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Lord Haskel: My Lords, is the Minister aware that according to the Oslo Agreements the question of the settlements is for the permanent status agreements which are yet to come? Would it not be best in the meanwhile to draw a huge sigh of relief that an accord was signed last night and might not a little generosity of spirit be in order today?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, like the whole of the Government, I am very prepared to be generous in spirit. We are absolutely delighted about the draft agreement reached last night. I have not heard the reports of the Cabinet meeting this morning, so I do not know whether the draft agreement has been finalised. It is important to move on swiftly on the Interim Agreement because matters are outstanding from it. Although we welcome what Prime Minister Netanyahu has obviously agreed to, there has to be more than this. It must include the early resumption of the final status talks and, above all, a free passage between the West Bank and Gaza. Noble Lords will remember my deep concern in the latter part of last year when we found that we could not get help to people in very dire need because of the impediments placed on the workers who were trying to help them.
Lord Jakobovits: My Lords, does the Minister agree that on a day such as this, when possibly the greatest and most significant breakthrough in peace in the past 48 years since the founding of the state of Israel has occurred, the rest of this House and the nation should join with her in welcoming last night's development, in the hope that the spirit that it engenders will enable goodwill and amicable relations to be established? The Question dealt with legality and illegality. Does the Minister agree that we must be most careful not to discriminate against one form of illegality and ignore others? Surely, the declaration of war with the avowed object of destroying an entire people cannot be legal. To this day, the charter of the Palestinians demands the destruction of a member state of the United Nations. Surely, that cannot be legal. Therefore, will we not aid the cause of peace and goodwill much more by being even-handed and encouraging progress towards the establishment of amicable relations, wherever we see them developing, rather than allowing partisanship and taking a one-sided view of illegality only in one camp but not in another? Will we not then reach an understanding more quickly?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, my welcome was unlimited. All wars are destructive. We know how destructive some of the activity in the past
few years has been. It must stop. We must now move from the interim agreement to the final talks with all speed.Teachers: Early Retirement
3.2 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington asked Her Majesty's Government:
- What effect they consider the proposed new redundancy regulations will have on the supply of teachers in schools.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Lord Henley): My Lords, the proposed new regulations will reduce the number of teachers leaving the profession before their normal retirement date and will increase the number of experienced teachers available for employment.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, I disagree with the Minister's main point. Is he aware of the anger that has been caused to teachers by this proposal, particularly the lack of proper consultation and the Government's failure to phase it in, which seems to me to be the sensible thing to do? Can the Minister say how many applications for early retirement have been received since the announcement was made? Further, what proportion is represented by senior teachers? Finally, as the financial burden arising from this new regulation will fall on LEAs and governors, how does he expect those bodies to find the extra money to pay for it?
Lord Henley: My Lords, in answer to the latter point, the employers, whether they be schools or LEAs, will be making smaller contributions. Therefore, if they manage the early retirement policy properly they will probably make savings. We believe it is right that the schools themselves should have a proper incentive to look after the early retirement of teachers. Even the noble Lord will agree that there is something wrong with a system in which four-fifths of teachers are allegedly unable to work up to 60. I do not believe that the noble Lord accepts it is right that such a high proportion of teachers should take early retirement. There has never been any right to early retirement just for teachers. They can take early retirement if their health so requires. We expect schools and LEAs to act sensibly rather than allow a rush of early retirements at Easter. For that reason we have a rather long consultation period. It started in October and will continue until Friday of this week.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: My Lords, is my noble friend aware of just how blatant the abuse of the early retirement system has been on the part both of employers and of teachers and lecturers? Is he aware that, particularly among further education lecturers, the commonly used expression is "early
