved that this most damaging form of social exclusion is still allowed to happen.

One example of its effects is that of a blind choir member still awaiting her Braille copy of Complete Anglican Hymns Old and New. This is because the RNIB has yet to receive copyright permission. There are numerous contributors to the hymn book and chasing them all up is proving expensive. Yet until the blind choir member gets her Braille hymn book, she cannot play her rightful part in the choir's activities and is left doubly disabled and in double despair.

That is but one example of why Rachel Squire introduced her Bill in another place. It was debated there entirely without party animus and unanimously approved, as the speeches of Nigel Waterson, speaking for the Opposition, and earlier of his Front Bench colleague, Eric Forth, clearly demonstrated. Nigel Waterson said that the Bill had:

"the wholehearted support of the official Opposition. The principle that it involves could not be clearer: our visually impaired constituents should have unnecessary obstacles removed from their lives, whether in their leisure activities or their studies. They face quite enough obstacles in their lives already".—[Official Report, Commons, 21/6/02; cols. 572–573.]

Eric Forth described the measure as:

"a model private Member's Bill. It is focused on a particular problem; it is relatively and properly limited in scope; it is, we now know, uncontroversial … Those are all admirable qualities in a private Member's Bill. The fact that the Bill seeks to correct something which is so patently wrong and does so in a businesslike way is an additional virtue".—[Official Report, Commons, 15/3/ 02; col. 1198.]

The House of Commons was at its best in the debates there on this Bill and I am sure the response of this House will be no less worthy of its high moral purpose. Indeed, I see the presence here today of my noble friend Lady Andrews to speak for the Government and that of the noble Lords. Lord Glentoran and Lord Addington, to speak for the Opposition parties as a clear guarantee of that outcome.

Many organisations and bodies outside the House are most anxious to see the Bill reach the statute book with no avoidable delay. In addition to the RNIB, which has long campaigned on this issue, they include the Disability Rights Commission, Rehab UK, Scope, St Dunstan's, The Royal British Legion, Sense, Deafblind UK, the Library Association, the National Library for the Blind, the Calibre Cassette Library, the Scottish Braille Press and the Talking Newspaper Association of the UK.

A very wide range of authors have expressed their support, including Philip Pullman, Jilly Cooper, Joanna Trollope, Harold Pinter and Nick Hornby. Many more, including a number of noble Lords, are actively engaged in promoting the right to read by recording Talking Books and by fundraising for RNIB's Digital Talking Book service.

Since last summer Rachel Squire has worked tirelessly with the Patent. Office and all of the interests involved to ensure that her Bill strikes exactly the right balance between the pressing needs of visually impaired people and the legitimate interests of copyright owners. Initially, right-holder groups had some concerns about aspects of the Bill. Responding to their views, Rachel amended her Bill to tackle them. The Minister gave further assurances at Third Reading in another place so that right-holder organisations are today generally supportive of the Bill.

I turn now to a brief explanation of the Bill's clauses, which the Explanatory Notes, prepared by the RNIB with help from the Patent Office and available in the Printed Paper Office, allow me to make all the more succinct.

Clause 1 provides the first new exception to copyright. This allows single accessible copies of copyright materials to be made for the personal use of a visually impaired person without infringement of copyright. A visually impaired person can only have an accessible copy made under the exception where they have lawfully in their possession or are lawfully able to use, such as in a reference library, what is called a "master copy" of the copyright material. Of course, the master copy will generally have involved payment of copyright royalties to the owners. It is not possible to make an accessible copy where these are already commercially available and any copies made under this exception must be accompanied by a statement that they are so made.

Clause 2 provides the second new exception to copyright, allowing multiple copies of a master copy to be made by either an educational establishment or a not-for-profit body. However, as with the first exception, there are a number of conditions. A body cannot make accessible copies in a form that is commercially available and cannot supply any accessible copies to a visually impaired person who would have no problem in accessing a commercially available copy.

Clause 3 states that bodies acting under the second new exception to copyright are allowed to keep an intermediate copy that was necessarily created during the production of accessible copies under the exception. This intermediate copy can be used, but used only, to produce further accessible copies in the future. An intermediate copy that includes the right codes in order to run off a Braille copy may have been expensive to produce, so this is a valuable way of saving money. Moreover, intermediate copies can be transferred to other bodies entitled to make accessible copies under the exception. Copyright owners must be notified of accessible copies made and intermediate copies transferred and must be given reasonable access to inspect records made of accessible and intermediate copies.

Clause 4 enables copyright owners to continue licensing the production of multiple accessible copies, and seeking a royalty for use of their property, the copyright, in this way if they so wish. It provides that the second exception is overridden to the extent that there is a licensing scheme to license the making of particular accessible copies. If such a scheme exists, then a licence must be taken out in order to make that type of accessible copy of the copyright material covered by the scheme. However, a licensing scheme cannot generally prohibit anything that would have been possible under the multiple copies exception.

Clause 5 allows the Secretary of State to make an order that would limit the scope of Section 31B, which allows approved bodies to make accessible copies of copyright material where she believes that copyright infringement has occurred on a scale that would not have happened but for activity under the second exception. An order could prohibit certain bodies from acting under the exception or a licence or limit the description of accessible copies that can be made. The Secretary of State must consult relevant interests before making an order. This offers a vital safeguard for copyright owners, but, of course, great effort will go into promoting compliance to minimise any need for resort to this power.

Clause 6 deals with the key definitions of visually impaired person and accessible copies. And here I am very pleased to say that, as well as people who are blind and partially sighted, the Bill will also help people who have a physical disability which makes them unable to hold a book or move or focus their eyes normally.

Clause 7 makes consequential amendments to the 1988 Act and Clause 8 specifies that the Act will apply across the UK since copyright is a reserved matter.

These provisions rest on the twin principles of respect for intellectual property and the need to acknowledge the right of visually impaired people to read the same materials as everyone else without delay. They will make an immediate difference to visually impaired people in education, work and cultural life and will enhance their status and well-being by improving their life chances.

The good society for disabled citizens is one that strives to reduce the handicapping effects of their disabilities and vouchsafes for them the same rights as other citizens to grow and to learn, to work and create and to participate fully in the social and economic life of their communities on equal terms with everyone else. This Bill —the Rachel Squire Bill—contributes importantly to that end for at least two million disabled people in this country and hopefully, by its example and impact, millions more across the world. Yes, this Bill is also of considerable international importance and I commend it to your Lordships' House.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Morris of Manchester.)

My Lords, I rise to give my strong support to this Bill. Before I begin, I have to apologise to your Lordships' House. A charity event means that I shall be unable to be here for the whole debate. I hope your Lordships will forgive me. I shall be brief because I know that, behind the scenes, much effort has gone into ensuring that this Bill succeeds. I have been very moved by the eloquent way in which the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, has introduced it.

As we have heard, this is an important Bill backed by many organisations: in particular, by the RNIB and by many professionally involved bodies, such as the Publishers Licensing Society, as well as by many authors. I am pleased that the Government are also hacking it. Successful legislation is achieved through a partnership. This Bill is a very good example of that.

A part of that partnership is Parliament. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, for introducing the Bill in your Lordships' House and to Rachel Squire for steering it through another place—not an easy task, given how few private members' Bills reach the statute book.

The Bill is important because it will massively increase the number arid range of printed material for visually impaired people and will speed up the process hugely. It will achieve that by simplifying the copyright process. I was depressed to learn from the RNIB figures that just five per cent of books published in 1998 were available in accessible format one year later. It was also shocking to read that it can take over a year to get the necessary permission for a student to get his/her course notes in audio format. I was also surprised to learn that, although many authors strongly support this initiative, some refuse to allow their work to be made into audio books, which is saddening.

Many people will benefit from this Bill. We have heard that two million people in the UK are blind or partially sighted and many, through physical disability, cannot hold a book. As sight loss is often age-related, it is not surprising that 90 per cent of them are older people. Unless we can prevent age-related sight loss, our ageing population could mean that as many as 2.5 million people will be affected by sight loss by 2025. Already one in five older people, aged over 75, suffer some form of sight loss.

Therefore, it is clear that older people will be the main beneficiaries, particularly those who prefer audio format. Reading for them is a major pastime. They use libraries more and take out more books. Why should they not be able to have access to the latest best-seller in accessible format? We need to ensure that those people, too, are part of the information revolution.

Many people with sight loss are older people who suffer from macular degeneration, affecting particularly the ability to read. That can lead to loss of job and some people retreat into depression, isolation and serious illness. Other conditions associated with ageing affect our sight, such as diabetes and cataracts. We know that the incidence of diabetes is increasing all the time, partly through success in enabling diabetics to live longer. But we have to ensure that the other aspects of life are also dealt with as this happens.

In some ways it is a pity that we need this Bill to speed the copyright process for accessible format printed material, especially for Braille. Publishers could co-operate more under existing law. A relatively small number of blind or partially-sighted people use Braille and 1 doubt whether there is much of a black market in "knock-off" Braille books.

As the Bill has already had considerable consultation and consideration, I wish it a swift passage through this House.

My Lords, I should like to add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Morris. It is typical that he should introduce this Bill. He did so with great eloquence and very comprehensively. I am sure there can be no doubt in the mind of anyone listening to his speech about the importance of this Bill. The fact that my noble friend has proposed it is yet another laurel to add to the many he has gained in Parliament. I should like also to congratulate Rachel Squire who piloted the Bill in another place with great skill. That it was accepted on all sides was a. very welcome development.

Caroline Ellis at the RNIB does splendid work on disability. She and her outstanding team have been briefing and helping us on this Bill. I cannot let this moment go without saying how delighted I am that my noble friend Lady Andrews will reply to the debate. She begins a distinguished Front Bench career. We shall listen with great interest to her response and watch her future career with even more interest.

Thirty years ago, disabled people were undoubtedly regarded as second class citizens. ln a sense they accepted it then because there seemed to be no alternative. The barriers were so enormous and immense and there was no move from any government—Labour, Tory, Liberal or whatever—towards significant advances to further the rights of disabled people.

There have been a number of developments since then. With the help of the All-Party Disability Group and many other organisations, we have made enormous progress for disabled people. However, that progress is not comprehensive and there are still many gaps in the provision.

The Bill fills an important gap. As the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, said in support of my noble friend Lord Morris, the Figures that we have heard on the treatment of visually impaired people are shocking. It beats me how we have neglected the problem all these years and Parliament has remained passive while visually impaired people have been denied books, newspapers and all kinds of publications. I do not know how we have overlooked it. It is a blot on campaigners and on successive governments.

I feel irritated when I go to a library and have to wait a week for a book. I almost demand instant attention. I feel slightly irritated when people say that the book will be along in a couple of weeks. The research for the Bill has shown that blind or visually impaired people have to wait for up to two years before they can get books. That is staggering. Where has Parliament been all this time? What have we been doing? Why have not the blind and visually impaired people been more vociferous—although RNIB does a good job?

The key figure, which was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Morris and by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, is that only 5 per cent of books published in a year are in an accessible format for blind people. That is staggering. The best way to understand the significance of such a lack of provision is to place it in another context and imagine that all the people in British libraries were told that they could have only 5 per cent of the books on the shelves. That is the equivalent and shows the significance of the situation for blind and disabled people. It beats me how we have tolerated it.

Inevitably, there are fears of a conflict between visually impaired people and copyright owners, who are legitimately concerned about the diminution and dilution of their rights. Happily, because of the good offices of Rachel Squire and her colleagues in the House of Commons, those problems have been ironed out. I am very pleased that the Minister, Melanie Johnson, said that, after all the negotiations, the Bill now provides all the necessary checks and balances, while helping visually impaired people.

There we have it. We could not have a better Bill. It is uncontroversial. Long speeches are an awful bore, so I shall sit down now. I warmly commend the Bill to the House.

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester has clearly and eloquently described the purpose of the Bill and how the clauses will work. As he said, it was tweaked and improved before it went into the legislative process and during its passage through another place to satisfy the copyright holders, who I gather are now happy about the Bill and appreciate the need for it.

The Bill will greatly help towards including visually impaired people in—and keeping them abreast of—society as a whole, making them first class citizens rather than second class ones, as my noble friend Lord Ashley has just described. It follows a long line of legislation sponsored in both Houses over the years by my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester and his equally tireless colleague, my noble friend Lord Ashley of Stoke.

I plead with my noble friend Lady Andrews to arrange for this short but useful Bill to move rapidly through its remaining stages, without, it is to be hoped, amendment, so that it can reach the statute book before the recess if possible. I realise that whether amendments will be tabled is not entirely in her hands.

