Special Committee National Board for Science and Technology Bill, 1976 díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 18 May 1977

SECTION 5.

Question proposed: " That section 5 stand part of the Bill."

Major de Valera

Section 5 is in a sense the essence of the Bill. The effectiveness of the board lies in that it has the power of making over practically the whole field, financial recommendations which are likely to be accepted and most certainly will be influential in any Government allocation of funds in the area concerned. Section 5 is therefore, in one sense, the guts of the Bill. It is very difficult to see how any other approach could be adopted to a body of this nature.

However, I would like to urge on the Minister the need, which he has to some extent conceded in his Second Reading speech, for a very broad view and balance here, and also the need for whatever Government are there to be very much alive to the fact that this is a recommendation and an information, not a mandatory thing, that the responsibility for making the decision and for the allocation of funds will first be on the Ministers in various Departments concerned and then on the Minister for Finance, and finally there will be the collective decision of the Government. All of the these active powers will need to keep in mind the balances, practical, short-term and long-term, that are involved, To concentrate purely on current and what seem at the moment eminently practical things so exclusively as to exclude long-term thinking and academic research, which is always or usually fundamental to the matter, would be a mistake. With that caveat that somewhere in the administrative machine there should be this warning and guidence written into the Bill. I agree with this proposal. There is no amendment apparently that one can think of that can perfect the section. As I say, it is the guts of the Bill and if we rejected the section we would be rejecting the Bill.

Mr. Wilson

I would like to comment on this section in relation to the financial power under the Bill. The explanatory memorandum says that the budget will not be voted on separately. In no place in the Bill is that statement made. Its component parts will be dealt with in the Dáil under the respective departmental Votes. Subsections (3) and (4) say:

(3) Details of the financial allocations finally approved for the financial year or period in question in respect of each institution, and an accompanying commentary by the Board on national policy for science and technology, shall together constitute the Science Budget for the year or period in question.

(4) The Minister shall lay a copy of each Science Budget before both Houses of the Oireachtas.

This is very odd. If the budget as such is to have an effect, surely it will have the function of deciding how education, agriculture, the universities and the various institutes will spend. Are the Department of Education to be master of their own house with regard to the amount of money they will spend? If so, this whole board would seem to be supernumerary.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Keating)

I would like to say something about those two points. I will deal first with the point raised by Deputy de Valera. We talked about this in detail on Second Stage and in general terms earlier on this Stage. I have always made the point that there is not a distinction in reality between pure and applied, and that there is a spectrum of research and if you neglect any bit of it, you neglect the whole thing. While it is very hard to produce definitions in these areas, I have no doubt that what is said and agreed from all sides of the House will be looked on as guidance and that the matter of the selection of the board is the way that you guarantee we will not rush after an immediate pragmatic, short-term thing and neglect the fundamental end. Anybody who does that damages the scientific effort, and I would be very much against that happening. We can ensure that it will not happen. I agree with the tenor of his remarks and it is useful that they will be recorded not just on Second Stage before the whole Dáil but also in this Committee.

In regard to Deputy Wilson's point about the fact that it does not state in the Bill that the Budget will be voted on separately, it is not necessary to say anything else because what happens then is that existing procedures operate. We discussed this earlier also because no one could do it by a mechanism where one took the separate departmental inputs out of their own departmental Estimates and voted on them separately. If we were to do that we would be restructuring the way in which we make our Budget and vote moneys. While some of us might feel that that would be the most fundamental and in the long run the most desirable solution, it is in practice impossible without a total revision of the way in which we do our business and have done it for half a century. I do not think the point mentioned makes any difference. It is not necessary to mention it and, in the absence of any mention, the existing mechanisms will operate.

In regard to the autonomy of different Departments, in the end they only enjoy it as you enjoy autonomy—for example, Deputy Wilson gave the example of the Department of Education—to the extent that moneys are voted for them to spend and that is the collective responsibility of the whole Government. What one wants to develop effectively is an over-view where all the participants genuinely see the whole landscape and genuinely see the inter-relationship of the parts. Once this policy is laid down in the widest terms—and the Bill says in section 5, " in the light of national policy for science and technology "—and is established and working then the autonomy of each of the separate Departments, which they fought for very strongly in the preparatory stages—so did Agriculture and so did Local Government—will remain but it will have to remain in the context of seeing the whole terrain and seeing the inter-relationship between the allocations of money.