retirement with contract", on the basis of which a teacher takes early retirement and goes on to half-pay as a pension and then returns on a half-time contract, thereby earning exactly the same as before for half the work?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for pointing out that possibly this scam exists. There is evidence of teachers who take early retirement on Friday and come back as supply teachers on Monday. The key principle underlying our proposals is that employers should be made accountable for the cost of decisions on premature retirement. They are now not so accountable and we believe that they should be.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the worrying aspect is that such a lunatic system was allowed to develop in the first instance? The whole purpose of early retirement is either to allow people who are ill to retire in a civilised fashion or to let people go whom one does not wish to stay? To have a situation where four-fifths of teachers decide to go--many of whom are the very people one least wishes to--calls into question the individual who was responsible for this idiot situation in the first instance.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I regret that I cannot make the political point that I might otherwise have made. I can tell the noble Lord that the teachers' superannuation scheme goes back to the 1920s. I am not quite clear who was in charge of it at that time. But I believe that the noble Lord is right to point out the defects in the system that have allowed such an excessive amount of early retirement. For that reason we believe it is right to make employers properly accountable for the scheme. They will then take proper care of it.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the comment attributed in the press to his right honourable friend the Prime Minister that the Government do not believe that four out of five teachers are incapable of teaching until the age of 60? If he did say that, should he not be told that the 11,000 teachers now queuing up to beat the March deadline are only a fraction of those who are desperate to get out of a profession which his Government have made underpaid, under-resourced and undesirable?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I simply do not accept what the noble Lord has said. Teachers' pay has done better than most others in the public sector. It has risen by 57 per cent. in real terms since 1979. We have made it quite clear that we believe teaching to be an honourable profession. The Prime Minister was quite right to point out that there was something pretty odd about a scheme
which encouraged four-fifths of teachers allegedly to say that they were incapable of working up to the age of 60.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, I should like to ask the Minister--
The Lord Privy Seal (Viscount Cranborne): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. He will have observed that the 30 minutes are up. We have all been beaten by the clock.
Housing Needs
3.8 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel rose to call attention to the housing needs of the nation, particularly in the light of the Budget Statement of 26th November; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall allow a suitable interval while noble Lords opposite, including the Leader of the House, who have no interest in the housing needs of the nation leave the Chamber.
Your Lordships will see that the Motion on the Order Paper is widely drafted. That is quite deliberate. It is designed to allow the widest possible scope for debate on all aspects of domestic housing throughout the whole of the United Kingdom. I see that the Chief Whip has left the Chamber so that I now have a free run. We have not had such a debate for a few years. I apologise to my noble friends from Scotland for the use of the word "nation" in the Motion since they may take the quite proper view that Scotland is a nation in its own right. I apologise as a fellow Celt. The agenda is wide, and I imagine that your Lordships will wish to take full advantage of this. I hope that some noble Lords will wish to speak generally on the present condition of our housing stock; others will wish to speak of the importance of adequate housing to health, family relationships and the disabled; others will, I hope, focus on the failure of leasehold enfranchisement and the dog that has significantly failed to bark in the night; namely, commonhold.
There is also the general housing situation in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and in the great cities of England; the state of the construction industry which will have to build the houses which we need, and its importance to our economy; how we fare compared to our European partners; and, of course, the continuing problem of homelessness. All those matters are encompassed within the agenda of the Motion which I am moving. As icing on the cake--if I may put it like that--of this particularly rich agenda, I much look forward to the maiden speeches of my noble friend Lord Hanworth and the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe.
Although the agenda is broad and rich, there is one unifying theme which I hope to demonstrate: that in almost every single area I have mentioned, the
Government have, by their own actions, succeeded in turning what started off as problems into crises. If I am right, and if the charge sticks, as I believe it will, the upshot is that whoever forms the next government will inherit, at best, severe problems and, at worst, crises, right across the range that I have described. It is only right that at least one House of Parliament should be aware of those realities before we get into the rough and tumble of a general election campaign.Let me start with the owner-occupied sector. House prices, as we know, are starting to rise again after five years of decline, and yet repossessions seem still to be running at the rate of just above 40,000 a year--a level quite unknown in any period prior to 1990. We hope of course that the figure will go down; but we are now faced with a total of 370,000 repossessions since the present Prime Minister took office. That is hardly a proud record. But the problem, because it was a problem, has been turned into a crisis by the Government's consistent refusal even to look at the proposal we made years ago of a mortgage to rents scheme. They turned a problem into a crisis.
Of course there is a further problem. Although house prices may rise, for most owner-occupiers that is a paper rise. It cannot be easily converted into the cash necessary to carry out essential repairs and maintenance which certainly were not afforded during the dark years and which have therefore accumulated. The result is that much of the owner-occupied housing stock is in poor condition with consequential effects upon overcrowding, ill-health, and--I shall come to this later--family breakdowns leading to youth homelessness. We should not forget that owner-occupiers have been through the worst housing crisis since the war.