The Bill cannot be described as a giant leap for mankind, but it is an important step in the right direction for those men, women and children who have the misfortune to be visually impaired.

My Lords, I, too, congratulate Rachel Squire on taking up this important Bill after her success in the Private Member's Bills ballot in the other place. I am delighted that, with his long and successful experience with Private Member's Bills, my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester is going to steer the Bill through this House. I also congratulate the team from the RNIB, whose work on the Bill has been outstanding. It is an essential Bill for visually impaired people and it has my wholehearted support.

This action to redress the appalling injustice faced daily by visually impaired people is long overdue. We have already heard examples of how damaging and demoralising this denial of the right to read generally available published material can be, excluding visually impaired children and adults from educational and cultural life. The Bill will go a long way to address that.

I know from my borough of Hammersmith and Fulham the frustrations that are faced by the visual impairment resource team and, most importantly, by each visually impaired child and their family. To get translations or adaptations for each pupil's work throughout their life, the team has to apply for permission from the publishers. This often involves significant delays and it can be months before they receive a reply. If a pupil is studying for public examinations such as GCSEs, this can mean that they do not receive their text books in accessible format until revision time. That is an appalling injustice.

Hammersmith and Fulham's resource team has recently noticed a tendency for permission to be given with more stringent conditions attached than in the past. For example, one publisher refused to allow illustrations to be described for a Braille reader, making it impossible for that student to access the work. Others have reminded the team that:

"Permission does not include any extraneous copyright material that may be incorporated in the work".

Text books often contain a lot of extraneous material, such as quotations, poetry and magazine or newspaper articles. Under current copyright law, all those with copyright in such work have to be contacted before an accessible copy can be made available. This long overdue Bill will address that issue. It bends over backwards to meet the concerns of copyright holders. It is a wholly welcome, hut very modest Bill.

Almost four centuries ago the law established that a copy of every piece of published material should be deposited with the British Library so that it could be accessible to anyone who wanted to read it. Visually impaired people should have that same right.

Today's production processes mean that nearly all material is published from an electronic format. I look forward to a time when we pass a Bill ensuring that a copy of that electronic format is lodged with the British Library or an appropriate authority for access by visually impaired people, with thorough safeguards to address the copyright holders' concerns. In that way we might ensure that every visually impaired person has the same right of access to every published work in the format that they require.

In the mean time, I wholeheartedly support this long overdue and urgently needed Bill. I hope that we can ensure that it has a speedy passage through this House.

My Lords, reading this Bill gives rise to one of those occasions when one gets that horrible, sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach and the question occurs: why was this not done earlier? The delay in passing this type of legislation provides the best possible example of the cock-up school of history. Literature plays such an important part in our lives that exclusion from access to it effectively marks one out as not being a part of the intelligentsia or the mainstream of those who argue and are informed. Despite our best efforts to the contrary, we still pay far more attention to those who can quote someone who had a great thought in the past than we do to those who quite independently arrive at precisely the same thought in the present. It is just the way that we work. It is much easier to change the law than it is to change cultural tradition. So I think that those who have promoted this legislation deserve credit.

It is also nice that, because the other place has done all the work on the legislation and sent it to us, we have only to extend our congratulations. Indeed, I think that this is the first such occasion in my time in the House. I hope that this precedent will help ensure that our task is easier when we next consider disability legislation of any description. I say that more in hope than expectation.

The Bill nicely encapsulates the idea that, if something benefits most people, everyone should have access to it. I cannot see anyone fundamentally objecting to that, with the possible exception of a few lawyers who like drawing up contracts. However, baiting them should become a national sport. I suggest that the Bill will not hurt anyone.

The Bill also points up how much more difficult it is to legislate in the disability sphere because of the diverse range of needs and unintentionally erected obstacles. One idea currently in the air is to bring all civil rights under one heading. I would be in favour of that if it would encompass the great range of disabilities. Although this is not the time to go into that, there are many cases in which sheer ignorance leads to discrimination.

I see no conceivable reason that the Bill should not be passed quickly. As I said, the problems have already been dealt with in negotiations. If anyone on these Benches plans to move an amendment to this legislation, he/she will have to do an extremely good job of explaining to me why we should do so.

My Lords, I also support the Bill. For many years, my wife worked for the Royal National Institute for the Blind; ultimately she was the regional director for Northern Ireland. Perhaps I may detain your Lordships for a moment to relate the first time that contact with a blind person had a serious impact on me.

Sir John Wall, who was then chairman of the Royal National Institute for the Blind, came to stay with us at home one weekend. We live in a reasonable size farmhouse. At bedtime, I took John up to bed and said, "Everything all right, John? Goodnight". He said, "Robin, don't forget to turn the lights out because I don't need them". That had an impact on me. The next day we went for a drive across the beautiful Irish countryside, into Donegal. I had a great friend with me and we were attempting to describe this countryside to John. It was quite a long drive. When John later wrote to us to thank us, he said, "Arid I really did enjoy seeing your beautiful countryside". That really had a major impact on me and allowed me to have a small insight into what it might be like to lose one's sight.

When it comes to being able to read, both for education and for pleasure as one grows older, not to be able to have access to the world's literature or even to newspapers must be a serious handicap and a terrible thing. It is the sort of issue which people generally do not think about. When one goes to buy a book, one does not think 2.5 million people in this country do not have that opportunity.

I really do think that Rachel Squire and the noble Lord, Lord Morris, have done a fantastic job with their team of helpers from across the board, whom the noble Lord, Lord Morris, mentioned. I am also grateful to the noble Lord for so clearly explaining how the Bill will operate. The Bill is a wonderful example of compromise. I suspect that there was also quite a lot of what we would call at home "wheeling and dealing" behind the scenes in order to get the Bill to this stage. All those who have been involved in that deserve our congratulations and thanks.

I certainly support the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington. One wonders why such legislation has taken so long to reach this stage. I also agree that it is great that all this work has been done in another place. The Bill is apparently in a very good state. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on another point. I shall do my best to collar any Members of my party who wish to interfere with the course and process of this Bill. I have absolutely no qualms at all about the Bill. In fact, I support it wholeheartedly.

My Lords, it is a particular pleasure to be able to welcome the Bill on behalf of the Government and to associate myself—bearing in mind our joint history—with my noble friends Lord Morris and Lord Ashley who have such an outstanding record. I was trying to think of a collective noun for campaigners. All I could think of was "a concentration". My two noble friends, therefore, with the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, might be said to constitute a concentration of campaigners.

Noble Lords have spoken with incredible passion and personal conviction and experience, led so notably by the noble Lord, Lord Morris. After his long record of commitment to and action for people with disabilities, his ability to champion this Bill so eloquently is extraordinary. The Bill matches his personal ideals and the collective values not only of the Government but of all parties in this House which have given it such a fair wind today. It is another measure to add to his outstanding record.

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken with such conviction and promised the Bill a swift and speedy passage. There have been some kind words today about the work of the House of Commons in relation both to the Finance Bill and to the sterling work done by Rachel Squire and her team. It is terrific to see a Bill come to this House and require no improvement. We are delighted by the partnership exemplified by this Bill, the support it has received, and the expert work of the RNIB to which noble Lords have rightly paid tribute. The RNIB has illuminated the Bill's spirit and detail. It has done a magnificent job.

The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, very clearly and deliberately took us through the Bill and I shall not rehearse his comments. However, the Bill itself answers the question about why such legislation has taken so long. Its virtue lies in uncovering and repairing this great wrong which has persisted for so many years. Noble Lords spoke of the fundamental human right to read. In a way, that right has changed in recent years. Now, we are talking not only about books or periodicals but about the maps and instructions in electronic format about which so many excluded people have been talking.

It is a catching-up time in many different ways. That has been achieved through the Bill. Visually impaired people have been at a double disadvantage to use the words of my noble friend. They have been unable to obtain, enjoy and make use of much of the material that the rest of us take for granted. The Bill will for the first time overcome the need to obtain copyright clearances to access appropriate formats of copyright material suitable for the use of visually impaired people whether they are students, readers, musicians or craftspeople. I refer to the range of creative activities which are uncovered by the Bill. Visually impaired people will now be able to access those resources in a sensible, timely and fair way.

We have heard examples from all sides of the House of what the provision will mean. My noble friend Lady Wilkins talked of the experience of students in Hammersmith and Fulham who waited a year—right up until their examinations—to get their hands on what they needed. The RNIB has informed us of how long visually impaired people can wait to obtain a library book in a suitable format. What student can afford to wait two years to obtain a key text in a suitable format? However, before the Bill was so ably introduced by Rachel Squire, that was the price that we expected many students to pay; namely, to put themselves at a disadvantage as they strove to overcome disability by ability simply because they did not have the right to access the fundamental material which everyone else had at their disposal. We are deeply indebted to Rachel Squire, to my noble friend and to the whole team. We are particularly indebted to the RNIB for its extraordinary commitment over the years to provide resources. It has been one of the few sources of help that has been available.

The Bill has been warmly welcomed by distinguished authors and librarians. As my noble friend said, a wonderful compromise has been achieved with copyright holders. We have overcome their reservations. The Bill maintains an appropriate and fair balance between the legitimate interests of copyright owners on the one hand and visually impaired users of copyright material on the other. Getting that balance right has been central to the Government's own ability to support the Bill in another place and to play a creative and constructive role in making it as good as it is now. Making sure that the Bill provides a fair balance between those interests also means that it is fully compatible with human rights law. I repeat the assurance given in another place; namely, that the Government are fully satisfied that the Bill is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

My noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester took us through the Bill clause by clause. I wish to reinforce the two new exceptions to copyright now contained in the Bill so that everyone is clear about how they will help visually impaired people and the many charitable and voluntary organisations acting on their behalf. My noble friends Lord Ashley and Lord Morris described the range of organisations that are fully committed to the Bill. It is a magnificent range when one considers how many people will be able to help visually impaired people take advantage of the Bill's provisions. The Bill's provisions will also assist with the delivery of the curriculum to visually impaired children in schools and will remove barriers visually impaired students encounter on a daily basis.

The first exception is what might be called the one-for-one exception set out in Clause 1. That permits a visually impaired person who has already obtained a copy of a document which he or she needs but which they cannot actually use, to make a copy in an accessible format for their personal use—for example, in large print, Braille, audio tape or an electronic format. The condition is that there must not be a commercially available copy accessible to that person. That concept is straightforward. I understand that it follows closely agreed industry guidelines about reformatting materials. The exception essentially ensures that any copyright material that is not covered by those guidelines can also be made accessible to individual visually impaired people who satisfy the conditions set out in the exception.

The second exception, the multiple copy exception provided by Clause 2, has attracted more interest as it will deliver something which is not currently available across a wide range of copyright material. That exception will permit educational establishments and not-for-profit bodies to make multiple accessible copies of copyright material and supply them to visually impaired people for their personal use subject to a number of conditions. Those conditions are found in Clause 2 and in Clauses 3 to 5.

However, there is one important point that I should make clear. New Section 31B inserted into the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 by Clause 2 limits the exemption from infringement of copyright only to the situation where accessible copies are made and supplied for the personal use of visually impaired people. Accessible copies cannot be made under this new exception to copyright otherwise than in that example. Some of the following subsections narrow that further but do not broaden it. Thus, for example, subsection (7) provides that in addition an educational establishment must ensure that any accessible copy supplied by it to a visually impaired person is used only when that personal use can be considered to meet an educational purpose of that establishment.

The Government have already accepted that, in order to ensure that those acting under that exception to copyright understand the limits to what they can do and the conditions that apply, guidance would be useful. I am therefore pleased to repeat a government commitment to produce guidance that was first given in another place.

I conclude by thanking all noble Lords for the way in which they have illuminated the debate. Sadly, the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, is no longer present. She described the impact that the Bill will have and the benefits that it will bring to elderly people. I refer in particular to the audio formatting provisions in that regard. My noble friend Lord Ashley described how a blot on our provision for disabled people has been removed by the Bill. My noble friend Lord Rea talked of the need for the Bill to make rapid progress through the House and for disabled people to become first-class citizens. I believe that the Bill takes us a long way to achieving that step.

The Government will continue to offer their full support to the Bill. Everything we have heard today suggests that it will proceed swiftly and speedily with the blessing and support of noble Lords in all parties. Without the Bill we would still have a situation where months and even years pass during which visually impaired people are denied simple creative opportunities. We were told of the lady who was denied the right to sing in a choir because no copy of the Anglican hymn book was accessible to her. I refer to other situations: for example, learning a language; sharing in the discovery of a new author; a child being shut out of the inclusion that comes with reading the same books as other children in the class; and the sadness of a grandparent being unable to knit a garment for a grandchild because the knitting instructions are not accessible to them. Those and many other examples will now become things of the past.

