Commons Sitting of 3 July 1958

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  ALL HALLOWS THE GREAT CHURCHYARD BILL [Lords]
    ALL HALLOWS THE LESS CHURCHYARD BILL [Lords]
    Read the Third time and passed, with Amendments.
  WALLASEY CORPORATION BILL
  Read the Third time and passed.
  MANCHESTER CORPORATION BILL (By Order)
  Consideration, as amended, deferred till Wednesday next, at Seven o'clock.
  SOUTH BUCKS AND OXFORDSHIRE WATER BILL, BUCKS WATER BOARD BILL, READING AND BERKSHIRE WATER &C, BILL, AND MID-WESSEX WATER BILL
  Instruction to the Committee on the said Bills, that they have power, if they think fit, to consolidate the said Bills or any part or parts thereof respectively into two or more Bills.—[Major Legge-Bourke.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Central Office of Information Pamphlet (Photograph)
    Mr. Liptonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how a photograph of the Chamber of the House of Commons, with honourable Members present, was obtained for a pamphlet entitled, "This is Britain," prepared by the Central Office of Information.
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. J. E. S. Simon): The photograph was obtained from a photographic news agency, which took it, with
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    the permission of the authorities, before the ceremonial opening of the new Chamber. It was first circulated to the Press on 26th October, 1950, and was published by newspapers and periodicals in this country and overseas.
    Mr. Lipton: Will the Minister give an assurance that in future the Government will not be a party to a similar breach of precedent, which is an affront to the well-established traditions and dignity of the House, and will he withdraw the offending photograph from further circulation and destroy the existing stocks?
    Mr. Simon: I think that supplementary question was prepared for a different answer from the one I have given. The hon. Gentleman has now only got round to the problem some eight years after it occurred.
    Mr. Lipton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If the Financial Secretary is putting the responsibility on the authorities of the House, presumably the Serjeant at Arms, would you be good enough to indicate now or at a later stage what remedy hon. Members have if the responsibility lies in that particular quarter? It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, if I may say so, that whereas the Serjeant at Arms has the power to remove hon. Members from the House, we have not the power to remove him from anywhere.
    Mr. Speaker: This happened about eight years ago, and it is impossible to say how it happened then. I do not think there is any breach of Privilege involved. I remember the photograph quite well. It was taken before this present Chamber was opened, and I do not think any question of Privilege arises.

    Hire-Purchase Finance
    Mr. Osborneasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why his restrictions discriminate between the big five English banks, which are not allowed to engage in hire-purchase financing, and a Scottish bank, which is so permitted and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Simon: I regret that I cannot just at present add to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 24th June
    Mr. Osborne: Why should one Scottish bank be given the privilege and the five big English banks be denied the same kind of facilities? Secondly, if credit facilities are to be eased in the near future, would it not be better to have hire-purchase finance in capable and responsible hands such as the big five banks than to let them continue as they are at present?
    Mr. Simon: I hope my hon. Friend will acquit me of discourtesy if I do not enlarge on my original Answer.
    Mr. H. Wilson: Is the Radcliffe Committee inquiring into this as a specific part of its inquiries? If not, would the hon. and learned Gentleman recommend his right hon. Friend to institute a full inquiry into the whole question of hire-purchase finance, which goes very much wider than the point raised in the Question?
    Mr. Simon: I am afraid I should need notice of the first part of that supplementary question. I will certainly draw the second part of it to my right hon. Friend's attention.

    Social and Cultural Projects (Expenditure)
    Dame Irene Wardasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give an assurance that, in controlling inflation and maintaining voluntary negotiation for applications for increased wages and salaries, he will not disproportionately restrict expenditure on social and cultural projects which relieve hardship.
    Mr. Simon: I can certainly assure my hon. Friend that it is my right hon. Friend's aim to observe due proportion in all things.
    Dame Irene Ward: While thanking my hon. and learned Friend for that delightful Answer, may I ask him whether he will bear in mind, when considering the "due proportion", that a high standard in the arts is of spiritual value to a nation and that a high standard is also bound up with our European civilisation, which it is the aim and object of most hon. Members to preserve?
    Mr. Simon: Yes, Sir.

    Wages, Pensions and Benefits
    Dame Irene Wardasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state in percentage form the cost of inflation since 1952 to which increased wages and salaries have contributed; and what have been the comparable increases to pensioners, widows, and the disabled.
    Mr. Simon: Between 1952 and 1957 the total of wages and salaries paid increased by 43 per cent. while the total amount paid in pensions, widows' benefits and disablement benefits increased by 40 per cent. It is estimated that this increase in wages and salaries raised labour costs per unit of output by about one-fifth and accounted for about seven-tenths of the total increase in prices over the period.
    Dame Irene Ward: Will my hon. and learned Friend answer the Question which I asked him previously: while conquering inflation is of great importance to the nation as a whole, why are some people able to buy their way out of inflation while others, living on small fixed incomes, do not have the same advantage? Can he try to balance all this to see that there is a "fair do" all round?
    Mr. Simon: My hon. Friend asked me that question last week and I answered to the best of my ability—
    Dame Irene Ward: Which was not very good.
    Mr. Simon: —and I am afraid that my ability has not further advanced in the space of a week.
    Mr. Jay: What proportion of this rise in wages and salaries is due to previous rises in the cost of living?
    Mr. Simon: I do not think that that is a very profitable question to ask or that any answer to it would be very enlightening. It is like the old question of which came first, the hen or the egg.
    Mr. Jay: If the Financial Secretary cannot answer that question, what meaning is there in the answer he gave to the previous question?
    Mr. H. Wilson: Since the hon. and learned Member also produced an entirely meaningless remark about the effect of output on the increasing cost per unit, will he say by how much less these costs per unit would have risen had the Government not held down the level of production in this country?
    Mr. Simon: That, again, is a purely hypothetical question. The fact remains that during the years in question production increased enormously.

  UGANDA

    Passports (Applicants)
    Mr. Stonehouseasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies for what reasons applicants for passports in the Uganda Protectorate are refused permission to travel; who is responsible for making inquiries and decisions in the cases concerned; and how many such cases have occurred in the last five years.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. John Profumo): The issue of passports is within the discretion of the Governor and, when circumstances are considered to justify a refusal, it is not the practice to disclose the reasons or the nature of the inquiries made. Five applicants have been refused passports in Uganda during the last five years.
    Mr. Stonehouse: Has the Under-Secretary of State's attention been drawn to the case of Mr. Mawagi and Mr. Ulaayeneza, two students at Makerere College, who had their passports taken from them when they were going to the airport to go to the Brussels Exhibition? Is not this an intolerable interference with the freedom of the individual to travel and a perfect gift to the Communists, in that they can use it in their propaganda? What does the Under-Secretary of State intend to do about it?
    Mr. Profumo: I do not intend to do anything about it. I see no reason to depart from the normal practice and to disclose reasons in this case.

  TANGANYIKA

    African National Union
    Mr. Stonehouseasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the worsening political situation in Tanganyika, with particular regard to the reasons for the banning of branches of the Tanganyika African National Union and the action taken against its officers.
    Mr. Profumo: I am not aware of the evidence on which the hon. Member concludes that the political situation in
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    Tanganyika is worsening. My right hon. Friend referred in the House on 6th May last year to the reasons why the Tanganyika Government had taken action in certain instances against the Tanganyika African National Union. There has been no substantial change since then, and, indeed, I am glad to say that it has been possible to relax restrictions in some areas where elections will take place in September. Legal action against officers of T.A.N.U. has only been taken when there is prima facie evidence that they have broken the law.
    Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Under-Secretary of State aware that his evasive reply is quite unsatisfactory and that if he looks at the Answer given by his right hon. Friend on 26th June he will see that no fewer than 16 branches of T.A.N.U. have been banned and that this campaign against T.A.N.U. and the attempt to discredit T.A.N.U. has gone too far? Is it not time that the Secretary of State intervened to prevent it?
    Mr. Profumo: It is certainly not time that my right hon. Friend intervened. Of course, I looked at the Answer which he gave the other day. I should like to break that down. In 1957 four applications were refused, but only two have been refused this year.
    Sir A. Baldwin: Is my hon. Friend aware that the avowed object of this union is to break down any possibility of an inter-racial coming together? Will he support the Tanganyika Government in stopping these branches wherever possible and give his assistance to the United Tanganyika Party, which wants to bring all races together?
    Mr. Speaker: Mrs. Castle.
    Mr. Stonehouse: On a point of order. Is the Under-Secretary of State aware that—
    Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order. The hon. Member should not use a point of order to get in another question. That is not right.
    Mr. Stonehouse: On a point of order. Is it in order for an hon. Member to give completely unsatisfactory and incorrect information? In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply given by the Under-Secretary of State, I beg to give notice that I will choose a suitable opportunity to raise the subject on the Adjournment.

  RHODESIA AND NYASALAND

    Passports
    Mrs. Castleasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is now able to make a statement on the results of the discussions between the Governments of Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland and the Federation on the issue of passports to British protected persons in the Federation.
    Mr. Profumo: A first meeting between the Federal and Territorial Governments took place on 18th June at which no final conclusions were reached. Meanwhile, the position remains as stated in my reply to the hon. Member on 3rd April.
    Mrs. Castle: Can the Under-Secretary of State tell the House the reasons for this mysterious delay? If the position is as he stated it to me on 3rd April, three months ago, that the issue of passports remains a Territorial responsibility, why are the Federal Government coming into the picture at all? Is not this leading to a great deal of anxiety both among Africans and on this side of the House?
    Mr. Profumo: I think the hon. Lady has said that before. I am distressed that she should be anxious about anything—
    Dame Irene Ward: Why?
    Mr. Profumo: Because if hon. Members are anxious they ask me more questions. I will let the hon. Lady know as soon as the outcome of these discussions has been made known. If she will put down another Question, I shall be only too glad to answer it. But we must await the outcome of the discussions which are going on.

    Inter-racial Schools
    Mrs. Castleasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether inter-racial schools in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland are a territorial or a Federal responsibility.
    Mr. Profumo: Such schools would not be specifically the responsibility of the Territorial Governments or of the Federal Government.
    Mrs. Castle: Can the Under-Secretary help us in this little dilemma? Is he aware that the Federal Minister of
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    Education, Mr. Julian Greenfield, said in May that the Federal Government had no intention of introducing interracial education in the schools? What would be the position if one of the Territorial Governments, having more interest in the policy of racial co-operation and integration than has the Federal Government, wished to make a start with an inter-racial school? Would it be empowered to do so under the Constitution?
    Mr. Profumo: There are provisions in the Constitution for delegation whereby it would, I think, be possible for either the Federal Government or a Territorial Government to take the necessary responsibility in relation to multi-racial schools, if both Governments were agreed.
    Mrs. Castle: Does that mean that the Federal Government would always have the power of veto if the Territorial Government wish to take the initiative in this very important aspect of multiracialism, which we all want to see? Does the hon. Gentleman's answer mean that the Federal Government would veto this?
    Mr. Profumo: I said, providing both Governments agreed. There is to be a review of the Constitution in 1960, and this seems to me to be just one of those matters which could then be written into the Constitution.

  ZANZIBAR

    Teachers
    Mr. J. Johnsonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many African teachers qualified at Makerere College are now teaching in secondary schools in Zanzibar.
    Mr. Profumo: Two, Sir.
    Mr. Johnson: Does not the Under-Secretary feel that this is a shocking number for the people of Zanzibar and Pemba, and will not he use his best efforts to make more scholarships available to African school leavers for them to go to Makerere College, or other university colleges, so that they can return to their own people and invigorate them by teaching in their own schools and increasing the number of secondary students?
    Mr. Profumo: This will probably be among those matters to be considered by the special committee which, as I

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    have told the hon. Gentleman, has already been set up to look into education.
    Mr. J. Johnsonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will give the numbers of African elementary school leavers in Zanzibar who have gone to teacher teaching colleges for the years 1955, 1956 and 1957, respectively.
    Mr. Profumo: Since records are kept on a non-racial basis, I am afraid this information is not available.
    Mr. Johnson: Does not the Under-Secretary agree that, although the statistics are not kept, it is well known that Africans from these elementary schools do not go to the colleges in the same numbers as the Asians, especially the Arabs and Indians? In this campaign, will he make his best efforts to see that the Africans get a fairer and better deal than they have had in the past?
    Mr. Profumo: I am sure that the committee will take this and other relevant matters into consideration.

  NORTHERN RHODESIA

    Maize and Flour (Subsidy)
    Mrs. Castleasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what was the subsidy on a 200 lb. bag of maize meal and wheat flour, respectively, in Northern Rhodesia in July, 1953; what is the subsidy today; and what has been the effect on the price of maize and flour, respectively, due to changes in the subsidy during this period.
    Mr. Profumo: In July, 1953, the subsidy was £1 6s. 2d. and £1 10s. 0d., respectively, per 200 lb. bag of whole grain. In July, 1955, responsibility for the control of maize meal and wheat flour prices was assumed by the Federal Government. I am not therefore able to give any information in reply to the latter part of the Question.
    Mrs. Castle: Does not the Under-Secretary's inability to give any information mean that the Colonial Secretary has been able to mislead the House with impunity? Did not the Colonial Secretary say on 13th May, in reply to a similar question from me:
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    "As for her remarks about the removal of subsidies, there were no subsidies to remove.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th May, 1958; Vol. 588, c. 213.]
    Has not the Under-Secretary now proved that there were some subsidies to remove? Is it not a fact that they have been removed since the Federation began, with the result that there has been an increase of 100s. in the price of maize and a substantial increase in the price of bread? Can we have more accurate replies from the Colonial Secretary in future?
    Mr. Profumo: My right hon. Friend has never intentionally misled the House, and I hope that the hon. Lady will be the first to admit that. My reply to the last part of her question is that I am not trying to withhold information, but the hon. Lady will have to approach the Federal Government direct.

  PEMBA

    Education
    Mr. J. Johnsonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will give the number of elementary schools in Pemba and the total number of pupils enrolled; and whether it is his intention to provide a secondary school for the island.
    Mr. Profumo: There are twenty-two primary schools with a total enrolment of 4,952 in Pemba at present. The provision of secondary education on the island is one of the matters to be considered by the recently appointed Committee on Education.
    Mr. J. Johnson: Can the Under-Secretary confirm that there are 100,000 people in Pemba and that the number is increasing year by year? The figure of only 4,000 at primary schools is very small, and I hope he can give an assurance that he will do something about this matter, because it is not only inconvenient for pupils from Pemba to go to Zanzibar, but it is also befitting the people in Pemba that they should have these schools.
    Mr. Profumo: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman's remarks will be noted by the committee.

  FRENCH AND BRITISH CAMEROONS

    Discussions
    Mr. E. L. Mallalieuasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what discussion took place on the resolution of the Legislative Assembly of the French Cameroons asking for reunification of the French and British Cameroons at the meeting between the Colonial Office and M. Xavier Torre, High Commissioner of the French Cameroons, during the week of 15th June.
    Mr. Profumo: The meeting referred to was one of the periodic talks between officials at which questions of mutual interest to the French and British Governments are discussed, and in this case the opportunity was taken to exchange views on various matters affecting the two Cameroonian Trust Territories. It would be contrary to normal practice to give details of the discussions at such meetings.
    Mr. Mallalieu: I welcome the announcement that there are periodic meetings to discuss mutually interesting questions. Can the hon. Gentleman assure the House that it is recognised by Her Majesty's Government that this dividing line between French and British administered parts of the Cameroons is an arbitrary line which cuts tribes in two? Will he make sure that there is the closest liaison between the British and French Governments to see that the wishes of the people of this area are consulted in deciding what their constitutional future shall be?
    Mr. Profumo: I can hold myself responsible for the wishes and aspirations of only British Territories, but I can certainly give the undertaking for which the hon and learned Member asked in the latter part of his supplementary question

  AFRICAN TERRITORIES

    Co-operatives
    Mr. Sydney Irvingasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what consideration has been given to the establishment in Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika of co-operative unions which shall undertake in increasing measure, for each of these territories as a whole, the work
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    of promoting, supervising and guiding the co-operative societies hitherto carried on by the registrars and their staffs.
    Mr. Profumo: Encouragement will be given to the formation of such unions on a territory-wide basis when there is an expressed desire for them by members of the societies in the territories.
    Mr. Sydney Irvingasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what provision is made for present or prospective leaders of co-operative organisations in African territories, as distinct from officials of Government co-operative departments, to receive training in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Profumo: Organised training for present and prospective leaders of co-operative organisations is provided at the Co-operative College, Loughborough. Training facilities have also been provided by certain co-operative organisations in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Irving: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that only by developing leaders from within the movement can a strong independent movement be developed? Can he give an assurance that the same facilities will be given to these leaders for the same encouragement and training as is given to Government officers at present?
    Mr. Profumo: Yes, Sir. I can give that undertaking.

  SINGAPORE AND MALAYA

    Internal Security
    Mr. Rankinasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what talks have taken place between the Governments of Singapore, the United Kingdom and the Federation of Malaya on the part Malaya will play in the internal security of Singapore; and what proposals have been made.
    Mr. Profumo: As announced at the end of the Singapore Constitutional discussions in May this year, the Federation Government have reaffirmed their undertaking to participate in the work of the Internal Security Council to be set up under the new Singapore Constitution on the lines of paragraphs 27 and 28 of the Report of the 1957 Singapore Constitutional Conference (Cmd. 147). Her

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    Majesty's Government, in consultation with the Singapore Government, are now considering with the Federation Government how formally to provide for this association since the instrument containing the Singapore Constitution will be made under the authority of the United Kingdom Parliament and cannot bind the Federation as an independent state.
    Mr. Rankin: I thank the Under-Secretary for that reply. Does he agree that in the meantime no firm decisions should be taken until after the elections in Singapore, when the political climate may be more stable? Does he also agree that we should do nothing which in any way would retard the union of Singapore with the independent Federation of Malaya?
    Mr. Profumo: While not necessarily disagreeing with the hon. Member, that question goes very much wider than the Question on the Order Paper, which I have tried to answer.

  SEYCHELLES

    Political and Economic Development
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the present political position in the Seychelles; and what economic developments are contemplated in the near future.
    Mr. Profumo: As the reply is rather lengthy, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Sorensen: Meanwhile, can the Under-Secretary give an assurance that the various communities are now satisfactorily working the Constitution?
    Mr. Profumo: Yes, Sir, I think so. The hon. Member may like to know that I hope, if possible, to make a visit to this Territory later this year.
    Following is the reply:
    The Legislative Council consists of the Governor, six official, four elected and two nominated unofficial members; and the Executive Council of the Governor, three official and three appointed unofficial members; there is no party system.
    The Seychelles Government is implementing a systematic development policy to improve the unsatisfactory economic position of the Colony. Emphasis at present is on basic development and the investigation of ways in
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    which the economy might be expanded. Road development, land resettlement, reafforestation and land survey projects are already in progress; a teacher training college has just been built, and a scheme for grants to train Seychellois overseas inaugurated; projects for land conservation and reclamation and harbour development will be considered soon. The main line of future development should be the expansion of the coconut industry and the intensive cultivation of other crops on small holdings established under land settlement schemes; a Coconut Expert and an economist have recently visited Seychelles to advise on implementing these policies. It is also hoped to develop a tourist industry, but this is dependent on the improvement of external communications.

  ADEN

    Incidents
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what further violent incidents have occurred recently in Aden; and what information he now has in respect of the perpetrators of previous incidents.
    Mr. Profumo: Since the incidents referred to in my right hon. Friend's reply to the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) on 15th May, there have been a number of incidents of sabotage and terrorism involving explosives. In one of them a schoolboy was seriously injured, and there have been a number of other civilians injured, fortunately less gravely. As regards the latter part of the Question, present indications point to the instigation of these outrages by sources outside Aden. For example, examination of the fragments of bombs used in some of the incidents show them to be of Russian pattern.
    Mr. Sorensen: Have any arrests been made and has the evidence which the hon. Gentleman has just produced been made public?
    Mr. Profumo: No arrests have so far been made. I am not sure whether what I have just said has been made public before, but that is one of the reasons I have stated it.

  COLONIAL TERRITORIES

    Students, United Kingdom
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies to what extent his Department exercises a co-ordinating function in respect of the welfare and

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    placing of students in this country from Colonial Territories, particularly in respect of student nurses and nurses; and whether efforts are still being made to ensure suitable girls from Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere for training as nurses in this country.
    Mr. Profumo: The Students Branch of my Department is responsible for the placing of colonial students in universities and teacher training colleges in the United Kingdom. It also exercises a general co-ordination function through the Overseas Students Co-ordinating Committee. On this Committee, which is concerned with welfare and other matters affecting students, the British Council and the Heads of the Students Departments of Overseas Governments in London are represented.
    Candidates for nursing training have, since 1954, made their own arrangements direct with matrons of hospitals, with the advice and assistance of local committees set up for this purpose in the territories concerned. This procedure is working well and there is no dearth of suitable candidates from Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere.
    Mr. Sorensen: I am gratified to hear the last part of the hon. Gentleman's reply, but is he satisfied that this co-ordination is really taking place quite harmoniously between this Government and various other Governments? Secondly, can he say what has become of the committee for the welfare of colonial students in this country set up some years ago but, apparently, now no longer existing?
    Mr. Profumo: The welfare of students is the concern of the British Council and the Students Branch of my Department. I think I can readily give the undertaking asked for in the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question.

  CYPRUS

    Wine Industry
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what efforts have been made by the Government to foster co-operative enterprise in Cyprus, particularly in the wine industry.
    Mr. Profumo: The Cyprus Government have helped with money and with
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    guidance through the Department of Co-operative Development, which was set up especially for this purpose. Substantial loans have been made to the Vine Products Co-operative Marketing Union for the operation of their winery and distillery. Help has also been provided for improvements to village wineries.
    Mr. Swingler: I thank the Under-Secretary for that interesting reply, but is he aware that it certainly appears from the interesting report on the Cyprus wine industry made by a great French expert that there is here an opportunity for the development of co-operative enterprise on a much bigger scale, and will he be good enough to see that attention is given to that matter?
    Mr. Profumo: The Cyprus Government are very alive to this possibility.

    Cyprus Workers' Federation (General Secretary)
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that the exiled general secretary of the Cyprus Workers' Federation has recently been unanimously re-elected for a three-year period by its members; and if he will now reconsider the decision to exclude him from the island.
    Mr. Profumo: The answer to the first part of the question is "Yes". As regards the second part, I have nothing to add to the last sentence of my right hon. Friend's reply to the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) on 15th May and to paragraph 4, sub-paragraph IX, of Her Majesty's Government's statement of policy which was published on 19th June.
    Mr. Swingler: Is this not a policy of futility? Whatever may have happened in the past, is it not now clear that, if Her Majesty's Government wish to reduce tension in Cyprus and prepare a basis for negotiation, it would be best to have the democratically elected leaders of the Cypriot people on the island itself? Since the trade unionists of Cyprus have now reaffirmed their faith in this particular person, is it not wholly unreasonable to continue to exclude him from his habitation?
    Mr. Profumo: I cannot agree with that. I do not think there is any reason for this particular man to be treated in any way differently from others in the

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    same circumstances. If the hon. Gentleman will look at Her Majesty's Government's statement of policy, he will find that this is covered, and, I think, very fairly covered.

  KENYA

    Lokitaung Prison
    Mr. George Craddockasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the unsatisfactory conditions of 600 prisoners in Her Majesty's Prison, Lokitaung, Kenya.
    Mr. Profumo: I would refer the hon. Member to my right hon. Friend's reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) on 11th June. There are not 600 but seven people held in Lokitaung prison.
    Mr. Craddock: In view of the statement the Minister has just made, which I do not wish to deny, will he be good enough to confirm those figures, because recent information I have from there suggests otherwise?
    Mr. Profumo: I did very carefully try to verify them, because I did not think that the hon. Gentleman could be so far out in his arithmetic. I think I am right.

  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Part-Time Courses in Agriculture (Survey)
    Mr. Mossasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he has received the summary of information gained in a Survey of Part-Time Courses in Agriculture, 1953 to 1956, published by the City and Guilds of London Institute; whether he has noted the criticisms contained therein and certain proposals for future progress; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will make a statement on the proposals made in the Survey of Part-Time Courses in Agriculture published by the City and Guilds of London Institute.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. J. B. Godber): This report has been brought to the attention
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    of the Committee under the Chairmanship of my right hon. Friend Earl De La Warr which is at present reviewing the provision of further education for agriculture made by local education authorities. My right hon. Friend must await its findings before making any statement.
    Mr. Moss: Does the hon. Gentleman recollect that this report states that in the majority of counties part-time education in agriculture is now neither sufficient in quantity nor sufficiently comprehensive, and that farmers are reluctant to encourage it in spite of the changes which are taking place in agriculture, one example being given, namely, the county of Shropshire, where excellent provision is made? Ought not steps to be taken to bring the rest up to that standard?
    Mr. Godber: I am aware of the points in the report to which the hon. Gentleman has called attention. These are just the reasons that the De La Warr Committee ought to examine it. Of course, it was for these and similar reasons that that particular Committee was set up.
    Mr. Willey: I appreciate that we must await the advice of the De La Warr Committee, but does the Parliamentary Secretary recognise that this survey indicates that we should take a much more optimistic view of part-time education in agriculture than many people have taken hitherto?
    Mr. Godber: Yes, I wish to await the full report, because there are many complications, as I know the hon. Gentleman is aware, in relation to further education in agriculture generally.

    Improvement Grants
    Sir I. Fraserasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will state the basis upon which he has fixed the amounts payable to farmers in respect of improvement grants in cases where the farmer does the work himself.
    Mr. Godber: The standard costs on which a farmer may claim grant assume that the improvement is carried out in the most economical way consistently with the constructional requirements set out in the regulations. The figures include allowances for the cost of materials and for labour according to the nature of the work to be done.
    Sir I. Fraser: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is some feeling among small farmers who do the work themselves that they are given much smaller figures to work upon than they would be if they employed a contractor? Do his methods of calculation take into account the supervisory aspect of the matter? Will he look at this question, because it is desirable that the small farmer should feel that he has a square deal?
    Mr. Godber: I am rather surprised that my hon. Friend should say that small farmers feel that. I myself was not aware of that feeling, and I should be glad to look at any information my hon. Friend may care to let me have about it. My own view is that this is a very difficult matter on which to ascertain real standard costs. We have done our best with the deliberate intention of helping the small farmer, because this is the only way in which he can include his labour.