Mr. Wilson

Section 5 (1) says that the board will prepare a statement based on what is on the programme and including the requirements on proposals of every institution in receipt of moneys from the State. Suppose the HEA have got a request included in the global requests from a university department for money for a specific scientific project and that the National Board for Science and Technology do not think there should be money for that in that it is covered elsewhere or that it has not a priority or something else, have the board any power in relation to that? Can they say to the Údarás: " You cannot allot that money to UCD or TCD or elsewhere because it is not, in the opinion of the National Board of Science and Technology, in the best interests of science and technology in the country "? What teeth, if any, have the board? That is a descriptive phrase if it included the requirements and proposals of every institution. Is there any normative or prescriptive strength in the board?

Major de Valera

Here we are up against the problem of the hen and the egg to a certain extent. The Government mechanism is that there is the Government as the decision-making authority. Immediately below is the Department of Finance and then the individual Departments. The Votes for all these things will be dealt with, as I see it , as follows : The Department of Education will supply specifically the things Deputy Wilson has mentioned. The Minister's Department will cover certain industrial areas. The Department of Agriculture are even this morning legislating within this field and will have their own function. Provision will be made in departmental Estimates; they will have to get finance sanction before they come to the Government at all. When passed by Finance as the Minister's Estimate they come to the Government collectively and then a decision is made about the Budget.

In the case of these institutions and projects I presume that what will happen will be that each Department in framing their Estimate, as I read the Bill, will have to get, as heretofore, the particulars and the requisitions from these bodies. In other words, the universities will have to make their requisition to the Department of Education, and so on, so that the natural stream will continue. The question arises, as Deputy Wilson said, of the board's position under section 5. It is quite clear that the board's teeth will consist simply of the strength of their recommendations and standing with the Government. Where is their information? This question directly arises from Deputy Wilson's argument. Do the board separately and independently contact these bodies and get their recommendations or whatever information they need directly?

If that is so, there is much to be said from the point of view of teeth in the board. However, I see duplication there to some extent. They have to do this for the relevant Department. If they also do it directly for the board they are doing it at two separate points. One naturally asks: will the information come through the Departments rather than directly? If that is so I should like to register a demur. This reminds me of something that happened at a meeting of another Committee yesterday where a proposal came that the Comptroller and Auditor General would supply a certain function. I objected because it committed him in an area in which he would later have to judge. In the same way, if the information for this board is merely to come through the Departments concerned, to some extent it lacks teeth. What I believe Deputy Wilson is asking, if he does not want to add anything further, is: what guarantee is there that this board will have the independence and the power to require and receive the information, recommendations and requisitions, if I may put it that way, of all the bodies concerned so that they can make an independent judgment? I apologise for the length of my remarks but what I have said, in my view, puts it in the Minster's perspective.

Mr. Keating

Deputy de Valera has described the situation accurately and I do not disagree with anything he said. In answer to the question—it is a very important one—as to the lines of communication, in my view the answer is in section 6 (2) which says:

(2) Any institution for which provision is made in the Science Budget shall supply to the Board such information in such form and at such time as the Board may require.

That is the true line, but I would agree with the Deputy's demurral. That is the source of liaison.

Mr. Wilson

An institute, founded by the HEA, will be responsible to the HEA, to the Department of Finance and to the board in some way, but the strength of the responsibility of the National Board for Science and Technology is what puzzles me. I know the kind of responsibility they will have in regard to the AGA and the Department of Finance, but if Finance vote it and the board vote it to the HEA and the HEA vote it to a university department, but the board think it should not be spent there, what strength will the board have?

Mr. Keating

The inter-relationship in regard to spending between different groups like that is now in a completely ad hoc way. That is not a satisfactory situation. The power of the board is precisely that they will be able to go to the Government as a whole, having all the information on the relevant matters, regardless of individual Ministers. If something that was dear to the heart of some organisation in the education field were given a low priority, it will be the right and the duty of the Minister for Education to go to the Government and say: “ The collective wisdom of the board is such and such, and I ask my colleagues to correct that error.” That right exists.

Major de Valera

Is it not happening every day in Finance?

Mr. Keating

Yes, but now it will happen with the superior quality of expert advice.