We believe that the Bill will deliver real and long overdue benefits to visually impaired people. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester once again on bringing the Bill before us today. On behalf of the Government I am delighted that he has done so.

My Lords, I am deeply grateful to everyone who has spoken in this debate, not least my noble friend Lady Andrews, who spoke for the Government, and the noble Lords, Lord Glentoran and Lord Addington, who spoke with such distinction for their parties. Their speeches make my task in concluding the debate all the more facile. In Magna Carta it is written that justice delayed is justice denied. Let us all play our parts in ending urgently now a gross and centuries-old denial of justice to people who are disabled by visual impairment.

I think all I need do finally is to assure any noble Lord who may wish to raise any point whatever with me about the Bill that he will find my door not only open but off its hinges. I commend the Bill to the House.

On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

rose to call attention to the agenda for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in the light of the report of the Science and Technology Committee What on Earth? The Threat to the Science Underpinning Conservation (3rd Report, HL Paper 118), and to move for Papers.

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, it was a great honour to be asked to chair Sub-Committee I of the Science and Technology Select Committee of your Lordships' House and it is a pleasure to introduce today's debate on our report, What on Earth? The Threat to the Science Underpinning Conservation.

I am grateful that we have had a chance to debate the report before the Earth summit in Johannesburg although, because it is a Friday, many noble Lords who would have wished to make a contribution are unable to do so. Although the Government have not yet had the opportunity of giving their considered response to the report, the committee felt that in light of the relevance of our report to the forthcoming Earth summit, which will be attended by the Prime Minister and for which the British delegation is preparing itself, we wanted an opportunity of emphasising to the Government our main areas of concern.

We are most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, for responding on behalf of DEFRA. Our report calls on DEFRA to do a number of things. Ten years ago, just before the Rio summit on biodiversity, the Select Committee under the late Lord Dainton reported on the situation of systematic biology research in this country. Systematic biology is the science of identifying and naming living things and determining their evolutionary relationships with other organisms, living and dead. Lord Dainton's committee was responding to concerns that systematic biology was suffering from poor financial support, particularly in relation to grant in aid funding to the major systematic institutions. The committee reported a very sorry situation and highlighted the dangers to the ability of the British systematic community to respond to the demands made on it. A number of short-term measures to stimulate systematic biology were introduced following the Dainton report. The Natural Environment Research Council developed a taxonomy initiative and the Wellcome Trust set up a biodiversity initiative. The UK Systematic Forum was established. All of those schemes had a beneficial effect on the sector but they were fixed term and have now finished.

The Dainton report laid great emphasis on the importance of the great collections, which are the result of our imperial past and the enthusiasm and expertise of British amateur and professional biologists over two or three centuries. The recommendation of Lord Dainton's committee to maintain government grant in aid funding to the great collections in real terms was envisaged as ensuring that they would be well maintained for the benefit of biologists in Britain and around the world. The government of the day accepted the recommendations of the Dainton report.

Since then, successive governments have launched many conservation initiatives and undertaken major international obligations in relation to biodiversity, most notably the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora—otherwise known as CITES—both of which were entered into at the first Earth summit at Rio. All of this has meant an even greater need for the knowledge and expertise of our systematists.

Worries were raised with the current Select Committee towards the end of last year that the systematic community was still facing many of the same problems outlined 10 years ago. We decided to do a follow-up report, looking at whether the situation identified by Lord Dainton and his committee had improved or worsened. We felt that the matter is even more vital today than it was in 1992 and we felt a duty to find out whether the government had done what they undertook to do. We therefore set out to establish whether systematic biology is in decline in the United Kingdom, and why; clarify whether it matters, and what impact it has on the conservation of biodiversity; and identify what action, if any, is required.

Our committee was blessed with the assistance of a very able and dedicated group of people. Our specialist adviser, Dr Eimear Nic Lughadha of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, gave us an enormous amount of wise counsel on factual matters and helped us identify who we needed to hear from; I am most grateful to her. Our staff team was absolutely wonderful. Their genuine interest in the subject, their good humour in arranging our hearings and their patience over our deliberations were beyond the call of duty. I hope and believe that they enjoyed working on the report and obtained considerable satisfaction from the positive response of the scientific community to the result. I thank them very warmly for their hard and effective work.

I would also like to thank my colleagues on the committee for their patience with me, a "first-timer" in the chair of a sub-committee. They guided me in the right direction, asked extremely perceptive questions and generated very lively and stimulating debate.

The report is the result of evidence from many eminent people, all of them experts in their field; the committee is very grateful to all of them. As a very basically qualified biologist myself, I was often awed, during our investigations, to be in the same room as half a dozen of the world's greatest experts in various species and genera. It was also amazing for me to hold in my hand a glass jar bearing a label with the signature of Charles Darwin. I was in the presence of legends, both living and dead, a good deal of the time during this work.

It is always invidious to pick out a few from many helpful people. However, we received particular help from the Natural History Museum, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew—both of which we visited—and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, which we were sadly unable to visit because of time constraints. The noble Lord, Lord May of Oxford, president of the Royal Society and one of the recent eminent Cross Bench additions to your Lordships' House, was also very helpful and gave evidence to us. We talked to scientists, academics, research councils, learned societies, politicians, civil servants, representatives of museums and gardens, NGOs and international bodies; all of them were unstinting with their knowledge and patience.

In the end we came to the conclusion that the threats to the science of systematic biology in this country are still severe. We concluded that it does matter, more so today than ever before, because of the greater and more pressing threats to the biodiversity of the earth. We have made a number of serious recommendations, to which we sincerely hope the Government will respond.

Why do we conclude that the threats still exist? We found that despite signing CBD and CITES, among other international agreements, grant in aid from successive governments to the major UK systematic biology institutions has declined in real terms over the past 10 years by between 15 and 27 per cent in real terms. That is putting the quality of curation of this priceless heritage and invaluable scientific resource at risk. It is also limiting the ability of these great institutions to respond to the challenges and opportunities that modern technology brings for them to share, via the Internet, their unique collections with the rest of the world, in particular those countries that are cash poor and biodiversity rich.

We found that systematic biology is in what some would regard as terminal decline in our universities. Many of our most knowledgeable systematists are approaching retirement and, despite efforts at succession planning, not enough younger scientists are finding the jobs that will give them the chance to develop the same level of expertise. Difficult decisions are having to be made about abandoning work on whole genera. When that expertise is lost and those work programmes are halted, it will cost a great deal more to replace them, if that can ever be done at all.

Evidence was given to us that few universities have a serious taxonomy department. Lord Dainton referred to systematic biology in British universities as being,

"in danger of extinction as a sustainable discipline".

Evidence from Universities UK and the 2001 research assessment exercise supported our conclusion, from replies to our questionnaires, that the situation has worsened. Reported declines were from 10 to 14 per cent. There has been some success in developing masters courses in the past decade but students find it difficult to pursue a research career in taxonomy beyond that because there are few PhD scholarships and post-doctoral positions available. The work that identifies and describes organisms, sometimes called "alpha taxonomy", was under the greatest threat. We put that down to the difficulty of finding the money for the posts for taxonomic work and for equipment needed for the modern techniques that assist today's systematic biologists to identify specimens and reach conclusions about their relationship to other known living things.

In Darwin's day, identification was carried out simply on the basis of the morphology of individual specimens and populations, with the assistance of a hand lens or a light microscope. Today, advances in identification and the understanding of the evolutionary relationship have been invigorated by advances in molecular biology and gene sequencing technology. But it all relies on expensive equipment and the ability of scientists to use the Internet and share information, which requires costly computers and software.

The shining light among all the gloom was the Darwin Initiative. It was set up in 1992 with the objective of helping to safeguard the world's biodiversity by drawing on the UK's strengths in that area to assist countries rich in biodiversity but poor in financial resources and expertise. We heard that the work of the initiative is universally recognised as having been of enormous value. But although the remit has broadened over time, the budget of £3 million per year has not increased with inflation.

As I mentioned earlier, we set out to discover whether all that mattered, and concluded that it did. It matters in a moral sense and a selfish sense. We concluded that systematic biology provides a vital contribution to pure knowledge of the living world. That is of value in itself, but it also provides a significant resource for conservationists. A flourishing systematic biology sector is also vital for identification of species with beneficial medicinal uses, in pest control and veterinary medicine, fish farming, horticulture and in identifying indicator species that help us to monitor environmental change.

A great milestone in the history of global conservation was reached with the agreements made in 1992. The treaties agreed at Rio were in response to growing awareness of the damage man has done and continues to do to the other living creatures with which we share the planet. Wrong in itself, such damage is also short-sighted because in the end it will disadvantage man himself. In the few hundred years since the Industrial Revolution man has damaged the environment to such an extent as to hasten the extinction of hundreds of species. Unfortunately, since we do not know how many species we had to start with, we have little idea of what we have lost, how those losses have impacted on populations of remaining species and what potential value to mankind has been lost with them.

While production and wealth have grown at an unprecedented rate in some parts of the world, one third of humanity remains locked in grinding poverty, unable to secure adequate sustenance today, let al one a promising future tomorrow. Furthermore, our ability to address these problems is increasingly threatened by the degradation of the environment on which all of humanity, rich and poor, depends. The loss of natural resources, changes in climate and weather patterns, rising sea levels, decline of fish stocks, pollution and soil degradation will affect us all ultimately, but it is the poor who will initially pay a disproportionate price. That is why the summit scheduled to take place later this year at Johannesburg is the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Its agenda has clear links with that of its predecessor held at Rio.

However. the scientists most vital to identifying the effects on the biomass of man's activities, by identifying the species that make up living populations, are systematic biologists. Those scientists are vital to the actions that still need to he taken to implement the good intentions that came out of Rio and the good intentions likely to come out of Johannesburg.

Of the 11 action points in the World Wide Fund for Nature's wish list for the UK delegation in Johannesburg, at least five concerning sustainable timber, fisheries, fresh water arid the marine environment will require a flourishing UK systematic biology community. And that is only part of one NGO's wish list.

It became clear to us during our deliberations that, while it is both impossible and probably unnecessary to have a complete inventory of the earth's species in order to assist in meaningful conservation, we know worryingly little about some very important taxa. We heard estimates of between 5 and 13 million for the number of species there are in total on the earth; yet only 1.7 million have been described. We know a lot about the flowering plants and vertebrate animals but, even for those groups, estimates vary from one expert to another.

I recently read a new estimate of the number of species of flowering plants made by David Bramwell, a fellow student of mine at Liverpool University in the 1960s and now the director of the botanical gardens at Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. He believes that past estimates of 300,000 species are about 40 per cent too low and that 50,000 species remain to be discovered. Others may disagree with him. People are always revising such estimates.

Despite the fact that one of the four aims of the CBD was to indicate species under threat of extinction, the convention of the parties to the CBD identified what it called a "taxonomic impediment" to the achievement of its aim due to a global lack of expertise in systematic biology. Yet the need for that knowledge is urgent and growing. We still have it here in the UK and must preserve it, but not like a desiccated specimen in a herbarium. Rather it needs to be a lively flourishing science taking advantage of all modern techniques.

The World Conservation Union recently reported that 24 per cent of mammals and 12 per cent of birds are considered to be globally threatened. Since that organisation's previous assessment in 1996, the number of critically endangered species has increased—a stark warning of the urgent need for action to conserve biodiversity before it is too late. And those are the groups of organisms about which we know most. We heard during the course of our work that we do not know nearly enough about the copepods in the marine biomass that are so important to the food chain in the sea and the fungi on land that are so important to soil fertility, to name just two under-investigated groups.

So what needs to change? We believe that the UK has a particular responsibility in the world, because it is a comparatively rich country with a great deal of expertise in the field and because of the heritage of the great collections cared for by our botanical gardens, universities and museums. Our proposals are addressed both to the Government and to the systematic community itself.

To the Government we have proposed that grant-in-aid funding needs to return to the level of 1992 in real terms, as the government of the day indicated to Lord Dainton that it would, so that the great collections can be preserved. They are not just of historic value but are used every day by biologists all over the world and cannot be replaced. We also recommend that the Government develop and publish a clear, concise summary of their policy on biodiversity conservation activity in the UK and on the international stage.

We believe that it is good to talk. So, in recognition that funds are limited and priorities have to be identified, we recommend that DEFRA takes the lead in setting up a body with the express purpose of bringing together representatives of government departments, ecologists, conservationists and systematic biologists to identify priority areas where taxonomic research is most needed in order to implement government policy on conservation and for other national purposes such as health and agriculture.