That brings me to the next sector, that of private renting. The second result of a rise in the money value of the housing asset base has been a rise in investment in the privately rented sector. For the first time in half a century, institutional investors are looking closely at the possible opportunities here. Now that in itself is all to the good, particularly if the consequence is a sensible partnership between private and public capital such as, for instance, in local housing companies. But of course private investors require a reasonable return related to the risk, and that may only be available away from such desirable public/private relationships. Now I am not suggesting for a moment that there are no honest, sympathetic and caring private sector landlords. Of course there are. But there are some who are not so honest, sympathetic and caring. Which ones do your Lordships think are going to hit the front pages of the Sun when the going gets rough? I certainly know which landlords in London hit the headlines when leasehold reform proved to be such a flop. The place for the private rented sector is as a useful and perhaps essential facility for those who can afford to buy their own house but for one reason or another do not wish to do it at that time. It should not be treated, and should never be treated, as a fall-back for inadequate social housing.
That bring me naturally to the sector which is known as social housing. I personally dislike the term. I am one of those old-fashioned people who regard a home as a
fundamental social right--who believes that nobody in a civilised community should be left without the opportunity for decent housing. But let that be. I shall use the expression "social housing", however much I dislike it.Now one result of the general rise in house prices over the decades has been the rise in the cost of social housing. But this Government, apparently averse to local authorities spending their own money, have also succeeded in making life increasingly difficult to the providers of such housing. Let me give your Lordships, as briefly as I can, the nature of the problem. In 1995, just to take England alone, the Department of the Environment estimated that the desired annual increase in the net social housing lettings was between 60,000 and 100,000 a year. The spread between the two figures is said to be due to assumptions about the propensity of younger households to be owner-occupiers; and it is only fair to add that private studies put the median figure rather higher. But the department itself was estimating the output of social housing at 58,000 in 1996-97 and 55,000 in 1997-98. In other words, the Government themselves--before the Budget--were assuming a shortfall in social housing output on their own figures. Already there was a problem. The Government were envisaging not just a deterioration in the social housing stock but the inevitable consequence--which follows as the night the day--an increase in homelessness. The problem moves quickly into becoming a crisis.
Let me be quite clear about homelessness, since it seems to have occupied the attention of a number of people and one or two obviously dyspeptic journalists in the past 10 days or so. Let me rehearse the facts, and to illuminate the discussion I ought to say that all the figures I quote are from Centrepoint, which is an established organisation and well known for authoritative views on homelessness. Seventy-six per cent. of those registered as homeless in the Centrepoint study first left their parents' home at or below the age of 17; 17 per cent. were told to leave or were thrown out; 22 per cent. left after family rows; and the rest left to seek greater opportunity; 72 per cent. are unemployed and are seeking work; and 24 per cent. are seeking training; 48 per cent. have a GCE, CSE or GCSE; and 7 per cent. have A-levels or a degree. Only 35 per cent. have no qualification. That does not paint the picture of loutishness and ignorance that is so often painted in the press.
I am not shy of saying that I have "zero tolerance" not of the homeless but of homelessness itself. It is a scandal to a civilised society. If there are among the homeless petty criminals, then they, like all petty criminals or criminals of any description, should be stopped. But the solution is not to force people to sleep on the streets. The solution is to provide opportunities to get them off the streets--in particular, by ensuring that local authorities have again a proper obligation to house people who are homeless through no fault of their own and are in priority need. That is an obligation which, as the noble Earl well knows, the Government removed last year.
My Lords, let me move forward. On the day before the Budget last November, the Government published a Green Paper. It was entitled, rather plaintively I thought, Where shall we live? "Where indeed?" we might ask. Now, the Green Paper only dealt with England, presumably on the assumption that nobody would want to live in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland--the case for devolution has been accepted. But even in England the projection was that by the year 2016 there would have to be 4.4 million new households. Not only does this mean arithmetically net additions to the overall housing stock of well above present levels but also, if current relationships between the different sectors hold up--and there is no reason to believe that they will not--it means an absolute minimum of net new social housing of the Government's own figure of 60,000 per annum.