Major de Valera

I would join with Deputy Wilson in demurring here if the words " shall submit" were not in subsection (2). I take it that means the board's recommendations, whether the Minister likes it or not, will be submitted to the Government—that the first sight will be with the Minister for Industry and Commerce, that the Minister for Finance will also have a sight, but having had the sight they will have no discretion as to how much or how little will be submitted—that the recommendation will be submitted in toto to the Government.

Mr. Keating

That is the obvious interpretation.

Major de Valera

That is where the teeth lie.

Mr. Keating

It will be a matter of public information as well, and subject to the pressure of public information.

Major de Valera

That is most important. Here I should like to make a rather delicate point. The balance of the appointments and the mechanism of the appointments and the mechanism of the appointments will be a very sensitive and important matter, and the effectiveness, the teeth of this section will depend on what the membership of the board represent—their composition and balance.

Chairman

We will be dealing with the question of membership later.

Mr. Wilson

Subsection (3) lays down:

Details of the financial allocations finally approved for the financial year or period in question in respect of each institution, and an accompanying commentary by the Board on national policy for science and technology, shall together constitute the Science Budget for the year or period in question.

That is simply descriptive of financial allocations. A discretionary report would not be needed for that. It is a matter of commentary: it will be laid before the Houses, and that is it. I cannot foresee it being effective.

Mr. Keating

This is something on which we could go backwards and forwards for a long time. If we were to make it something with greater powers it would overturn all our systems. There is the stature, the standing, of the people who are members of the board. The people have real stature and their advice has real standing in the scientific, indeed the whole community. This procedure will not happen once for all time. When it has happened it will be subject to comment in the Oireachtas and elsewhere, and this process will take place again 12 months later, over and over again. There will be Oireachtas debate through the whole body of science and the public in the country, and the Minister who takes a wrong decision——

Mr. Wilson

It is little too coy. The Minister knows the people involved will try to fight their own corner—that is their business. The only bones in the thing will be the debate, the highlighting.

Major de Valera

In relation to subsection (4), at which stage will a copy of the Science Budget be laid before the Oireachtas? I appreciate one would not like to write in a specific time, but what is envisaged? Would it be before or after the Budget?

Mr. Keating

There is nothing formal. It would be of real importance to a debate to have it before or concomitantly, or after the Estimates have come in and before the Budget. Then there could be a realistic debate.

Mr. Wilson

I am thinking particularly of third-level institutions in that their year starts in October. The new budget date is January, and this in itself would create problems. I am wondering also whether it is correct to call it a Science Budget, because it is a statement of requirements and proposals, and it is a commentary, but in the sense that we would normally think of a budget, the board have not their own budget.

Mr. Keating

It is a matter of international usage, particularly in the Community. It is a term the OECD use and it is a term that specifically the Belgians and the Dutch use.

Mr. Wilson

Even though the money is spent in the way envisaged?

Mr. Keating

Yes. It is a word that has that sort of usage, and if you were to use the word "budget" only in the sense of moneys voted by a national parliament, you would be restricting its use in a way that is not normal practice. I see the point, but I think "budget" means a little more than the thing that is done once a year by national parliaments.

Mr. O'Malley

The Minister suggested that if the Government, for example, took out certain parts of what was proposed by this board, the wisdom or otherwise of the judgment involved in taking it out or changing it could be a matter of public debate. I suggest that is not so. If you look at the section, the Science Budget is not what the board prepare. The board prepare a statement as set out in subsection (1). Subsection (2) says that when the board prepare this statement it will be submitted to the Minister for Industry and Commerce who, after consultation with the Minister for Finance, will submit it to the Government; and subsection (3) says the details of the financial allocations approved and an accompanying commentary shall together constitute the Science Budget. In other words, it is not a Science Budget until after the Government have amended and approved of it. What the board prepare is a simple preliminary statement for the approval or otherwise of the Government. Therefore there is no opportunity for the Oireachtas or the public to have a debate on what the board prepare, because neither the Members of the Oireachtas nor the Government will know what the board prepare. They will only know it in its final form as approved by the Government, which may be with very major amendments, and in practice it is the Government who are preparing what is called here a Science Budget rather than the board which I think is what was originally envisaged should happen.