We recommend that the systematic community looks seriously at how it can digitise the collections and share information and agreed species' names and descriptions on the Internet. We suggest that a pilot scheme with some priority species be initiated under the auspices of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility of which the UK is a member. That will serve to preserve the information and repatriate it to the countries from which many of the specimens came. It will assist with the development by those countries of knowledge of their own biodiversity which will help them in developing both economically and sustainably. However, it will also serve to improve the image of systematic biology that has suffered from an image of anorak-clad scientists poring over disintegrating specimens in dusty archives. I know that that is not true, but the rest of the world does not.

We also recommend that systematists increase their efforts to demonstrate the relevance and importance of their own discipline, particularly in the presence of the funding councils. We also published recommendations as to how the funding councils themselves can respond to the plight of this vital enabling science. We would like to see the funding for the splendid Darwin initiative increased. It has proved its success and has potential for a great deal more. We would like to see the Darwin initiative's budget earmarked for projects with a significant taxonomic component to help build taxonomic capacity in developing countries, including projects to digitise UK-based collections.

The noble Lord, Lord May of Oxford, is very disappointed that he is unable to be with us today as he is busy admitting new fellows. He wrote:

"This careful and thoughtful report is hugely important. I most strongly endorse both of the Select Committee's basic recommendations.

First, we simply need more people and more financial support for the basic task of identifying and cataloguing the diversity of life on earth … Second, the report deserves to be influential in its advocacy for digitising collections in systematic biology at a faster rate than currently prevails".

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his endorsement.

The noble Lord also told me that a study group of fellows of the Royal Society and other interested people has already been set up to evaluate scientifically the variety of methods used to measure biodiversity status and to assess their efficacy for conservation and development.

I await with great interest what the noble Baroness the Minister is about to tell us concerning the Government's initial response to the report. A partnership between the Government and the scientific community is needed now in order to address the problems we have identified.

The World Summit on Sustainable Development in September will be attended by many interested parties, including heads of state. Our own Prime Minister was the first to commit to attend. I welcome the Prime Minister's commitment to the issues of conservation and trust that his government will respond positively to the recommendations we have made. Without UK systematists, no commitments that the Government make at Johannesburg can be delivered. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Baroness on moving this debate. As she said, it is the first time that she has led a sub-group of this committee, and I congratulate her on her contemporary style. I believe that we all related to it very well. I also congratulate her on the way that she publicised our report. The extensive press coverage is, indeed, a tribute to her efforts. I express my congratulations, too, to our clerk, Rebecca Neal. The lucidity of our report very much reflects her hard work. I also give my thanks to our special adviser for her guidance.

How many times have your Lordships seen Romeo and Juliet? Is it eight, 10 or 12 times? I saw a performance while we were working on this report. It was then that I became aware of the full meaning of Friar Lawrence's first speech. Noble Lords may remember that he enters collecting plants and speaks of their value to human health.

"Within the infant rind of this weak flower

Poison hath residence, arid medicine power".

But he goes on to speak about the earth and how it is nature's mother. He continues:

"O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies

In plants, herbs, stones and their true qualities;

For naught so vile that on the earth doth live

But to the earth some special good doth give".

This report is about listing the true qualities of the plants, herbs and stones so that we can eventually know the special good that each doth give. Words such as "biodiversity" cannot match the elegance of Shakespeare's rhyming couplets. But our argument is: how can this biodiversity be protected if there is no record of what on the earth doth give?

As the noble Baroness explained, in the 10 years since your Lordships last looked at the matter of systematic biology, we have found that, during that time, funding has been reduced. Whereas once there were hundreds of specialists doing such work, there are now only a few dozen, and there seems to be a feeling of crisis.

The causes seem to be both a lack of resources and, as the noble Baroness said, the perceived dullness of the subject. Cataloguing and recording differences between varieties of plants and insects is probably not the most exciting area of science, nor one where world-shaking discoveries are likely to be made. Therefore, it is unlikely to attract the spotlight. Equally, the scientists in the field have done little to reverse that; nor have they made their work more accessible through digitalisation.

But that does not detract from the importance of their work. As Professor Charles Godfray of Imperial College said:

"It is an enabling science. It does not itself generate new ideas. It provides a vital database".

Systematic biology could indeed be suffering from a lack of glamour. But in no way should the Minister allow that to detract from its importance.

That is a lesson that we are currently learning in many areas—not least in business. The lesson is that sustainable long-term success is far more likely to be enjoyed by businesses and organisations which are strong on dull qualities. Of course, we shall always celebrate individual achievement, and we all admire the talented stars and the celebrity executives. But research and experience have shown us that, over five or 10-year periods, the best performers were not those stars but often the rather dull organisations that carefully built up their teams, fostered a culture of discipline, self-belief and realism, and used technology, not for its own sake but as a means to an end. It is that kind of atmosphere and ethos which, ultimately, proves to be the most sustainable and successful but the least reported and celebrated.

I put it to my noble friend the Minister that there is a similar situation here. Of course, it took the genius of Darwin to make sense of it all. But would he have been able to make sense of it without the taxonomy which went on before and during his lifetime? No one can doubt the importance of the work of taxonomists. But it is perhaps a victim of its own dullness. Let us not ignore it because of the glitter elsewhere because in science, as in business, the glitter does not last.

I read somewhere that this Government need strategies. The Opposition are short on policies but the Government are short on strategies. One strength of the report is that it is, indeed, strong on strategy. I believe that my noble friend should find that of particular value. The first step in getting things done is to have a strategy.

Our strategy has several elements. We call for an increase in grant in aid to the major institutions which carry out this work in order to support the collections and the databases. At the same time, we say how the Systematics Association and the Linnean Society of London should modernise their work and demonstrate their relevance and importance. It is hoped that not only will that attract yet more funding; it should also make the work more attractive to scientists—both paid and volunteers.

I say "volunteers" because there was a time when much of the work was carried out by enthusiastic amateurs. I was reminded of that only yesterday when the Science and Technology Committee in the other place criticised science teaching for its dullness. I could not help reflecting on how collecting data, as part of a national systematic biology project which includes children, would surely make science lessons more interesting and, it is hoped, stimulate a life-long interest. It may even attract the interest of some of the charges of my noble friend Lord Warner.

We also call on the Higher Education Funding Council to find out whether the way in which its research assessment exercise is run has contributed to the decline of taxonomy by failing to provide sufficient funds. We also call upon DEFRA to take the lead in setting up a body in order to bring together the funding agencies, the museums, the universities and government to identity the priorities. It is hoped that the result of that strategy will be that taxonomists will themselves come together and work towards united objectives. Of course, we cannot do everything. As the noble Baroness told us, millions and millions of species are yet unknown to us. We need a kind of systematic national plan which states our priorities.

Like the noble Baroness, I, too, strongly support the recommendation from Professor Charles Godfray that systematics taxonomy should be digitalised. That would make the knowledge and information more widely available. It would also modernise the image of systematics. We are cautious and recommend a trial first.

It seems to me that this is a sensible strategy. It fosters the dull measures rather than the glitter of which I spoke earlier. It is within the resources and capability of the Government. It emphasises the inherent worth of existing people and does not depend on finding rare talent. It is the thoroughly practical kind of strategy which the Government would expect from your Lordships' committee.

The strategy and its objectives are also in keeping with the recent speech by the Prime Minister on science matters. As a supporter of the Government, I am proud of the steps they have taken to increase the spending on and the status of science. But as the Prime Minister said in that speech, we need to do more; I agree. Here is something more which can be done; which is both modest and sensible but is important. In his speech the Prime Minister spoke of the real concerns over biodiversity. It seems to me that our proposals in the report are helpful in two ways: a real "double whammy". They make a positive contribution towards allying the real concerns that people have over biodiversity, and fulfil the Prime Minister's concerns about doing yet more for science to overcome the disastrous period of underfunding and neglect in the past.

Perhaps the Prime Minister will use the summit on sustainable development to announce his support for our recommendations and strategy. The noble Baroness is right in calling attention to the relationship between our report and the World Summit on Sustainable Development. The relationship is obvious. How do we save plants and creatures from destruction if we do not know what they are, where they are or why they are there? We must save them for their powerful grace about which Friar Lawrence reminded us.

I cannot conclude without thanking Andrew Makower, who has been clerk of the Science and Technology Committee for as long as I have been a member of it. He has been a tower of strength. I am grateful to him for that and wish him every success in his new job.

My Lords, I am sure that this House welcomes the report. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, not only on chairing the inquiry but on the way she introduced the report so comprehensively today.

The report comes at an historic moment since 10 years ago, in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, the United Kingdom signed the Convention on Biological Diversity. This year, as has been said, the Prime Minister will follow up that commitment by leading the UK delegation to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Part of the summit will be concerned with the conservation of the world's rich variety of living things, how to sustain it, and how to use it in an appropriate manner.

One might ask, as has been asked today, how well the UK has attended to its commitment of 1992. The answer must be that it has not done as well it should have done. The report gives a number of examples where funding for systematic biology has declined in real terms. Support for nature centres, such as the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew and in Edinburgh and other academic institutions, has declined. The number of workers in the field of systematic biology, and especially taxonomy, has decreased in universities, museums and various other organisations. In 10 years the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau International, in which I declare an interest, has reduced the number of people concerned in taxonomies from 34 to 8. By any measure that is alarming. There was a time when it was possible to send to the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau International specimens for identification. Those would come in from all over the world. It provided an outstanding service in the field of invertebrate biology. Now, much of that has gone, much to the detriment of systematic biology.

One might ask whether systematic biology matters. The answer must be a resounding "Yes". It is an enabling science, as has been stated, and is none the worse for that. It impinges on many aspects of life on earth, including human and animal health, agriculture and, in particular, the environment. A knowledge and understanding of systematic biology is essential to the understanding of the continuum of the biological chain of life from single-celled organisms in the sea to the complex Metazoa, mammals, vertebrates and man. All show an interdependence from which we should be able to read the effect of man's impact on the environment.

If we agree on the importance of systematic biology, it should go without saying that understanding environmental changes is important. To monitor and forecast them demands a knowledge of what is happening at the micro and macro level of ecological systems. It is also important, as the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, said, to know with what we are dealing. We need to know what our organisms are. Biologists throughout the ages have identified some 1.7 million species, but it is said that more than 5 million remain unidentified.

There is a constant loss of species. It has been said that 99 per cent of all the species which originally existed since life began on earth have become extinct. However, there is a constant replacement. New species occur the whole time. It is a dynamic situation.

Systematic biology is the discovery, description, naming and classification of living things and the study of the evolutionary relationships between them. It is probable that many biological scientists started off their careers with the thrill of discovering an undescribed species; of naming it; describing it; and publishing and receiving recognition for it. I have been through that process. It always thrilled me to see something which no one else has seen and to be able to describe it.

That still goes on. There are still people who generate that information. However, it has been complemented by new technologies in molecular biology, gene sequencing and electron microscopy. It is an interesting point that that new technology has not replaced the visual morphology conducted with a simple light microscope, but complements it. The decisions made many years ago on classification into genre, families and associations are still valid. So those early observations of Darwin—and fellow scientists since—based on morphology, were perfectly valid.

As the report says, morphology and systematic biology provide a common biological language, so that scientists throughout the world know what they are talking about when discussing a given species. There are many common names of species in different parts of the world that can lead to a degree of confusion. It will be even more helpful when modern information technology such as the worldwide web and digitisation of data become more accepted. We recommend that in our report. It will enhance systematic biology enormously.

My particular area of interest in systematic biology is in animal disease, and the danger of the spread of tropical diseases in particular, to the European Community and to the United Kingdom. Some major problems which might face us in the future will be transmitted by insects of various kinds. Can our resident species of insects serve as vectors for diseases of the tropics? Can tropical vectors enter this country? Can we recognise them when they do? Can they hybridise with our own species? Could we recognise that hybrid vector? Can we recognise the vector potential that may well be transmitted from a tropical insect to our own insects?

A few years ago Europe—not the United Kingdom— was threatened with a number of tropical diseases that were insect-transmitted. It was discovered that we had a single entomologist in the country who was an expert on biting midges. He was in great demand. I am not sure if he has retired. But that is the level of our competence in this area.

I turn to the Darwin Initiative. It has been an important source of funding for taxonomists for the past 10 years. It has a budget of approximately £3 million. That sum, alongside other support that was promised and expected for systematic biology, has failed to increase in line with inflation. That is contrary to the Dainton recommendations of 10 years ago.