On the next day, enter Mr. Kenneth Clarke. Total spending on social housing, it is announced, will be some £1 billion lower next year than in the current year. The Housing Corporation's budget for housing association new build will be £344 million lower in 1997/98 than this year. Credit approvals for local authorities in England will be some £290 million down. The housing budget in Scotland is estimated to be cut by some £200 million. And, to cap it all, there will be cuts of some £130 million in housing benefit to tenants in the private rented sector.
The result of all this is all too clear. New social housing starts are likely to fall below 20,000 in 1997/98. As Mr. James Coulter, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation, said, reasonably enough:
- "how on earth the Government expects the social housing sector to contribute properly to the 4.4 million new homes needed by 2016 beggars belief".
I shall be frank. The truth of the matter, whatever the noble Earl may say in answer to my question, is that we know that there is not much mileage, in terms of votes, in the complicated business of domestic housing. I shall tell your Lordships a story which will illustrate the point. At the time of the great poll tax row, which in the end unseated a Prime Minister, a Conservative Member of Parliament, after visiting his constituency at the weekend, came back to Westminster with a bleak message to his Whips. He said, "They are talking about it in the pubs. Its always bad when they talk about things in the pubs". He was right. But so far as I know nobody has come back to the Conservative Whips with that message about housing. It is not a subject which ranks high on the list of pub topics in the seats which the Conservatives desperately wish to hold. I believe that that is why they imagine they can cut support for it.
But that does not mean that in my eyes or those of Members of this House it is not of the highest importance to men, women, children and families and--dare I say it?--to our society up and down the breadth of the land. That is precisely why I am inviting your Lordships to address these matters today. I beg to move for Papers.
3.26 p.m.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, the notion is not original, but if you were cast adrift on that classic desert island, what would you need before settling down to your eight discs, your books and your luxury? I suggest that you would need a nice warm cave and that you would look for that even before using your Bible and Shakespeare to educate yourself and before looking for local herbs to protect your health. If your nice warm cave were flooded, you would look for another pretty promptly. Housing is that important.
Secure, good quality housing is fundamental to so much else: to health, education and employment. It is a pity that the current attention being paid to family life and family values has not adequately addressed housing. Rotten housing, or having no home, is a major factor in the breakdown of relationships.
All of that is why today's debate is so important. We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, for introducing it. He has reminded the House of the Budget announcement; the fifth consecutive year of significant cuts. They are cuts of the greatest frustration and perhaps the second greatest frustration today is the time limit on the debate. In December the comment was made that the week started with the Secretary of State for the Environment envisaging where an extra 4.4 million households might go during the next 20 years and the next day presiding over cuts which shifted the question from "where" to "whether".
I specifically ask the Minister today to tell the House what assessment the Government have made of the effect of the cuts and how they propose to address that effect. It cannot be that the Government have not carried out that exercise. To share the information might mean a more constructive debate both inside and outside this House. If the Government did not make that assessment I do not believe that I need to comment on the omission.
I hope that the assessment will include a comment on the supply of accommodation which the Government regard as appropriate for single people under 60. I refer, of course, to the housing benefit changes. Leaving aside whether such accommodation is right for someone of middle age, can the Minister tell the House whether the Government are satisfied that there is an adequate supply of such accommodation and of an adequate standard? Can he also comment on the effect of personal, rather than bricks and mortar, subsidy? How do the Government envisage that we can halt throwing money down the drain with no realisable asset to show for the expenditure?
The social sector needs to provide about 100,000 units a year at a minimum in order to prevent an increase in unmet housing needs--and that is before there is any
impact on the backlog of unmet needs, and I say "needs" deliberately. To take London as an example--in other words, quite a short distance from this place--the scale of need for additional and improved, affordable housing is quite staggering. I give only a selection of figures: an estimated 109,000 "non-priority" single homeless people; a poverty trap, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which means that for a household earning £160 a week to be £20 cash better off, it needs to increase its income by £55 if its rent is £30 or by £115 if its rent is £60; 229,000 dwellings are unfit and a further 158,000 or thereabouts need renovation; 140,000 homes are empty; but to end on a potentially more positive note, there are vacant office buildings and sites which could perhaps yield up to 50,000 plus additional dwellings.I do not claim that making up the shortfall in affordable housing is easy. I suspect that this Government do not claim that it is easy otherwise the Green Paper of December would have been rather less coy on the subject. It was not exactly bursting with ideas. Nor do I argue that any one agency should have the monopoly of providing it. The "how" and the "what" matter far more than the "who". But income tax cuts balanced by council tax increases--another Budget twist--mean that the burden of part of the expenditure is not being borne by the better off and we see alongside that, drastic cuts in local authority housing investment programmes which mean that repair and improvement schemes by local authorities will be affected drastically and will no doubt cost more when the work can eventually be done.