    Livestock (Exports to Australia)
    Sir W. Anstruther-Grayasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress has been made in his negotiations with regard to the ban on British livestock imports into Australia.
    Mr. Godber: The prohibition of imports of certain livestock into Australia which took effect at the beginning of last month has been fully discussed with the Australian authorities. They have assured us that they entirely appreciate the concern of livestock breeders both in this country and in Australia. They state their decision was taken only after the most careful consideration of the disease blue tongue and its method of spread, and also of the disastrous consequences that would follow if the disease were to appear in Australia. They have said that the need for the ban will be kept under review but that no exception can be made in favour of imports from the United Kingdom.
    Sir W. Anstruther-Gray: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that this is a serious matter, and will he keep on trying to persuade the Australian Government to reconsider their decision?
    Mr. Godber: We accept entirely that it is a very serious matter. We have been in the closest consultation with the
    1574
    Australians on the point, and we have left them in no doubt whatever about our views. We should nevertheless realise just what a serious disease blue tongue is and what havoc it could cause either in this country or in Australia.

  AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

    Protection of Wild Life (Chemicals)
    Colonel Beamishasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, as representing the Lord President of the Council, to what extent a study has been made of reports of the effects upon wild life of chemicals used in agriculture in other countries, particularly in the United States of America and Germany, as made available to him by the technical agencies of the United Nations; and whether he will now begin field trials with substances which may be harmful to wild birds and mammals and give an assurance that longer term research is being carried out.
    Mr. Godber: Reports of the effects upon wild life of chemicals used in agriculture in other countries are studied as they become available from any quarter. The Nature Conservancy is not aware of any up to date evidence from this country to prove that such chemicals are causing any important or widespread reduction in bird or mammal populations. Should any evidence be available, it would be glad to receive any properly documented cases. Pending such evidence, it has not been found possible to allocate scientific manpower for further research on this problem.
    Colonel Beamish: That is a very disappointing reply. Does my hon. Friend not realise that there is considerable evidence to show that many thousands of wild birds are being killed every year as a result of the use of toxic chemicals in agriculture? If I send him any evidence I can lay my hands on, will he look at the matter again and reconsider his view?
    Mr. Godber: I should welcome any evidence my hon. and gallant Friend cares to send me. We are most anxious always to safeguard the position in this respect, but, as yet, we have not the sort of evidence to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers.
    Sir G. Nicholson: Will my hon. Friend assure me that his Department does not ignore the damage caused to insect life, not only to what might be termed semi-tame insects such as bees, but also to the wide range of insect life which is extremely beneficial to agriculture and horticulture, to which great damage is being done?
    Mr. Godber: That is another important aspect, I entirely agree, and we have not lost sight of it.
    Colonel Tufton Beamishasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, as representing the Lord President of the Council, what chemicals used in agriculture are regarded as likely to be harmful to wild birds and mammals; what research there has been into this question since the Third Report of the Zuckerman Working Party on Toxic Chemicals in Agriculture (Risks to Wild Life); whether these have included field studies and fundamental research; and on what scale and at what cost.
    Mr. Godber: The Interdepartmental Advisory Committee on Poisonous Substances used in Agriculture and Food Storage keeps a general oversight regarding chemicals used in agriculture which may prove harmful to wild birds and mammals. The Committee have to be satisfied on these matters so far as reasonably possible before making recommendations to ensure the safety in use of chemical products. Relevant information is provided by manufacturers at the request of the Committee. Owing to lack of funds and of scientific manpower it has not, however, proved possible to undertake field trials or fundamental research on the subject since the Zuckerman Working Party reported.
    Colonel Beamish: Surely field studies which might produce a very valuable result could be carried out at very small cost. May I press my hon. Friend to take this matter seriously and think about it again?
    Mr. Godber: I will naturally take note of what my hon. and gallant Friend says with regard to this matter. Of course, the Zuckerman Committee did look into these matters fully, but I shall be very happy to look at any further evidence my hon. and gallant Friend can send me with regard to these matters.

    Roads (Improvement Grants)
    Mr. Gowerasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the total sum so far expended in Wales and in England, respectively, under the Agriculture (Improvement of Roads) Act, 1955.
    Mr. Godber: At 30th June, 1958, grants amounting to £48,753 and £17,316 had been paid to highway authorities in Wales and England, respectively. The cost of work already approved, however, is £458,000, involving eventual payment of grant of approximately £207,000 in Wales and £133,000 in England.
    Mr. Gower: Is my hon. Friend aware that this reply is not really satisfactory? Will he take account of the fact that this Act was based on a Bill framed on the advice of the present Lord Kilmuir, then Minister for Welsh Affairs, to deal with what were admitted to be very serious conditions in North and Mid-Wales? In those circumstances, will more be done to implement this Act?
    Mr. Godber: I am sorry that my hon. Friend feels that this Answer is insufficient, but I assure him that this is a matter which takes some time to get under way. While undoubtedly we were initially held up and are still held up to some extent by a shortage of funds, at the same time it is true that these matters take a considerable time first to plan and then to carry into effect. If my hon. Friend will study my Answer, he will see what cumulative effect is already being shown.
    Mr. G. Thomas: Can the hon. Gentleman give any indication as to when the money that he estimates is going to be spent will be spent? How much does he expect to be spent during the next year?
    Mr. Godber: In order to give the hon. Gentleman accurate figures, I would be grateful if he would put down a Question.

    Iceland (Fishery Limits)
    Mr. Osborneasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of the recent unilateral action by the Icelandic Government in publishing regulations declaring a 12-mile fishing limit round Iceland's coast, if he will now make a further statement on the

    1577
    action which Her Majesty's Government propose to take to protect the legitimate fishing interests of the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Godber: The Icelandic Government gave notice that they proposed to publish these regulations, and the attitude of Her Majesty's Government was made clear in the Declaration of 4th June. There is nothing I can add to that statement.
    Mr. Osborne: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the fishermen of Hull and Grimsby who work in these waters are likely to lose their work altogether and be completely ruined unless some protection is given to them? Since time runs on so quickly, could he say what the Government are likely to do to help them?
    Mr. Godber: The Government have made their position abundantly clear in the statement to which I called attention and which I think has the general approval of the fishing industry. We do keep in the closest touch with the industry.
    Mr. Willey: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether we are having discussions with the Icelandic Government about this? It is an urgent matter, and it is important that we should get a reasonable settlement if possible.
    Mr. Godber: We have made it clear that we are both willing and anxious to enter into discussions, but it needs two sides to come to any table to discuss the matter.
    Mr. G. R. Howard: Can my hon. Friend say whether any further progress has been made towards the idea of regional talks in this matter, because it is vitally urgent not only to the distant-water fleets but to the inshore fishermen in England to know what will happen?
    Mr. Godber: Yes. I do not think I can do better than refer my hon. Friend to the supplementary answer given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs only yesterday in the House, when he said:
    "There are three ways of negotiation, an international conference covering all the countries of the world, a regional conference, or bi-lateral negotiations. I am very anxious to arrive at a solution by any of those three methods."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd July, 1958; Vol. 590, c. 1311.]

  HOME DEPARTMENT

    Remanded Persons, Newcastle
    Mr. Shortasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many young people under the age of 18 years, before the Newcastle Magistrates' Court, have been remanded to gaol in 1956, 1957 and 1958, respectively; and what were their ages in each case.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Renton): I will, with permission, circulate the figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Short: The hon. and learned Gentleman will agree that the figures reveal a rather alarming and shocking state of affairs. Is it not rather disgraceful that any children should be remanded to gaol before they have been found guilty of any offence? Is he aware that a boy of 15 years of age in my constituency was recently remanded to gaol when he had committed only a very trivial technical offence? Does not he agree that what is happening throughout the North-East is nothing more than a breach of Section 27 of the 1948 Act? These children are being certified as unruly and depraved when they ought not to be so certified. Will he at least look into this matter—it is an extremely important matter—and receive a deputation from both sides of the House to discuss it?
    Mr. Renton: When the hon. Gentleman studies these figures, I do not think he will feel quite so alarmed. In the last three years, only one boy, aged 14, has been remanded to gaol, and that was last year. My right hon. Friend agrees that remand centres are very desirable, and he intends that they should be provided as soon as funds can be spared for this purpose.
    Mr. Speaker: Mr. Popplewell.
    Dame Irene Ward: On a point of order. As I am a member of the Newcastle Bench, Mr. Speaker, could you not call someone from this side?
    Mr. Speaker: I failed to observe the hon. Lady.
    Mr. Popplewell: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that all

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    magistrates' courts in the North-East are seriously perturbed about the lack of reasonable remand home facilities for these youths? Is he aware that there has been a meeting representing magistrates' courts which is going to present a scheme to him to allow a remand home to be placed at their disposal covering that area? Will he promise that when it is presented to him he will give very sympathetic consideration to its early implementation?
    Mr. Renton: My right hon. Friend is indeed conscious of the need for a remand centre in the North-East, and indeed elsewhere, and, of course, he will give sympathetic consideration to anything which is put before him.
    Dame Irene Ward: As a member of the Newcastle Bench, may I ask my hon. and learned Friend whether he is aware that we had an all-party meeting at which it was agreed that we should, if the Home Secretary was agreeable to receive us, take a deputation to the Home Secretary and that until we had a chance to state our case to him we would not raise questions in the House of Commons?
    Mr. H. Morrison: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that when I was a cockney child the policeman, when we misbehaved, flipped us over the ear with his black woollen glove and told us that if we did not behave he would run us inside, or that something else terrible would happen, with the result that we behaved ourselves? Is it not the case that we are doing a little too much about running children into approved schools at great public cost, and, although they have a public school life, it is not necessarily for the permanent good of the children?
    Mr. Popplewell: On a point of order. In view of the observations of the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward), Mr. Speaker, would you allow a correction? There was never such an agreement entered into on questions of this description, and the hon. Lady's observation is a direct misrepresentation of what actually took place.
    Dame Irene Ward: There is nothing to withdraw. It is true.
    Following are the figures:

    The numbers, sexes and ages of the young persons remanded to prison in the years 1956 to 1958 were:—

    —

    Boys aged:

    Girls aged:

    14

    15

    16

    17

    14

    15

    16

    17

    1956

    —

    4

    1

    14

    —

    —

    —

    —

    1957

    1

    1

    2

    14

    —

    —

    —

    1

    1958 (to date)

    —

    1

    2

    20

    —

    —

    —

    —

    Air-Raid Shelter, Newcastle
    Mr. Shortasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why he has refused permission to the corporation of Newcastle-upon-Tyne to demolish an air-raid shelter between Clara Street and Hugh Street after many minor accidents to children have occurred on it.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): I naturally regret that any accidents should have happened. But children like climbing, and on present information my right hon. Friend is not satisfied that this shelter presents such special risks as to necessitate its demolition. My right hon. Friend is consulting the local authority regarding the provision of a guard rail at the bottom of the sloping roof.
    Mr. Short: Is the Minister aware that this shelter is dilapidated, falling to pieces, and will be worthless for the purpose for which it is intended? Is she aware that a large number of minor accidents and one major accident have occurred on it? In my opinion, if her right hon. Friend maintains his rather silly attitude, he is rendering the Crown liable for damages in respect of any accident upon it. Unless it is demolished in the near future, I shall advise my constituents to sue the Crown for damages for injury to their children upon it.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: It is open to the local authority to make representations to my right hon. Friend if it considers that a shelter is unsound or insanitary. This shelter is structurally sound and was sealed some years ago. In the circumstances, my right hon. Friend does not feel that there are grounds for its demolition.

    Civil Defence, North Staffordshire (Deep Mines)
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department to what extent his Department was consulted about the plans to prepare deep mines in North Staffordshire for civil defence purposes in case of a hydrogen bomb attack.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: There has been no occasion for such consultations.
    Mr. Swingler: Is not the Home Office supposed to be co-ordinating Civil Defence plans and to give expert guidance on them? As it is the Government's policy not to provide or prepare deep shelters for the population in general, the question is whether it is not a waste of time and money for the National Coal Board to follow a quite different policy.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: The sole purpose of the work undertaken by the National Coal Board in deep mines is to improve the safety of miners who might be caught underground in an attack. There has been no suggestion that the investigations to which the hon. Member has referred were for purposes of public shelters. Had they been so, they would have been initiated by and been the responsibility of the Home Office.

    Port Medical Centre, Cardiff (Morphia Supplies)
    Mr. Callaghanasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what consultations he has had with the authorities concerned with the provision of morphia in the Port Medical Centre at Cardiff Docks and other dock areas: and when he expects to be able to announce his conclusions.
    Mr. Renton: After consultation between the Home Office and other Departments concerned my right hon. Friend has decided, as a special case, to authorise the keeping of supplies of morphia for use by nurses in an emergency at port medical centres where suitable safeguards can be arranged. Details will be settled as soon as possible in consultation with the National Dock Labour Board.
    Mr. Callaghan: Is the Joint Under-Secretary aware that I am extremely grateful to him?

  ATOMIC PLANTS (PLUTONIUM PRODUCTION)
  Mr. Stonehouseasked the Prime Minister if he will now state whether the inspection of atomic plants supplied to Italy, Japan and other countries will be under the International Atomic Energy Agency; and what steps are taken to ensure that plutonium produced in these plants is not used for military purposes.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): The United Kingdom's agreements with Italy and Japan provide for consultation between the contracting parties to determine in what respects and to what extent they desire to arrange for the safeguards in the agreements to be administered by an appropriate international agency. Detailed arrangements for implementing the safeguards have not yet been made.
  Mr. Stonehouse: In view of the fact that this country is proposing to export atomic plants to Brazil, Germany and, understand, even Spain, is it not imperative that we should make certain that there are adequate controls to ensure that military plutonium is not extracted for the manufacture of atomic arms? At what stage will the International Atomic Energy Agency be drawn into these agreements? Is continuous supervision allowed for?
  The Prime Minister: The agreements provide for consultation as to what would be the most appropriate way of policing these agreements. It is a matter of importance but not of great urgency, because it will take a considerable time before these plants can be ready.
  Mr. P. Noel-Baker: In view of the fact that all these plants which are being established in many countries which are now called non-nuclear will be capable of producing fissile material for weapons, is it not important that at an early stage the principle should be established that the Atomic Energy Agency shall be the authority which carries out the requisite permanent inspection?
  The Prime Minister: These are bilateral agreements between ourselves, the Italians and the Japanese, and we have included in the agreements provision for making these controls and safeguards. We are

  1583
  now discussing what would be the most appropriate way by which they should be carried out.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: I have examined the agreements which have been made with Japan and Italy, and I am asking the Prime Minister whether he does not think it desirable at an early stage to get a firm agreement that the Agency should be used for this purpose.
  The Prime Minister: I will consider that. But, as I say, it is not a matter of great urgency, because, unfortunately, these plants take a very long time to manufacture.

  STRONTIUM 90
  Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Prime Minister if he has considered the latest Harwell report showing that the bones of a baby examined in 1957 contained more than twice as much strontium 90 as those with the highest deposit in the previous year; and if, in the light of this further evidence, he will stop all nuclear tests by this country immediately.
  The Prime Minister: The report to which the hon. Gentleman refers shows that the maximum content of strontium 90 discovered was a figure of 3:2 units. That is only a small fraction of the level which the Medical Research Council report suggested was the maximum permissible for the general population. The answer to the second part of the Question is "No, Sir."
  Mr. Allaun: If more than 103 children's bones could have been examined, is it not reasonable to assume that a far higher contamination figures than 3·2 strontium units would have been revealed because more children would have been examined? Secondly, as strontium deposits from explosions which have already taken place will be continuing to accumulate for the next ten years, does the Prime Minister not think that the figure of ten units which the Medical Research Council regarded as the level requiring immediate reconsideration will shortly be reached, at least for some children?
  The Prime Minister: I should have thought that that was unlikely. I remind the hon. Member, however, that the
  1584
  Medical Research Council report suggested that 100 units should be taken as the maximum permissible level, and I agree that when it reached ten units consideration should be given to the position.
  Colonel Beamish: If we are to indulge in misleading propaganda, what conclusion should be draw from the fact that the birth rate of healthy babies in the Harwell housing estates is roughly 50 per cent. above the national average?
  The Prime Minister: Statistics are notoriously very dangerous things.

  THE LEBANON
  Mr. Leeasked the Prime Minister whether he will initiate discussions with the Prime Ministers of other Commonwealth Governments in order to agree upon a joint policy towards the Lebanon.
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir. There is already, in accordance with normal procedure, constant exchange of views and information with other Commonwealth Governments about the situation in the Lebanon.
  Mr. Lee: Does the Prime Minister agree that, while Commonwealth Governments will be very pleased at the improved relationships which now exist between the United Kingdom Government and the United States of America following the folly of Suez, nevertheless it would be a great tragedy if the close affinity of the Commonwealth itself were to suffer because of the closeness of our own Government with the United States? Is he not aware that there are reports that Mr. Diefenbaker, for instance, is extremely worried about a certain lack of co-operation which he feels exists in the shortage of information which is submitted to Canada?
  The Prime Minister: I am sure that what the hon. Member said in the latter part of his supplementary question is not the case. I have made it a practice of being in constant communication with the Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth in a most intimate and frank way. It is part of the working of the Commonwealth to which I attach great importance.

  WINDSCALE ACCIDENT (REPORT)
  Mr. B. Harrisonasked the Prime Minister if he has yet received the final report of the Technical Evaluation Committee on the Windscale accident; and if he will make a statement.
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. The Report is being published today as a White Paper.
  The Report recommends that a release of Wigner stored energy should be carried out on the Windscale Pile No. 2 when improved instrumentation and other modifications to the Pile have been installed; and that thereafter the reactor should be operated normally subject to certain modifications in procedure. I understand that the Atomic Energy Authority are studying the implications of the recommendations in the Report relating to the re-starting of Windscale Pile No. 2.
  I should like to take this opportunity of expressing the gratitude of Her Majesty's Government for the work done by Sir Alexander Fleck, the members of the Technical Evaluation Committee and the Technical Working Parties.
  Mr. Harrison: Does this complete the series of reports or are we to expect still more before we can form a complete picture of what happened?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, this is the last of the series of reports. This is the technical one, which took longer to complete. This finishes the whole series, and this last one will, I think, be available at 3.45 p.m. today.
  Mr. Palmer: Is any figure available for the cost of this accident?
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I do not think I could give a figure.

  CALDER HALL (TURBINE FAILURE)
  Mr. Palmerasked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the failure of an electric generator turbine on Saturday, 28th June, at Calder Hall B Nuclear Power Station, now nearing completion.
  The Prime Minister: A turbine failure occurred at about 8 p.m. on Saturday,
  1586
  28th June, at Calder Hall B Power Station. I am glad to be able to inform the House that no one was injured. The power house is separate from the reactor, and there was and is no danger of any release of radioactivity. The turbine affected was of the conventional type in general use in power stations, and was a new machine in the early stage of commissioning. The reactor is undamaged and will be back on power at the end of next week for its primary purpose of producing plutonium.
  The Atomic Energy Authority has convened a Board of Inquiry consisting of independent experts, members of the Authority staff and Trade Unions and Staff Associations' representatives to investigate the cause of the accident. The Chairman is to be Mr. P. T. Fletcher, Deputy Managing Director of the Authority's Industrial Group. The Board will hold its first meeting on 4th July.
  Mr. Palmer: While appreciating that this accident occurred on the steam side of the plant and was not peculiar in its nature to a nuclear plant, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, taking this in conjunction with the earlier Windscale accident, he is satisfied that there is a proper concern for safety in the organisation of the Atomic Energy Authority?
  The Prime Minister: Oh, yes, and I think that it was certainly the case that this was a defect—though it is not for me to say until the report is published—in the turbine, which could have happened if it had been driven by a conventional force.
  Mr. Beswick: May I ask the Prime Minister to consider this fact, that although one accepts that of course there is proper regard for safety in these establishments, there was also, we must remember, a mistake and that some calculations went astray? Ought we not, therefore, to remember the fact that these very skilled, expert people can make mistakes when we give categorical assurances, for example, that there can be no danger in carrying nuclear weapons in aircraft patrolling this country?
  The Prime Minister: This not a discussion about anything to do with the nuclear. This is a question of a failure of a turbine which happened to be driven by nuclear power. If there was a fault in this new turbine, no doubt it was a fault

  1587
  in construction, or something of that kind, but that will emerge when the full inquiry is held.
  Mr. F. Anderson: Is the report of this investigating body likely to be published so that the general public may know all about it?
  The Prime Minister: The publication of the Board's findings will, of course, be a question for the Authority, but I am sure that the Authority is mindful of the need to keep the public informed in all matters which interest the public.
  Mr. C. R. Hobson: Will the Prime Minister make it perfectly clear that this racing of the turbine was something which happens in power stations from time to time and had nothing whatever to do with the fact that this is a nuclear power station? Secondly, could he state whether the turbine itself was in the hands of the Authority and had been passed into the care of the Authority, or was in the hands of the makers, when the test was taking place?
  The Prime Minister: I must be careful. As to the first part of the hon. Member's supplementary question, I have already stated what I understand to be the case, but I must be very careful not to arrogate to myself what it is the duty of the inquiring Board to do, and I think it would be wise to stop at what I have said, that this may have been a defect in the turbine itself, and that is what has to be considered.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business for next week?
The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 7TH JULY—Supply [19th Allotted Day]: Committee.
Consideration of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance Estimates.
TUESDAY, 8TH JULY—Consideration of the Reports from the Committee of Privileges on the complaint relating to certain sections of the London Electricity Board, and of the opinion of the Judicial
1588
Committee of the Privy Council concerning the Parliamentary Privileges Act of 1770.
Consideration of the Motion to approve the Import Duties General Tariff Order.
WEDNESDAY, 9TH JULY—Supply [20th Allotted Day]: Committee.
Debate of Safeguards for the Consumer, which will take place on the Board of Trade, Agriculture and Health Votes.
THURSDAY, 10TH JULY—Supply [21st Allotted Day]: Committee.
Debate on Industry and Employment in Scotland.
FRIDAY, 11TH JULY—Second Reading of the Chequers Estate Bill, and the State of Singapore Bill.
Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolutions.
Committee and remaining stages of the several consolidation Measures.
I think that it may be for the convenience of hon. Members if I inform them that I shall move the following Motion on Tuesday in the debate on the Committee of Privileges Reports, "That this House doth agree with the Committee of Privileges in its Reports".
Mr. Gaitskell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the debate on Monday has been selected by the Opposition partly because it is the tenth anniversary of the introduction of the great National Insurance scheme, and that we would hope to have at an early date and, for the same reason, a debate on the tenth anniversary of the National Health Service?
Sir W. Anstruther-Gray: Would my right hon. Friend consider moving the suspension of the rule for one hour for Tuesday's business to allow longer to debate the Report of the Select Committee of Privileges, particularly in view of the fact that, as I understand, we on this side of the House will not have the inestimable benefit of advice from my right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary about going into the Division Lobby? The question of dividing may very well come up on the other side of the House, too. In view of that, it seems

1589
highly desirable that we should have every opportunity of listening to the matter being fully debated.
Mr. Butler: I will certainly consider what my hon. and gallant Friend says, but it will be rather difficult because we have given notice of debate on the Import Duties General Tariff Order that evening. However, it will be my business to canvass opinion on this matter and to add that to the opinion of my hon. and gallant Friend. My hon. and gallant Friend referred to the question of a free vote. I should like to make it clear that we on this side of the House agree that the vote should be entirely free. I have no reason to suppose that that view is not taken on the other side of the House, too.
Mr. Gaitskell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we would not wish this matter of the debate on the Committee's Report to be restricted in any way and that it is our view that it should be treated as a completely House of Commons matter into which party considerations do not enter in any way whatever?
Mr. H. Morrison: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that some of us feel that the added importance of this debate makes it rather desirable that the Division, if any, should take place at 10 o'clock and that there should be no suspension of the rule since that might prejudice the representative character of the Division, should there be a possibility of a Division?
I should like to thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving the House the nature of the Motion which he proposes to move, and to say that some of us, if permitted by Mr. Speaker, will wish to move that the letter by the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) of 8th February, 1957, was a proceeding in Parliament and wish to differ from the Report of the Select Committee—[HON. MEMBERS: "Not a proceeding in Parliament."] Yes, that is right; I am obliged. Not a proceeding in Parliament. It does make a difference.
We all appreciate that the vote ought to be with the Whips off on both sides and we are very glad to know that that will be so.
Mr. Butler: I will certainly weigh what the right hon. Member says. It may well
1590
be that without our attendant ministering angels we may prefer to vote a little earlier. I will bear that in mind. Subject to the consideration of the Chair, and the rules of our procedure, it is certainly up to any hon. Member either to put an Amendment on the Order Paper or to exercise his vote in any way he likes. That would be up to any hon. Member to choose.
Mr. W. Yates: Has my right hon. Friend noticed the Motion on the Order Paper concerning the Territorial Army? If so, can the Government give time for debate on the Army Council Order to reduce the training grant by 25 per cent.?
[That this House notes with pleasure the Golden Jubilee of the Territorial Army and congratulates them on their splendid service for Queen and country in both peace and war; and wishes them success as an important part of Great Britain's national defence.]
Mr. Butler: I do not see any immediate chance of giving time for this, because we have already passed the time of the year when we consider the Army in detail, but no doubt my hon. Friend may find an opportunity, either on the holiday Adjournment or before that. If he likes to have a conversation with me, I shall be glad to hear what he has to say.
Mr. Yates: In view of that, I should like to raise the matter on the Adjournment, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Shinwell: May I ask the Leader of the House whether the Government propose, at an early date, to make a statement on their proposals for the reorganisation of the Ministry of Defence, in view of fresh reports about possible resignations of Service Ministers?
May I also ask whether, preceding any debate, if such is intended, the right hon. Gentleman will issue a White Paper so that Members may be fully informed of the Government's intentions and, as possible constitutional issues may be raised, for example, reducing the status of Service Ministers and Secretaries of State, whether the Opposition, which may become the Government at an early date, will be fully consulted on the matter?
Mr. Butler: The basis on which the right hon. Gentleman puts his question is quite unsound. There is no question of

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the Opposition becoming the Government for a very long time but, leaving that on one side, I should like to say that the solidarity of the Government and Service Ministers is intact.
On the constitutional point which the right hon. Gentleman raised, I am sure that it will be the wish of the Prime Minister, and of the Minister of Defence, that when the time comes the House should be informed and have an opportunity of considering the matter properly. Further than that I cannot go. I could not give an actual undertaking about a White Paper, but if the House is to consider the matter then certainly it must be told what the matter is.
Mr. H. Fraser: Before the House goes into Recess, would my right hon. Friend give time for a debate on the plight of various refugees from Egypt? One and a half years have passed and we and they, and, I think, the whole House, await a statement or decision on this question.
Mr. Butler: This depends on how things develop in relation to the situation of the refugees. I realise that there is a great deal of feeling on this matter. I cannot give an undertaking today, but my hon. Friend must realise that we understand its importance.
Mr. Wade: In relation to the debate on Wednesday on safeguards for the consumer, may I ask how wide is the range of subjects which the debate is to cover? Is it intended to limit it to any particular aspects of the problems of consumer interest?
Mr. Butler: The Votes which I mentioned were the Board of Trade, Agriculture and Health Votes, and we have heard from the Opposition, whose choice this is, that it wishes among other matters to discuss weights and measures, quality standards, the marking of goods, monopolies, pure food, hire purchase, and so on, and Scotland will also be included. I do not think that there will be any difficulty about the width of the debate.
Sir G. Nicholson: On the question of Tuesday's debate, may I put to my right
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hon. Friend the consideration that on this important matter, which affects the whole House without distinction of party points, it is highly desirable that as far as possible the House should speak as one? In view of that, will my right hon. Friend keep an open mind and listen to the debate and the opinions expressed and not be quite determined necessarily to press his Motion to a Division?
Mr. Butler: One has to balance the considerations. I think that the general view of the House would be that in this important matter it would wish to decide upon the merits of the case. My duty, as Chairman of the Committee of Privileges and Leader of the House, is to put the case before the House, which I shall endeavour to do as fairly as I can. It will be then for hon. Members to decide what line they should take. There is evidently a desire that there shall be a free vote on both sides of the House. Therefore, I think that we are doing the fairest possible thing by hon. Members.
Mr. Rankin: Will the right hon. Gentleman find time before the Recess to debate the Annual Report of the National Film Finance Corporation which has just been issued? We have not had a chance of discussing the Corporation's affairs for a long while.
Mr. Butler: We had better discuss that.
Mr. F. Noel-Baker: The right hon. Gentleman will remember that we had a debate not very long ago in which I moved a Motion on the working conditions on the railways and that this was accepted by the Government. An assurance was given that legislation would be introduced. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether we can expect that legislation before the Recess and, if not, when we can expect it?
Mr. Butler: There is no possible chance of any such legislation before the Recess. We have quite enough to keep us busy and I do not think that even the hon. Member would wish to sit throughout the summer for legislation of any kind.