The Select Committee, as the noble Baroness mentioned, now recommends "earmarking" the current level of spending of the Darwin Initiative at £3 million specifically for taxonomic studies. I have an innate suspicion of "earmarking" or ring-fencing any research funds. So often it leads to the exclusion of excellent research outside the ring fence. The recommendation to earmark Darwin funds for taxonomic work has caused concern in the systematic biological research field, for that very reason—it fears that excellence in research may decrease. The concept of earmarking is derived from the additional fear that taxonomic funds may be eroded further, and that the real value of earmarking will be to safeguard them. What is necessary is an increase in the £3 million that was allocated 10 years ago to the Darwin Initiative fund in line with inflation. That would still allow the best of the Darwin proposals and initiatives to take place, but at this increased level.

The Darwin Initiative is not the only source of funding for systematic biology. Perhaps the Minister can let the House have an up-to-date account of the present funding for systematic biology and where it comes from.

The decline in funding of important centres, such as the Natural History Museum and the Botanic Gardens at Edinburgh and Kew, must send the message that this country does not consider systematic biology to be all that important. I believe that to be the wrong message. I trust that this House will conclude that also.

The forthcoming meeting in Johannesburg in South Africa on sustainable development is an excellent opportunity for the United Kingdom to re-affirm its commitment to biodiversity and to the Convention on Biological Diversity. However, to make the commitment valid and credible, investment in systematic biology is essential. That must be done somewhat urgently, and it must be substantial.

My Lords, I too offer my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, on her splendid speech of introduction. Although not a member of the sub-committee, on a number of occasions I was privileged to be able to observe her committee in action, and I had the opportunity to observe her deftness in steering through this timely and valuable report. I also warmly welcome and endorse its recommendations. In doing so I declare an interest as chairman of the Trustees of the Natural History Museum.

I am also sure that all members of the Science and Technology Select Committee would wish to associate themselves with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, in appreciation of our shortly to be replaced Clerk, Andrew Makower.

Systematic biology is concerned with the description and classification and relationships between living things. Worldwide, about 1.7 million animals and plants have been described. That is out of an estimated 12 million. Some parts of the globe, such as the UK, are better known than others. We have a tradition of natural history. But even in the UK only 50 per cent or perhaps 60 per cent of species are catalogued.

Unfortunately, sometimes systematic biology is seen as a relatively unglamorous discipline. In the UK it is pursued by a declining number of staff in major museums and by a declining minority of staff in universities. The fact that it may seem unglamorous does not mean that it is not highly skilled and is not dependent on long experience. The question is, does this matter? Lord Dainton thought so. The committee thinks so, and I have to say that I agree with it.

Some of the reasons for this have already been rehearsed by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and by other noble Lords. I shall not repeat them. I shall take a different tack and one that suggests that regardless of other motivations, sheer self-interest tells us that we must take a close interest in systematic biology.

We need to start with a global view. What we see as our environment today—our surroundings containing plants, animals and microbial life—is something that has since time immemorial been continuously changing. As natural balances have shifted, it has changed from place to place and from time to time. Sometimes the changes have simply been oscillations; sometimes they have been unidirectional shifts and not reversed.

The different life forms that are within and part of that environment are each affected by the behaviour of the others and by changes in the oceans, the atmosphere and the solid Earth. In turn, life forms can profoundly modify their physical environment, both on a local and on a global scale. For example, the evolution of land plants profoundly changed the composition of the Earth's atmosphere.

We find a system of enormous subtlety and complexity. At a gross level, it is reasonably well understood; but in detail, it is mostly unknown. What is clear is that while in some respects that system is remarkably robust, in others it is very vulnerable. It is also a system that in some respects is highly non-linear. By that, I mean that for a while it may show little or no response to a particular external pressure or stimulus and then suddenly, without warning, may shift dramatically. That is why arguments such as, "Well, we have been all right so far", do not work.

As human beings, we tend to be sensitive to changes that affect animals or plants of a size that we can observe. We can notice thrushes, pandas and camels and become concerned about changes affecting them. That is fine, but even taken all together, all the birds and mammals represent a small fraction of the Earth's animal population. In contrast, most of us scarcely register the existence of the myriad of micro-lifeforms without which the higher animals could not exist. The fertility of our soil depends on earthworms and a teeming microbial population.

I reiterate that the relationships between all of those living things and between them and their physical environment is extraordinarily complex. A small change in one part can have profound and disproportionate effects elsewhere that are poorly understood. But what is new? That must have been the case since earliest times. What is different today is not change but the rate of change. What is different today is that one species, the human species, has increased in numbers faster than any other appears to have done in the history of the earth. Not only that, but it is doing so in a way that is extraordinarily demanding of space and resources.

Humans represent fewer than a billionth of the individual animals living on Earth today. Yet we take for our use approximately 40 per cent of the Earth's annual plant growth and roughly the same proportion of the produce of the oceans. We have occupied and modified to our purposes most of the temperate parts of the globe that have reasonable water supplies. Although that explosive growth in numbers has taken place over a few hundred years, that is but the blinking of an eye in the history of the Earth and the Earth has never seen anything like it before.

By our enormous success in predation—consider industrial fishing—and by taking over land previously available as natural habitats, we are driving many species to extinction. To be sure, it is nothing new for species to disappear in particular places, or indeed to become extinct—perhaps out-competed for space or food by others, by suffering predation, or simply by evolving into a new species. But the present rate of extinction is somewhere between 10 and 100 times faster than that found in the geological past. It is no exaggeration to say that if there were some kind of communal animal sentience and awareness, the speed and scale of disaster brought on animals by human beings would appear to them as would a nuclear holocaust to us in terms of land laid waste and individuals killed.

Although I have spoken largely of the direct human impact on animal life, there are, of course, indirect effects arising from the rapid climate change that seems to be driven by our use of fossil fuels. I shall not talk about those, but we must recognise that human beings have unwittingly triggered a series of global changes that they do not understand. Those changes will profoundly affect the way that and perhaps whether we can live in our world. They are important to us because they may affect soil fertility, and thus our ability to feed ourselves, or they may influence the spread of new or existing pathogens that affect our crops, our animals or ourselves. We simply do not know what will happen.

Furthermore, as climate patterns shift, humans will not be the only economic migrants. A range of organisms is already migrating to seek a better life with us. We are not prepared for them either. That tells us that regardless of moral or other imperatives, it is in our self-interest to understand these changes as fully as possible so that we can anticipate their consequences and, possibly, by quite small modifications in our behaviour mitigate the worst effects.

So what does all that have to do with systematic biology? If we are to understand changes in fauna and flora, we have to observe them, record them and measure them. Systematic biology is one of the essential tools in that process. It allows organisms to be identified and counted and changes to be measured. Of course, by itself that is not enough. Ecology—the study of how organisms interact with each other and their physical environment—then takes over. But without a basis of systematic biology, ecology cannot begin.

So what is to be done? I do not think that we can any longer regard systematic biology as simply one more academic discipline that, like others, will wax and wane over time in a way that will be of interest to few outside the academic community. As other noble Lords have emphasised, we need a national strategy for systematic biology and the political will to carry it through. That strategy must recognise that we cannot do everything. Cataloguing every living thing in the world is not practicable.

But in an area as restricted as the United Kingdom, the situation is better than in many countries. The faunal and floral population is less diverse than in tropical climates and the larger elements have in any case been studied for a long time. Even so, many species remain undescribed and their role in our ecosystem unknown. However, in a country where more than half of the task has been done, a concerted, co-ordinated and focused effort could yield results and understanding that would be invaluable to us and probably to the rest of the world.

At present, UK scientific priorities in that field are left to the inclinations of individual scientists and research institutes. Furthermore, as has been pointed out, the international procedures for formally establishing new species have more to do with the 18th than the 21st century. The main national institutes in which such work is done are funded by different government agencies—as far as we can tell, without reference to each other; certainly without any co-ordinating or prioritising framework; and, above all, without any concept of an important national purpose. In all cases, the funding for curation and general maintenance of collections appears to be inadequate and is lower, in real terms, than it was a decade ago. Furthermore, the way in which we fund universities makes it financially unattractive to nurture disciplines such as systematic biology.

I urge the Government to think seriously about a national strategy, more for loss avoidance than wealth creation. There is an urgent need for additional funding for flagship institutions, but it should be related to a national strategy for future work at home and, as appropriate, abroad. The really good news is that systematic biology is not that expensive. A sum of £10 million a year over 10 years would transform the situation in the UK. I repeat, however, that the money must be carefully managed and targeted. It is such an important investment for the well-being of the nation that there is a role for the Office of Science and Technology to work alongside the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in co-ordinating the work of government departments and implementing the scheme, either directly or indirectly through one of its research councils.

In conclusion, I acknowledge my former colleague, Professor John Lawton, head of the Natural Environment Research Council, from whose recent speech I drew some of the numbers cited earlier. They do not differ greatly from earlier estimates, but they underline the urgency of the situation that faces us. We must do our best to act before the situation becomes even more serious than it is today.

My Lords, we are deeply indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for introducing a debate on such an important aspect of conservation. It comes at an ideal moment, following the recent publication of What on Earth? by the Select Committee on Science and Technology and just before the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development. The noble Baroness lists among her recreations being in good company; I hope that she will feel that, even in a thinly attended Friday afternoon House, she is indeed in good company among those of us who care passionately about the issues.

The Anglican Communion is arranging a congress in Johannesburg for the week before the world summit. Church leaders from all over the world will come together to build on the pioneering work on the environment and ecology done at the Lambeth Conference two years ago. I shall be one of two Church of England representatives trying to reflect on, discuss and make plans for the Church's contribution to sustainable development. The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, took us back to Friar Lawrence, but it is, perhaps, worth recalling that among the most distinguished pioneers of systematic biology were some remarkably learned and enviably leisured 19th-century English parochial clergy. They did extraordinary work, and we owe them a great debt of gratitude.

The report is an excellent document. It presents a balanced and persuasive argument for better support for and co-ordination of systematic biology, as many noble Lords have eloquently said. The report identifies three important objectives of the science: to create a common biological language; to identify, in particular, the species that are of benefit to the human race; and to contribute to the conservation of biodiversity. In naming species and understanding how they relate to each other, systematic biology shows over and over again how amazing and how ordered our world is, in ways that fill us with awe and wonder at its infinitely intricate beauty. That response of awe and wonder should engender a sense of responsibility to take care not to disrupt ordered systems for short-term ends.

As has been said, systematic biology is a science in trouble, perhaps in crisis. One of the reasons why systematic biology finds it so hard to fulfil the criteria that would secure significant financial grants is that it cannot easily identify hypotheses to test or finite goals to reach. The subject matter is almost infinite, and it does not lend itself to tidy and manageable research projects of obvious and immediate utility. Many noble Lords have emphasised the fact that many species remain to be discovered. We must all realise—grant-givers most of all—that there is real value in gaining knowledge for its own sake, although it is also true that that knowledge will affect our attitudes and behaviour in countless ways and may contain, in itself, potential benefits for humanity, some of which are obvious, some of which can only be guessed at.

The link between systematic biology and the forthcoming world summit lies in the concept of sustainability. We must welcome the way in which the idea of sustainability has become so widely valued and so often discussed, although its meaning may not always be clear. It is beginning to be sought as an end in itself, not merely a means to human ends. It has great importance for the human race, and the anthropocentric motive for good environmental practice will take us further down the path of virtue than is sometimes acknowledged. We must recognise and welcome the altruistic and the self-interested reasons for pursuing sustainability in every aspect of human existence.

The main emphasis at the world summit will be on the need for the developing world to escape from the enslavement of poverty in ways that do not further damage the already deeply scarred and deeply suffering natural world.

Systematic biology explains and demonstrates the vast range of biodiversity. Most of the developing world still enjoys the resource of biodiversity. There are strong arguments for identifying, protecting and nurturing existing biodiversity in the developing world, precisely to underpin its economic development in sustainable ways and to protect developing nations from the temptation to import unsustainable and inappropriate systems that cannot survive local climates or flourish in local landscapes.

The careful preservation of wildlife can itself become a rich source of revenue, as many African countries are discovering. In celebrating and taking pride in their biodiversity, they can benefit from those who come from the great urban centres of the developed world, or from areas of a sterile monoculture, as ecovisitors to share in the awe and wonder that is denied to them at home. I believe that it is important to call them ecovisitors, not ecotourists, because they need to be limited in number and to understand what they have come to see and enjoy. That process, which needs to be managed very carefully, is a very important part of the economy of many developing countries and could become more important.