Mr. Keating

I think there are two things to say about that: the budget consists of the financial allocation finally approved and an accompanying commentary by the board. That is where the commentary comes from. The source of the commentary is defined, and in fact estimates are discussed at various times. Therefore the opportunity for the board to express themselves does exist statutorily. Any board that are worth anything—and there are examples of it all through the life of the State—will speak their piece. If it was a rubber stamp for what a Government do, nobody worth having would stay on it. I hope for, and believe there can be, real dialogue between the board and Government, with the members of the board having the right to express themselves, these things being made matters of public debate, and I think that is very desirable and essential.

Major de Valera

Taking Deputy O'Malley's point and the Minister's comment, it seems to me that the accompanying commentary of the board is limited to being on national policy. That could be construed as excluding completely particulars of sums recommended or apportionments and as confining the board to the broadest general statements. I agree with the Minister that people worth their salt—and this is the importance of the appointments—will not be over constrained by this, but with the greatest respect to the administration, this has a familiar ring about it. I think Deputy O'Malley's interpretation is perfectly correct, and I am a little concerned about the restriction of the commentary to national policy. It will depend completely on the attitude of the Government and the Minister concerned, but if the Ministers were to acquiesce in the view of the administration, as all too frequently happens, I fear that the words " national policy " would be interpreted as restricting the board to the broadest general terms and that that would lead to a very undesirable type of public debate. Therefore even though formally and in the House the document would be restricted to broad commentary and policy, if there was something of substance and there were men of the type the Minister talks about on the board, they would have to go as far as resigning if they felt strongly enough. But an undesirable debate would be generated and it might be better, even from the point of view of the administration if that debate were given some teeth, to use Deputy Wilson's expression.

There is no amendment before us, but in the light of Deputy O'Malley's point and the debate here, today, would the Minister consider deleting the words " national policy "? I know the Minister, qua Minister, and his permanent administration will take a cautious view here and will look at it one way, and I am not faulting them for that. Incidentally, my remarks are not to be taken as in any way derogatory of the administration; they have their function, and there are characteristics associated with the way they function. However, we as parliamentarians should look at this in the broadest sense and decide whether it is more desirable to risk the situation where, by the giving of certain information, more real ammunition will be available to the outside against the inside, If I may put it that way, than to have the situation where the outside would indulge in irregular guerrilla tactics which can never be very effective in public debate but can be damaging to all the interests concerned.

Chairman

Before the Minster answers the Deputy's remarks, may I ask a question which might help? In subsection (1) we talk about the board preparing a statement. That statement, as I read it, is an entirely different issue from the commentary the board will make at a later stage when the specific financial allocations have been made. The Minister mentioned that it was proposed to publish the attitudes of the board. Presumably the statement referred to in subsection (1) will be published. If so, will it be published before the Budget? If there is public knowledge about the statement the board are preparing, that in itself will provide a type of comment, vis-�-vis the Department and the Minister at Budget time.

Mr. Keating

The statement is a preparatory document which goes through due process and is not the same as what is referred to in subsection (3). May I look at Deputy de Valera's point dealing with the phrase " on national policy for science and technology". In my view, that is a wide phrase. If there is a shift in allocation it will represent a shift of money toward one thing and away from something else. The national policy expresses priorities. I take the right to comment on that shift as being included in the term " national policy ". In practice this board will have contacts with every political party, with Deputies of every party and will have inputs into Dáil debates of the kind that are correct and necessary. The retaining of the phrase which it was suggested that I drop gives greater power to the board. If you say simply " an accompanying commentary by the board " you could have a haggle between the board and the administration as to what properly should go in and what should be omitted.

Mr. O'Malley

Is that not the whole point?

Mr. Keating

We want as much as possible to go in. Therefore the removing of the wide phrase, which is the enabling phrase, would raise a haggle as to what was proper to go into the commentary.

Mr. O'Malley

Surely that is proper for the commentary.

Mr. Keating

Everything the people on the board want to put into it is proper for the commentary. The phrase " on national policy for science and technology " is enabling them, not diminishing their powers.

Major de Valera

That view can be taken, but in my opinion the other view can also be taken and the weight may be used in that direction. I am talking in very abstract terms here. I am not referring to any particular government or administration. I am thinking of the constitutional machine as it works.

Mr. O'Malley

In practice we know what happens at boards like this. They do not enter into conflict with the Minister in reports or such like, although they may do it privately. Ninety per cent of the reference to the Minister in reports say that he was gracious enough to honour them with his presence at a function, or that they have the happiest relations with the Minister and the Department concerned or some rubbish of that kind. There may have been conflict from time to time, but it never sees the light of day in reports where they are all trying to be as nice as pie in order to be reappointed when their term of three years are up and ensure that they will have their "perks" for another while.