CONTROL OF BORROWING
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Derick Heathcoat Amory): With permission. Mr. Speaker, I should like to make an announcement about the control of borrowing.
I want to repeat something which I said in this Chamber a fortnight ago in Committee on the Finance Bill. That is that the Government's economic objectives are fundamental and unchanging—to put the strength of sterling, the soundness of our international position, and price stability first.
I said, at the same time, that we would keep the policies by which we intend to reach these objectives flexible; and that we must, in particular, make sure that we go ahead as fast as conditions allow in those activities which concern our export trade and in industrial investment.
That was in relation to initial allowances. I consider that the time has come when, with the same objectives and without modifying these basic aims of policy, we can also safely make some limited relaxations in the control of borrowing.
As regards bank credit, I have decided that I need not ask the banks to restrict the total level of their advances to any given figure after the end of July. For the future I hope to dispense with official requests to restrict total advances and to retain control over bank credit by normal monetary measures reinforced by a new arrangement under which the Bank of England will, if need be, restrict the liquidity of the banking system by calling for special deposits.
This will be a temporary arrangement pending the recommendations of the Radcliffe Committee, to whom we look for advice about any permanent changes. But it will be available if, in the meantime, existing monetary instruments are not sufficient to secure the necessary control over the credit system. These arrangements are recorded in more detail in correspondence between the Governor of the Bank of England and myself, which I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
In the second place, I have decided to make adjustments in the scope of the Capital Issues control. They are set
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out in detail in a letter to the Chairman of the Capital Issues Committee, which will also be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT. At the same time, the Treasury has made an Order, published today and operating tomorrow, amending the Control of Borrowing Order.
Briefly summarised, the new provisions are these:

(1) The Committee may take a longer view in examining proposals which come before them; thus, instead of limiting their consents to proposals which are currently urgent, they may assent to applications which anticipate future needs.

(2) In view of the new arrangements which I have just described for securing the necessary control of bank credit, the Capital Issues Committee will no longer be concerned with the appropriateness of bank finance for capital purposes.

(3) The exemption limit will be restored from the present level of £10,000 to the former level of £50,000.

(4) Bonus issues or capitalisation of reserves will no longer come before the Capital Issues Committee. But where the issue of redeemable securities is involved, the consent of the Treasury will be needed.

(5) The amending Order contains provisions to prevent the raising of new money outside the Control.

I need only add that we are determined not to return to inflationary conditions. But it is clearly right to encourage such sound development as we judge to be within our capacity. That is the main purpose of these measures.
Mr. H. Wilson: We are glad that the Government are very, very slowly responding to our pressure for recognition—[Laughter.]—it is on the record and hon. Members can look it up in the Budget debates—that the problem that the country is facing is not inflation, as the right hon. Gentleman maintained, but recession. Would the right hon. Gentleman say why, in ending the three-year-old credit squeeze on advances, he has not first, to stimulate industrial investment, rescinded the two other more recent restrictive measures? The first is the emergency cuts in the nationalised industries' investment programme announced

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last September. The second is the abolition of the investment allowance, which the Chancellor, only yesterday, said we still could not afford to restore.
While we welcome the proposal to introduce this new system of special deposits which the Chancellor will find we pressed on one of his predecessors on 9Lh May, 1956—and we welcome the fact that the Government have done this after all this time—is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that at present industry is operating so much below capacity that this removal of the credit squeeze is largely a meaningless gesture and that he ought to be restoring the cuts in the investment programmes of the nationalised industries and giving a positive incentive to sound private investment?
Mr. Pickthorn: On a point of order, Sir. Will it be in order for back benchers also to indicate their view of recent history, or to indicate the alternative policies which ought now to be pursued by the right hon. Gentleman?
Mr. Speaker: I shall have to hear what the supposititious back bencher desires to say before I can rule whether it is in order or not.
Mr. Amory: In reply to the right hon. Gentleman. I would put the matter rather differently. The fact that these relaxations can now safely be made is a tribute to the success of the Government's economic policy.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me about the sector of public capital expenditure. Of course, my statement today does not deal with that. I have been dealing with the sphere of private investment. There is nothing in these proposals which deals with public expenditure. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] I have made it clear before, if hon. Gentlemen will listen, that we are keeping that matter, as others, under continuous consideration, and if and when the time comes for any adjustments of the limit which we have at present set, then those adjustments will be made.
We discussed the right hon. Gentleman's second question, about investment allowances, fairly fully last night. I explained to the Committee then that in this year's Finance Bill the alternative of increasing the initial allowances had
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been decided on, and I have nothing to add to what I said.
Sir R. Jennings: Would the Chancellor accept the view that his proposals will be acclaimed with a great deal of admiration by industrialists and other people throughout the country in spite of the "dismal Desmonds" on the other side of the House?
Mr. H. Wilson: Has not the right hon. Gentleman's answer been a startling, rapid confirmation of our accusation last night that he is showing a bias in favour of expanding private as opposed to public investment? In view of the Chancellor's tribute to himself and his economic policy, is it not a dismal admission that the country is still too weak to afford the investment allowances that we had until 17th February, 1956, and also to afford a higher level of investment in the nationalised industries?
Hon. Members: Answer.
Mr. Amory: I am so sorry, but I was thinking of the last part of the right hon. Gentleman's question. Would he be so good as to give me a cue to the first part of his question?
Mr. Grimond: May I ask the Chancellor to give us a little more information about the special deposits? As one of the most notorious causes of inflation has been the Government's own short-term borrowings, how will the special deposits affect those, and why has the right hon. Gentleman rejected, even as a short-term measure, the suggestion that he should have Treasury deposit receipts?
Mr. Amory: I would repeat that the matters dealt with here do not affect directly either Government spending or Government borrowing. They deal with the sphere of private borrowing.
Lieut. - Colonel Bromley - Davenport: Would my right hon. Friend be very careful about how much further money he puts into the nationalised industries, because all classes in the country feel that in a great many cases this would be pouring good money after bad?
Mr. Collins: Can the Chancellor say whether he has given any consideration to the relaxation of hire-purchase restrictions? They were almost the first to be affected by the Government's policy

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of credit squeeze, and in some industries at least considerable unemployment has arisen from the restrictions. Will the right hon. Gentleman now relax them?
Mr. Amory: There is no relaxation here of the direct controls over hire purchase, but if the hon. Gentleman will look at my letter to the chairman of the Capital Issues Committee, he will see that there is something there that has an indirect relation to hire purchase.
Mr. Osborne: Mr. Speaker, on Question No. 3 this afternoon I raised this very point of hire purchase and the Financial Secretary asked me not to press him to reply because a statement was to be made at the end of Questions. May I, therefore, ask this question?
Since the relaxation of credit must inevitably lead to greater hire-purchase facilities being created, will the gentleman's agreement that has been imposed upon the Big Five banks by the Treasury now be relaxed, and so allow the Big Five banks to control hire-purchase business, to ensure that it is properly organised and that there are no excess charges?
Mr. Amory: I would ask my hon. Friend to read my letter to the Governor of the Bank of England.
Following is the correspondence:
Letter from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Governor of the Bank of England
1st July, 1958.
MY DEAR GOVERNOR,
On 19th September last my predecessor stated that the situation required that the average level of bank advances during the coming 12 months should be held at the average level for the preceding 12 months. He informed the clearing bankers of this requirement, and they gave their assurance that, despite the difficulties, they would intensify the restriction of credit and do their best to achieve this result. Similar support was given by the British Bankers' Association and other banking associations and committees concerned.
In my Budget statement on 15th April I thanked the banks for the co-operation which they have shown in keeping down the level of advances fully in accordance with the undertakings which they gave to my predecessor; and I asked them to continue that policy.
After reviewing the development of the past few months, I have now concluded that the situation does not require that I should renew Mr. Thorneycroft's request in September and that some gradual relaxation between now and then is justified. I have, therefore, decided that I need not ask the banks to restrict the total
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level of bank advances to any given figure after the end of July.
At the same time, I trust that the banks, in framing their advances policy, will have regard to the revised guidance that I have given to the Capital Issues Committee in my letter of today (of which I enclose a copy) regarding the treatment of applications for which the consent of the Treasury is required. I should like to stress the importance which I attach in present circumstances to the provision of credit for export business, whether in the ordinary course of business or through medium-term financing under E.C.G.D. guarantee. I also wish to re-emphasise the hope which I expressed in my Budget statement that projects for sound development in areas where unemployment is substantially above the average should not be held back by lack of credit or finance.
As to the future, it would clearly be wise to await the recommendations of the Radcliffe Committee before considering any permanent changes in the methods of influencing the volume of bank lending. I regard it as essential, however, that in the interim period some provisional method should be at hand to reinforce the existing machinery of interest rates and open market operations if it should again prove necessary to restrain an increase of total bank advances. Both the Bank of England and the banking organisations have repeatedly impressed upon H.M. Government that the method of "official requests" made to the banks several times in recent years to restrict total advances, although it has proved efficacious for short periods, hampers the efficient working of the banking system and is thus damaging both to the banks and to the public interest if carried on for too long or too frequently renewed.
I accept this view and I should, therefore, be grateful if the Bank of England would, between now and the end of July, prepare an alternative scheme which could, if necessary, be introduced as a temporary measure pending the Radcliffe Committee's report.
I should be glad if you would inform the banking associations and committees concerned of the terms of this letter, and, at the same time, again convey to them the appreciation by H.M. Government of their ready and effective response to the requests made by my predecessors and myself in recent years.
Yours sincerely,
(sgd.) DERICK HEATIICOAT AMORY.
C. F. COBBOLD, Esq.
Letter from the Governor of the Bank of England to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
3rd July, 1958
Dear Mr. Chancellor,
I have informed the banking associations and committees concerned of the terms of your letter of the 1st July.
You ask that an alternative scheme should be prepared for use to reinforce the existing machinery of interest rates and open market operations if it should again prove necessary to restrain an increase of total bank advances. The Bank of England have now drawn up the

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heads of a scheme for "special deposits" which could be available for introduction as a temporary measure pending any recommendations which may be made by the Radcliffe Committee.
I have already discussed this scheme in general terms with representatives of the principal banking organisation concerned, and details are now being settled.
The broad outline of the scheme is as follows:—
When it appeared necessary, in support of other monetary measures, to restrict the liquidity of the banking system and thus the ability of the banks to extend credit, the Bank of England would call for special deposits to be made with them by the banks. Such deposits would carry interest based on the current Treasury Bill rate. They would not qualify for inclusion in the banks' liquid assets. There would be provision for partial release by agreement with the Bank of England when justified by special considerations.
The banks would continue to maintain their usual minimum ratios between liquid assets and total deposits.
Calls would be made on each group of banks separately, the amount being related to the total gross deposits of each group at a specified date with monthly adjustments to take account of variations in the deposits of each bank. The ratio of a call to total deposits would not necessarily be the same for each group.
Initially, the scheme is being discussed with the Clearing and Scottish Banks, but it might later be more widely applied in the light of experience.
The scheme would serve to reinforce the existing monetary instruments and would be employed as a general control of credit in the same way and after the same sort of consideration as Bank Rate.
I understand that this scheme meets with your approval in principle.
I have conveyed to the banking organisations your renewed expression of the appreciation by H.M. Government of their co-operation.
Yours sincerely,
C. F. COBBOLD.
The Rt. Hon. DERICK HEATHCOAT AMORY, M.P.
Letter from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Chairman of the Capital Issues Committee
1st July, 1958.
Dear Lord Kennet.
I. I have now completed my review of credit policy and the results as they affect the control of borrowing are set out in this letter for the guidance of yourself and your colleagues on the Capital Issues Committee. This letter is intended to supersede the memoranda and letters previously sent to the Committee.
Purposes
2. First, as to the purposes for which consent should be given or withheld. Hitherto, the basic guidance to the Committee has been the statement of principles in the letter written to you by Mr. Butler as Chancellor on 4th
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December, 1951. That guidance has since been modified from time to time by statements and requests which successive Chancellors have sent you on specific points reflecting developments in economic and financial policy. The practical effect of these successive statements and requests may be summarised as follows:

(i) the Committee are asked to recommend consent only when they are satisfied that the purpose of an application has definite urgency under current requirements;

(ii) in exercising their judgment on the merits of individual applications the Committee are asked—

(a) to recommend in favour of investment designed to maintain or increase the production of goods or services for essential purposes, with particular regard to the production of exports, the saving of imports and the earning of foreign exchange; and

(b) to recommend against investment for production or distribution or provision of services in the home market which in the judgment of the Committee can be postponed.

3. I have decided that this statement of the principles governing the work of the Committee should stand with one modification as regards the criterion of urgency. I now consider that the Committee can justifiably take a longer view and regard as eligible for consent an application for a purpose which may not be immediately urgent but which anticipates the future growth of requirements, bearing in mind that a primary objective is to stimulate production of exports, saving of imports and earning of foreign exchange. For the time being I do not consider that the criterion of immediate urgency should be relaxed where one of those elements is not present.
4. The Committee are asked to continue the practice of referring applications to the Government Departments concerned with the purposes for which the finance is required. The Committee will no doubt take full account of any advice, favourable or unfavourable, that may be offered by Departments. But I emphasise that the Committee are not bound by such advice and that I shall continue to rely on their personal judgment of the merits of each case that is referred to them.
5. The Committee should also continue the practice—where they think it appropriate—of discriminating between the several parts of an application and where they think fit recommending consent to the raising of finance only for part of a project.
Special Objects
6. I do not suggest any general change in the list of special purposes which the Committee has hitherto been asked either to discourage or to encourage. But some modification of emphasis is required, and I think it will be useful to restate these items as follows:—
Speculation: Recommendations for consent for borrowing intended to finance the speculative buying or holding of shares, materials or real property (including the development of land) should continue to be withheld.

1601
Investment Trusts: The Committee may feel free to recommend consent to applications from investment trusts and unit trusts, but when considering cases in which the finance is proposed to be applied in making significant purchases of foreign securities, the Committee are asked to bear in mind that the principal benefit which these trusts bring to the economy is that they encourage savings and supply risk-bearing capital for British industry.
Hire-purchase finance: Such applications should be critically scrutinised but the Treasury will be prepared to act on a recommendation in favour of an issue where the Committee considers that the raising of finance is desirable as a means of improving the stability of the hire-purchase financial system.
Commonwealth projects: The Committee are asked to continue to give sympathetic consideration to projects which appear to them to be likely to contribute materially to strengthening the sterling area's balance of payments with the non-sterling world.
Investment in areas of persistent unemployment in Great Britain or Northern Ireland: Consent may be recommended to any proposal for sound development which is likely to reduce unemployment in an area of Great Britain where there is a high rate of unemployment which would otherwise be likely to persist, or to any proposal for financing investment in Northern Ireland which though desirable might not qualify for consent if the investment were made elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
Bank advances for capital purposes
7. The time has come for the banks to resume full responsibility for the terms of bank advances. Applications for bank finance for capital purposes, being outside the normal course of the applicant's business, require Treasury consent under the Control of Borrowing Order and, therefore, will continue to be referred to the Capital Issues Committee for their advice. The Committee in dealing with such cases should consider the purpose of the proposals on the same principles as they apply to proposals financed from non-bank sources, but they should leave the appropriateness of bank finance and the terms as to period and repayment of advances to the discretion of the banks themselves.
Control of Borrowing Order
8. In addition to revising the policy guidance I have also revised the statutory framework within which the Committee operates, and the Control of Borrowing Order is being amended in the following respects.
9. First, the exemption limit. Since March, 1956, it has been unlawful to raise more than £10,000 in Great Britain without the consent
1602
of the Treasury. I have now restored the exemption limit to £50,000.
10. Secondly, the control over bonus issues or the capitalisation of reserves. The amending Order provides for the exemption from control of all capitalisation issues except for capitalisation of reserves involving the issue of redeemable securities. This limited class of issues will continue to require the consent of the Treasury, who will decide them without reference to the Capital Issues Committee since the purpose of retaining control over such issues is to prevent operations designed to reduce tax liabilities.
11. Finally, the Order has been amended to prevent new money from being raised outside the control by artificial devices. The object of the Capital Issues Control is to regulate the raising of new money: and following this principle, in April, 1955, the Treasury amended the Order to exempt from control certain classes of capital operations which for the most part did not involve raising new money, in order to free normal commercial transactions from restrictions. Unfortunately, this relaxation has been abused and the exempt operations have been adapted to raise large sums of new money for undertakings which have been refused or would have been refused permission to borrow. As long as the control of borrowing is retained, it must be made effective, and I see no alterative but to restore statutory control over the classes of transactions that were exempted three years ago. I regret the inconvenience to legitimate business transactions. But I know I can rely on the Capital Issues Committee to recommend consent to such transactions with the minimum of enquiry and delay, and to concentrate their critical attention on the transactions that are really devices for raising new money.
12. In conclusion, may I say to you and your colleagues how greatly I value your services and how glad I am that I can continue to rely upon your judgment and experience.
Yours sincerely,
(Sgd.) DERICK HEATHCOAT AMORY.
The Rt. Hon. LORD KENNET. P.C., G.B.E., D.S.O., D.S.C.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Proceedings of the Committee on Tribunals and Inquiries [Money] and on the Consideration of the Lords Amendments to the Maintenance Orders Bill exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  TRIBUNALS AND INQUIRIES BILL [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  3.46 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  When I opened the debate on the Franks Report at the end of October last year I announced that the Government accepted in very large measure the recommendations in the Report. The House may recall that the Committee made 95 recommendations, of which roughly one-third were addressed to the procedure and working of tribunals generally, one-third to particular tribunals, and one-third to administrative inquiries relating to land. Of these the Government accepted, in whole or in part, all but 16, and of these 16 only 4 were rejected outright, the balance of 12 dealing with matters to which the Government thought it wise to give further consideration.
  The Franks Committee reported in July, 1957. I made a statement on behalf of Her Majesty's Government in October of that year and the legislation has now passed through another place. We trust it will be law by the Summer Recess. Here is an answer to those who talk of pigeon-holing the results of inquiries, and I hope that it will be some reassurance to those distinguished persons outside who undertake these duties for us. It certainly is an example of speed in the execution of their policy by the Government.
  I would like to describe for a moment, before I come to Clause 1, the action taken in a variety of ways on the Franks Report. A great deal has been done, and is being done, by the Government to implement the recommendations without asking Parliament to enact general legislation since many of the recommendations can be put into effect without any changes in the law. This action has been taken by regulations, by circulars and by administrative action in a wide area of Government activity covering, for example, National Insurance, military service, health, planning, education. To mention these subjects alone indicates the vast fields covered by this Report and
  1604
  the intense humanity of the subjects involved.
  Sometimes, in listening to the moving of a Second Reading Motion, it may be thought that a Bill is as dry as dust because its provisions are technical, but nevertheless it involves deeply and closely the lives of hundreds of thousands of our citizens in this country. I will give two examples of what I mean.
  My first relates to military service hardship committees. These have done valuable work and there has been no general complaint against their procedure. Nevertheless, I am sure the House will agree that it is of the first importance that the man appearing before such a tribunal should feel that he has a square deal and is fairly treated. We have, therefore, already taken action to remove a bar on legal representation before these committees. I am also arranging for their sittings to take place in public, unless the chairman decides that an individual case should be heard in private.
  In addition, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service has written to all chairmen of committees and tribunals with which he is concerned, drawing attention to the recommendations of the Franks Committee which do not involve changes in the law, but which may, nevertheless, be of importance to an individual who appears before a tribunal.
  My second example concerns national insurance, industrial injuries and national assistance appeal tribunals. The Franks Committee recommended that legal representation before these should be allowed at the chairman's discretion. We have gone further than this, and regulations are already in force which give an absolute discretion to the claimant to be legally represented or not as he may wish. I do not know whether hon. Members realise that the old rules produced rather odd results. For example, a solicitor who wanted to help his mother before a national insurance tribunal was debarred from doing so because of his legal qualifications. Again, I have been informed of a case where a solicitor gave free advice on national insurance questions to poor people but was unable to appear for, them before the tribunals even though he would willingly have done so free of charge. We have

  1605
  put some of those right and simplified the position.
  In addition to all this administrative activity based on the Franks Report, what I might call the idea or spirit of Franks has been or will be embodied wherever appropriate in Departmental legislation. Here, again, I will give some examples. The Agriculture Bill transfers to agricultural land tribunals the judicial functions of the county agricultural executive committees. Recommendations on planning can best be dealt with in the planning Acts—for example, appeals on points of law against a decision as to what constitutes development. Recommendations concerning land acquired for defence purposes are to some extent being implemented in the Land Powers (Defence) Bill and will be further dealt with in revising the Defence Acts. Those, then, are some indications of what is being done. I think that they already amount to something, even without legislation.
  The essential features of the Report, however, cannot be put into effect without legislation, and that is the reason for the Bill. I said in the debate last autumn that the first step would be to set up the Council on Tribunals and then refer many other matters to it. The debate which followed was remarkable for the very widespread approval which was shown both of the Report and of the Government's attitude towards it. The existence of such broad agreement on the basic issues with which the Franks Committee was concerned encourages the hope that the Bill will secure the same commendation as was accorded to the Report, for the Bill is firmly based on the Franks Report and does a good deal more than set up the Council on Tribunals, though that is its principal purpose.
  I must emphasise to the House that many matters in this highly complicated field of procedure need to be carefully examined in a way which the Franks Committee was not expected to do, and, indeed, did not have time to do. The Council on Tribunals is being set up for this very purpose, and, therefore, in setting up the Council we are far from wasting time—we are taking the vital initial step.
  Although the Bill does not bulk very large in physical proportions—in fact, it looks a comparatively slight Bill—I am
  1606
  sure that it will be regarded by those who care for our institutions and our tradition of fair play as a notable addition to the long series of Measures, stemming from Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights, which preserve our individual liberties.
  It is a long time since Parliament deliberately legislated to regulate the balance between the individual and the State. The growth, during the past quarter of a century, of great welfare services and the larger measure of equality which they have brought about have increased, rather than diminished, the need for strengthening the processes whereby the citizen can be satisfied that he is being fairly and considerately treated. To make these processes more judicial in kind and to ensure their subjection to the courts on matters of law is a powerful way of giving the citizen this satisfaction. De Tocqueville put it like this:
  "The strength of the courts of law has ever been the greatest security which can be offered to personal independence; but this is more especially the case in democratic ages: private rights and interests are in constant danger if the judicial power does not grow more extensive and more strong to keep pace with the growing equality of conditions."
  It is in that spirit that we commend the Bill to the House.
  In classical Second Reading style, I will now go through the Bill and explain it to the House. The first and most important provision is Clause 1 which, together with Clause 2, establishes the Council on Tribunals and its Scottish Committee and regulates the way in which they will function. This is an important provision, because the view is very widely held by layman and lawyer alike that the rôle of tribunals in the life of the community has become so powerful that some continuous supervision is essential if the confidence of the public is to be inspired and the citizen assured that they carry out their duties in accordance with the principles of fairness, openness and impartiality.
  Accordingly, Clause 1 lays upon the Council the duty of keeping under review and reporting on the constitution and working of the tribunals listed in the First Schedule. It has been found necessary to proceed by way of a list because tribunals defy definition in general terms. Indeed, as Appendix II to its own Report