Systematic biology has led to a growing understanding of biodiversity. That, in turn, has helped us to understand the complex and subtle interrelationships of the whole of creation and how the human race finds its proper place in that complex pattern. We discover a new and very salutary humility. We can no longer credibly claim mastery over the creation. That distorted and arrogant creation theology, which was one deplorable strand of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, has to give way to a sense of real responsibility and shame for the mess that we have made of much of the planet, and to a determination to support and encourage sustainable ecological and economic systems. But if we lose the knowledge base provided by systematic biology, how shall we know whether our actions are hindering or helping the ecosystems on which we depend?

Some of the interventions of the human race— such as intensive agriculture, deforestation on a catastrophic scale, the prodigal use of water, the use of fossil fuel without regard to the consequences—have already done enormous damage to the intricate and detailed web of life revealed to us by systematic biology. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, for his magnificent speech on that theme.

This science can illustrate our disastrous mistakes and help us to plot a better course in discovering how to meet our needs for food, energy and shelter in ways that are in tune with the Earth's structures and processes. Systematic biology promises no glittering technological prize, no magic solution to grab the world's headlines, but what it reveals and teaches may ultimately be a matter of life and death for the human race. Good science requires maturity, humility and vision. As the report points out, there is a serious dearth of scientists willing to work in this discipline, and the present population of systematic biologists is an ageing one. I believe that a proper understanding of how that discipline connects with the vital areas of agriculture, conservation and the needs of the developing world could attract young people to engage with it, provided that the additional financial resources for which the Select Committee has called are forthcoming. I join other noble Lords in their pleas to the Government to ensure that that is achieved.

The report also makes helpful and sensible suggestions about the enormous potential of the worldwide web in the task of species classification and the sharing of scientific knowledge. Systematic biologists themselves need consciously to build links with those who will benefit from their work, whose needs will at least partly dictate the course of future research.

This report makes it very plain that systematic biology is an academic discipline that needs and deserves much stronger support than it has received in recent years. We all enjoy the benefits of its findings. It is perfectly proper that funding for it should in large measure come from the public purse. We have seen far too many examples of the funding for vital areas of scientific inquiry slipping into the hands of private, profit-hungry organisations, with all the distortion of academic standards and objectives that that may entail.

It is in support of true sustainability—sustainable scientific research, sustainable application of knowledge to particular needs, especially those of the world's poorest people, sustainable economic and ecological systems—that I urge the Government to accept the recommendations set out in this report. The Government have been at pains to offer vigorous support to our brilliant biotechnological research and development. Systematic biology is indeed less glamorous, less sexy, but it is work that must continue to be done, and done well, if the human race is to be able to take its rightful place in the glorious creation of which we are a part and to play its rightful part in conserving it for future generations.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, on her skilful introduction to our debate and for successfully navigating our subcommittee through sometimes choppy waters. I too wish to thank our specialist adviser and staff who have already been named, as well as our resident specialist assistant, Adam Heathfield, who was always on hand and has been extremely helpful.

Although the preservation of biodiversity was a prominent aim of Agenda 21 at Rio and is again on the agenda at Johannesburg, as a member of the Select Committee, I must follow my noble friend Lord Haskel and quote the Bard. As the Prince of Denmark said,

"it is a custom

More honoured in the breach than the observance".

Although attention to biodiversity forms part of the conservation and sustainability package, it is treated almost as an afterthought when it comes to action. That may be because it is not easy to measure the benefits of a rich natural flora and fauna in direct economic terms. Of course it is accepted as aesthetically and morally right to maintain species, unless directly or indirectly they are harmful to man, but public resources for the support of biodiversity as such have always been thin on the ground. Perhaps that is why amateur enthusiasts have always had an important place in the collection of information about the web of life. Funding for systematic biology suffers as a part of the whole deficit in funding for the preservation of biodiversity.

From the time that life first appeared on Earth, species of living organisms have appeared, have survived for variable periods—some for many millennia—and then most have been superseded, sometimes through competition for resources with more efficient species, and sometimes through a failure to adapt to climatic or other environmental changes. Mostly, however, as the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, pointed out, species have evolved through gradual adaptation; evolution through natural selection has led to different species, although on occasion the original prototype can survive in protected and isolated areas.

Recently, the natural rate of disappearance of species has greatly accelerated due to man's activities and growing dominance. We know what happened to the dodo, the great auk and the giant moa when man rudely broke into their habitats, to which previously they had been happily adapted. We know also that the survival of many other species is precarious. Special steps will need to be taken in order to prevent their extinction. The CITES programme, mentioned by the noble Baroness, is one of the better examples of those efforts. However, once again Hamlet's words apply.

As the noble Lord has already pointed out, of the estimated total number of species in the world, only 1.7 million out of 12 million have been described and classified. That calls to mind a song by Tom Lehrer about the periodic table:

"These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard There may be many others, but they haven't been discarvered".

It is highly likely that, given the present rate of attrition, many species will disappear even before they have been discovered. Those unknown species are likely to be among the less visible, often microscopic or sub-microscopic forms of life, which nevertheless are of crucial importance to our environment.

There is a useful graph in the web of life, a publication produced by the UK Systematics Forum, which no longer exists and which came into existence as a result of the Dainton report. It shows the proportion of the total estimated number of species that are known to exist according to the various biological phyla and taxa. While practically all the chordates—which include mammals, birds, fish, amphibia and reptiles—are known, only 15 per cent of the estimated 8 million insects are known; less than 10 per cent of the 1.5 million fungi have been logged; and even fewer of the 1 million or more bacteria or other microscopic and sub-microscopic forms of life.

Again, following the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, this may seem at first to be of less importance because we are not aware of these forms of life. However, the role played by fungi and micro-organisms in soil fertility, marine and fresh water quality and sustainability is enormous. Pollutants and toxins of many kinds may drastically change the balance of these organisms and thus they can be sensitive indicators or early signs of environmental degradation. For that reason alone it is highly desirable for there to be trained systematic biologists who can identify and measure these invisible micro flora and fauna of the soil, rivers, lakes and oceans.

Unfortunately—this is also to be seen in the graph in the web of life—there are very few professional systematists in the very branches of biology where there is most need of them to describe and chart unknown, but almost certainly important, species. For instance, there are only 20 mycologists—specialists in fungi—where probably 90 per cent of the species remains to be described.

Members of the Select Committee are very grateful to our hosts for devoting time to our visits to the Natural History Museum and the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. I am sure that the same would have been said of Edinburgh if we had been able to go there. I found the two visits extremely valuable in getting to grips, both with the subject and with staffing and funding problems.

We heard of the need for, but also of the difficulties with and expense of, digitising their vast and unique collections. We also heard of the need to preserve the actual specimens to act as basic reference material. This is not the time nor place to go into the pros and cons of Professor Godfray's proposals to move over entirely to an electronically held database of living things. We discussed his proposals. They are a matter for on-going discussions within the systematics community.

Systematic biologists are now becoming more familiar with modern techniques of molecular and genetic identification. Attached to the botanical gardens at Kew are the Jodrell laboratories, where more and more of the research associates working at Kew spend part or all of their time. This runs alongside traditional, meticulous observation. As has been said, systematic biologists now have less of the "stamp collector" image than they used to. The new skills that they are developing apply particularly to the identification of fungi and microbiological forms of life because it is difficult to identify them through morphological characteristics alone.

Surely it has been a serious mistake on the part of successive governments that the funding of the two internationally unique institutions that we visited, plus Edinburgh and other collections throughout the country, should have fallen so much in real terms.

The diminution of teaching of systematic biology in universities has relentlessly continued since the Dainton report 10 years ago. An important reason for that is, as the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, said, the focus of the Research Assessment Exercise, which tends to favour "cutting edge" science. However, there would be no shortage of interest among undergraduates if the opportunities for career pathways in systematic biology were there. The quality of those who apply to do PhDs in systematic biology is very high. Perhaps I may quote from paragraph 3.32 on page 14 of the report:

"Nevertheless when people apply for funding for taxonomic work from NERC, they appear to do disproportionately well. The average success rate for NERC's responsive mode funding is 19 per cent. Yet out of 33 applications for responsive mode funding for taxonomic work received by NERC over the last two years, nine were funded, equivalent to 28 per cent success rate"—

50 per cent higher than the average.

I very much hope that senior officials and Ministers, in DEFRA but also in the other government departments mainly concerned, will not only take note of this debate but will also read the report, and especially the evidence on which it is based, extremely carefully. It is more readable than most, thanks to our chairman and her team.

In conclusion, I should like to point out a fact referred to by other speakers. For comparatively little expense, the Government could make a huge difference—far less expense, for example, than the funds that the Export Credits Guarantee Department has laid out on building CO2 emitting coal fired power stations in the developing world. Money invested in systematic biology would bring long-term benefit to the environment rather than detriment, as the coal fired stations have done.

I very much hope that the report will persuade Ministers to enable this branch of United Kingdom science to regain its leading position in the world.

My Lords, like other speakers, I begin by thanking the chairman of the subcommittee, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I congratulate her on the way in which she introduced the debate and on the way in which she chaired the committee.

I was invited to rejoin the Science and Technology Committee because I sat on Lord Dainton's committee which produced the 1992 report. Returning to the subject was in some ways a slightly dispiriting exercise. It was true that the report had had some modest influence. By far the most influential was the Darwin initiative referred to by other speakers. There was the NERC taxonomy initiative, which has now run its course, and there was, from systematists themselves, an attempt to set up a systematics forum which would have acted as a meeting point for all systematists—after all, this is a very wide discipline.

Sadly, the initiative has stuttered to a halt and has failed. If I strike a slightly discordant note, it is with a feeling of slight frustration that systematists have not played their part in trying to bring together a focus for debate as to where systematics can contribute, not just to the understanding of biodiversity but to the opportunities for applied biology based on the knowledge of systematics.

So let me say straight away that I think that there is an onus on the systematics community, on the Linnean Society—I must declare an interest as a fellow of the society—and on the Systematics Association. Indeed, the report includes a recommendation that the association should do what it has failed to do in the past.

In spite of the failure of the UK Systematics Forum to gather momentum as we had hoped, there has been much progress in the intervening 10 years which should not go unrecorded. There has been great progress in the area of molecular systematics, in genomics and in evolutionary development. In other words, it is pointed out just how vibrant this discipline is, and no one should be in any doubt that without the contribution of systematists, progress will not be made in any of those spheres. One cannot look at whole organisms without an understanding of how, in evolutionary terms, they fit into the scheme of things.

Let me follow the example of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford, who pointed out that we are discussing this report in connection with the hoped-for outcomes of the World Summit in Johannesburg. The section of the community we should particularly address—the same section that the right reverend Prelate looked at—is the poorest section of society. We have heard enough figures about the number of species in the world. Let us think about the number of humans. There are 6 billion people worldwide, of which 1 billion are either starving or malnourished. Those one in six are the population of the world which government and science have failed.

That may sound brutal. Your Lordships may say that it is the fault of government; that if only countries could get their act together, 1 billion people would be able to get access to fresh water, adequate food, energy and shelter, and would enjoy access to medical science. However, I believe it is a responsibility not just of government but of science. Those who are charged by the affluent nations to push forward the frontiers of knowledge have a responsibility to ensure that such knowledge serves humanity and not just those funding research.

The right reverend Prelate referred critically, I believe rightly so, to the privatised sources of funding. Once the priorities of research are determined by shareholders or the vested interests of those funding it, then the considerations of the one sixth of the population of the world are totally excluded from the burgeoning of scientific knowledge. This is why at the world summit we have to ask these questions very firmly: what is it that can be done by science here, where most of the intellectual base resides? What can be done to help in a form of sustainable development those poorest sections of the world?

We come back to a number of relevant disciplines of which systematics is a very important one, but only one. I am sure the water engineers, solar energy specialists and others have important contributions to make. I do not want to overstate the contribution that systematists can make. However, if we wish to reduce human and animal illness and increase productivity, we have to understand better the species with which we share this planet.

When one looks at the species that are most important, they are not those to which we relate most readily. We understand plants and mammals better than we do micro-organisms, parasites or even insects. It was no coincidence that the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, when quoting Friar Lawrence, quoted species which tripped the mind. Even the Bard's pen could not make anything very fluent or poetical about parasites and microbes.

Nevertheless, if one looks at the third world's requirements, it is these organisms which probably deserve as much or more attention than the butterflies, birds and plants which we amateurs love to study and which are reasonably accessible and far less demanding in taxonomic terms. One then looks at where this great residue of collections and of knowledge lies in the United Kingdom. This country has a great responsibility in that it holds vast collections such as those in Kew, the Natural History Museum and Edinburgh. Those are three highly important collections, but there are also zoos, herbariums, other botanic gardens and culture collections. If that is put together with our systematics expertise, we have an overview of the biological resource and the collections that it constitutes.