What is the sense in not enabling local authorities to play their part? "Do as we say, not as we do", say central Government. "Treat your capital and your revenue spending separately". That is quite right. But if the Government distinguish between capital and revenue for the purposes of PSBR they may find it easier to distinguish between revenue expenditure and investment. It seems that it is acceptable for the Government to borrow huge sums to fund unsustainable tax cuts, but it is not acceptable for local authorities to borrow sensibly against rents for house repairs and building programmes.
The workings of the PSBR need considerable revision and on these Benches, we should like to see local authorities more free to invest--"invest" is a respectable term which some denigrate by using the word "subsidy"--to meet local housing needs. We would urge a change to the public accounting system so that the social benefits of a particular investment would be the crucial elements. I refer to social benefits because at present we are hooked on indicators which measure things only in financial terms, and in environmental terms almost not at all.
We want sensible housing investment to get unemployed people back to work. Your Lordships will all be familiar with the arguments both about employment in the housing industry and the benefits tax.
Perhaps one of the major challenges is how local authorities can work with their communities to provide the extra housing and to provide it in a fashion which is
sustainable both environmentally and socially. How are we to debate most productively as to whether there is a need for new settlements? Are they unavoidable? If some greenfield land must be used over the long term, it is better that that should be planned. It is better not to over-extend existing centres than to spoil and not improve our urban environment.I do not wish to see the indiscriminate use of greenfield sites but my party, along with others, has proposed a new greenfield development tax in order to address that based on the increase in the value of land resulting from planning permission. I wish that I had time to develop the arguments of the benefit of that in terms of encouraging the development of derelict sites.
Unused stock and empty homes are emotive subjects, but I just do not believe that it is acceptable for fit, habitable homes to be left empty deliberately for long periods for reasons of speculation. We have proposals to develop a simplified grant application system to enable local authorities and housing associations to work with private landlords to bring back suitable homes into use and above all, to find ways of providing affordable housing. I do not believe that the recent circular will achieve that.
I can only allude quickly to the promotion of the private rented sector which, of course, is much intertwined with the wider economy. Some of your Lordships will have seen, with regard to the private rented sector, the private tenants' manifesto drawn up by the Campaign for Bedsit Rights. The problems which it identifies in that sector certainly left me feeling most uncomfortable. I do commend that.
Finally, I return to the Budget. The removal of nearly £1 billion from housing spending achieved barely a mention and certainly no analysis in the non-specialist media. But there is much to concern us all.
3.35 p.m.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I begin by saying that it is a privilege to address your Lordships for the first time this afternoon. My father, who died recently, was active in this House in his latter years and, although we had different political allegiances, I believe that we shared some of the same social instincts. I am grateful also to my noble friend Lord Williams for introducing this debate on housing which provides me with an opportunity to make my maiden speech. I cannot think of a more appropriate and timely subject to be debated this afternoon.
Today we shall hear much about the inadequate and deteriorating state of our housing stock and about the social problems which that engenders. Those housing problems have arisen gradually over the past 20 years and are now of such a magnitude that any serious attempt at amelioration must necessarily envisage a policy which spans an equal length of time stretching way into the first quarter of the coming century.
Faced with such problems, an attitude of resignation is perhaps inevitable, and we are bound to have difficulties envisaging prospects which differ greatly from those which confront us at present. That is why it is important and instructive to look further afield to
witness other circumstances which may serve either as warnings of what is in store if we fail to act vigorously or as encouragement in the way of what is capable of achievement.I should like to offer an example which arises from my own personal observation. Recently I walked along the banks of the Danube river on the northern side of the city of Vienna in the direction of Heilingenstadt for about 5 kilometres. Marching purposefully along that axis is a splendid and handsome line of buildings which are somewhat severe in outline and decorated in the yellow stucco which is peculiar to the city of Vienna. To each of those buildings is affixed in bold red lettering a legend which says that the building has been constructed in some year of this century by the city of Vienna in pursuit of its social housing policy. That particular line of buildings terminates in a splendid and symbolic edifice which is the Karl Marx Hof. That residential citadel is a grand expression in masonry of the political power of the social democratic party which acceded to power at the end of the First World War. In fact, the building served as a bastion and military stronghold for the Social Democrats during the civil war of 1934.