  1607
  makes clear, the Franks Committee itself found difficulty in deciding which tribunals fell within its terms of reference.
  The basis on which the First Schedule has been compiled has been broadly to include all tribunals of the type which the Franks Committee took to be within its purview, that is to say, bodies other than the ordinary courts which hear and determine disputes or differences and which are constituted under an Act of Parliament by a Minister or for the purpose of a Minister's functions.
  The First Schedule, however, is not a final list of tribunals to be supervised by the Council. If, at any time, some other tribunal ought to be added to it, either an existing one or a new one, the Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Scotland, with the approval of Parliament, can make additions. Hon. Members will see, if they examine it, that the Schedule contains the names of over 50 categories of tribunals. Some categories comprise several hundred individual tribunals—a kind of constellation. The supervision which the Council will be called upon to exercise will, therefore, be very extensive indeed. It will have an extremely busy time and it must be allowed a reasonable time to survey its field before it can get down to its work.
  A single Council is proposed. The reason that a single Council is provided for the whole of Great Britain rather than, as the Franks Committee recommended, a Council for England and Wales and a separate Council for Scotland, is that so many of the tribunals are organised on a basis of Great Britain as a whole and apply a single code of law. Their codes of procedure should also be uniform throughout the country, and this can best be assured by a single Council. The special interests and peculiarities of Scotland will be looked after by the Scottish Committee of the Council which, although subordinate to the Council, will none the less have the right to make its report direct to the Secretary of State for Scotland if, for any reason, the Council does not adopt that report. The interests of Wales will be amply safeguarded by direct representation in the membership of the Council.
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  I have seen suggestions that the Council on Tribunals should be given power to send for persons, papers and be obliged to publish reports. It is not usual to give such power to this kind of body, though the Council will present an annual report. Committees of all kinds have no difficulty in obtaining evidence without it. The Franks Committee, hon. Members will recall, had no such power. While we want the Council to have every opportunity, we have to have some regard to the constitutional significance of giving tribunals too great a power.
  The first duty of the Council is to keep under review the constitution and working of the tribunals set out in the Schedule to which I have drawn attention. The second main duty with which the Bill charges the Council is to report on particular procedural matters in relation to any tribunal or in relation to statutory inquiries. Here, the Bill goes beyond the strict letter of the Franks Report. The Report suggested that the Council should deal mainly with tribunals, but it also suggested limited responsibilities for inquiries, and the Bill provides for these.
  Mr. A. J. Irvine: This is important. The right hon. Gentleman, in his reference to this part of the Clause, referred to "particular procedural matters", but the phrase in the Clause is "particular matters". So that we may understand what the Government envisage in this connection, will the right hon. Gentleman say whether it will be possible to refer cases to the Council or not? What is proposed?
  Mr. Butler: It really depends on what the hon. and learned Member means by "cases," because his own language is not more accurate than that which he attributes to me. Cases of procedure, yes, but perhaps we should consider that in the course of our discussion on Second Reading. In any case, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General will be replying to the debate.
  It will be open to the Ministers concerned, the Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Scotland, to seek the Council's advice on questions of procedure at inquiries. I will give one example. We have it in mind to ask the Council to consider whether

  1609
  inquiries and hearings should be held in public or not. Here is a matter upon which varying opinions have been expressed, and on which the Government would welcome an independent and authoritative view. In addition to enabling matters of this kind to be referred, the Bill provides for the Council, on its own initiative—and this was the result of an Amendment introduced in another place—to consider and report upon particular and important questions of procedure at inquiries.
  In our autumn debate, the Council was called a watchdog, and it is now to snuffle like a bloodhound, but it will only do so where the scent is so strong that it has given wide and ranging offence. The matters of special importance which the Bill prescribes are those where there is a growing need for its intervention. I have said, as was said in another place, that these will be cases where some shocking matter of a procedural character occurs.
  There are some further functions which the Bill gives to the new Council, and these are set out in Clause 4. This empowers the Council to make, to the Ministers responsible for the appointments to the tribunals named in the First Schedule, general recommendations as to the making of these appointments. This is not quite what the Franks Committee recommended. The Committee suggested that responsibility for the appointment of members, apart from the Chairman should be placed on the Council. As the House was told last October, the Government sympathise with the object of this recommendation, but do not think that it would be desirable for the Council to have executive responsibility.
  The daily duty of making appointments—there are about 19,000 names on the panels from which the existing tribunals are selected—over and above the numerous other duties of the Council, would really be beyond its resources. If it were to make all these appointments itself, and, as suggested elsewhere, also draft the rules for the tribunals, and so on, it would need a considerable staff, and might become a small Government Department in itself. The Council will surely best be able to exercise its general supervision over tribunals if it is detached from day-to-day duties of appointment
  1610
  of individuals, but is free to make general recommendations on the composition of tribunals or the kind of members who are suitable for particular tribunals.
  The other additional function of the Council is that of consultant to the rule-making authorities; that is, the Ministers responsible for the tribunals in the First Schedule. The Franks Committee attached much importance to this, and went so far as to say that the Council should actually formulate the rules. The Government feel, however, that this would give the Council an executive function which, for reasons which have been given earlier, would not be appropriate to such a body.
  Clause 7 therefore preserves the principle that the Council's rôle should be advisory, but the Council's advice can hardly be disregarded in the matter of the making of rules, because they will be laid before Parliament and the Council will be able to publish in its annual report to Parliament anything which it wishes to bring to public notice. These arrangements will ensure that the principles which it will be the Council's aim to uphold—those principles which I enunciated earlier of openness, fairness and impartiality—will be consistently observed throughout the whole vast range of tribunals for which it is responsible.
  I have said that the Council will report annually. I realise that it is the wish of hon. Members that they want to be sure that the Council has every chance of expressing its view, and I should like to say, before we go into more detailed discussion of the Bill, that that is also the wish of the Government. I hope that the result of our labours will be to achieve what hon. Members so much desire.
  There are many other provisions in the Bill which do not necessarily impose duties or obligations on the Council, but they seek by other means to ensure that these principles of openness, fairness and impartiality are secured. The first of these is contained in Clause 3, which provides that the chairmen of tribunals not already appointed by the Lord Chancellor or the Lord President of the Court of Session will, in future, be so appointed or be selected by the appropriate Minister from a panel of persons so appointed. This, again, was an important recommendation of the Franks Committee. A few tribunals listed in the First Schedule

  1611
  are excluded; for example, the chairmen of the traffic commissioners, who have more important executive than adjudicating responsibilities. The power of dismissal of chairmen, if it unhappily should become necessary, goes with the power of appointment.
  Clause 4 dealing with the appointment of tribunal members has been mentioned. Clause 5, which provides that members of the tribunals can be dismissed only with the consent of the Lord Chancellor or the Lord President of the Court of Session, is equally if not indeed more important.
  It is to be remembered that that celebrated eighteenth century jurist Blackstone said:
  "In this distinct and separate existence of the judicial power in a peculiar body of men, nominated indeed, but not removable at pleasure, by the Crown, consists one main preservation of the public liberty."
  Hitherto, members of tribunals have generally been subject to removal by the Minister concerned with the tribunals' decisions. Clause 5 provides a safeguard against irresponsible dismissals, and it will also protect the Minister from accusations of dismissing a member because he was too independent. The exceptions to this provision are the bodies which have important executive responsibilities. Where a body has duties which it exercises executively on behalf of the Minister, the latter must have the unfettered power of dismissal; without it, he would not be able to discharge his responsibilities to Parliament.
  In Clause 6 there is another important recommendation of the Franks Committee to which the Bill gives effect. It is that the chairmen of all tribunals of second instance should have legal qualifications. The Committee was less emphatic about first instance tribunals, the chairmen of which it thought should ordinarily have legal qualifications The Government entirely accept this, but the recommendation is not one capable of strict legal definition, and it cannot, therefore, be written into the Bill.
  As regards second instance tribunals, the only chairmen not already required by statute to be legally qualified—though, in fact, all the present incumbents are so qualified—are the umpire, the deputy umpire and the chairmen of the conscientious objectors' appellate tribunals.
  1612
  Clause 6 requires these chairmen to have legal qualifications.
  Clause 8 should be welcomed by hon. and learned Members on both sides of the House. It provides appeals to the courts on points of law from the decisions of tribunals in the First Schedule which have not already got this appeal. There are a few exceptions to this, into which I need not go in detail; for example, where there already exists a right of appeal to an appellate body.
  So much for some of the major and some of the minor matters in the Bill. It may be convenient if I now mention shortly some of the recommendations of the Franks Report with which it was never intended that the Bill should necessarily deal. These have been a matter of comment in the previous passage of the Bill and elsewhere. The first is that the Lord Chancellor should be given power in the Bill to make statutory codes of procedure for inquiries. The position about that is that the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Scottish Home Department, the Department of Health for Scotland, and the Ministry of Education have already issued circulars to local authorities on procedure to be followed before, at and after inquiries relating to land, in accordance with the general principles of Parts IV and V of the Franks Report.
  Those circulars give effect to a number of recommendations in the third group of the Franks Report, including those on the preliminaries to an inquiry, the giving of evidence by officials of Government Departments, and early notification to people affected by the initiating authorities' proposals. Those very circulars themselves recognise that it is not enough to carry out by administrative action the important recommendations relating to inquiries. The view is held that the codes of procedure should be made statutory. This, after all, is what the Franks Committee said in Recommendation 72, but the Committee recommended that the Council on Tribunals should formulate the code of procedure.
  The Government hold the view that the right way to approach the matter is to consult the Council, when it is established, and on the Council's advice a statutory code for inquiries will be prepared. In the meantime, I can reassure hon. Members by telling them that the

  1613
  procedures are being governed by administrative arrangement to ensure that they are in accordance with the "spirit of Franks". So much for explanation of that point.
  Another query has been whether a corps of inspectors should be placed under the control of the Lord Chancellor. Some regret has been expressed that the Bill does not give effect to Recommendation 70 of the Franks Report, that the main body of inspectors in England and Wales should be placed under the control of the Lord Chancellor. I explained, in the course of my speech in October last, the Government's views on this question. We fully understand the wish of hon. Members that the inspectors should be assured of sufficient independence to do their difficult task, backed by the complete confidence of the public.
  Thus, the inspectors will be appointed only with the approval of the Lord Chancellor, and they will not be able to be dismissed without his consent. Moreover, the publication of the inspectors' reports is the real safeguard that their objectivity—which is what hon. Members want to ensure—may not be whole and convincing.
  My right hon. Friends chiefly concerned and with whom I have been in consultation, the Minister of Housing and Local Government, and the Minister of Power, are fully aware of the desirability of assuring both the independence and the integrity of the inspectorate. However, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government reminds me that he has no fewer than 100 inspectors and 6,000 inquiries a year. The inspectors must, therefore, work in the closest contact with his Ministry. Otherwise, the delays which might result would render justice difficult to ensure.
  With that important point, I have put the matter as simply as I can. We are quite ready to listen to what hon. Members say on this subject in the course of the debate, but, at the same time, we must ask hon. Members to realise the importance of ensuring the efficient conduct of business, which, in itself, is of the greatest importance to members of the public.
  Another query which has been put to me is whether the Bill should not incorporate the principle that the Minister
  1614
  can prescribe a private hearing instead of a public inquiry only for special reasons. In fact, this is already the practice. To make it statutory and effective would require the special reasons to be laid down. In any case, it is often the citizen who wants a private hearing and who regards it as less cumbersome than an inquiry. This is typical of the sort of question on which we shall welcome the views of the Council on Tribunals, when it is set up, and I can assure the House that it will be among the first matters referred to the Council.
  The Bill is alleged to ignore the recommendations for appeals on fact, law and merits to higher tribunals, which is especially important for rent tribunals and Industrial Injuries tribunals. The Franks Committee's Recommendation 25 allowed for variations to suit different circumstances. Thus where a tribunal of first instance is already strong and well qualified—the Lands Tribunal, for example, has a former Chief Justice of Palestine as its chairman—there is no need for an appellate body. These variations are best considered in detail by the Council on Tribunals and this question will also be referred to the Council.
  I have tried shortly to summarise the main points in the Bill, which is of considerable constitutional significance, although in itself not a very large Measure. I conclude with a few observations on the wider background of the Bill and the Report on which it is based.
  A century ago, even fifty years ago, the State interfered very little or came very little into most peoples' lives. The ordinary man went about his business in his own way, relying, in a dispute with his neighbours, on the ultimate protection of the law of the land and the impartiality of the courts. Now, for good or ill, the State to a very much larger extent regulates the lives of most people in varying degrees. Ministers of the Crown and civil servants exercising their Minister's authority have wide powers to curtail individual liberty.
  Liberties which have long been cherished—for example, freedom for a man to do what he likes with his land—have been curtailed in the wider interests of the community. I do not say that that is wrong. What is wrong is that the judicial system—the counts of law, tribunals and inquiries—has not been adapted and extended so as to

  1615
  guarantee full protection to the interests of the individual.
  The zeal for State control and planning has tilted the scales in favour of the State and against the individual citizen. We are now restoring the balance. The Bill may in some ways be complicated, but the idea behind it is very simple: to protect the individual against the arbitrary exercise of the growing powers of the State.
  We shall look back on this legislation and its history with great satisfaction. The war gave many of us the first insight into what it means to have our lives fully controlled and regulated by the State. That may have been tolerable in time of war, but many people found it intolerable in the years that followed. In a policy statement which we on this side of the House issued in 1955, we made a categoric statement. This is what we said:
  "We are determined that, in exercising the normal powers of Government in a modern State, a just balance should be struck, and seen to be struck, between the interests of the individual and those of the community … the public has a right to be assured on these matters. We shall therefore appoint a strong Advisory Committee … to give practical attention to these problems of administrative law and recommend action."
  That statement was issued only three years ago, and I think that the House will agree that we have gone a very long way in those three years towards restoring to the individual citizen the protection to which he has always been and must always be entitled.
  4.29 p.m.
  Sir Frank Soskice: The Lord Privy Seal said that the classic approach to the opening of a Second Reading debate on a Bill required that he should take certain steps—which he did. It equally requires that, in replying, I should express to him the thanks of the Opposition for explaining its objectives. But that is not the only reason why I express our thanks. We would probably all agree that the right hon. Gentleman very clearly told us what the Government's views were over a very wide range of details. I will not attempt to follow him into the many matters of detail with which he dealt. In answering him, I should like to concentrate upon what I conceive to be the main features of the Bill.
  1616
  The right hon. Gentleman described it as a very human Bill, and I entirely agree. Incidentally, I notice that in the other place the Lord Chancellor referred to the fact that the gestation period of the Bill was about nine months. That is one feature in which, perhaps, it follows the human pattern, and we are very glad that it does. The Report of the Franks Committee was published in August, 1957, and we are glad that we now have, in July, 1958, at any rate this legislative instalment, designed to give it effect.
  The Lord Privy Seal said that one of the steps which the Government have taken to implement the recommendations of the Franks Committee Report was to be found in the Agriculture Bill which is now before Parliament. If that is really an example of what the Government propose to do to give effect to this extremely valuable Report it is deplorable in the extreme. I do not suppose that the House has had to consider for a very long time a Measure which is so disastrous in its effect. If the Government are to go about these recommendations simply by scrapping the tribunals with which they are concerned, I cannot congratulate them. That Bill is destroying the whole procedure which was so delicately incorported in the Agriculture Act, 1947.
  The Lord Privy Seal says that what the Government have done by that Bill is to transfer to the agricultural tribunal the judicial function of the executive committees. I should have thought that that was a very one-sided account. What it has done is to take away all judicial functions from executive committees and, in particular, the most valuable ones relating to supervision and other similar orders. I make that comment in passing, because in the Bill, not following the very bad example of the Agriculture Bill, the Government have taken a step in the right direction.
  As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, the central feature of the Bill is the establishment of the Council. Naturally, a great deal of the working of the Bill hinges upon the existence of the Council, and I want to spend a little time looking in rather more detail at the framework of the Bill, to see how the Government have gone about the task of setting up that Council. I realise that they have followed fairly closely—not entirely—the recommendations of the Franks Committee with regard to the duties to be

  1617
  discharged by the Council. They have placed upon the Council a duty to keep under continuous review the tribunals which form the subject matter of Part I of the Franks Report—that it is say, the courts other than those which we regard as courts in the ordinary sense.
  When, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has finished his conversation with the Lord Privy Seal I should like to have his attention—although it is not essential.
  Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been commenting upon the clarity of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's exposition.
  Sir F. Soskice: I am, naturally, gratified to hear that. I hope that the Lord Privy Seal will forgive me if I say that although I accept at once everything that he says in all respects, I wonder whether he is not slightly over-painting the picture. However, perhaps I may now try to proceed upon the footing which commends itself to the two Ministers who were engaged in such deep conversation.
  What I was saying, or trying to say, was that the Franks Report draws a radical distinction between two questions. The first part of the Report deals with tribunals—tribunals in the sense of their being courts other than the ordinary courts to which we refer when we speak of courts of law—and the second part deals with what was entirely distinct in the concept of the Franks Committee, namely, those administrative procedures which involved inquiries by a Minister or the hearing of appeals by a Minister. The Committee markedly divided its recommendations into two separate categories.
  Recommendations 1 to 65 deal with what I may perhaps compendiously call tribunals, and the remainder—Recommendations 66 to 95—deal with the administrative procedures, if I may so describe them. I should have thought that for most people those administrative procedures occasion more anxiety than the tribunals. We should want to examine the administrative procedures more carefully than the tribunals—although I accept what the Lord Privy Seal says, and I am sure that the House will agree, that the tribunals vitally affect the lives of millions of our ordinary people.
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  If we consider how the Government have divided the functions of this Council as between the tribunals and the procedures, we find that they have said that the Council is to keep the tribunals under continuous review. It is to act as what the Lord Privy Seal called a bloodhound—not even a watchdog. It has continuously to keep under observation what takes place before these tribunals. That is one very separate and distinct function which the Council is to discharge.
  The other function is simply to report when matters are referred to it by the Lord Chancellor and Lord President of the Court of Session. That is to say, it has to wait until something is brought before it by the Lord Chancellor or the Lord President, and when it has considered those matters it is to express its opinion upon them. That is a very limited function. It is nothing like as exacting and rigorous as the function of constantly watching the procedures of tribunals.
  The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): The right hon. and learned Gentleman will not have failed to observe that, with regard to administrative procedures, under Clause 1 (1, c) the Council is to make the subject of its inquiry matters which it may determine to be of special importance.
  Sir F. Soskice: I most certainly observed that, and I was going to say something about the very odd procedure of the Government in waiting until they were pressed heavily by noble Lords in another place before introducing that provision. When the Bill was introduced in another place, all that Clause 1 contained was paragraphs (a) and (b). All the administrative procedures, which are really more important from the point of view of the Committee's recommendations than tribunals, were sandwiched into paragraph (b). The Council was expected to wait until it was asked a question and then to decide whether or not it should make a report on it. That was a very limited function.
  When he was pressed about this matter in the other place, the Lord Chancellor, after some hesitation, introduced an Amendment which did not make very much difference. It said that with regard to these procedures, if the Council, on its own motion, thought that something was particularly important—I believe that the Lord Privy Seal said,

  1619
  and the phrase used by a noble Lord in another place was "a crying scandal"—it could take upon itself the onus of making a recommendation upon it.
  The fact remains that the function of the Council with regard to administrative procedures is an extremely limited one. I should like to know from the Attorney-General why it was that the Government went about the matter in that curiously tortuous way. Why was it necessary for the Lord Chancellor to be pressed in the other place before he would even make the very limited concession which now appears through the introduction of Clause 1 (1, c)?
  I would emphasise that it is apparent throughout the findings of the Franks Report that whereas it is comparatively satisfied—except on minor details—with the workings of the tribunals, its main attention was directed to the administrative procedures. If hon. Members will look at paragraphs 262 onwards they will see that the Franks Committee addressed itself to the major question which is in front of each of us—the question whether these procedures should be regarded as judicial or administrative. The Committee came to the conclusion, as it was bound to do, that they were both, to some extent.
  Where the line should be drawn between the Minister's discretion and the rights of the individual is a question which must pose itself in regard to a very great number of relationships in a modern State. Clearly, the private interest of the citizen must over and over again come into collision with the general public interest. I am sure that the Lord Privy Seal and the Attorney-General would agree that those who are concerned with the welfare of the community and with the rights of the individual will agree that the difficulty is to draw the line accurately so as to give to each its proper sphere.
  The Lord Privy Seal said that his party has taken the initiative in this matter. Certainly, it set up the Franks Committee. The right hon. Gentleman also quoted from de Tocqueville and Blackstone, both great authorities. I myself would quote, I hope, without undue lack of modesty, from a notable authority on this matter, the Labour Party pamphlet,
  1620
  "Personal Freedom". [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It is a very short and very excellent publication. I am sorry to disagree with Government supporters on this point. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) cannot have read the pamphlet, which seams to have afforded a considerable amount of inspiration to the Franks Committee.
  I will follow the Lord Privy Seal in quoting. On page 25 the pamphlet deals with the whole problem which arises out of these administrative procedures. What we have said as a party, and what we firmly believe, is set out in this pamphlet, with which the Franks Committee very greatly agreed and on which it very largely based itself. It says:
  "It is sometimes thought that the officer conducting such an inquiry is a kind of judge who has power to decide between, the parties concerned. In fact, he is normally an official of the Ministry, who merely records the evidence and conveys it to the Minister, together with his recommendations. It is the Minister who decides.
  The nature of the inspector's report, and his recommendations are secret. The evidence may not have been fully understood or taken into account either by him or by the Minister who need not give reasons for his decisions. There is some justifiable disquiet about this procedure, especially in development or planning disputes.
  There are cases in which a different procedure should be introduced. The person holding the inquiry should be appointed by the Lord Chancellor and not as at present, by the Minister whose Department is involved. The inspector's report should be made available to all the parties who appeared at the inquiry, but unless there are good reasons for doing so his actual recommendation to the Minister need not be published. On the other hand, the Minister should always give reasons for his decision following an inquiry. It is suggested that such reforms as these will ensure that to an impartial observer justice is seen to be done, even though few parties to a dispute will ever feel that the decision is fair if it has gone against them."
  The reasoning, and I would say that the language, of that paragraph is in every way comparable to and perhaps superior to de Tocqueville and Blackstone. [Laughter.] I am surprised that Government supporters do not agree with that. I thought they would give universal assent to it. I am sorry if there are differences of opinion on that point, but it is not a major point arising out of the Bill. The pamphlet puts into a nutshell exactly the anxieties of the Franks Committee and of persons who are concerning themselves

  1621
  with these matters and the Committee accepted that indication.
  The Council has an extremely limited function in respect of these administrative inquiries. Although I am conscious of the fact that the Franks Committee did not recommend that the Council's function should extend beyond this limited scope, I would ask the Government whether they think that this is the right way to deal with it. Do they not think that if the Council is to be given watchdog functions at all it should embrace within the scope of its functions, at least in part, the procedures of these various administrative inquiries. I would put that as my first question and I would like an answer from the Government.
  I would like also to ask the Government whether they have given consideration to what is involved in this matter of keeping tribunals under continuous review. "Keep them under continuous review" is a phrase which has an exacting quality about it. I would ask the Attorney-General whether the Government have any intention, for example, with regard to the staff the Council is to have. We gather from the Bill that here are to be between 10 and 15 people appointed. There will be power to pay the chairman a salary and to pay the members, apart from the chairman, fees and, I think, expenses. I should think that that is right and proper. If one is to attract the right sort of person to undertake this very important function some inducement must be held out to them, or at least they must be put in such a position that they do not actually suffer loss.
  I would like to know from the right hon. Gentleman what the Government propose? Have they considered a salary scale? Is the Council to have an office and secretarial assistance? When they speak of keeping the proceedings of tribunals under continuous review, what would be the method? Does it mean constant attendance at tribunals to see how they are functioning or simply a part-time job waiting for someone to come and tell the Council something about the matter? This would not be a very effective manner of keeping the proceedings under review. If the phrase is to be understood in its full sense the members of the Council would be expected, I suppose, to go round the country spending
  1622
  considerable time watching what happens before these tribunals to see where the shoe pinches and whether all goes well or goes ill.
  I would, therefore, like the Attorney-General to say whether it is intended that the members of the Council should be full-time and have a full-time appointment. The terms of their appointment are to be worked out by the Lord Chancellor. What is contemplated here? There are two very different possibilities. Either nothing more than lip service is paid to the obligation to keep tribunals under perpetual review and the Council will meet once a month or once every three months to hear whether anything has happened; or, if the words are understood in their full meaning, it will mean members of the Council going round familiarising themselves by actual contact and observation with what takes place before the various tribunals.
  Are the Attorney-General and the Lord Privy Seal giving consideration to the sort of people who are to be appointed? If the members are adequately to discharge their task they must be people with legal experience, able to say whether a particular proceeding conforms with ordinary concepts of just procedure as practised in our courts. Equally, they must be people with a very considerable social understanding. They must understand to what extent a person who is in need of National Assistance can be expected to go before strangers, especially in public, and indicate the nature of their intimate needs. All these matters they should be able to weigh up. Equally, they should be able to look at matters from the point of view of a Minister who is running a great Department and who has to dispose of a very large amount of public money.
  Therefore, the point I put to the Minister in charge of the Bill is absolutely indispensable. What do the Government mean by the "Council" to which the Bill refers? What sort of people are to man it? Is it to be full-time or part-time and, roughly speaking, how is it to carry out its duties and what is expected of it. It is no good saying that that could be left to the Council's interpretation of the words in the Bill. Surely we must be given some idea what the Government want these people to do, and whether their functions are limited

  1623
  to watching tribunals or are to include some wider responsibility, as we suggest, in respect of administrative procedures.
  That is the first question I wish to ask the Attorney-General to answer. I must confess that I shall be extremely disappointed if the effect of his answer is that the Government have not really thought about that. It is so easy to write in a Bill that one is to establish a council and then to put in a few phrases about it without having thought how the proposal is to be implemented. If the Bill is to be an empty shell, the Government will have gone far to betray the great pains and labour which the Franks Committee has put into its work to provide safeguards for the citizen and the community in these difficult and delicate matters.
  That hinges closely on another question. Why have the Government departed from the recommendation that there should be separate Scottish and English Councils? In his speech, the Lord Privy Seal said the reason was that the procedure covering tribunals was common throughout Great Britain. That obviously is a consideration and I do not necessarily think the Government have taken a wrong view here; I simply ask for information.
  I do not think that the answer of the Lord Privy Seal was quite adequate. If the Council is to be active in its process of watch doggery—if that is a right phrase to use—would it not be more convenient to have a separate body sitting say in Edinburgh, and another body in Wales or England, I do not know which? Would that not be much more convenient than this kind of hybrid body with a special committee concerned with Scotland, if it is supposed to perambulate throughout the three countries, England, Wales and Scotland seeing how tribunals discharge their functions?
  I cannot help suspecting that possibly one reason which led to the departure from the recommendation of the Franks Committee was that the Government were not taking seriously the question of keeping the tribunals under continuous review. I should have thought the words of the Franks Committee Report on that recommendation in paragraph 43 should
  1624
  have been considered. That paragraph says:
  "Our most important recommendation …"
  I stress the words, "our most important recommendation"—
  "… is that two standing councils, one for England and Wales and one for Scotland, should be set up to keep the constitution and working of tribunals under continuous review."
  One would have thought they would have those sort of considerations in mind. If one looks at the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, in another place, it would seem that he, being a member of the Franks Committee in deciding with the Committee that there should be two Councils, was very much pressed by the kind of consideration I have been urging on the Government, that the function would be far more effective if there were two bodies rather than one body.
  That is the central feature of the Bill. I do not think that we should pass from it without remembering what is not in the Bill. It is, I think, in order, on Second Reading, to point to areas of exploration which are not touched upon by the Bill. As the Lord Privy Seal has said, a complicated and developing society is bound to pose innumerable questions which arise out of the conflict between the interest of the individual and the requirements of the general good. They have arisen in innumerable contexts which were not within the terms of reference of the Franks Committee. We should not, however, be over-complacent about the Bill forgetting that there is a very large area of difficulty which the Bill has not in any way approached and which was not approached by the Franks Committee because it was not within the Committee's terms of reference.
  There is all the area relating to security and political unreliability which affects people's employment. I know that a great deal of thought has been given to that matter both by the Labour Government and the present Government but I should have thought that none of us would say that we had reached the ideal solution. I refer to that as a kind of problem which is analogous to the kind of problem we are dealing with in this Bill. There are many others.
  One of my hon. Friends has referred me to the situation, for example, of a person wanting to leave the kingdom. He cannot be stopped by law except by the