The funding does not take into account the need to take a whole look at our biological resources and how they might complement programmes emanating from Johannesburg or elsewhere. Kew is funded by Defra—formerly by the Ministry of Agriculture—the centre at Edinburgh is funded by the Scottish Office and the Natural History Museum comes under the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It would be unrealistic to suggest that that should all be changed. It is historical fact that that is where the funding streams come from. However, it is immediately clear why it is difficult to see a co-ordinated approach on how to use this remarkable national resource, which is a heritage of the empire and of the great interest in botany and zoology in the last century. We are under-exploiting and undervaluing the resource, apparently incapable of putting it forward in a co-ordinated form.

The systematics community, who come from a wide variety of disciplines, seem incapable of putting together the overall co-ordinated policy that is clearly greatly needed. I am sure that the systematists can do it themselves and that our recommendation to the Linnean Society and the Systematics Association will be taken up, but government sponsorship and encouragement will be needed. I would be interested to hear from the Minister which might be the lead department on that.

My plea is that we once and for all banish the spectre of open-ended taxonomy—people working in isolation through taxonomic programmes, trying to get to the end of the list. We have heard many times during the debate that after 200 years we have got to 1.7 million and we think there are 12 million. We can project that forward and say that we will go a bit faster, but that is clearly not a satisfactory programme of work. We need to understand which are the keystone species and which have the most economic or cultural importance so that we can prioritise.

In the context of Johannesburg, it is essential to digitise the collections and the data, expensive though it will be. The Convention on Biological Diversity requires us to repatriate the data to the people from whom it was extracted, because it is most relevant to them. That is central to the World Summit. If the summit recommends that all national and international organisations should understand their obligations to contribute to digitising the data and making it accessible to those who will most benefit from it, something concrete will have come out of Johannesburg.

My Lords, I declare my interest as president of the Advisory Committee for the Protection of the Sea. For some years I was chairman. I have now been succeeded by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Chesterton. I hope that he will be most successful.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and her team deserve the widest possible tributes. They have done an imaginative job and I hope that the Government will give the report proper regard. I share many of the concerns expressed by the sub-committee, particularly on marine issues.

The Advisory Committee for the Protection of the Sea—which I shall hereafter refer to as ACOPS to shorten my speech—works with other countries and the Global Environment Fund, the World Bank and other marine conservationists. It works particularly in Africa and Russia. It will participate in the important deliberations in Johannesburg.

Marine environments are hugely important worldwide, both to jobs and nutrition. We take for granted our seas and the fish that inhabit them; we pay insufficient attention to the threats posed by over-fishing, pollution and other menaces to the environment. For these reasons, we in ACOPS have long urged the United Kingdom to play a larger role in the sustainable development of the seas. That, in a nutshell, is why we are helping, particularly in Africa, to enable developing countries to manage their marine environments. I cannot say too much but what we are doing in that regard is especially important. I wish that the Government would take more notice and participate more actively in affairs affecting developing countries.

We should not minimise the widespread threats arising from pollution, habitat damage and overuse of resources. Too often there is deliberate dumping by ships. There are threats from farming where inadequate attention is paid to such matters, and from the atmosphere in the form of heavy metals. Too frequently, the threats are simply ignored, wholly or partly, or our reaction is insufficiently financed and insufficiently co-ordinated. Coral reefs and wetlands are affected. We should all be concerned—concerned about what we are doing or allowing to happen. We should be concerned about the international dimension on which, in my view, Britain does not concentrate sufficiently.

Although the remit of the United Kingdom is necessarily limited, some good things have occurred. The Marine Stewardship Report, published, I believe, a few weeks ago, is immensely helpful. It provides for a real international marine policy. But much more is needed.

The programme has to be properly resourced. Deadlines have to be introduced and, equally importantly, adhered to. The marine environment has to be sustainably managed. By 2006 the Government must deliver an integrated marine Act. Marine protected areas have to be established by representative networks. Such a development would set up an ecosystem-based approach to the management of our seas.

The United Kingdom Government have moved firmly in that direction but they need to be even more decisive and even more internationally orientated. They should support developing countries in making contributions. In that way we would provide a real lead in Europe and, indeed, globally.

My Lords, I, too, welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate presented by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I heartily congratulate her on the sub-committee's report.

My noble friend Lord Haskel alluded to my "day job" which concerns crime and young offenders. There seem to be some similarities between that field and the one we are discussing in that we find it just as difficult to count crime and offenders as we do to count plants and classify them. I was drawn into the field of plant classification and conservation by my wife's work as chairperson of Botanic Gardens Conservation International which is housed at Kew Gardens. That has helped me better to understand Kew's world-class scientific work as well as its stewardship of beautiful gardens. However, I should say in this distinguished company of scientists that I make no claim to having any scientific distinction and speak as a layman. Indeed, a dense veil should be drawn over my undistinguished school scientific career.

However, what I have seen of the work of Kew leads me to the view—which is very much supported in the sub-committee's report—that there is a crisis of funding for that work. But before I turn to that issue and to the findings of the sub-committee. I should like to say a little more, in terms of the wider context, about some of the work of BGCI, having declared my interest.

BGCI is a UK registered charity founded 15 years ago with the primary aim of linking botanic gardens world-wide into an effective global network for plant conservation. It now has more than 500 member institutions in almost 100 countries, including many poor and developing ones, and an impressive track record in promoting plant conservation, sustainable development and environmental education. Over 25 per cent of the world's plants are grown in botanic gardens world-wide, which are visited by over 200 million people each year. BGCI works towards ensuring that people recognise plants as one of the world's greatest renewable natural resources and it initiates practical programmes to safeguard tens of thousands of threatened plant species.

Most recently, BGCI has played a crucial role in co-ordinating the development of a global strategy for plant conservation and securing its adoption by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity at their meeting in the Hague in April this year. That was a particularly significant achievement. Not only did the participating countries agree to the strategy, they accepted a series of well defined and time-bound targets.

The global strategy for plant conservation is important to safeguarding the future of plants on our planet and for the first time targets—a subject dear to the Government's heart—have been set to guide progress under the convention. There are 16 targets. Noble Lords will be relieved to hear that I shall not plough my way through all of them. However, I want to talk about the first two on which all the others depend and which are of particular relevance to the sub-committee's report.

Target 1 is to prepare and make available a working list of the names of all known plant species. Noble Lords have spoken much today of the extent to which our knowledge of species is far from complete. That is particularly true of the world's flora. New species are being discovered and described daily. When I looked into the subject I was surprised to find that, even disregarding recent discoveries new to science, there is no single comprehensive list of the world's plant species. There is no single publication, print or electronic, where one can look up the name of a plant and find out where in the world it occurs and what else is known about it. In fact, as a result of this lack of a comprehensive listing, botanists cannot even be sure, to within a few thousand, how many plant species there are. The latest estimates run to some 422,000 plant species, which is about 100,000 more than was estimated just a few years ago. So the first target of the global strategy for plant conservation is to make available a comprehensive listing of the world's plant species and where they occur, as a baseline for all other conservation action.

Some of that work is already under way. One of the most significant contributors to that is the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. As we know, Kew is a major international plant science research institute with particular strengths in systematics and conservation—subjects of the sub-committee's report. Because of its strengths in systematics, its unique library facilities and network of collaborators worldwide, Kew is ideally placed to do that work. But at present it can devote only one scientific officer to that task because of severe financial constraints. In the 10 years since 1992, when the UK signed the Convention on Biological Diversity, the demands on Kew's expertise in biodiversity have risen dramatically. Ironically, over the same period, government funding to Kew and the other major UK systematics institutes has fallen in real terms. Kew now receives 15 per cent less grant-in-aid funding than it did 10 years ago. A similar situation can be seen at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh: funding is down 15 per cent since 1992. The inadequate level of funding is now having a clear negative impact on the UK's ability to deliver on its biodiversity policy commitments, which a UK charity and the scientific community have championed so ably on the international stage.

A similar scenario is unfolding for target 2 of the global plant conservation strategy; that is, the preparation of a preliminary assessment of the conservation status of each of the world's known plant species. Those individual conservation ratings are scientific assessments of the likely threats to a species based on data such as its distribution pattern and the sorts of habitats in which it occurs. Scientific specialists with years of experience in particular groups of plants are best placed to provide and interpret the data. The literature shows that scientists at the major systematics institutes are the most significant contributors to the global effort to assess all known plant species in that way. But, once again, financial constraints have reduced the UK's ability to contribute in that area. At Kew, for instance, seven recently retired senior botanists, specialists in different groups of plants, could not be replaced upon retirement because of reductions in real terms funding from the Government. That loss represents 20 per cent of the total body of senior botanists employed at Kew and a severe depletion of the UK's expertise in plant systematics.

I have drawn attention to targets 1 and 2 of the global strategy for plant conservation because I believe that they illustrate one of the key points to be drawn from the sub-committee's report: that a sound scientific information base must underlie any rational and worthwhile activity in the area of conservation. We cannot continue to increase the pressure on our major systematics institutions to meet the demands of the Convention on Biological Diversity, while undermining their funding base at the same time. That only exacerbates a situation that is already unsustainable. Recommendation 1 of the sub-committee's report advocates a return to 1992 levels of funding for our major systematics institutions. The conservation and sustainable management of plants is an important part of our stewardship for future generations. In that context, I applaud that recommendation by the sub-committee as a move towards the sustainable development of the UK's policy on biodiversity. I believe that even such a modest increase in funding would give a positive signal not only to the institutions themselves but also to all those around the world who rely directly or indirectly on systematics data. These include the UK Government, other governments, especially those of biodiversity-rich nations, as well as charities such as BGCI and other non-governmental bodies around the world concerned with conservation and biodiversity issues.

This year the Government have chosen the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew as the UK's candidate for World Heritage status. As an experienced public sector manager, I know that you cannot will the ends without making available the means. I urge the Minister to respond positively to the recommendation in the sub-committee's report, particularly recommendation 1. I would find it helpful to know more from her about Kew's financial fate when DEFRA's spending review 2002 outcome is known in the near future.

As the Government reset their spending priorities for the next three years, with impeccable timing the sub-committee has produced its report and given them the opportunity to respond positively and generously to its well-argued recommendations and the persuasive advocacy of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley.

My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate. I join the noble Lord, Lord Warner, as one whose scientific education is minimal. I studied little science at school and have studied none since then, so when I first saw on my desk a note from the Chief Whip to say that the debate came under DEFRA and therefore my hat, I was embarrassed. I shall endeavour not to embarrass your Lordships for the next 10 minutes.

I have been greatly helped by the sub-committee's report. When I initially read the first page I thought, "Gosh". When I reread it and got stuck into it as a lay person I found it very readable and enjoyed reading it. I also enjoyed listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, introduce today's debate. She went a little further in some areas than the report.

However, my interpretation—and, I believe, that of other noble Lords—of What on Earth? The Threat to the Science Underpinning Conservation is that it is alarming. This is a science that noble Lords—themselves scientists—have said over and again today is vital to our wellbeing in the world and to the maintenance of conservation and sustainable development. But it would appear that that science is on the way down and fewer people are taking part.

Great Britain has a long history of systematic biology; the discovery, description, naming and classifying of living things from Darwin himself to much more recently in 1992 when the Government signed the Convention on Biological Diversity which was ratified two years later. The purpose of the world summit is to adopt concrete steps and identify quantifiable targets for better implementing Agenda 21, which was adopted in 1992. Agenda 21 recommends action on issues such as protecting the atmosphere, oceans—which the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, mentioned—animal and plant life and promoting sustainable agriculture practices that will feed the world's ever-growing population; a point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford and my noble friend Lord Soulsby.

A pivotal part of both the convention and the summit is conservation and using the remainder of the world's resources in a sustainable manner. Systematic biologists are essential to that work. My noble friend Lord Soulsby asked how we have done since 1992, and answered his own question, "Not very well", with which I believe we would all agree. He asked whether taxonomy matters, and the tone of today's debate has clearly shown that it does.

Although systematic biology is not the most well known or glamorous field of science—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, who is now on the Woolsack—it underpins other scientific research which makes an impact on everyday living. One of its main uses is to provide an international language—as pointed out by my noble friend Lord Soulsby—for the scientific community so that research carried out in America and elsewhere can be used by scientists in other parts of the world.

The noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, made the point that, again, self-interest tells us that we should take considerable note of what is happening in the ecology. He pointed out the dramatic increase in human numbers on Earth, which is driving many species to extinction, including, I suspect—as I believe we all suspect—many species that we did not even know existed. We certainly did not know the role that they were playing. As I understand from part of the report, we could lose species without knowing that that was happening. That could then lead to a total loss of a particular ecology.