I would prefer to see the position where they were not given an outlet—as is happening here—not to say anything. I would prefer if they were forced by statute to comment on what has been done. Let us not cod ourselves that this board produce a Science Budget, because they do not. They produce proposals which the Ministers for Finance and Industry and Commerce can cut before they get to the Government, in the first instance, and then the Government as a whole can cut them. They may end up totally different to what was originally proposed by the board under subsection (1). They are given an outlet not to comment on that. They can waffle on in vague terms about national policy and so on.

Mr. Keating

While I sympathise with some of what Deputy O'Malley said, nobody is served by sycophantic boards, although I know such boards exist. In general the Deputy is being unduly disapproving about people who are not simply thinking of their " perks " and reappointment and who in many instances over the years have shown considerable initiative and independence. While there are certainly sycophants, I feel you cannot legislate guts into people. You cannot force people to make comments of a critical and constructive kind, even if you write it into law. I am not as contemptuous as he is of the reactions of members of boards in general. I believe that a constructive tension between boards and Ministers and Governments is a very good thing and should be sought. I do not think legislation to make it a duty for them to do X, Y or Z will make them do it. People of some standing and with some pride in their work will do it, but to put it into law simply will not work.

Mr. O'Malley

Legislating to allow them simply to make vague, waffling comments will not encourage them to do the kind of job they should do. The phrase " on national policy for science and technology " is so wide and vague that they could say anything they liked.

Mr. Keating

Precisely, they could say anything they liked. If they wanted to and have the standing to say real things they are empowered to do it.

Chairman

I asked a question earlier which the Minister did not answer. I appreciate that the statement the board will prepare is an entirely different document from their subsequent comment when the Budget is actually allocated. I want to know whether the statement required in subsection (1) is published or is it an internal document?

Mr. Keating

I understand it is an internal document.

Mr. O'Malley

That was my point. It is a pity it is an internal document because the Oireachtas or the public have no way of knowing the actual views of the board. They only know what came out of a Government meeting eventually. It may be similar to the original proposals but, on the other hand, it may bear no resemblance at all. For example, if the board prepared a statement on the basis that £1 million should be given to a certain institute for specific purposes and if the Government decide that £50,000 will do, the Oireachtas or the public have no way of knowing, unless they are told privately by the members of the board, that the original proposal was for £1 million. Even if they are told privately, there will be the unsatisfactory situation that by parliamentary question the Oireachtas either denied or gave some vague answer about confidentiality, so that one can never really know the merits of the matter.

Major de Valera

The logic of Deputy O'Malley's thoughts raises the whole question of the amenability of this board which is built into our structure and the amenability of the Minister to answering questions in Parliament.

Mr. Halligan

Surely, in relation to the commentary and statement there is nothing that precludes the board from including in their commentary the fact they made various recommendations and statements which were rejected. If the board were constituted of people of proper standing who had a proper evaluation of their own role I do not see anything to prevent them from saying " We disagree "—to take Deputy O'Malley's example—"with the Government's decision and we hope it will not be repeated" or " We will be making a similar statement next before the estimates are agreed.

Major de Valera

I quite agree with Deputy Halligan that it is a possibility but it is equally a possibility that they will not. Therefore, I would like an answer to the question: suppose I were to address a question to the Minister for Industry and Commerce at the appropriate time, not seeking to get information in advance, but, say, when the thing has been published, supplementary to publication, to ask him, what sum did the National Board for Science and Technology recommend in their proposals for IIRS? What answer would I get?

Mr. O'Malley

"It is none of your business."

Major de Valera

I think that is very likely, put a little more politely.

Mr. Halligan

If you were on the board would you not insist that the commentary should include to a great extent a synopsis of your statement?

Mr. O'Malley

Depending on whether he wanted to stay on it or not.

Mr. Halligan

If we take this factor, we are talking about dealing with science and technology, not dealing with some local problem or a local tax. It is dealing with people who are in a specific area of intellectual life whose primary interest is the one of capacity for criticism and not least whose personal characteristics are self-esteem, in some cases misjudged, unwarranted and unfounded, perhaps. Academics are not noted for their modesty. I would think it inevitable that the board would include such a view.