  1625
  issue of a writ of ne exeat regno, which is not often used, but, if the Foreign Office chooses to refuse a passport, which it can do in its absolutely untramelled discretion, except the risk of a Question being asked in this House, that man could be effectively stopped from going abroad. This has, I think, recently been a matter in controversy before the Supreme Court of the United States. That is another question of the sort which at some time or other this House may have to consider. I do not ask that the Government should consider it in this Bill, but many hon. Members may wish to refer to that unexplored tract of territory.
  I notice that in the proviso to Clause 10 (1) the Government exclude from the provisions relating to removal of proceedings to the High Court by the procedure of certiorari, or by mandamus, Section 26 of the British Nationality Act, 1948. That was an Act for which the Labour Government were responsible and that is a Section under which the Minister can decide a doubtful question whether a person is or is not a British subject. I refer to that as the sort of case which might come into point. When the Labour Government were in office they took the view that this matter fell within the administrative discretion of the Minister rather than that it was one which called for judicial inquiry.
  I simply cite those as matters which have not yet been dealt with. I daresay that the view taken by the Government at that time was perfectly right. I do not say that it is wrong, but it is the kind of problem which must arise as our society continues to evolve. Sometimes one uses the words "Crichel Down". I need only use that name again to refer to another vast territory which, at some time or other, may need the attention of this House. Once again, I do not suggest that it should be done under the provisions of the Bill and it certainly was not done by the Franks Committee because it was not within its terms of reference.
  But I wish to ask the Government what they propose to do with some of the recommendations which have not yet been dealt with in any legislation, but which, I think, are extremely important. The Franks Committee, in paragraph 82, referred to the question of witnesses before tribunals having absolute privilege. At the moment, they have qualified privilege.
  1626
  I think that any lawyer Member of this House will probably agree with me in thinking that the value of that defence is limited. It can always be defeated by a successful assertion of malice and malice can be urged and do great harm to a person against whom it is urged even if it is successfully rebutted by him and shown to be based on inadequate grounds when the matter comes before the court. Therefore, I should have thought that there was a really important distinction between absolute privilege and qualified privilege which is the privilege enjoyed by witnesses before a great many of these tribunals as, indeed, it is the privilege enjoyed by members of Local authorities, and so on. We in this House have absolute parliamentary privilege, although there is some room for doubt at the moment about the exact extent to which that goes.
  Another matter on which I should like to have the views of the Government is the question of legal aid. I notice that the Lord President of the Council, in another place, when it was pointed out that the Government had not yet implemented the recommendation in paragraph 89 of the Report that legal aid should be afforded to people appearing before tribunals, said that could not be done at the moment, when legal aid had not yet been extended to persons who sought advice and was still not available in a number of criminal cases or before courts of summary jurisdiction. I notice that since the Lord President made that statement the Government have announced a scheme for extending legal aid to the furnishing of legal advice. It seems that, at any rate, one of the objections which were posed by the Lord President is got out of the way by that.
  I should now like shortly to ask the Government something about their proposals in Clause 3, which deals with the appointment of the chairmen and members of tribunals. What the Government propose there is the setting up of panels for which the Lord Chancellor or the Lord President of the Court of Session should be responsible. The Franks Committee was quite definite in its recommendation that the Lord Chancellor should actually appoint the chairmen of the tribunals and that the members of the tribunals should be appointed by the Council which the Government are setting up under this Bill.

  1627
  The presidents of some tribunals are appointed, under the terms of the Bill, by the Lord Chancellor, to a very limited extent under the Mines and Quarries Act, 1954. Clause 3 deals only with some of the tribunals which are listed in the Schedule at the end of the Bill. Broadly speaking, it relates to National Assistance, National Insurance, National Insurance Industrial Injuries and some National Service tribunals. I should like to ask the Attorney-General what the Government think is to be gained by jettisoning the proposal that the Lord Chancellor should himself appoint the chairmen, substituting instead the appointment of panels. I do not quite see what advantage there is in that.
  I can understand that there may well be administrative difficulties which make it difficult for the Lord Chancellor to undertake the appointment of chairmen. This is a matter which probably hon. Members will wish to explore further in Committee. I do not see why, if he cannot appoint a chairman, he should appoint the members of a panel. No doubt there is some reason, but I should like to hear from the Government exactly what it is.
  The Government intend to depart entirely from the proposal that the Council should appoint the members of the Committee. Those, I understand, are to be appointed as they are appointed at present, subject to the one qualification in Clause 4 (1) of the Bill which provides that the appropriate Minister is "to have regard to" the advice of the Council in making the appointment of members.
  I should like to ask the Attorney-General a question which may, at first sight, seem simple but which, when one comes to look at it, is very far from simple—what he understands by the meaning of the phrase "have regard to". Is the Minister to follow their advice or simply to take it into account, and can he do exactly the opposite to what the Council advises him to do in the matter of the appointment of members? I should like to know the Attorney-General's view about that. It is one of those phrases which Law Officers, of all complexions—I do not blame him, because I speak with a guilty conscience myself—and parliamentary counsel always use, and I am never quite sure whether we know what it means. I always wonder whether it means we have to have regard to Some-one's
  1628
  advice or recommendation and whether then, having had regard to it, we may do exactly the opposite to what the recommendation says.
  Some people think that one may have to read, or listen to the advice and take it into account, ponder it, and then throw it overboard. I should like to know what it does mean, because it figures in a crucial place in this Bill. It relates to the composition of the whole of the membership of these various bodies. I want to know why they have used this ambiguous phrase. I want to know what it means. One final question: is it not a little invidious for the Lord President of the Court of Session, who is not in the position of a Minister answerable to either House of Parliament, to have to undertake the function which he will in the matter of these various appointments? Would it not be preferable that the Lord Advocate for Scotland should undertake this function, he being a Minister who can be questioned in this House with the usual penetrating questions to which all Ministers have to be subjected?
  I want to say a word about Clause 8. I have referred to what I think are by far the most important Clauses in the Bill, but there are other Clauses of great importance as well. I am sure that the Attorney-General has read the speech of Lord Denning in another place. Lord Denning on Second Reading, on 1st April, 1958, as reported in c. 603–4 of HANSARD, referred to the fact that in the case of a number of appeals, as they are listed in Clause 8 (1) of the Bill, the appeal can go no further than the Court of Session or the Court of Appeal in England, and that there may develop a divergence of views between English and Scottish courts.
  As Lord Denning said, that may be extremely unfortunate, and he had had personal experience of that when trying war pensions appeal cases. What the noble Lord suggests, in these circumstances, is that the appeal may lie direct from the tribunal to the Court of Session, or the Court of Appeal and there may lie a further appeal, by leave, from those courts to the House of Lords in order that a divergence of view between the Scottish and English courts might be reconciled in an appeal on which learned Lords from both countries may sit. I should like to know the Government's views on that proposal. I am not saying that I support

  1629
  it, but it is obviously the view of a highly respected authority, and I should like to know whether the Government have considered it.
  Clause 10—I again refer to Lord Denning—is the Clause which, I think, to everyone's gratification, puts an end to many provisions which say that the proceedings of tribunals are not to be open to review by using procedure by way of certiorari or mandamus. As Lord Denning points out in the same speech in another place, that Clause is not in itself adequate without another Clause enjoining on those who deliver the decision of the tribunal to give their reasons; because, as his Lordship points out, in certiorari procedure the court cannot interfere unless the decision is shown to be one which is bad for reasons which it contains on the face of it. I should like to ask the Government what their views are about that.
  I apologise to the House for taking time, but it is difficult to go into many aspects of this complicated Bill without taking some time. I should like to conclude by saying, speaking for myself and, I think my right hon. and hon. Friends, that we very much welcome the Bill. We think that so far as it goes it is a good Bill, subject to these various questions which I have put with regard to departure from the Franks Committee's Report, and subject to the major questions as to the attitude of the Council in the discharge of its duties and the composition and terms upon which it is to work.
  I am glad that the Bill is making its appearance. I was a little surprised and disappointed that the Lord Privy Seal, while paying a tribute to the Franks Committee, in which we all join, did not also express his debt of gratitude to the authors of "Personal Freedom", from which I quoted. I feel sure that that was an entirely unintentional omission on his part, and I am sure that I have his authority to rectify the omission.
  I greatly hope that the House will agree to give the Bill a Second Reading.
  5.9 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Rawlinson: As we all know, such was the clarity of expression of the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) that he drove my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal and the Attorney-General to louder
  1630
  and longer whispers, and if anyone had been within whispering range of myself I, too, would have whispered my appreciation of the clarity of his expression. While we like his expression we cannot quite accept the political sincerity which lay behind some of the premises with which he addressed the House this afternoon. We have too long a memory of statements coming from some of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's right hon. and Iron. Friends about "the man in White-hall" knowing best, and we also recollect that he, for five or six years, was a member of the Government by whom the balance between the interests of the individual and those of the State were not always maintained.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked us to remember the words in an article in his pamphlet on personal freedom and compared it with the noble words of de Tocqueville and Blackstone. Blackstone wrote his commentaries to the accompaniment of a bottle of port. I can only think that the Socialist who wrote the pamphlet must have done so on some very heady champagne, for which he will some day be called to account by his friends.
  I welcome the Bill, which is of extreme importance. As to my only objection to it—I hope this is not churlish—I wish the Government had introduced the Measure in 1953 after having set up the Franks Committee in 1952, for this is a matter which gravely affects, and has gravely affected, an enormous number of citizens. In the last two decades we have seen the growth of the conflict between the State and the individual so that the individual no longer rests on his own rights of common law and statutes, but there was this new interference with his liberty which threatened him in matters of his life and livelihood very gravely and to his great concern.
  The Franks Report said that openness, fairness and impartiality were the three great elements and that they had not been manifested as fully as possible. Those were the dry words of a Committee. I should have thought that very much graver expression would have been given to them throughout the country. There has been, indeed, general disquiet, and there still remains a fear of the administrative outlook.

  1631
  The inconvenience of the individual who is querying and questioning is common to all administrations and all members of administrations—in effect, it is the trouble that can be made for a Government Department. Therefore, while it is understandable that cranks, who are continually pestering, and other determined persons must eventually be dealt with, there was general public disquiet that these tribunals and the laws governing the subject—or the absence of law—did not give fairness to the individual.
  To the general public an inquiry is a trial. It is a court. The view of the citizen is that the issue is being tried by the person sitting there in the inquiry, in most cases the inspector. As the Franks Committee said in paragraph 40:
  "… tribunals should properly be regarded as machinery provided by Parliament for adjudication rather than as part of the machinery of administration."
  That is, adjudication or judging.
  In any judging or trial the procedure is of immense importance. I was glad to hear the Home Secretary speak of referring to the councils the codes of procedure and, on their advice, putting them into statutory form I should like to see the codes in statutory form, for I do not have confidence in circulars. Like some of my hon. Friends, I distrust future administrations. In this House we ought all to appreciate the importance of procedure. The procedure of the House is complicated and complex, so much so that some hon. Members do not understand it and many people outside are completely bewildered by it. However, the procedure is designed to bring about a proper amount of fair debate between hon. Members. In courts of law the procedures and the rules of evidence are important in safeguarding the interests of the parties so that the issues can be fairly presented and evidence kept within reasonable limits and a decision propertly arrived at at the end of the day.
  My second point concerns the appointment of the inspectors. I know that the Attorney-General is aware of my view, which is that I wholeheartedly agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Newport in the comments that he had to make. I believe
  1632
  most emphatically that the inspectors should be appointed by the Lord Chancellor. I know the position is that they cannot be appointed or dismissed except with his consent. Nevertheless, it is vitally important for justice to be seen to be done and for the inspectors to be the Lord Chancellor's inspectors and not the Minister's inspectors. Consequently, the inspectors should be appointed and dismissed by the Lord Chancellor.
  The Lord Chancellor is responsible for a great many appointments for judicial office. I should have thought that it was not beyond the bounds of possibility for him to make these appointments. It has been suggested that inspectors should be allocated to Ministries and that the Ministries should carry out their work as inspectors. It is unfair to an inspector in such circumstances to send him to an inquiry. Anyone who has appeared professionally at such an inquiry knows the heat that is engendered.
  While I am not for a moment suggesting that many, or most, or even a large proportion of the inspectors do not conduct themselves judicially, they are nevertheless officers of the Minister, and they have not got, except by the experience which they acquire, training in acting judicially. I should like to see the inspectors clearly held out to the parties appearing before them as the Lord Chancellor's inspectors. The view of the citizen at the moment is that it is purely a matter of blowing off steam before an officer of the Minister who has been sent down to let them have an opportunity to have their say while the Minister has reserved to himself and to his own mind exactly what he will eventually do.
  I welcome what has been done about the publication of decisions. All these matters should be open. I should like to see written into the Bill the right of the Press to be present, except on special occasions. Justice should with few and important exceptions be public and open. There are times when in the interest of the accused it is right that the proceedings in courts should be in camera—such as proceedings under the Official Secrets Act, certain interlocutory proceedings, and certain proceedings where children are concerned—but generally it should be written into the Bill that the Press have the right to be present.

  1633
  As lawyers, we recollect that the development in many ways of the procedure and propriety of our courts was to a great extent due to the Press. Montague Williams, the famous advocate of the nineteenth century, used to talk of the conduct of the judges at the Central Criminal Court after dining, as they then did in the middle of the day, only too well with very large goblets of port, and he described what an impression that made on the spectator of justice not being seen to be done.
  I think that the growing up of the Press helped the courts and assisted in making the law and the administration of justice in this country what it is today. Whatever some hon. Members may think, it is the real and perhaps the main object of admiration in the life of our country.
  The discipline of the appellate tribunal is of the greatest importance. The fact that there is an appellate tribunal over any court always helps with the proper administration of justice. Whether one sits as an arbitrator, a magistrate, or other judge, the fact that there is an appellate tribunal brings to the lower court a very much more careful and proper sense of sanction than if there is no appellate tribunal.
  I should like to see an appeal on fact and law, and on fact and merit alone. Public criticism of the law of contempt, under which the courts can punish for contempt, is due to the fact that there is no appeal from this absolute power. The criticism of us in Parliament is due to the fact that we are the judges of ourselves. Let none of us forget the amount of criticism which is directed to us here in this place.
  In conclusion, I want to convey my congratulations to the Ministers who have brought forward this Bill and have acted so promptly after the Franks Report. I should have like that Committee to have met earlier, because I think this is one of the most cardinal and important Bills which a Government elected by a Conservative majority could bring before this House. I only hope, however, that the good will not be the enemy of the best. I believe there are many important improvements which can be made in the Bill. Nevertheless, I am glad to be able to support it here because if justice is secret or casual, the individual will ultimately suffer. In the end secret
  1634
  and casual tribunals bring justice into contempt.
  5.22 p.m.
  Mr. Dingle Foot: I join with the hon. Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson) and, indeed, with hon. Members in all parts of the House in welcoming both this Bill and the manner in which it has been introduced by the Lord Privy Seal. In my view, it embodies certain changes in the law which have been long overdue.
  Personally, I attach great importance to Clause 8 which establishes a right of appeal from the tribunals to the High Court of Justice, and also to Clause 10 which re-establishes in the fullest possible form the supervisory jurisdiction of the High Court over all tribunals. These follow the recommendations of the Franks Report, but I think it is worth recalling that there was nothing new about the Franks Report. Both these recommendations and a good many others with reference, for example, to the publication of inspectors' report, will be found almost equally fully set out in the Report of the Committee on Ministers' Powers which was published in 1932.
  I would say in passing both to the Lord Privy Seal and to the hon. Member for Epsom that they should not preen themselves too much because this Bill is being introduced in 1958. The Government could have introduced it in 1932, which is the date when the Committee on Ministers' Powers reported. They had seven years from 1932 until 1939 when they were constantly being asked from the Opposition benches what was their attitude towards the recommendations of the Committee, and we were never able to obtain any satisfactory answer. I can only say that I am glad that after all these years, after a lapse of rather more than a quarter of a century, these recommendations are at last being implemented.
  However that may be, it seems to me that the Report of the Franks Committee and the Bill mark an extremely important development in our law. For at least thirty years there has been incessant controversy about the place of the tribunals in our juridical system and a great many people at one time or another have been inclined to be jealous of the tribunals because it was thought that they might encroach on the proper functions

  1635
  of courts of law. It seems to me that the effect of the Franks Report and of this Bill is that we are really assimilating the tribunals into the general pattern of the courts.
  There is a very significant passage on page 9 of the Franks Report where the Committee rejects the view, put forward by the Departments, that
  "tribunals should properly be regarded as part of the machinery of administration, for which the Government must retain a close and continuing responsibility."
  The Committee says:
  "We do not accept this view. We consider that tribunals should properly be regarded as machinery provided by Parliament for adjudication rather than as part of the machinery of administration."
  That means, I take it, that in future the function of the tribunals, like the function of Her Majesty's judges, is not to act as instruments of Departmental policy but is to stand between the citizen and the Executive.
  So much for the contents of the Bill. We shall, of course, have detailed criticisms to make in Committee. Personally, I hope that we shall devote some attention to the proviso to Clause 10 which refers to Sections 25 and 26 of the British Nationality Act, because I should have thought that the determination as to whether somebody is or is not a British citizen is eminently a justiciable matter which ought to be decided by a court and not by a Minister.
  I want to come to the omissions in the Bill. We have been promised that there will be legislation to implement the remainder of the Franks Report. That is the part dealing with inspectors' reports and publication and the giving of reasons by the Minister. I wholly agree with what has been said by the hon. Member for Epsom about Ministerial circulars. I do not think we ought to be satisfied with circulars. We want to have those recommendations in the Franks Report embodied in legislation just as much as the recommendations to do with tribunals.
  I should like to know from whoever is to reply for the Government when we may expect the further legislation. We are told that we must await the recommendation of the Council, and, of course, it may be some months or a year or two before that recommendation is made.
  1636
  But could we have some assurance from the Government that when they do receive the recommendation of the Council they intend to act with reasonable dispatch and that this matter will not be allowed to hang over year after year like the recommendations of the Committee on Ministers' Powers?
  There is another aspect of the matter to which I should like to refer and which was touched on by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice). Even if the whole Franks Report were carried out, that would by no means be the end of the legislation which we ought to have in this field. There is, as we all know, a vast area of administrative activity which is completely untouched by this legislation and, indeed, by the Report, not because the Franks Committee did not wish to deal with it—one rather gathered from the language used by the Committee that it would have liked to do so—but because the Committee was precluded from dealing with it by the terms of reference.
  As has often been pointed out, if we take the case of Crichel Down, that did not come within the terms of reference of the Franks Committee, and certainly if there were another Crichel Down no sort of protection would be afforded to anyone by the provisions of this Bill. It seems to me that this is a matter which ought to be the particular concern of every Member of this House because here in this House we are constantly being reminded, almost every day, of the extent to which the private citizen is at the mercy of the anonymous bureaucrat.
  I am thinking of the class of case where the decision is left to the unfettered discretion of the Minister or the authority concerned. There we know that there is practically no judicial protection. One sometimes attempts to challenge in the courts the exercise of discretion by the Minister but it is impossible to take the matter any further unless bad faith can be established, and that is something which in 999 cases out of 1,000 is practically impossible to do.
  The other form of protection which the citizen is supposed to have is the protection which is afforded by this House. We are told that Ministers are responsible to the House for what they do and can always be challenged here.

  1637
  We ought to be honest about this. Every one of us knows that that, nowadays, is an extremely inadequate safeguard in most cases of individual grievance.
  Of course, it happens from time to time that there is some instance which attracts widespread public attention, something which interests hon. Members in all parts of the House, and then one may be able to generate such feeling that the matter is seriously considered, and, eventually, the Minister may give way. But those cases are very rare indeed. In the majority of cases in which individual grievances are raised at Question Time on the Floor of the House, it is very easy for the Minister to give a stonewalling reply.
  I will remind hon. Members of one example which took place in the House a few days ago. My hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stonehouse) raised the case of an internee on Manda Island in Kenya Colony, a man who was personally known to five or six Members of the House, all of whom took part in the Adjournment debate. This man had been interned, without any trial and without any judicial process, for five years on grounds which seemed to be very flimsy indeed. The matter was raised in the House and, as always in cases of this kind, the Minister—in this case the Secretary of State for the Colonies—took refuge behind the blank wall of Ministerial, or, on this occasion, gubernatorial discretion. Although we were able to raise the matter on the Adjournment of the House, as many other matters are raised, it availed us and it availed the man himself nothing at all.
  We can all think of many examples of unfettered ministerial discretion which it is difficult, if not often impossible, to challenge in the House. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport gave the example of passports. It is a very striking contrast that, in the same week that the Supreme Court of the United States has said that the State Department has no unfettered discretion to withhold a passport from a citizen of the United States, a spokesman for the Government, speaking in another place, said that the issue of a passport here is a matter of the prerogative, something that one cannot question in any way, and, if a passport
  1638
  is withheld, no reasons may be given and the person concerned has no kind of redress.
  Various cases have been raised with the Colonial Office at Question time—one was raised only today—of persons who are, in effect, prevented from leaving the territories in which they live. They do not know the reasons for their being so prevented, that is, for the passport being withheld, and they have no way of challenging the decision.
  Another similar matter, which I am sure we shall have very seriously to consider in the House before long, is the prevention of someone wishing to go to some part of the British Commonwealth by the withholding from him of a permit to go there because he has been declared a prohibited immigrant. Here again, when the matter is raised on the Floor of the House, we are met with a stonewalling reply. We are told that it is within somebody's discretion and that no kind of reasons may be given.
  I am sometimes struck by the contrast—I say this without wishing to be polemical—between the attitude of hon. Gentlemen opposite to the "gentleman in Whitehall" and their attitude to the gentlemen in some Colonial "Whitehall", in Nairobi, Blantyre, Entebbe, or wherever it may be. The gentlemen in the Colonial "Whitehall" is just as liable, to error and just as much in need of being challenged from time to time as the gentleman in Whitehall in this country.
  We all know that the reasons for these decisions may be perfectly valid. On the other hand, they may not. It is possible that decisions may be taken under a misapprehension. Information upon which they are based may be mistaken information or completely false information which has been maliciously supplied. In each case, however, the person concerned has no means of knowing what is alleged against him, no means of knowing the grounds of the decision, and certainly no form of redress. I have mentioned those few examples, and I am sure that each one of us who is concerned with the practice or administration of the law can think of many other cases where there is unfettered ministerial discretion.
  When we have passed the Bill and have the further legislation promised to implement the other recommendations of the Franks Report, we shall have a somewhat anomalous situation. We shall be

  1639
  dividing administrative activities into two parts. One part will be covered by the new legislation, that is, by the Bill and the future Bill we are promised. We shall have worked out an elaborate system of safeguards. We shall have brought in the Lord Chancellor to appoint his panel. We shall say what the qualifications of the chairman shall be. We shall provide for public hearings, for appeals and for everything else.
  For the other part, the still larger part, there will be no safeguards at all. The individual will still be left at the mercy of the Department. That is why I say that we shall in future need to go a good deal further than either the Bill or the Report. It is really time that we studied the kinds of system they have in France or Sweden. I know that that is a conception strange to English lawyers, but I believe that there must eventually be some kind of administrative tribunal to which this other class of matter can be referred.
  This is a very old controversy, as we all know. We can never reach any final decision in the conflict between freedom and authority, but now we hope that the balance is tilting in the direction of freedom. When Professor Robson gave evidence before the Franks Committee he quoted the words James I used when he was arraigning the judges—
  "… as for the absolute prerogative of the Crown, that is no subject for the tongue of a lawyer, nor is it lawful to be disputed."
  Today, we are not concerned much with the Prerogative of the Crown, which has been eroded by centuries of legislation, but we are concerned, in effect, with the prerogative of the Departments. We live in a very highly organised society which will probably become still more highly organised. It is inevitable that we should give very wide powers to Ministers, Departments and officials. The more we do so, the more essential does it become for us constantly to build up and strengthen the safeguards which prevent those powers being exceeded or abused.
  5.38 p.m.
  Mr. Philip Bell: The Report of the Franks Committee about which we are so enthusiastic contains the attractive slogan which has been referred to, "Openness, fairness and impartiality". The right hon. and learned Member for
  1640
  Newport (Sir F. Soskice), in his speech, very nearly achieved, openness, fairness and impartiality. He broke down a little in his melancholy comment that he had not had any compliments for the part that the pamphlet "Personal Freedom" played in informing the mind of the Franks Committee. But, of course, what he ought to have pointed out was that, in paragraph 273 of the Report, the pamphlet "The Rule of Law" was cited and, oddly enough, no reference was made to the pamphlet "Personal Freedom".
  The hon and learned Member for Ipswich (Mr. Foot) referred to the delay in dealing with the Donoughmore Report, but I think it appears from paragraph 35 of the Franks Report that at least this should be said, that the matter of tribunals was not so pressing then. Paragraph 35 points out:
  "At the time of the Donoughmore Committee … there were few kinds of tribunal (although some of them, for example the Courts of Referees under the Unemployment Insurance Acts, dealt with important issues … and the Committee was able to regard tribunals 1s somewhat exceptional".
  There was, at any rate, a small excuse, if not a complete excuse.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman rose—
  Mr. Bell: I shall not give way. I have an old feud with the hon. Gentleman about giving way.
  I was saying that this Report is bound to get enthusiastic support from both sides of the House. Yet it is bewildering in a sense because of its detail. The Report itself contained 95 recommendations. The Bill refers to no less than 50 tribunals set up by about 45 Acts concerning 23 subjects. Five Acts have already been passed which have attempted in some way to give effect to the recommendations.
  I think that the right hon. and learned Member for Newport was perhaps a little harsh in his comments on the Agriculture Bill, 1958. Although he did not like the fact that it abolished the disciplinary powers under the old Act, I understand that there was in that Bill provision transferring the Minister's powers over the land tribunals to the Lord Chancellor, which I understand was one of the things which was generally thought a good idea, and transferring the quasi-judicial powers of the agricultural executive committees