Systematic biologists or taxonomists have been of use to the medical profession. As I have already said, they have also been of great use in agriculture. I give an example. They helped to solve a farming crisis created by the cassava mealy bug in the 1980s. That bug devastated the cassava crop in West Africa for years until research looked into the origin of the bug in South America and a local wasp was found to control it. Use of the wasp solved the problem within a couple of seasons and saved millions of pounds and many lives. However, it has become clear that, if such a situation were to occur today, there may not be sufficient scientists with the knowledge to solve the problem.

Perhaps I may digress for a moment. I believe that my noble friend Lord Soulsby mentioned the veterinary situation and the subject of bugs in animals. Not long ago, I heard that, as a result of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, the number of veterinarians who have any experience in that country is minimal. The state of the veterinary profession in this country in relation to tropical animal diseases is also in a rather sorry state. Therefore, it is not only this particular science about which we need to worry.

The right reverend Prelate reminded us that we have a responsibility of care. My noble friend Lord Selborne, together with the right reverend Prelate, pointed out that one-sixth of the world's population is starving. That tells us that all that can be done must be done in order to help us to learn more about how nature works, if I may express it in layman's language.

Taxonomy in this country has been in decline for many years, with many universities stating that it may no longer be a sustainable discipline. The decline has been furthered by the fact that today there are fewer jobs in systematic biology. The Natural History Museum and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew are diverting funds to fund-raising ventures and thus losing valuable research posts. Many who were experts in the field have been lost to other research projects, and such expertise is in danger of being lost completely.

I suggest that never before has it been more important to understand the implications of the environment in which we live. We need to support the systematic biologist profession in order that it can sustain the rich resources that Britain already holds and undertake more research. That can only be of benefit to this and other countries.

We support the findings of the report and agree with its recommendations. We need urgently to reverse the decline of the profession and use our expertise to help developing countries. We also welcome the idea of collaborating with other scientists by setting up a world wide website and sharing vital information when it is discovered.

We ask the Government what is being done to uphold the promises made at the conference in 1992, how they plan to make Britain a leading country in educating developing countries on conservation and development, and how the Prime Minister will further this cause when he leads the British team to Johannesburg.

My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest, along with a lack of professional or advance knowledge of the subject. This has been a fascinating, constructive and informative debate on two issues of importance: the forthcoming world summit and the report from Sub-Committee I of the Science and Technology Committee of your Lordships' House, entitled, What on Earth? The Threat to the Science Underpinning Conservation. As many noble Lords indicated, that committee was ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. Its report was published on 16th May. It is clear from comments made by noble Lords that it will be the first but not the last of such reports and of such distinguished chairmanship.

I congratulate the committee on producing a succinct and useful report. Noble Lords will not be surprised if I am not able to respond formally today because the Government intend to do so in the autumn. We want to give careful thought to the proposals. We must give departments and agencies sufficient time to take account of the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review and to plan their priorities in the light of available resources. We must also allow for the world summit in Johannesburg and associated events later this summer. None the less, with those caveats, I hope I may offer some preliminary observations on the findings of the committee.

The noble Baroness and her colleagues investigated the current state of systematic biology in the UK; namely, the discovery, description, naming and classification of organisms and the investigation of evolutionary relationships between them. That involves a wide range of scientific skills, techniques and potential applications, of which biodiversity is one. The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, is one of many noble Lords who identified the potential developments which could occur in fields as wide as agriculture and medicine.

The committee considered the funding and development of the discipline and makes a number of proposals in the light of contributions made during evidence sessions and in documents. As many noble Lords said, it is important to recognise the contribution which systematic biology makes to our understanding and, as stated by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford, to our appreciation of the complexity of the world in which we live.

It is extremely important to recognise that the more recent recommendations of the committee identify the need for taxonomy and systematic biology to make their case. The committee recognised the importance of the community taking a lead to raise its own profile and to clarify its priorities. We agree that the scientific community needs to engage more effectively with the users and potential users of taxonomic collections. However, the Government and our agencies have a role to play. The committee made a recommendation to improve co-ordination across the systematic biology community and to ensure that it is focused on the key issues. We shall certainly give that careful consideration.

The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, raised the background of the issue and the result of developments following the 1992 inquiry. The forum largely set its own agenda. It evolved over time, generating useful data and analysis and some progress in identifying priorities. The funding of the government at the time was intended to be pump priming. My reading is that the then government's response rejected many of the committee's key recommendations in 1992 or made clear that the responsibility for deciding any action lay entirely with individual departments.

Having said that, the forum's spirit has not expired entirely. Strands of its work have been taken up by involvement in the global taxonomy initiative and the global biodiversity information facility. I am not aware of any great enthusiasm in the community to continue the systematics forum. I have no doubt that the noble Earl will correct me should I be wrong on that point.

The sub-committee carefully distinguishes the issues that support the taxonomic collections from matters relating to research, which might be carried out on them. That point was emphasised by my noble friend Lord Sainsbury in his evidence. The committee highlights the important issue of translating the collections into electronic images and records.

One issue raised in that context was referred to, among others, by the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, my noble friend Lord Haskel, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and by the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior. It was the issue of funding. We shall consider carefully the committee's recommendations in the light of competing priorities following the strategic spending review.

In answer to points made about levels of funding, it is difficult to obtain figures for funding over time because systematic biology involves different activities and is often embedded in others. There have also been organisational and other changes over time.

The research council funding is increasing because of increased funding for beta-taxonomy, phylogenetics and e-science related activities. That is an encouraging sign. It is important to set in context the funding. I shall return to the issue, for example, of Kew Gardens in a moment. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport gave £6 million to repair the palaeontology building at the Natural History Museum. Therefore, it is important to set in context the different sources of funding.

It is important to recognise that systematics is just one of many important components necessary to conserve and enhance biodiversity. As such, Darwin has always ranged widely and funded many projects which do not necessarily have that component, but are still beneficial to biodiversity. For example, environmental education and capacity-building and sustainable use in the development of management plans.

In response to a query raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in terms of overall funding, £3 million per annum is only a small contribution relative to the scale of the global biodiversity crisis we face. But Darwin has a strong track record of securing positive impacts well beyond the funding we put in.

The noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, among other noble Lords, raised the issue of funding for research. The funding councils will be undertaking a major review of the research assessment exercise. One option would be to consider the issue as part of that. But we shall discuss this matter further with them before responding later in the autumn.

The noble Lord, Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, asked: why not create a new, ring-fenced pot of money? If we are talking of research that uses the collection, we would be extremely wary at this stage of a specially created pot held by a department agency or some particular body. There is a danger that that might isolate systematics still further and preserve it in a time warp, about which some commentators are already concerned. If we are talking about maintaining the collections, it is difficult to comment further because, in a sense, the major collections are already ring-fenced to a great degree.

In response to my noble friend Lord Rea, and the noble Lord, Lord Oxbrough, government and other bodies plainly recognise at a high level the importance of systematic biology. For example, substantial funding is given to the main and minor collections and the United Kingdom has signed international agreements recognising the contributions that taxonomy can make to diversity.

My noble friend Lord Haskel raised the issue of the education service. The science curriculum already covers taxonomy as part of a strand on living and the life processes of living things. However, I found his suggestion as to how to grab the attention of young people novel. Like the noble Lord, Lord Warner, I have had contact with young people who have become involved in a major way in studying the environment as part of rehabilitation and re-entering the mainstream—to respond to him in the hat that he was not wearing today.

The noble Lord, Lord Warner, also raised the issue of sharing of information on the Internet. We note the Committee's interest in that topic and will consider what more may be done—subject, of course, to funding restraints. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, following the last spending review, we gave the research councils an additional £118 million over three years to promote e-science—that is, global scientific collaboration using Internet technology.

The committee has also, rightly, drawn attention to the successes of the Darwin initiative in protecting and enhancing biodiversity. Like Darwin, we must not forget the importance of other aspects of biodiversity, such as education, capacity-building and the development of management plans. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis for pointing out that the issue is not only land-based. We recognise the importance of marine biodiversity study, protection and development and of those areas that may fall between the two, such as wetlands. We hope to develop a new phase of the Darwin initiative at the world summit, sharing the committee's hope that that will lead to access to greater funding.

The committee and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, draw attention to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and the developing Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development proposals for biological resource centres. Those are important international initiatives. We support UK involvement. UK systematic biology and taxonomy needs to be part of those global developments. We have major, world-class collections and truly expert scientific endeavour to offer.

I turn to the world summit. What is to be discussed? What is our approach? And what do we hope to achieve? The international community will gather in Johannesburg in a little more than a month's time. The summit represents a unique occasion, opportunity and challenge. The focus will be to obtain at the highest national and international level a renewed commitment to the outcomes of the UN Conference on Environment and Development—the Rio Earth Summit—and to give new impetus for the continued delivery of those outcomes, in particular Agenda 21 and the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration.

I was delighted to hear of the role that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford will play in the lead-up to the summit. I could not agree more with him and with the noble Earl, Lord Selborne. The interrelationship between the outcomes that a successful world summit would deliver—improving people's access to drinking water, reducing illegal logging, making progress towards renewable energy generation, safeguarding the marine environment and stopping the decline in fish stocks—all hinge on the critically important goal of making sure that globalisation works for sustainable development, especially for the poor. At the summit, the Department for International Development will launch the results of a study of the links between poverty and the environment and how mutually reinforcing actions can tackle both issues.

The summit itself will not unpick the carefully negotiated agreements achieved at Doha or at the "Financing for Development" conference in Monterrey. It will not attempt to renegotiate the progress that has been made since Rio on the international conventions agreed there, such as those on climate change and biodiversity. The risk of destroying the progress made through those parallel processes is too great. However, the world summit can build on what has been achieved so far.

The programme of implementation, the world summit document that has received most attention so far, includes strong text in support of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the results of the subsequent conferences of the parties to it. For instance, text in support of the global taxonomy initiative received international agreement at the recent preparatory meeting in Bali. The initiative will help to address the lack of sufficient taxonomic skills, resources and information at the global level.

In general, it is hard to see how a broad global process such as the world summit can address specific issues such as systematic biology. The conferences of the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity will continue to be a more appropriate context to take that forward—for example, through the global strategy for plant conservation, which was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Warner. The key for the world summit itself is to ensure that it does not cut across progress made to date but reinforces it where possible. Of course, debate and events surrounding the summit may cover systematic biology and other topics, and we shall do our best to participate and take account of those.

My noble friend Lord Haskel raised two issues. One was the Government's response. My noble friend knows that we must consider the report carefully. However, we agree that we need stronger links, through co-ordination across the systematic biology community and between that community and the users of the collections. We will consider the options seriously, but the world summit would not he the most appropriate occasion for the Prime Minister to announce his support for the report, as my noble friend suggested he should do. The summit will deal with international commitments and action, whereas the committee's report is primarily—though not totally, I accept—focused on domestic policy.

My noble friend Lord Warner raised the issue of funding for the Royal Botanic Gardens. We acknowledge that funding pressures on the former MAFF and DEFRA have made it difficult to maintain Kew's grant-in-aid in line with inflation. The department has had to re-prioritise rigorously because of competing claims. However, DEFRA continues to be a substantial funder of the institution, providing 60 per cent of its annual income, and we are aware that there is a need, even at this late stage, to continue asserting pressure to ensure that it is part of the case for additional funding. We value its work. It is a nationally and internationally important institution. That is one of the reasons that we nominated it as a UNESCO world heritage site. Those are substantial and important issues.

I conclude by expressing our appreciation of the committee's work and our willingness to engage seriously with its main findings on systematic biology, its role, funding and future. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. My presence today is an example of education being received, it having been delivered by so many knowledgeable experts.

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in today's interesting debate. I have found it particularly fascinating and have enjoyed it very much. I also thank the Minister for her response, which was a little like the curate's egg—encouraging in parts.

We look forward to the comprehensive spending review, although I fear the threatening words, "in the light of competing priorities". The Johannesburg conference may not be the most appropriate occasion for the Prime Minister to express his support for the committee's recommendations. However, I hope that he will find an opportunity later in the year to do so.

I also add my thanks to Andrew Makower, the Clerk to the Select Committee, who will shortly take over a new post. He is an outstanding servant of your Lordships' House. I hope that he enjoys arid is fulfilled by his new role.

The publication of the report and our debate today represent only the beginning. We look forward very much to hearing the Government's considered response later in the year and to watching with great interest the work of the study group set up by the Royal Society, the Linnean Society and other organisations that are presently responding to our work.

In conclusion, I thank all members of the committee for their enormous support and help during the work that we undertook. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.