But today, the building remains the property of the municipality of Vienna. Those apartments are much sought after by rich, retired citizens whose families have matured and dispersed. Residence in Viennese public housing has never acquired the stigma which besets public housing in many other European countries. That may have something to do with the quality of the provision, both in terms of architecture and substance.
Originally, the tenancies were limited to larger families, young families, Social Democrat party workers, I must say, and a few others. But nowadays the city of Vienna is a major provider of housing for all classes of citizen.
The social housing policy in Vienna is an integral part of a concerted municipal enterprise which is at the same time municipal socialism and capitalism and on a grand scale. It commands the services not only of architects, city planners and construction workers but also bankers, professors of urban geography, transport workers, sanitation workers and many others besides.
I offer that example because it represents a vision which I feel we are in danger of losing. I offer it also because it runs contrary to almost every single presupposition which we are liable to entertain when we think of social housing policy in this country.
I shall itemise three of those suppositions and shall call each into question. The first supposition is that social housing policy should address the needs only of a disadvantaged, low income group. I believe, on the contrary, that it should be an integral part of a general housing policy. In this country large investments are urgently needed for the renewal of the entire housing stock, which is ageing uniformly. I believe that our larger municipal authorities should consider the experience of the city of Vienna and that they should be prepared to cater for all classes of citizen at all stages of life.
The second supposition is that social housing is bound to be of an inferior quality. On the contrary, I believe that, apart from the detested system-built tower blocks of the late 1960s and early 1970s, much of the council housing stock which has recently been sold off (and some which remains in the possession of local authorities) is of a standard which is markedly superior to anything which has been constructed in recent years either by private contractors or housing associations. One of the roles of a social housing policy should be to impose standards upon the quality of construction. That, in fact, was the purpose of the Parker Morris standard which was suspended by the present Government. I see no reason at all why that standard should not be reinstituted and applied across the board.
The third supposition is that local authorities are inappropriate providers of housing and that their role, if it is to be revived, should be taken by other agencies. I am sure that this is wrong. One should expect larger authorities at least to have the knowledge and the capacity to plan for residential construction on a large scale and to relate it to other needs, such as those of transport, recreation and the need for open spaces. Such authorities are the only agencies which can be relied upon to view the problems of society within a sufficiently broad perspective. They are in an ideal position to monitor the quality of construction and, because of the scale of their operations and the experience that they can derive from them, they can achieve efficiencies which are denied to other organisations. By all means let private capital participate, but there should be an overall plan within which it must operate.
At present, our housing industry is disorganised and de-skilled. Only a concerted national policy of residential construction can revive it. But so poor is its health and so diminished are its capacities that I fear that the early years of such a policy are bound to be attended by a succession of crises and shortfalls. I also fear that that is the price that we will have to pay for the derelictions of our Government over such a long period.
I would continue with my account but I fear that I have already encroached upon my allotted time. Further, I can see affixed to the parapet of the Gallery above some bold red lettering which indicates that I have already spoken for long enough. When the occasion arises, I feel sure that I shall make further contributions to your Lordships' debates. When I do, I believe that I shall be moved to make much more trenchant comments than the conventions of a maiden speech allowed me to make this afternoon.
3.42 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich: My Lords, it is a particular pleasure on behalf of the House to congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, on his excellent maiden speech. It was not only a speech of great quality; it was also an important speech to which I believe many of us will wish to refer in the future. When arranging the order of speakers for today's debate, I do not know whether the Whips Office had
inside information, but it is in fact a happy coincidence that the great-great uncle of the noble Viscount was one of my predecessors as Bishop of Norwich. Bishop Bertram Pollock sat on these Benches more than 50 years ago. I do not know a great deal about what goes on in Heaven--yet!--but I have no doubt that he will be looking down upon us this afternoon with pride at the performance of his great-great nephew and that, like us, he will be looking forward to hearing many such important contributions in the future.
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