  1641
  to the agricultural land tribunals, of which the Franks Report spoke so highly.
  In addition to producing the Bill, the Government have issued four Statutory Instruments giving effect to the recommendations and six circulars of various Ministries have endeavoured to move the matter along. Whatever complaint there may be about delay, at any rate there has been little delay since the Franks Committee issued its Report. The constitutional point that I find interesting is that where there is a remedy, according to the law there only lies the right, though some people think that this Bill, dealing only with matters of procedure, cannot be very important. Yet it is odd how rules of procedure seem in the end to direct or make law. I think that it was Dr. Johnson who said that the only advantage the English had over the foreigner so far as personal liberty was concerned was the writ of habeas corpus—in other words, the remedy itself has always been the important thing in English law.
  I welcome the statement of the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich when he said that the balance now was in favour of freedom. I was delighted to hear that, particularly as it came from the benches opposite. Perhaps he will not mind my saying that many of us consider that unless there is private property there will be little freedom.
  My criticisms of the Bill are mild in that they are more inquiring criticisms, although I have a number of main criticisms. I am not altogether satisfied why there is not power under the Bill for the Council on Tribunals to call evidence before it comes to a decision. I know that my right hon. Friend said that it was not usual to put such powers in a Bill, and he said, in fact, that the Franks Committee had no such power. My observation on that is that the Franks Committee was only a transitory body. This is to be a permanent and highly respected body. It will want to obtain evidence from Government officials, and it would be wise that it should have power not merely to request whether the Minister or his officials could spare a few moments to discuss something with it, but should ultimately be able to say, "I shall require your attendance", without too much circuitous negotiation.
  I am also not altogether satisfied why the Bill does not include a provision for the publication of the Council's reports.
  1642
  I know that in Clause 2 (7) of the Bill there is a provision that the
  "Council shall make an annual report."
  However, I do not think an annual report is quite what some of us have in mind, but that it should give a report of its particular recommendation so that we, the public, could compare it with what was put into operation by the Government or Ministry concerned.
  The third point is that it has been recommended in Recommendation (35) that the Council should advise on the constitutional functions of new tribunals. There seems to be no reference to that matter in the Bill.
  Finally, another subsidiary point, which has already been mentioned, is the question of privilege for witnesses before tribunals. I see that in another place the Lord Chancellor pointed out that this would entail the introduction of legislation.
  It was indicated on behalf of the Government that the question whether there should be privilege for witnesses before these inquiries should be left to the Council on Tribunals to decide. I think that we are going a little too far with the burdens which are put upon the Council on Tribunals, for what it is set up to do is to make recommendations about procedure, but not about principle. It is required to advise or keep under review the constitution and working tribunals, and then there is some reference to particular matters. I should have thought that it was possible for the House to decide boldly on this question of principle, namely, whether evidence before these public tribunals and inquiries should be given on oath. I do not think this is a matter which should be passed on to the Council for its views.
  I should also like to remind the learned Attorney-General that some of us would like to know what the Government have in mind in the light of the undertaking given in another place on 13th May, when an Amendment was promised to the Bill providing that statements of the grounds for the decisions of tribunals must be given. I understand that it was there intimated that an Amendment would be produced in due course. It cannot be produced now, but many of us would be interested to know what it will be. I understand that there are a number of matters upon which the Government have not made up their

  1643
  mind, in particular Recommendations (20), about costs, (60), about the qualifications of a particular board, (76), (77) and (82), to which reference has been made, namely, the opportunity for a party to correct a mis-statement of fact in a report, and (95). Those matters have been reserved. The Government in another place indicated that they were considering them.
  Some of us would like to know whether the Government's consideration has gone any further yet? A number of matters are to be referred to the Council, but as yet there is no Government view. Privilege for witnesses is one of the points that I have instanced. I should have thought that whether and in what cases there should be an appeal on fact was a matter that the Government could decide and should not leave to the Council on Tribunals to reconsider.
  Those are the observations with which some of us with a more curious mind are concerned. What are the main criticisms of an otherwise excellent Bill? Many of us are still not at all satisfied with the mixtures of procedure used to give effect to the Franks Report—that is, by Statutory Instrument, by Ministerial letter and sometimes by something put into the Bill. I join with hon. Members on both sides who have indicated that they think that the codes of procedure at inquiries should be made statutory. This is an enormous advantage with regard to the question of penalty for a breach. That leads me to ask, what remedy would a citizen have if the code of procedure in the Statutory Instrument or in one of the Ministerial directions is broken?
  There might be argument about a procedure rule and the Minister or the inspector might not agree that the rule had been broken. There might be argument, for example, as to whether reasonable notice had been given or whether the points of claim had been clearly detailed. Unless there is provision for an appeal, this important point might be decided out of hand and might possibly decide the whole issue. All the matters of procedure, as with the rules of court, should be made by Statutory Instrument. The Bill itself should indicate that if there is a claim that there has been a breach of those rules, a person not satisfied with the decision of the tribunal that there was not a breach could appeal on that technical point.
  1644
  I join with those who are not altogether satisfied with the appeal provisions. Recommendation (25) favoured a wide appeal, not only on law, but on fact and on merit. The reasons are set out in paragraphs 105 and 106 of the Report. Clause 8, however, and the reference in Clause 9 (3), give only a limited power of appeal on law. It is limited only to a particular number of cases. I am not altogether satisfied that it would not be more proper to extend this.
  The question of the policy statement is, no doubt, a difficult one. We had an explanation of it in the other place on 1st April. I do not think that one can be emphatic abount it. Recommendation (68) is a reasonable recommendation and direction. I have one point to raise concerning the policy statement. Under one of the directions in Circular 9/58, the Minister is prepared to give an indication of the policy which is involved in making an inquiry. The point which exercises my mind is the matter of discovery. The Franks Report pointed out that it was inadvisable to get inspectors from the Ministry which is concerned with the case to give evidence. There is, however, no reason why representatives, inspectors or qualified people from other Ministries should not be asked their views.
  In the case of land which is taken for some purpose, the citizen might want to make the reply that his land is not really suitable because of the view of the road traffic commissioners. It is true that under the recommendations the party might call a witness or get a policy statement, but there is no power to get documents. To be able to obtain documents to check what a person says can be extremely useful. I would like to have seen the Bill give provisions to the tribunals to require not only the attendance of witnesses in particular cases to support or explain policy statements, but also to secure the production of documents.
  The only other point I wish to make relates to paragraph 278, on which I do not expect to receive universal acclamation. This is a paragraph about which many of us feel strongly. It was forced out of the Committee almost against its will. In paragraph 278, the Committee pointed out:
  "It is clear that objections to compulsory purchase would be far fewer if compensation

  1645
  were always assessed at not less than market value. It is not part of our terms of reference to consider and make recommendations upon the basis of compensation. But we cannot emphasise too strongly the extent to which these financial considerations affect the matters with which we have to deal. Whatever changes in procedure are made dissatisfaction is, because of this, bound to remain."
  The Government, who have done so well in producing the Bill and in implementing the Franks Committee's recommendations by means of Statutory Instruments and also by other Bills, must not lose sight of their target. The support of liberty is property and all this procedure, all this talk and argument about the balance between the State and the individual, is a mockery if we are not giving the citizen a good procedure to get a fair price. He must not only have a good procedure and an opportunity of stating his case fairly, but at the end of the day he must get, as paragraph 278 points out, not less than market value.
  It would be interesting to go into other speculations, as did the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich, with whom I have some sympathy over the question of internees and of detaining people and of refusing passports, which even during the war exercised some of our minds. The famous case of Rex v. Leversedge, with its dissenting judgment, has always been one of my favourites as supporting the right of the individual, even in time of war, to be able to have his case and the question of whether he was a traitor or spy or dangerous person freely heard. There is a great deal in what the hon. and learned Member said, although I suggest that the internments which now occur are comparative to those which existed in this country unhappily during the war.
  If we were to extend the Bill and our investigations and thoughts, let us not forget that there are other tribunals which may well learn from what we are saying, from the Bill and from the principle, to which we subscribe, that impartiality and fairness are things which are not to be picked up and used merely when a matter of the Government and the individual. The principles might well be used by other tribunals which deal with the livelihood of men. I refer to closed shops and expulsion from unions. Other tribunals might well learn something from what we are trying to
  1646
  teach or learn from the Government today.
  5.57 p.m.
  Mr. A. J. Irvine: I will not follow the hon. and learned Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Philip Bell) in the later more polemical parts of his speech, in which he endeavoured, in a tradition that bears no ascertainable connection with that of Assissi, to identify liberty and property. I join with him, however, in his welcome to the Bill. It has been welcomed on all sides. My only feeling is that after our earlier debate on the Franks Report, it is rather disappointing that the Bill does not go further than it does.
  I was encouraged by the promptitude with which the Government dealt with the recommendations of the Franks Committee and also by the remarkable extent to which they found themselves ready and able to accept the recommendations of the Committee. These were both encouraging matters. In the light of that, the contents of the Bill are somewhat disappointing, particularly because they go such a very small distance in relation to administrative inquiries. This is the point which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) most emphasised, and I agree with him.
  The only significant provision in the Bill dealing with the inquiries is in Clause 1 (1, c). It is interesting, as my right hon. and learned Friend pointed out, that that was inserted only on Report in another place. It is difficult to be sure what will be the effect of that subsection and I should like in this connection to follow up a point on which I ventured to intervene during the speech of the Lord Privy Seal.
  "Particular matters" will be referable to the Council. This is not a Committee point, but one which goes to the heart of the Bill and what we are considering in Clause 1. Particular matters, I would have thought, could either be particular cases, cases of appellants and applicants with their own given facts, or, alternatively, aspects of procedure and procedural policy. Which is it envisaged by the Government is going to be referred to the Council?
  Let me illustrate this query by a simple example which may often arise. Suppose an appeal is put forward against refusal of permission to develop land in a certain

  1647
  way; suppose, further, that the appeal takes place after a policy statement has been issued and after the local planning authority has given clearly and fully its reasons for refusing permission, and that the evidence is fully heard and that the witnesses desired to be called by the parties are called. After all that the inspector makes his report and his report includes a recommendation.
  Suppose that the inspector's report and recommendation are not followed by the Minister in the Minister's letter of decision. Is it that kind of case, where the balance of reason and justice appears to suggest that the Minister has in the context of all these matters to which I have referred and particularly the recommendation of the inspector, come to a conclusion which is not reasonable or tenable, which is going to be referable to the Council under Clause 1? I think it is interesting and important to know, and I would appreciate it if the right hon. and learned Gentleman, in replying to the debate, could indicate a little more specifically than it has been indicated hitherto what the Government believe is comprised in the expression "particular matters" in Clause 1.
  We are reminded by the Government in connection with the failure of this Bill to deal with the matter of administrative inquiries of two particular points. They first of all remind us that administrative action has been taken and is being taken, and then they assure us, further to that, that this Bill is only the first instalment and that further legislation will follow to implement the Franks Committee's recommendations. Therefore, the position, as I see it, is that we are being asked in this House now to reconcile ourselves to an interim period of unspecified length during which we are to rely upon administrative action to correct faults in the inquiry system.
  I ask myself and I ask the House why this should be. I share the regret which other hon. Members have expressed that there has not been written into the Bill the code of procedure which should govern the administrative inquiry. I would ask the House to bear with me while I point out that when in the case, for example, of a planning appeal, it is desired to achieve the openness, fairness and impartiality of which the Franks Committee spoke, these are features in an
  1648
  inquiry which can be brought about by quite simple and straightforward steps. What are essential, to get fairness and impartiality and openness on a planning appeal or a compulsory purchase order, I think it will be generally agreed, as it was certainly accepted by the Franks Committee, are four features.
  First of all, in the case of a planning appeal, that the grounds of refusal by the local planning authority should be clearly set out. Secondly, that the Government's policy in connection with the matter under consideration should be known. I agree by and large with what the hon. and learned Member for Bolton, East had to say about the policy statement, except that I attach greater importance to it, I think, than he does. It is, I think, a very important factor in the matter indeed. Thirdly, that the text of the inspector's report should accompany the Minister's letter of decision; and finally, that the letter of decision by the Minister should state the Minister's reasons.
  When these four features are present, and only when they are present, is it possible for the appellant to know whether, on the evidence heard by the inspector, a reasonable decision has been arrived at. If we have these four features present and the evidence considered in the light of them, then it becomes possible to determine without undue difficulty whether the issue in dispute has been in any sense of the word subject to arbitrary or oppressive determination by the Minister.
  As I said, I wish that it could have been clearly written into this Bill at least that the Council on Tribunals in its consideration of matters referred to it under Clause 1 (1, c) should have regard to these factors to which I have referred, which were all recommended by the Franks Committee.
  I repeat that I do not wish it to be thought that I do not welcome the Bill so far as it goes, but with the background of prompt acceptance of the principle of nearly all the Franks Committee's recommendations it seems disappointing that it goes, particularly on this matter of inquiry procedure, such a very short distance. I would add that the tribunals listed in the First Schedule are mainly tribunals in regard to the conduct of which comparatively few

  1649
  complaints are heard. The real burden of the criticism, the main difficulty, in my belief, arises in the case of the administrative inquiry, and it is just this difficulty to which the Bill gives comparatively little attention.
  I should like to give two specific examples of opportunities which I regard as having been missed by the Government. The first is this matter of a statement of policy, to which I attach very great importance indeed. It was Recommendation (68) of the Franks Committee, and it is one of the very few recommendations of the Committee which has been rejected. I want to put in a plea for it.
  We have been told that there are two main objections to the policy statement. First of all, it is suggested that if it becomes a part of the procedure as a matter of rule the objector or the appellant, as the case may be, when he reads the policy statement, will think his case has been prejudged. That is put forward as an objection in principle to it. What I would say to that is that, of course, the case may be prejudged. It often is prejudged if a policy decision has been arrived at, which may be perfectly correct as a policy decision. It will often occur that the appellant's or objector's case is prejudged, and there is no inherent injustice in that fact, in my humble view.
  What is unreasonable, if the matter is so prejudged, is that the objector or the appellant should go forward as if it were not prejudged and should go to the expense and loss of time involved in an inquiry which is bound to be abortive. That particular ground of opposition to the policy statement is not one which I can accept as substantial or sound.
  We are told, secondly—and on this recent developments can shed an interesting light—that it is a difficult task to draft or prepare an appropriate policy statement in a great many instances where one is dealing with a great variety of facts in the cases which arise. It is interesting to note that when this was being dealt with in another place on 27th October last, the Lord Chancellor gave, in illustration of the difficulty in preparing an appropriate policy statement, the case of an application to develop land as a petrol filling station. But in April, 1958, the Ministry of Housing and Local
  1650
  Government produced Circular 25/58 dealing with this precise point. I recommend that Circular to the study of all hon. Members. It might well serve as a model of what a statement of policy should be.
  That fact is interesting. It suggests, first of all, that the difficulty of preparing a policy statement is not nearly as considerable as is often suggested. It is interesting additionally in that it provides an example of a policy statement dealing with a precise and particular case which the Lord Chancellor, in the debate in another place, had selected as an example of special difficulty. Now, when a planning appeal comes to be determined as to whether or not permission should be given to develop a piece of land as a petrol filling station, the matter can be considered in the light of this Circular in a way which makes it quite possible to consider fairly the particular facts of the case. The evidence can be considered in the context of the planning authority's grounds for refusal, the Ministerial statement of policy, the inspector's report, and all the rest. The elements of fairness and openness to which the Franks Committee referred are implemented in a way that is satisfactory to all.
  A second example of failure by the Government to take opportunities relates to a rather separate and different point. It is the fate of Recommendation (91) in the Franks Committee Report, that provision should be made for an appeal to the courts on a point of law against a determination by the Minister under Section 17 of the 1947 Act. That is an appeal from the determination by the Minister under Section 17 on the issue whether an alleged development is in fact and in law a development within the meaning of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947.
  I heard the Lord Privy Seal today refer to this point. I did not expect reference to it because it is a relatively minor and separate point, but the right hon. Gentleman seemed to indicate that the implementation of this recommendation would be much better if it took place in an amending Town and Country Planning Bill instead of in this Bill. Why should that view be taken? Here is a recommendation of the Franks Committee on a matter relevant to administrative inquiries. Here is a new appeal for which

  1651
  I should have thought all hon. Members would think it desirable to provide. It seems a missed opportunity that provision for it is not made in the Bill.
  We all know that the enforcement provisions under the 1947 Act are in a tangle, but it is right to say that recent decisions suggest that, for a determination in the courts of the question whether an alleged development is a development under the 1947 Act, it is often necessary or may be necessary to await the final stage of criminal proceedings under Section 24 of the 1947 Act. It is not a matter that can be put to the test in certain instances under the first proceedings in respect of enforcement notices under Section 23. The matter can be raised in particular cases only when it comes to a question of conviction and penalty under Section 24.
  All I suggest is that the longer, under the procedure of the 1947 Act, one has to defer the determination of the issue whether what a local planning authority alleges to be a development is a development, the more desirable it would seem to be quickly to implement this recommendation by the Franks Committee and make it possible, initially under Section 17, to go to the courts from the Minister for a determination of that point.
  The recommendations of the Franks Committee are to my mind of quite cardinal importance to everyone in the House, but particularly, and this is a view which I have strongly held for a long time, to hon. Members on this side of the House. I say that because it is we on this side of the House who are committed more than hon. Members opposite to the view that, in the general interest, powers and duties must be conferred on public authorities and departments. It is all the more important, therefore, that these powers should be exercised with scrupulous care. Only thus can we achieve a more orderly society which is at the same time free.
  6.18 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: I think that I am the sixth learned Member in succession to have the privilege of addressing you, Mr. Speaker, in the debate. That lightens my task because, as all hon. Members would agree, it is the lawyers who can put these points most succinctly, quickly, clearly and accurately, and I
  1652
  think that most of the points have already been made at this comparatively early hour of the debate.
  My hon. and learned Friend and neighbour the Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Philip Bell) seemed to me to rattle off criticisms of the Bill, relatively small but nevertheless important, in such a way that we are left at quarter-past-six with most of our work completed.
  I feel, therefore, that, since we are all agreed, I should like to liken this battle for liberty in which we are all engaged to the way in which the Dutch are pushing back the sea and reclaiming the land. We are pushing back the dark frontier of anonymous decree in favour of fairness, openness and impartiality. We have got some way. In the case of the tribunals it seems to me that the Bill pushes the sea back completely, below the low-water mark.
  There are one or two things which might be improved, but on the whole, subject to the very serious criticism about the lack of appeal on fact and merits, the tribunals are now in fairly good shape. We are making some progress in pushing back the sea further as regards inquiries, but not as much progress, and I ask my right hon. and learned Friend, when he replies to the debate, to clarify the position about the power of the Council over administrative procedures, inquiries, and I suppose also, although this is not clear, hearings.
  It was clear that in another place the Lord Chancellor rightly and fairly decided that the Council must be given the power of its own motion to look into the way the administrative procedures were working. That being so, I do not quite understand why it was necessary not just to put the words "administrative procedures" after the word "tribunals" in Clause 1 (1, a) of the Bill, because then the Council would have had the same power to keep under review the constitution and working of the administrative procedures as of the tribunals. In some way, however, its power is still in that respect somewhat less, at least so I read that distinction between paragraph (a) and (c) and I wonder why, and in what way, the distinction lies.
  Perhaps my right hon. and learned Friend could clarify that distinction and give the reason for it. Perhaps, at the same time, he would assure us that paragraph (c), when it talks of administrative

  1653
  procedures and concludes with the rather strange phrase "any such procedure", includes hearings as well as inquiries? Because already, since the publication of the circular in question, there has been in the Press and elsewhere a feeling, no doubt misplaced but nevertheless a suspicion, that somehow refuge will be taken by those dark and anonymous forces which are still lurking in the machinery of government, who do not wish the full effect of the Franks idea to take effect; that they will somehow take refuge in the Ministerial option to prescribe hearings rather than inquiries more often than they should.
  It would, of course, be a mockery of what has already been done by Ministerial circular, and what we hope and are promised will be done eventually by Statutory Instrument, namely, the creation of a proper code of procedure for inquiries, if that is to be nullified by the prescription of hearings rather than inquiries by Ministers more frequently than is at present done. I hope, therefore, that these two matters may be looked into, namely, whether Clause 1 (1, c) gives the Council power of its own motion to look into the procedures, including hearings, and, secondly, that we shall have an assurance that hearings will not be preferred, for this rather sinister reason, by the Ministers in the future.
  In this pushing back of the sea and the reclaiming of the land we have, of course, got nowhere on the unexplored tract of territory referred to by several hon. and learned Gentlemen opposite. As the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich (Mr. Foot) said, when this operation has been performed we shall really arrive at a most startling contrast between the administrative decisions of Whitehall, for which some sort of hearing is provided, where we hope the openness, fairness and impartiality will be apparent, and those for which, quite fortuitously in many cases, none is provided. The hon. and learned Gentleman quoted the case of passports and of those matters affecting personal liberty.
  There are also a great number, as I ventured to mention in the debate in October last, connected with financial and commercial matters, such as exchange control or the giving of licences to London taxicab drivers and others, where there is no appeal against a com
  1654
  pletely arbitrary decision, a decision that often gives no reason and merely returns to the applicant a flat "no". In many such cases, we believe, there is often a pure mistake of fact to be found in the Ministerial files. Departments are busy and civil servants are overworked, and it often happens that there is a mere confusion of identity which could easily be put right, and would be put right if there were an appeal to an administrative court to find the facts, even if it could have no control over the decision.
  It was for this reason that in our pamphlet, "The Rule of Law" we explored the possibility of an administrative division of the High Court to undertake this important task; the kind of task which the hon. and learned Gentleman rightly referred to as being much better done abroad than it is here, because here it is simply not done at all. I do not say that we should necessarily copy the French or the Swedish experiences, but at least they have done something; they have recognised that there is a problem there. So far, we and the Franks Committee have not been allowed even to explore the problem.
  The Bill, in setting up the Council which the Franks Committee thought so important, is a major step forward. I believe that this Council will form a most useful permanent watchdog, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, over the whole sphere of administrative procedure. It is important, since we are setting up the Council now, and since the Bill, in most of its Clauses, is primarily concerned with it, that we should see that it is given from the start the status it deserves.
  I ask why there is no provision in the Bill, first, for the power to send for persons and papers which the Council certainly should have if it is to be a permanency; secondly, why there is no provision in the Bill for a rule-making power, not necessarily by the Council itself but by the Lord Chancellor or some other suitable person, who can make the rules statutory on its recommendation? I suppose that there would have to be separate legislation of some kind before these procedures, which are at present supported by the frail and unsatisfactory device of a ministerial circular, could be made statutory, because I know of no statutory power to lay instruments in

  1655
  connection with these matters at present. Why, therefore, cannot the rule-making power be put in the Bill and thus save a stage in the process? Then we should have had a real debate. At present, it seems that all we are doing is to vie with each other in taking credit for the instituting and carrying through of a most important matter, and this competition in self-glory is not the best sort of debate.
  It is good that all parties are united in this matter. I hope they will remain so. I feel that we might have all been sitting on this side of the House today, and that the silent, though no doubt very worthy opponents of this idea—namely, those whose lives will be made much more laborous as a result of the Bill, the permanent civil servants—ought to have been sitting opposite, with the permanent under-secretaries perhaps on the Opposition Front Bench.
  However, it is extremely good, first, that the Government should have acted so promptly; secondly, that they should have shown themselves already so very open to suggestions, and the Lord Chancellor's Amendment on procedures in another place is a very good augury; and, thirdly, that they should have done what must have been an immensely difficult task, namely, to have induced their advisers in this short time about the necessities of the case. Without wishing to criticise them, I feel that they must be looking forward with some trepidation to all this because it will put a greater burden on them. Nevertheless, the Government have had the drive to ensure that their objections did not prevail.
  I will end on a note of detail. Everybody, from the Franks Committee Report forward and backwards, has implored the Government to ensure that the inspectors when hearing the inquiries relating to compulsory acquisition and to planning should be seen to be the Lord Chancellor's men, to be appointees of and to be promoted by and dismissed by the Lord Chancellor. I believe that the objection to that proposal does not come from any politician of any colour at all, but is a purely administrative and Civil Service objection. The evidence of the very fine and noble man, the Permanent Under-Secretary of the Lord Chancellor's Department, before the Franks Committee was to that effect.
  1656
  I implore my right hon. and learned Friends to see whether they cannot, difficult though it may be, get over that hurdle. There is no doubt that the public, however many explanations may be given and however many reassurances may be given, so long as the inspectors are the Minister's men, will not have confidence in what wilt otherwise be a very good procedure.
  6.33 p.m.
  Mr. David Weitzman: A great many compliments have been paid to the Government for the expeditious way in which they have acted. I hate to create any discord, but I should have thought this a reform which was long overdue. Whether we blame one Government or another, it is a matter which ought to have been dealt with many years ago.
  This Bill seeks to cure an evil which has grown up over many years and must be remedied, and attention has been directed to it again and again. Lord Hewart's book "The New Despotism" drew attention to what was happening. Many years have passed since then. No one is entitled to compliments for expedition. If anything, every effort ought to be made to hurry up as much as possible not only this reform—it is only a first instalment—but many other reforms in this direction.
  I welcome the Bill. It is a good one. I am not as optimistic as the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke), who thought that the sea had been pushed back below sea level. The Bill introduces certain very good measures. If it were possible, I believe there ought to be administration by the courts in all these matters, for that is the best possible system. But the increasing responsibility of the Government in many fields makes it inevitable that tribunals and inquiries should play an essential and ever-increasing part. They carry out work, with which it is obvious that the courts could not properly cope, and they have the advantages, as has often been pointed out, of informality and cheapness. They have grown up over the years in rather sporadic fashion. The main point about the Franks Committee is that it did excellent work in examining their functions and putting forward recommendations which would make for coherence and logic in their constitution.