Major de Valera

First, if the board do include this kind of thing in their commentary, will the words " national policy " be ruled administratively to censor the document, so to speak? Secondly, if information is sought that seems to a Deputy or to an Opposition to be reasonably relevant as a whole, in relation to the subject and a question is asked, can that information be elicited without it having to come by the back door, so to speak, of a break-up in what I call an undesirable way? All these are very difficult questions but they do arise.

Mr. Keating

I think that one half of the way in which boards function—and it is much the less important half—is being presented as if it were the whole truth. There are sycophantic boards and people who think only of their "perks" and getting on the next time, but they are, I think, commendably few. We should not be too contemptuous of the morals of Ministers whoever they are, or of the democratic process. Serious Ministers do not want the sycophants; I think they are the people who go out first. I fought a considerable battle and won it that the board should have their own staff. They are not staffed by the Civil Service. They will recruit their own staff and develop their own elan and morale. A Minister for Industry and Commerce, for example, to whom they are responsible, will not feel personally sensitive to the criticisms. In fact, he will identify with his own organisation, as Ministers do in regard to any of the organisations working for them, and will be the protagonist of that organisation against other Ministers if they try to alter recommendations of that board.

We are, I think, also unduly contemptuous about the democratic process because you will not get serious scientists to work on this without their establishing an information network, without establishing their own standing, without their wanting to do the best possible job in science policy. While some of the things Deputy O'Malley says about the relation of boards to Ministers contain one portion of the truth and a regrettable portion, there is also a real sensitivity of Ministers towards boards, because a Minister says " If that is their collective wisdom and we put them there and now we want to trample on them, the roof will blow off and we will have the father and mother of a row." That is also true, so that the sensitivity is both ways. We are perhaps being more contemptuous of both people and the democratic process than we ought to be.

Chairman

I am keen that we should bring this matter to a conclusion. We have a long way to go. We can allow an open-ended debate but it does not serve much purpose if we have discussed the matter as fully as we have done. Do the Committee accept that the question should be put on this section. Is there a consensus that it should be put in the light of the Minister's comments or, alternatively, is there a different approach?

Mr. O'Malley

I hope we will have a board with a bit of backbone. We can go ahead but it is misleading, I think, to give the impression that the board will prepare the Science Budget when the whole thing is being done by the Government. That should be understood. There is not much point in what the Minister says about the board having a separate identity from the Minister and having their own staff and so on if the ultimate decisions are in fact going to be made by the Government. I think it should be recalled that on the section about the powers and functions of the board I pointed out that the board had no real powers in the sense that the functions set out in that section were too vague and were not such that the board could force somebody to do specific work or, what is equally important, force somebody else not to do it, if there was to be considerable overlapping at the cost to the Exchequer in the long run. The Minister in reply at that time said that the teeth of the board or their power to enforce their decisions and so on would come from the fact that they prepared their own Science Budget under section 5. When we examine section 5—the Chairman feels we have spent too long at it, we have sorted it out and know what it means now, which not all of us did at the beginning—we find that in fact the board do not have any financial sanctions in the last resort. The Government have the sanctions just as they have now. It is just that they are exercised through different channels, that a number of things that would be dealt with by individual Ministers at present will be dealt in a somewhat different way, are channelled together to come up through this draft statement prepared under section 5 (1) and submitted privately to the Ministers for Industry and Commerce and Finance. The Minister for Finance has power to change anything he wants to change before it goes to the Government. It goes to the Government eventually.

The channels by which the things reach the Government for ultimate decision are different but the reality is that the board themselves do not have the power to say " You will do that " or " You will not do that because if you do otherwise you will not get money". The board will have no say in the money. It is the Government who will decide, and at the moment it is arguable and questionable whether the board's business will be any advance on the present procedure. In the last analysis, if certain institutes are determined to plough their own furrows it is doubtful if the board can do anything about it. It ultimately will come back to the Government anyway, as it does now.

Major de Valera

This discussion has done a great deal to clarify the meaning of the section, and I hope it will be taken notice of. I take it it will be reported fully and be available on the record so that it can, as it should be, averted to later. It must be experimental, it cannot be the final word, and in that sense we can approve of it here. I hope it will work and that the general attitude the Committee have had towards it will prevail in its implementation.

Chairman

I should like to point out that I did not say we were spending too much time in discussing it.

Question put and agreed to.