  1657
  The Bill is the first attempt by Act of Parliament to make certain of the recommendations effective. It is the first effort to put them on a proper legislative basis. Therefore, it is a good Bill and is deserving of welcome from all parts of the House. However, as has been demonstrated by what has already been said by a considerable number of hon. Members on both sides of the House, there are a number of very important points of criticism. I would first offer some words of criticism of Clause 1 (1, c). We have been reminded that when the Bill was originally presented this provision was not in it and that it was inserted in an endeavour to meet certain points raised in another place, which have been repeated by a number of hon. Members today and which I, too, would emphasise.
  In spite of its title, the Bill contains hardly a word about inquiries. There has been grave concern in regard to the activities of inquiries presided over by departmental servants, hearings by inspectors, compulsory acquisition and planning development inquiries which come under the general heading of administrative procedure. It is in regard to those, just as much as in regard to tribunals, if not more in certain cases, that it is necessary to take a measure of some kind to restore public confidence.
  I also would like to know the meaning of Clause 1 (1, c), which was inserted to meet that criticism. As I read it, it enables the Council on Tribunals to consider a report on any matter referred to it or which the Council thinks of special importance with respect to administrative procedure. The Clause does not, as in the case of tribunals, require the constitutional working of inquiries or like bodies to be kept under continual review. It does not, as in the case of tribunals, require a report from time to time—the annual report referred to. In other words, it leaves Government Departments, as previously, to carry on with these procedures subject to such changes as they care to bring about by Ministerial circulars.
  I have a further question to ask. What experience will the Council on Tribunals have in regard to matters of inquiries upon which it can draw? Surely the real way to remedy this omission is by Amendment by including in subsection (1, a) and
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  (1, b), a reference to administrative procedures involving inquiries as well as tribunals. Then, the Council on Tribunals would have these matters within its purview. I suggest that that is an extremely important point of criticism of this Bill.
  May I now say a word with regard to the question of the right of appeal? The Franks Committee, in its Report, in Recommendation 25, said:
  "There should be an appeal on fact, law and merits from a tribunal of first instance to an appellant tribunal, except where the tribunal of first instance is exceptionally strong and well qualified."
  There is nothing in the Bill to provide for that. I assume that on this matter the position has been left so that appellate tribunals, if they exist already, may continue as before, as in the case of the National Service Act, 1948 but, surely, we ought to have some view expressed by the Government as to what they intend to do with regard to that recommendation?
  I welcome the provisions in Clause 8 dealing with appeals on points of law, and I welcome, too, the provision in Clause 10 which removes any restriction on the remedies of certiorari and mandamus. I think, too, that, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) said, it might be wise to consider whether an appeal referred to in Clause 8 on any point of law should not be made direct to the Court of Appeal, and then, with leave, to the House of Lords. It would appear, on the face of it, that there might be certain advantages in that.
  I should like to refer now to one or two matters which I would have liked to have seen mentioned in the Bill, but which do not find a place in it. I have already referred to the absence from Clause 1 (1, a) and (1, b) of any reference to administrative procedures. The evils which, to some extent, this Bill will meet will not really be removed until we get legislation dealing with all the abuses of procedure and complaints about bad administration, on the lines of this Bill. I respectfully suggest that the provisions of this Bill should not be limited to tribunals or even to inquiries, but that it should embrace the much wider field of administrative procedures, and, indeed, that that term should be used in its widest possible sense. If that cannot be done by Amendment of this Bill, I trust that we

  1659
  may have some assurance from the learned Attorney-General that it will form the subject matter of further legislation in the near future.
  I should have liked to have seen written into the Bill a provision requiring that the hearings at tribunals should be held in public, as is set out in the thirteenth Recommendation of the Report. I know that it has been said in another place that there is no intention of derogating from any provision already existing that inquiries should be held in public. I know that it has also been said that reference will be made to the Council on Tribunals regarding the hearings at various categories of tribunals which at present are not held in public. My own view is that this is not satisfactory. It seems to me that the principle is so important that it ought to be stated firmly in one of the Clauses of this Bill.
  Now I should like to add a word to what has been said about inspectors' reports. The Report of the Franks Committee recommended publication of a—
  "summary of evidence, findings of facts and inferences of facts; and reasoning from facts … and recommendations."
  Most important of all, the recommendation was that an opportunity should be given to the parties to propose a correction of the facts, and that, in effect, was a form of appeal on their part. My own view is that that is so important a change that, in some way, it should be referred to in the Bill or brought within the matters referred to in Clause 1.
  I understand that this is a change which will be effected administratively, and reference has already been made to a circular issued by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. I gather that the findings and the Minister's decision as a result of that circular are now given at one time. If that is done, it is in direct contradiction to the recommendation of the Franks Committee, because no opportunity is given for the party concerned to correct any mistakes. It is wrong, in my view, that a matter of this kind should be left to the Minister or to his Department. It should be enacted in clear language in the Bill, or in some code drawn up by the Council so that the parties can appreciate and understand their rights.
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  Another important omission from the Bill, as it now appears, is the failure to insert a provision that the reasons shall be given for the decisions arrived at. This, of course, is extremely important, not only in showing how the matter is dealt with, but in enabling the parties to appeal on proper grounds, and, indeed, in some cases, in providing an appeal. I am very glad to know that an undertaking has been given that by some Amendment a provision will be inserted in the Bill to meet this point, and, like the hon. and learned Member for Darwen, I shall await with interest the terms of that provision to see if it is a satisfactory one.
  Now let me refer to another matter which, in my view, most certainly ought to find a place in the Bill. The Franks Committee said that there was a strong case for extending legal aid to tribunals: and a good case; and here I quote the words of the Report:
  "The official scheme of legal aid should be extended at once to those tribunals which are formal and expensive and to final appellate tribunals."
  The Committee made a clear and direct recommendation to that effect. I was glad to note the recent announcement of the Government that they are endeavouring to put into effect before the end of the year some scheme for bringing in the provision as to advice as provided for by Section 7 of the Legal Aid and Advice Act, 1948. I take it—and I should like the opinion of the learned Attorney-General as to this—that the provision of such "advice" will include advice relating to the matters that come within this Bill.
  With regard to the extension of legal aid, which was so strongly recommended in the Franks Committee's Report, I would urge the Government to insert a provision to that effect in the Bill. I think it is necessary that this should be inserted, because it will be remembered that in the Legal Aid and Advice Act, 1948, proceedings before tribunals or administrative bodies were not included in the First Schedule to that Act. Therefore, as that Act stands, they are bodies in respect of whose proceedings legal aid can be given. I know that the Government have said that there is a long queue, but now that that scheme has been extended to apply to country courts and advice is to be given, something should be done with regard to this matter.

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  Surely, it is rather hard on parties who go before these tribunals not to give them such aid. These are cases which vitally affect them. They may well be prevented from bringing a successful appeal because of the lack of means. They are often cases of even greater importance than those in the High Court or county court, where legal aid is given. After all, it should be remembered that there are safeguards in the scheme. It has to be shown before legal aid is given that there is a case upon the merits. Aid is only given to persons of limited means, and very often a considerable contribution is made by the party to whom legal aid is given. I would, in those circumstances, urge the Government to look at this matter again.
  I have offered a number of points of criticism. I welcome the Bill in the hope that it may be enlarged in certain respects. In any case, I hope that it is merely a first instalment in an effort to deal with this vital problem of safeguarding the interests of the individual against the State, and in recognising the fact that Government Departments are not above the law. I hope that it will have a smooth and rapid passage on to the Statute Book.
  6.51 p.m.
  Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: We are spending a good deal of our time today discussing procedure. It may be as well for us to recall that the procedure which is adopted by some tribunals will in no way be affected by this Bill. What we are trying to do is to extend the procedure, which has been found to work in some cases, to the tribunals where it has not been accepted before.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Memebr for Bolton, East (Mr. Philip Bell) referred to the object which we are all trying to achieve and mentioned that the compensation received at the end of the procedure is the important point. It will not do us very much good if today we arrive at a perfect procedure and then the people who go through that procedure find that they are not receiving something which gives them satisfaction. I therefore urge the Government to pay attention to that point, because all the work which we are doing today will have been of no avail unless in questions of compulsory purchase of land that point receives attention.
  The other important point about procedure in the Franks Committee Report, which has not so far been mentioned, is
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  set out in paragraph 405. That mentions the importance of the way in which people make their first approach where these procedures are being adopted. The Franks Report says:
  "… nothing can make up for a wrong approach to administrative activity by the administration's servants. We believe that less public resentment would be aroused against administrative action if all officials were trained in the principle that the individual has the right to enjoy his property without interference from the administration, unless the interference is unmistakably justified in the public interest. For example the attitude of an owner or occupier may well turn on whether he receives reasonable and courteous notice of a proposal to inspect the land."
  All of us will have had experience of cases where the servants of the administration have not borne that important principle in mind. We know of cases where they have entered land and have done considerable damage without any permission for doing so, and there is no way in which the individual can get redress for that. Therefore, if there is anything that we can do today by drawing attention to the importance of correct procedure, it may be that attention can also be drawn to the importance of the first approach and the courtesy which the administration's servants show.
  The other point that I would like to mention is in relation to the inspectors. The matter has been mentioned by one or two other Members today. The Lord Privy Seal, when he was opening the debate, mentioned that it was important for the inspectors to work in close contact with their Departments so that there shall be an efficient dispatch of business.
  Before I was disqualified by coming here, I was the chairman of one of these tribunals and, if my recollection serves me correctly, I was first appointed by the Minister and subsequently by the Lord Chancellor. So far as the procedure was concerned, everything went on exactly the same whoever appointed the chairman. It therefore does not seem that it will make much difference from the point of view of the dispatch of business who appoints the chairman, whether it is the Minister or the Lord Chancellor.
  Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: What was the nature of this body of which he was chairman? I think it is relevant to this issue.
  Mr. Godman Irvine: It was an agricultural land tribunal.
  This matter has been discussed in another place on three occasions, and the Lord Chancellor has gone to considerable trouble to explain his objections to the appointment of inspectors by his Department. He mentioned, for example, that in one Ministry, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, they have 6,000 appeals a year, which is more than the Lord Chancellor felt he could arrange through his Department. I suggest that it would not be necessary for any organisation to be transferred to his Department, apart from the actual appointment of those inspectors.
  There is no reason I can see why inspectors should still not be just as closely attached to the Minister as they are at the moment. The important point is that they should be appointed by the Lord Chancellor so that the public may see that they are nothing to do with the Minister to whom they are reporting. That seems to me to be a point of considerable substance, and I hope the Government will consider it again.
  6.56 p.m.
  Mr. Mark Bonham Carter: I hesitate to speak on this Bill, as I believe I am the first Member to speak in this debate who does not belong to the legal profession. Therefore, anything I say will be said with hesitation and humility, but I shall speak as one of those who will be affected by what is proposed in the Bill.
  A number of points have been made this afternoon by hon. Members, and I do not think that it will be necessary for me to apologise for not following them. I may indeed follow them so closely that I shall say precisely the same things that they have said.
  We have had quotations from Blackstone and De Tocqueville and from a Labour Party pamphlet. The quotation which I should like to use to introduce my speech comes from no less an authority than Dicey, but it was Dicey quoting a Spanish proverb:
  "The more we have of the more, the less we have of the less."
  This seems to me to be the condition which this Bill is designed to remedy. There has been so much more of the more over the last thirty or forty years
  1664
  that, as the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Privy Seal said in his opening speech, this is the first Bill for a long time which has made any attempt to defend the rights and liberties of the individual against the increasing power of the State. It is, therefore, one which, as Liberals, we can only welcome, and I would like to join with other hon. Members who have congratulated the Government on the speed with which they have followed up the Franks Report and on the speed with which the Bill has been introduced.
  I cannot go quite so far as the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke), who compared the Bill to a Dutch dyke and saw the sea being pushed back in all directions. We hope that the Bill is the first stage in the defence of the liberties of the individual, but we hope, also, that the Government will not be satisfied with this alone.
  There is one point in particular which has been mentioned before and to which I should like to draw attention. That is the question of the decisions of tribunals. As I understand, it is possible for an individual to appeal to the High Court, from a decision by a tribunal, but also, as I understand, unless the tribunal states the reasons for the decision which it has reached, it may be impossible for the High Court to deal with such an appeal.
  It therefore seems to me essential that all these tribunals should give their reasons, both to make it possible for persons to appeal from them and also because it seems to me important that people should understand the grounds on which tribunals reach their decisions. It is important not merely that justice should be done but also that it should be seen to be done, and in connection with this matter we should like an assurance from the Government that these tribunals will state their reasons for reaching their decisions.
  Secondly, I join with other hon. Members on both sides of the House who have emphasised the importance of having the proceedings of these tribunals held in public. A provision should be written into the Bill to this effect. There are occasions on which, for obvious reasons, it is better that such proceedings should be held in private, but the need for this ought to have to be proved and it should be the normal practice to hold them in public.

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  In the Bill as it stands very little is said about inquiries, but it seems to me that inquiries are one of the matters which have given rise to a considerable feeling of distrust on the part of the public. Nor is anything said in connection with what has been called Crichel Downism—or maladministration. This subject has inevitably been left out of the Bill, since it was beyond the terms of reference of the Franks Committee, whose conclusions provide the basis for the Bill. I hope that the Government will regard the Bill as a first stage, and that the very difficult and complicated but important question of maladministration, or Crichel Downism, will receive their attention after the Bill has gone through all its stages.
  In the meantime, I join with other hon. Members—all members of the legal profession, so far—in saying how much I welcome the Bill, and hope that it will have a quick and easy passage.
  7.2 p.m.
  Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: We were all delighted to hear our Liberal colleague contributing to the discussion of this matter, to which I know the Liberal Party has always given great support. If, as he pointed out, the hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. Bonham Carter) were not a specialist in the subject, he certainly did not let the specialists' team down.
  In a modern society the preservation of the liberty of the subject is a specialised and complex process of law. The reason why those who have spoken in the debate so far have been specialists is that unless one is a specialist one does not understand how to control the great power of the State and the paraphernalia of Whitehall. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) pointed out the real pith of the debate. He said that there was no debate on the Bill, because we are all agreed upon it, but that there was a debate going on between the Civil Service and the lawyers. It is more than a debate; it is a fight.
  The Bill restores some of the power of the House. It is the outcome of the efforts of a great many back benchers, which led to the setting up of the Franks Committee. I want to make sure only that the Bill gives power to the Council which is set up under it. In this connection, two recommendations were made
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  by the Franks Committee. The first was that a Council should be set up, and the second—which I earnestly draw to the attention of the House, because in no part is it contained in the Bill—was in these terms:
  "The detailed procedure for each tribunal should be designed to meet its particular circumstances and should be formulated by the Council of Tribunals in the light of the general principles enunciated in this Report. The aim should be generally to combine an orderly procedure with an informal atmosphere."
  Everybody is agreed upon that recommendation. All the specialists who have spoken, on both sides of the House, agree with it. It is accepted by everybody who has ever written on the question of the rule of law—and many of them have been elevated to Ministerial rank. I am delighted to see that the holder of the Front Bench at the moment is a co-author of the pamphlet, "The Rule of Law". I refer to the Joint Under-Secretary of State to the Home Department. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Health was another of its co-authors, and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury yet another. Despite their combined power, the Bill is not yet properly drafted to meet the principles set out in the pamphlet. After all the evidence given before the Franks Committee—and I was one of those who gave evidence—and the unanimous findings of that Committee, we have still not yet defeated the paraphernalia of Whitehall.
  If we look at the Preamble to the Bill—and it is sometimes useful to do so—we see that nowhere does it confer any power upon the Council. It is:
  "An Act to constitute a Council of Tribunals; to make further provision as to the appointment …"
  and so on. There is no word of any conferment of powers or as to the procedure to be adopted by the Council. Clause 1 says:
  "There shall be a council, entitled the Council of Tribunals … to keep under review … to consider and report … to consider and report …"
  That is all. If the Lord Chancellor is to approve such a Council, I have not the slightest doubt that its work will be admirably set out, and I have little doubt that the work it does in the next few years will also be admirable. But what will be the position if, in the years ahead, another Government decide that they do not want to pay any attention to the work of the

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  Council? There is no power which the Council can enforce.
  I want to deploy my reasons for saying that the Bill will require amendment if it is to have teeth, and greater strength. I agree that it covers both tribunals and inquiries, but it is to be noticed that many tribunals and inquiries have been deliberately excluded from the Schedule—especially those related to town and country planning. The difficulty is that it is twenty-five years since the Donoughmore Committee reported. For twenty years Parliament showed no real sign of tackling the problem. Only in the last five years has it at last begun to look towards the checks and balances which are necessary to restore some of the liberties of the subject.
  As so often happens in matters of this kind, I first became deeply interested in the subject by chance, at the time of the new town inquiries with which I was concerned—especially in the case of Crawley and Stevenage. It was an unfortunate observation—although a perfectly truthful one—made by Sir Hartley Shawcross, no other, which led to my becoming interested in this subject. In referring to the Stevenage and Crawley new town inquiries, he was quite right to say that the opportunity for objectors at those inquiries was merely to blow off hot air, and that it was nothing else. He went on to say that the legislation of the New Towns Act, 1946, was not designed to give any right of a proper hearing to the objector; it was designed merely as an opportunity for him to make an objection. At that time I felt strongly about the matter. I hope one day I shall have an opportunity in this House to redress the balance.
  After 1947 and 1948, I had an opportunity, as no doubt many other hon. Members had, to appear before rent tribunals. I. remember once being refused any hearing at all at one inquiry when I appeared for a man who was deaf and dumb and whose licence was to be revoked. I remember on another occasion, when cross-examining one of the witnesses, that he suddenly left the rent tribunal, whereupon the chairman dismissed the case in my favour, which was an unusual mode of justice. The chairman of the rent tribunal at Hammersmith did not like cross-examination or questions put in any way but through the chair. I observe that
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  Recommendation (19) of the Franks Committee expressly deals with that point, saying that parties before tribunals should be free to question witnesses directly and not only through the chairman.
  Many of these matters have been canvassed among organisations, who gave evidence before the Franks Committee upon them. In a good many cases, both in connection with rent tribunals and with inquiries under the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, there was keen and intense opposition from those representing the official departments, both in the case of health and of housing. In many other cases, evidence was given strongly to the contrary view, namely, that this was merely an administrative procedure and that there was nothing quasi-judicial about it at all.
  So it was through 1948 and 1950, until the legislation which right hon. Gentlemen apposite introduced—or their predecessors—without these brakes. We have Members on the Opposition benches in this Chamber today who are well known for their liberal views on this matter, those who have an understanding of the subject, like the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice), who led for the Opposition. I am content with the views which they express, but not with the views of some who are absent and who have a dictatorial attitude to the matter. These views have led them to pass legislation bringing about the state of affairs which we found in the rent tribunals and the new town inquiries, and many other things about which some of us have felt so strongly. That is the background to 1950 and 1951, and until about six years ago.
  Hon. Members on this side of the House got together, and various inquiries took place—this is history—leading to pamphlets. The pamphlets led to the setting up of the Franks Committee and the statement which was made earlier by the Lord Privy Seal, when he referred to the party programme of 1955 following upon the Committee's Report. I do not think the battle has yet been won over the Civil Service. Let me give one example, which concerns the question of inspectors' reports.
  There are two views on this matter. The view of the Civil Service is well

  1669
  known and has been stated many times. I have heard it from civil servants in evidence which they have given. It is that if inspectors' reports were to be published, containing both issues of fact and issues of policy, it would be difficult for an inspector to set out these matters clearly and cogently. Furthermore, there may have to be a lot of Departmental discussion upon the issues of policy and it is difficult to split these issues off from the issue of fact. There is a great deal of force in that view.
  Mr. Arthur Moyle: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: It is not at all a one-sided argument. After having heard the whole of the evidence, of which there is always a long disclosure, from the Civil Service and, on the other hand, the views of lawyers, who always take the contrary view, the Franks Committee under its brilliant chairman came down quite clearly against the Civil Service on this issue. Yet when we look at the draftmanship of the Bill we do not see that the power to make rules of procedure will reside in the Council. It does not, and the argument is that to do so would be taking away Ministerial responsibility.
  I cannot agree with that argument. My right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal, who was for many years in the post of Home Secretary, must know that that is not the same as taking away Ministerial responsibility. A Minister is responsible for policy. There is no reason why a Minister should be responsible for rules of procedure, which are analogous to those of the Lord Chancellor. He is absolutely responsible for the policy of his Department, for the execution as well as for the formulation of that policy. Where a tribunal is being set up, I see no reason why the Minister should be responsible for the rules of its procedure, which should be formulated by the Council in the light of the general principles enunciated in the Report.
  Those general principles are that the citizen should understand and be fully aware of his rights, and apply for those rights. He should be able to hear the case which he has to meet, and having heard it he should have a full opportunity of attending and hearing the case. He should have the right of representation. There should be the power to
  1670
  administer the oath, and the citizen should be able to question witnesses freely. There should be the right of publication, after a full and clear hearing of the reasons for the decision. Those are the basic rights. If the Council on Tribunals is given power to formulate procedure which relates to tribunals, that would be the way to ensure in future that there are the teeth which are necessary in this matter.
  I warmly welcome the Bill. I believe that it should be carried out with the greatest expedition. I believe it is the earnest desire of the Government to ensure the liberty of the subject, but I want to make sure that whatever Government may come hereafter shall not find themselves in difficulties. We must be sure that what we do in the next few months is preserved for the future benefit and liberty of our people.
  7.17 p.m.
  Mr. Arthur Moyle: I gather from the speech to which we have just listened that the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) does not look on the Civil Service with a kindly eye. I hope that his outlook upon the Civil Service is not shared by hon. Members on Government benches. I shall never forget the abuse that was let loose against the Civil Service in connection with the Crichel Down inquiry. I am all for liberty, provided it is balanced with authority, otherwise we cannot get Parliamentary democracy to work.
  Therefore, in seeking to promote individual liberty, let us be very careful that we do not destroy Parliamentary democracy in the process. Private discussions which have taken place between civil servant and civil servant in connection with the Crichel Down inquiry were disclosed at the inquiry. Had those civil servants known that they would be exposed to public inquiry they would never have been so free in expressing themselves in such an unguarded way.
  Although a product of Welsh Nonconformity and a lover of liberty, I cannot see how we can possibly run an administrative machine like the Civil Service unless there is some area of absolute confidence between the Minister and his principal secretaries and between civil servant and civil servant. Although the hon. Member spoke about the Oliver Franks Committee having come down

  1671
  against the Civil Service on that point, we had better wait to see what procedure and rules will govern that aspect of the matter in future.
  I am very glad that the Bill does not come down 100 per cent. on the side of the lawyers in relation to administrative tribunals. I am all for the legal profession. I am a great admirer of that profession. My only grouse against it is that I was not invited to become a member of it, but, when a halo is put around a barrister's head and it is said that when a chairman of an administrative inquiry or tribunal is to be chosen he must be a lawyer with ten years' experience in addition to his other qualifications, speaking as a product of the trade union movement and having experienced the advantages and disadvantages of administrative law, I feel that I could make a very strong case for public men of wide experience and for men in other professions to hold those positions in some cases.
  The British Transport Commission, for instance, might be taken before some arbitor to decide whether it ought to spend £2 million, or £100,000, to make good a certain stretch of canal for which it is responsible. I should have thought an experienced civil engineer would be an ideal chairman for such an inquiry. I would have the lawyer on tap, not on top, in that connection.
  I am glad that the Bill does not make legal qualifications the one and only qualification for chairmanship of a tribunal. I have read the Report substantially and I have read the Bill, and regret that it falls short in the kind of case, to which one of my hon. Friends referred, which would come into the category of administrative procedure.
  As one who had a great deal of experience of these matters in connection with local government legislation, such as in superannuation Acts, electricity supply Acts, and so forth, I found in my work as a trade union official in hundreds of cases—I have no complaint about it—that the Acts laid down that, in matters of dispute between worker and employer on such questions as compensation rights in respect of redundancy, the question was to be determined by the Minister of the Department concerned. Whenever a dispute had arisen between the parties papers
  1672
  were submitted by both sides setting out the essentials of the case, but the Minister decided them.
  Here is the objection I wish to register against the existing procedure. The Minister considers the case and decides the issue, but the appellants are informed only that the appeal has been allowed or disallowed. To inform the parties to such a dispute only of the bare decision without any reasons for the judgment that has been reached, is most irritating to the appellant if he loses, and to the respondent if he loses.
  While I have no wish to alter the position of the Minister in such circumstances, it seems a matter of administrative common sense that in all such cases—there are thousands of them in various departments of local government, and so forth—those who have submitted a dispute should be informed of the reasons for the Minister making his decision in favour or against an appeal.
  Those are the main points I wish to make. Perhaps the Attorney-General will look at that aspect of the matter, because it may be one which can be decided apart from the Bill, as a matter of procedure. I am certain that the psychology of the matter would be completely changed if people knew not only the judgment reached, but the reason why it was reached.
  7.26 p.m.
  Mr. Gordon Walker: We have had a debate very largely dominated by lawyers. I think that before my hon. Friend the Member for Oldbury and Halesowen (Mr. Moyle) spoke we had had an unbroken succession of lawyer Members taking part. For that reason I heard his intervention with even greater pleasure than I normally find in his contributions.
  Listening as a layman, with great edification, to those lawyers' speeches, there seemed possibly a suggestion that lawyers have a sort of monopoly of both the love and understanding of liberty whereas, in the long run, that is a matter for laymen and has to be settled by laymen. Laymen may get a better balance in this rather subtle and difficult problem than some of the lawyers.
  We have had a debate worthy of the subject we have been discussing. I welcome the Bill. I think it a timely renewal

  1673
  of an ancient constitutional process which brought our courts into being. They were not born in their present form; they came into being by the same sort of process through which tribunals are going. The courts as we know them came into being because the King, the fount of justice, made a number of ad hoc administrative decisions to extend his court in order to satisfy the demand of his subjects for the settlement of numerous disputes, to meet needs of State administration, and also to raise revenue. As an historian said, in the history of the evolution of our legal system the law and the profits have been closely associated.
  We must not forget, and lawyers must not forget, that for many centuries the exercise of the powers of the courts was closely associated with that of the State. Judges on assize were an integral part of the royal administration and were much feared. There is a case on record of the people of an entire town taking to the woods when the assize judges were coming on their seven-year visitation. It was not until the struggle with the Stuarts that the courts became independent umpires separated from the Executive.
  Today, Parliament is the fount of justice and in the last quarter century or so—in much the same way as the Crown in the Middle Ages, partly because there was a demand for extension of State activity and also because of a consequential demand for protecting rights against State activity—Parliament has produced a number of tribunals and inquiries and similar processes.
  The Bill is continuing something which has been going on for some time because considerable progress has been made by specific statutes in making these tribunals more like courts with the functions of courts, more judicial. That will be carried further by this Bill and we welcome it. As I read it, the Bill represents an effort to sort out the quasi-judicial tribunals from the other kinds and then to equate them much more closely and uniformly with the courts. But, of course, it is a terrific task to sort out the tribunals; they are of every conceivable kind. If one looks at the First Schedule to the Bill, one finds that it finishes up in a most complicated classification and cross-classification of types of tribunals.
  1674
  As has been said today, there are, in the first place, tribunals which are not in the Bill at all, so that we have a distinction between tribunals which are in the Schedule and those which are not. Then we find that some of those that are in the Schedule have their chairmen appointed from the Lard Chancellor's panel, some have chairmen dismissible only by the Lord Chancellor, some are subject to appeal by the courts, and so on. These various criteria do not coincide, and, according to the Bill, there is no set of characteristics common to any particular set of tribunals.
  The Labour Party feels a very special concern with these problems of liberty which form the subject matter of the Bill. We have a rather distinctive attitude to the State and its rôle and functions which is different from that of the Liberal Party and from that of many hon. Gentlemen opposite. We do not take the simple laissez-faire view that the State should do practically nothing, or as little as possible. To us, the problem of liberty is not the simple one of a clash between the individual and authority. If it were, it would be very easy to settle; one could always settle it in favour of the individual and against authority. It is a much more complex and difficult problem than many of the lawyers who took part in the debate seemed to think.
  The State has certain positive duties. It has a positive rôle, and, if it does not fulfil it, this, too, would be a danger to liberty. The extensions of welfare, education, legal aid—all these things, which represent an exercise of State power, enlarge liberty. There is not a simple conflict between the extension, of State power and the liberty of the individual, for these extensions of welfare, education and so forth involve both an enlargement of liberty and restrictions on individual liberty
  It is, for instance, a restriction on the rights of a parent or child to compel a child to go to school. If one had tried to do that a couple of hundred years ago, it would have been regarded as a most monstrous invasion of liberty. But we regard it as necessary because, on balance, it enlarges the liberty of individuals if they are better educated and the level of education generally in society is higher and more uniform.
  There is a much more subtle balance to be struck here than was suggested by

  1675
  some of the lawyers who spoke today. Although State action is necessary for liberty, there can be abuse of State action or arbitrary power which can destroy liberty. Liberty can be destroyed, on the one hand, if the State refuses to do the things which it ought to do. On the other hand, it can be destroyed if the State abuses its powers. This is a very much more subtle balance to strike than the one presented by the simple conflict between authority and the individual.
  It is because the Labour Party takes this view that we are so extremely concerned about individual liberty. As we said very clearly in our booklet, "Personal Freedom", on page 9:
  "It is just because Socialists look to the State to provide measures and machinery for reform that we are jealous for the citizens' rights against the State."
  We feel a particular interest and obligation to preserve the rights of the individual because we believe that the State has positive actions to perform.
  This is not just generality. We have made many concrete proposals and we have done many things. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Torrington (Mr. Bonham Carter) is not right in saying that the Bill is an isolated Measure to help the individual against the State. He forgets the Crown Proceedings Act passed by the Government of 1945, the extension of legal aid introduced by the same Government, the Statutory Instruments Act, the abolition of the special jury.
  All these things were done by the Labour Government, and they were part of the work we must be doing all the time to keep the balance right between individual and State. The sort of ludicrous picture painted by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies)—a gross distortion of our party as a party which wants to have a "Leviathan State" eating everyone up—is completely false and belied by the record and the facts.
  I am glad to say that our policy in "Personal Freedom" preceded the Franks Report by a year and very closely anticipated the conclusions of the Franks Report. Indeed, if one looks through our document, and then turns to the Franks Report, it is very difficult to think
  1676
  that one did not influence the other. I suppose that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General has not got a copy, but I will give him one in a moment or two. If he looks at page 22 of our document, he will find that all the major proposals made by the Franks Committee for tribunals are here:
  "Members of Administrative Tribunals should as a general rule be appointed by the Lord Chancellor … Hearings should be in public … Legal representation should be permitted … Reports should normally be published"
  the prerogative writs should apply, and so on. Every single important proposal in regard to tribunals made by the Franks Committee was anticipated by our document, and, as my right hon. and learned Friend said, the same thing applies to the Franks recommendations about inquiries.
  The Bill is, therefore, in line with the declared policy of the Labour Party. It does not go as far as we should like and it does not go as far as we asked in our document. None the less, we welcome it and support it, although we have a number of doubts about its scope and effect. As my right hon. and learned Friend said, without legal aid, much in the Bill will really be ineffective. There has been much talk today about the need for openness, fairness and impartiality in courts and tribunals. Quite right. But there is a fourth characteristic they should have, namely, accessibility to ordinary people. Unless there is legal aid, certainly for the more important and expensive of the tribunals, openness, fairness and impartiality will not be enough. It is no good having those things if ordinary people cannot reach them.
  My right hon. and learned Friend referred to a number of doubts and asked certain questions about the practice, the equipment, and the effectiveness of the proposed Council. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be able to answer them. We shall certainly press the matter as much as we can in Committee, if necessary. It is extremely important to have a full and definite picture of the Council, not just a vague idea about it being a "watchdog". For instance, what does the word "continuous" mean? Does it mean daily, weekly, monthly, or what? We want to know because we cannot, without such answers, judge the Bill.

  1677
  Of course, any sort of watchdog is better than being without a watchdog at all. It is really a principle of our Constitution that anyone who exercises power, be he high or low, is answerable to someone else. Tribunals have not been answerable in this way to an outside body watching them, and the mere fact that there is such a body will, I hope, keep them up to scratch. However, the application of this principle means also that the Council itself must be watched, and this is the duty of Parliament. The annual report will come to us, and I hope that the custom will grow up of having an annual report on the subject so that we may really exercise our watchdog function over the watchdog Council.
  I agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Foot) that the scope of the Bill is not wide enough, that it touches only the fringes of the problem of individual liberty. It is a very important Measure, but let us not blow it up quite so much as did the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. It is not so important as all that. There is a tremendous amount left to do. I am not thinking only of bringing in inquiries, though there is much point in that.
  The sort of thing I am thinking of is that it is not only public authority which is a danger to liberty. Concentrations of economic power can be a danger to liberty, and those who really wish to preserve liberty must remember that sort of attack on liberty, also. Part of the remedy is the acceptance by the State of its duty so to guide the economy that great concentrations of economic power do not so much control the lives of individuals or, indeed, the life of society as a whole.
  In this matter of liberty and the State, it is not only property rights which are in issue. It is very important that property shall be properly protected. The Bill does noihing, really, but protect property. But this is not anything like the whole of the problem. There is the whole subject of personal rights.
  The hon. and learned Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Philip Bell) went so far as to identify liberty with property. He practically got himself saying that the poor man cannot be free.
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  There are, of course, extremely important personal liberties that have nothing to do with property, and they are not touched on in the Bill. The Government have done little to develop liberty in fields such as the fair treatment of people in claims for pensions or proper protection regarding State security.
  The safeguarding of personal privacy against invasion by the State through such means as telephone-tapping is another instance. Telephone-tapping should be much more restricted than it is. One should not get one's mind so fixed on property that one forgets the right of the individual for privacy against the State. It is as important as the other provisions in the Bill. These are matters in which the Labour Party is just as much interested as the valuable but rather narrow scope of the Bill.
  We certainly welcome the Bill as far as it goes. It carries forward a process launched by Labour Governments. I can assure the Attorney-General that this further limited but certainly important step forward embodied in the Bill will carry the broad support of both sides of the House.
  7.42 p.m.
  The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): The right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) has made a strenuous effort to try to adopt the Bill and claim credit for it and to say that it follows in a line of Labour legislation.
  Mr. Gordon Walker: I am engaged on the "Adoption" Bill at the same time.
  The Attorney-General: It may be that that is why the right hon. Gentleman sought to claim credit for it. But it is a wholly ill-founded claim, as I shall show in a moment or two. Throughout his speech he had a certain degree of temerity with which I must deal on behalf of members of my profession on both sides of the House. Throughout his speech was the theme, the very popular theme, of criticising the lawyers and trying to represent that in all respects laymen, professors and dons were far superior to lawyers.
  Mr. Gordon Walker: Equal—not superior.
  The Attorney-General: No—far superior. That was the theme.
  I think it is true and non-controversial that we in our profession who attend these courts, who go to these tribunals and attend these inquiries and hearings, are perhaps in a better position than a layman who attends one and is probably violently affected by the result, to give a broad picture to the House of what is going on and what has been going on. That is why when we get a Bill of this sort we find that the lawyers on both sides predominate in the discussion. I do not think that that is a bad thing at all, and I certainly do not think there is any justification for the kind of implied criticism directed to us, no doubt in a spirit of humour, by the right hon. Gentleman.
  Everyone in the course of the debate has welcomed the Bill, but I think, having regard to the attendance in the House on both sides and to the practice of this House, perhaps the most significant proof of the merits of this very important Bill is the thin attendance in the House. When a major Bill is generally approved by all hon. Members, then I think it is true to say that they do not feel it necessary to attend the whole day and give their praise.
  A Bill like this obviously commands almost universal approval, and those who have attended today, while welcoming the Bill, have given voice to a number of criticisms, many of them perhaps dealing with Committee points, some of them perhaps with more than Committee points; but every hon. Member who has spoken has welcomed the Bill.
  The right hon. Gentleman paid a tribute to a Socialist pamphlet, which is obviously not selling particularly well, because he wanted to advertise it, so much. That pamphlet followed a pamphlet called "Rule of Law", which was infinitely superior.
  Mr. Gordon Walker: That is also failing to sell.
  The Attorney-General: No; that has sold out. That pamphlet, "Rule of Law", was far superior to the one which copied it, and no doubt what appeared in the pamphlet "Rule of Law" had great effect on public opinion throughout the country.
  When one thinks back to the years 1945 and 1951, and when one thinks of
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  a predecessor in my office referring to an inquiry as something which merely gives an opportunity to blow off steam, and the criticisms in those days of the functioning of inquiries and of the functioning of certain tribunals set up under the Socialist Government—and Crichel Down was not a tribunal, nor a public inquiry—
  Mr. Gordon Walker: That was not under the Labour Government.
  The Attorney-General: No, I know it was not, but I can think of certain tribunals which were set up under the Labour Government which caused great dissatisfaction. When one thinks of that and the fact that nothing was done between 1945 and 1951 to put that right, I say to the right hon. Gentleman that he will have to work much harder to try to convince us that he can claim any credit for this Measure.
  I should like to turn to what was said by the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice), who ended his speech by welcoming the Bill. In one sense the universal welcome has made my task more easy. But in a sense it has made my task more difficult, because a wide variety of points have been raised, some of them Committee points with which I should like now to deal shortly, if I can, in the hope that perhaps I may satisfy the hon. Members who raised them. While we all welcome the Bill, I would ask the House to bear in mind the time remaining in this Session. I am sure that all of us who do welcome the Bill will want to facilitate and not delay or prevent its passage to the Statute Book.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman began his speech with a proposition that I personally find difficult to accept, when he said that for most people administrative procedures require more examination than the functioning of tribunals. I quite recognise that some people may take that view. I think that a strong case could be made out the other way, for I think it is true to say, whether rightly or wrongly, that certain proceedings of certain tribunals, such as rent tribunals, have caused, whether justifiably or not—and I do not want to be controversial about that—very considerable disquiet.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman went on to ask why there was in the Bill this unbalance between the part referring to tribunals and the part referring to

  1681
  administrative procedures? But if he would look at the Franks Committee Report he will see that while the Franks Committee recommend that there should be a Council on Tribunals, when one considers the recommendations with regard to administrative procedure, only two of those recommendations cast functions of any kind upon the Council on Tribunals—namely, Recommendation 72, about the codes of procedure being formulated by the Council and made statutory, and Recommendation 79, that it should consider the basis on which reasonable costs should be assessed. That is why, following as we did the Franks Report, the Bill took the form that it did in another place. By acceptance of the Amendment made there to Clause 1, the functions of the Council on Tribunals have been materially extended from those contemplated by the Franks Report. I do not think any of us will regard that as a bad thing.
  I want to say a little more about Clause 1, which, as has been said, is perhaps one of the most important Clauses of the Bill. The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked me what was meant by the expression "keeping under continuous review". That expression does not appear in the Bill. It is taken from paragraph 43 of the Report of the Franks Committee. The words in the Bill are "keep under review". It will be for the Council when appointed to consider in what manner it can best perform this task. It may be by calling for reports as to the manner in which the tribunals function, certainly by watching and having reports on how their procedures are functioning. There is, I should have thought, no difficulty in stating the objective: that is to say, that the Council should, as the Franks Committee recommended, keep the constitution and working of the tribunals under review. The exact methods to be adopted by the Council will be a matter for the Council, when appointed, to determine.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked whether the Council would be a full-time or part-time body. In our view, the Council must be a part-time body. If it is to consist of men and women of the eminence and with the breadth of experience which it must have, such people will not be able to give more than part of their time to its work. The chairman, and the chairman of the
  1682
  Scottish Committee, may be willing to give perhaps half-time to the Council, but the question of the duties to be laid upon the Council must be considered in the light of the amount of time which its members will be able to devote to them.
  I hope that I am not missing any of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's questions. I tried to note them as he spoke. Concerning Clause 3, he asked why the Lord Chancellor was to appoint the panels from which the chairmen should be selected and would not appoint the chairmen himself, as the Franks Committee recommended. My noble Friend will constitute a panel of persons suitable to act as chairmen. The reason is that there are so many different tribunals throughout the country that it would be an impossible task for my noble Friend if he had put upon him the burden of selecting the individual chairman in, say, Northumberland or wherever it may be, for a particular session of a tribunal. The system of operating by selection from panels has not worked badly in the past. I believe that by this machinery we are, in effect, achieving the substance of what the Franks Committee desired: namely, the selection by the Lord Chancellor of the persons who are to function as chairmen.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman's next question concerned Clause 4 (1) as to the meaning of the expression that the appropriate Minister "shall have regard to recommendations" made by the Council on Tribunals concerning the appointment of members of the tribunals. The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked what exactly was meant in this context by the expression "have regard to". I can best paraphrase it by saying that in my view it means "pay attention to". It does not mean that the Minister is necessarily bound by the recommendation. The Minister has to make the appointment, but he must pay attention to the recommendation. Having regard to the powers of the Council to make an annual report, obviously he would not be likely to ignore a recommendation, or, indeed, go contrary to it, without very good reason indeed.
  On what was really the Second Reading debate on the Bill, when we were discussing the Franks Report, I dealt with the kind of recommendations that the Council on Tribunals would make, for example,

  1683
  about the balance of representation on a certain type of tribunal, by drawing attention to the fact that the members of a particular tribunal were getting rather on the old side and matters of that sort, or possibly, when names were being put forward, by recommending that there should perhaps be more ladies on a particular tribunal, and so on. I do not think that in practice there will be any difficulty in that regard.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman then asked what was for me a difficult question to deal with, as to why in Scotland the powers of the Lord Chancellor in England would be exerted by the Lord President of the Court of Session. It is rather embarrassing for me to deal with that, but I do not think I should be criticised for saying that my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate does not occupy a position quite comparable to that of the Lord Chancellor. Very careful thought was given to the question of the right person to exercise these powers in Scotland. Bearing in mind the Lord Advocate's other duties and responsibilities, particularly, perhaps, in connection with the administration of the criminal law, it was considered advisable and right that these powers should be exercised in this instance by the Lord President of the Court of Session. There are precedents for doing that.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked questions, with regard to Clauses 8 and 10, as to the position that might arise should there be a divergence between the Court of Session and the Court of Appeal with no machinery for resolving it by going to a higher court. The same position might well arise if there were two conflicting decisions in the courts of appeal in this country. All I can say to the right hon. and learned Gentleman is that I have noted what he said and will further consider the point.
  There is force in the view that there should be some way of resolving conflicting decisions of courts of equivalent jurisdiction. One knows of the difficulties which have arisen in Revenue cases where that problem has occurred and how they have necessitated a journey to another House. We have to try to work out machinery to resolve that difficulty without making it easy for appeals to go to the House of Lords on matters of this
  1684
  sort. That is a matter to which we can give further thought in Committee.
  With regard to Clause 10, the right hon. and learned Gentleman asked me about the giving of reasons by tribunals for their decisions. He made the valid point that unless reasons are given, the person affected may not be able to obtain a writ of certiorari. My noble Friend the Lord Chancellor made a statement about that in another place on 13th May and said that an Amendment would be tabled in this House to ensure that in all proper cases reasons would be given. I do not want to cause any alarm of disquiet by the use of the words "in all proper cases". There are certain types of cases which we shall have to consider in which we must, I think, accept the fact, that it is really not possible to give reasons.
  The sort of case I have in mind is where a tribunal is trying to assess percentage disability, and in the light of the evidence and in the light of an examination of the disabled person, the view is formed by the tribunal that the disability is, say, 60 per cent. That is something for which it would be very hard for the tribunal to express any reasons why it reached 60 per cent. as the percentage assessment and not, say, 65 per cent. There may be one or two cases like that where the decision of the tribunal is a decision based on expert opinion for which one would find it hard to express reasons.
  We may have to make—I am being perfectly frank with the House—an exception for the kind of tribunal which functions in that way. We have to look at that; but we are determined to ensure that in all other cases where particular circumstances of this kind do not apply reasons should be given, partly for the reason put forward by the hon. Member for Oldbury and Halesowen (Mr. Moyle) and partly because, if reasons were given in a proper case, it would enable the case to be taken higher.
  Mr. Moyle: Did I understand the right hon. and learned Gentleman to say the case might be taken higher?
  The Attorney-General: Yes.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson) said he had no confidence in circulars. That kind of observation has been made more than once in this debate. All I would say now about that is that I have not heard in this

  1685
  debate a single word of criticism of the content of those circulars. The only way in which the administrative provisions of the Franks Committee which were accepted by the Government could be put into effect without delay was by the drafting and sending round of circulars of that kind, and that was done. When one hears, as one has heard sometimes in this debate, criticisms of the Civil Service and of its attitude to this problem one should I think bear in mind the promptitude with which it acted in drafting circulars of this kind, which have completely escaped criticism in this debate.
  I hope, too, that in due course we shall get some statutory provisions for a code of procedure; but I believe it to be true that it will be much better to set up this powerful Council on Tribunals and let it consider and look at and make suggestions about procedure and then to make the necessary statutory provisions rather than to do so or to seek to do so now in advance of any knowledge of what the Council's recommendations would be.
  The hon. and learned Member for Ipswich (Mr. Foot) asked when we could expect further legislation after the recommendations of the Council had been received. Assuming, as I do, that this Government will continue in office for a great many more years, one can safely assume, having regard to what has happened about the Report, that legislation would not be too long delayed after the receipt of the Council's recommendations; but, of course, I cannot speak about what would happen should the events I have predicted not occur.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Philip Bell) made what he called a number of subsidiary criticisms. I think that as he is not here I will not deal with them. No doubt he will raise them again in Committee. I have taken note of them and they will be considered.
  The hon. and learned Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine) asked what was the meaning of the word "particular" in Clause 1 (1, c). I do not think myself that it has any tremendous significance. As I read that subsection the duty of the Council will be to consider such particular matters of procedure as may be referred to it, and
  1686
  "to consider and report on such … matters as … the Council may determine to be of special importance."
  The judgment of whether a matter is of special importance is left to the Council itself. I will again consider what the hon. and learned Member said, but I think myself that this arrangement will work satisfactorily.
  He asked, too, why should we delay bringing in further legislation, and why no code of procedure was written into this Bill? We have not delayed. We can only deal with this very big task piecemeal, if we are going to deal with it properly. We really cannot have in one Bill matters dealing with all the various Departments and all the various machinery. I do not think that that would really be feasible. If we had to wait till we had a Bill to deal with all these matters we should have to wait a long time, and I think it is important that we should get the Council working as soon as we can.
  The hon. and learned Gentleman raised many complicated points about the Town and Country Planning Acts. I confess I found it a little difficult to follow him, but I can assure him that the points he made will receive most careful examination.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) made a speech also calling attention to Clause 1 (1, c). I think I have covered most of the points he touched on. He asked whether that provision gave the Council power to look into hearings. If he would be good enough to look at Clause 12 (1) he will see that the expression "statutory inquiry" means
  "an inquiry or hearing held or to be held"
  and so on. So the answer to that question is "Yes".
  Then he asked for an assurance that hearings would not in future be preferred by the Minister to inquiries. I know of no ground for supposing that the practice with regard to hearings, as opposed to inquiries, will be changed in any way, and I am not prepared to give any such assurance. I do not think there is any ground for it, particularly when one bears in mind that the provision in this Clause applies to hearings as it does to inquiries.
  My hon. and learned Friend asked why there should be no rule-making powers in the Bill. One has to bear in mind, in

  1687
  enacting a Measure, that the rule-making powers may exist elsewhere. My hon. Friend, too, criticised those Circulars as frail and unsatisfactory; unsatisfactory, I think, in his view, merely because they were circulars and could be altered. As I say, I think there would have been much more criticism if those circulars had not been issued.
  The hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) put forward the interesting idea that an appeal should lie directly to the Court of Appeal and then to the House of Lords under Clause 8. It is an interesting suggestion and we will give consideration to it. I am not sure myself whether it would be a good thing. There may be fairly powerful arguments for not permitting that while yet permitting appeal in appropriate cases to the House of Lords.
  The hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. Bonham-Carter) suggested that tribunals should give reasons for their decisions so that appeals on law could be effected. I think I have already answered his point.
  My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) made a number of points which I have already fully covered.
  I hope and trust that I have dealt with the detailed points that have been raised in this debate. I have dealt with some of them perhaps shortly but, I hope, not too shortly. It has been an interesting debate and I should like to say how glad I am that this Bill has received a welcome from all parts of the House. I hope in consequence that those who have criticised this Bill or who may be inclined to do so, on the ground that it might contain more, will at least help us to secure that this Bill, a Bill dealing with an important subject, does pass this House this Session.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 38 (Committal of Bills).

TRIBUNALS AND INQUIRIES [MONEY]
Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).—[Queen's Recommendation signified.]
[Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]
Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to constitute a Council on Tribunals, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of the salaries or fees payable under that Act to the chairman and other members of any such Council or any committee thereof, the allowances so payable for members of any such Council or committee, and the expenses so payable of any such Council or committee or their members.—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]
Resolution to be reported.
Report to be received upon Monday next.

MAINTENANCE ORDERS BILL
Lords Amendments considered.
Consideration of the Lords Amendments in the Title, lines 5 and 8, postponed till after the consideration of all other Lords Amendments to the Bill.—[Mr. Renton.]

Clause 2.—(REGISTRATION OF ORDERS.)
Lords Amendments agreed to: In page 3, line 41, after "Part II" insert:
"and a maintenance order."
In line 42, at end insert:
"and a maintenance order to which this Part of this Act applies."
Lords Amendments: In page 4, line 20, leave out "regard" and insert "respect".
8.11 p.m.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Renton): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
Mr. Frederick Lee: In what way does "respect" amend "regard" in this connotation?
Mr. Renton: There is no difference in either meaning or effect. The reason for the Amendment is to bring the drafting of the Bill into line with Section 18 (6) of the Maintenance Orders Act, 1950.
Question put and agreed to.

Clause 4.—(VARIATION OF ORDERS REGISTERED IN MAGISTRATES' COURTS.)
Lords Amendment: In page 4, line 29, after "order" insert:
"(other than jurisdiction in a case where a party to the order is not present in England when the application for variation is made)"
Mr. Renton: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
It might be convenient to take this with the next Amendment, in page 5, line 17.
In general, a magistrates' court has no jurisdiction to hear a complaint where one of the parties resides outside England and Wales. In the High Court, however, there is no such limitation, since it is possible to effect substituted service, which is a term of art relating to High Court procedure, and that can be effected outside England and Wales and the proceedings can then be based on such service.
It might be convenient if I mentioned that it is really best for us when considering the Lords Amendments to refer to the Bill as it was when it left this House. If we consider the Bill as amended by the House of Lords it is very difficult to understand the Lords Amendments. Therefore, all references that I make to the Bill will be to the Bill as it left this House.
In Clause 4 (2, a) of the Bill, as it left this House, the magistrates' court is enabled to exercise the same jurisdiction to vary a rate of payment specified by a High Court maintenance order registered in a magistrates' court as would be exercisable by the High Court. That provision is intended to secure that the power to vary given to the magistrates' court is exercised on the same principles as those followed by the High Court. But we do not feel that we can go so far as to say that the magistrates' court should also have the same kind of territorial jurisdiction as the High Court has by virtue of substituted service, because substituted service is not a thing that has ever been known to a magistrates' court.
We avoid that by these Amendments, which, in effect, limit the magistrates' court's jurisdiction under Clause 4 (2) to those cases where the parties are present in England and Wales, where application to vary is made, and ensure
1690
that power to vary remains exercisable by the High Court.
Question put and agreed to.
Further Lords Amendment agreed to: In page 5, line 17, at end insert:
"; or
(b) at a time when a party to the order is not present in England".

Clause 6.—(POWERS OF COURTS TO MAKE ORDERS ATTACHING THE EARNINGS OF DEFAULTERS UNDER MAINTENANCE ORDERS.)
Lords Amendment: In page 7, line 5, leave out "the defendant satisfies the court that the failure" and insert:
"it appears to the court that the failure of the defendant."
Mr. Renton: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
This is an Amendment which was moved on Report by the Opposition as an Amendment to a Government Amendment and was negatived by inadvertence. It is true to say that a fast ball from the umpire got past the wicket keepers on both sides. I did, however, give to the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) an undertaking privately that we would ask for this matter to be put right in the House Lords. That is what the Amendment does. Although there was considerable discussion in Committee and some discussion on Report about this very important matter, perhaps I should remind the House of the effect of the Amendment.
The Amendment precludes the making of an attachment of earnings order when it appears to the court that the defendant's default was not due to his wilful refusal or culpable neglect, rather than, as the Bill stood, that the defendant should satisfy the court that the default was not so due. We considered very carefully where the burden of proof should lie. We have left it open. The court will have that discretion in the matter which the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) was so insistent about on an occasion when the House was very full and the Government were defeated. The court will have discretion in this matter yet, at the same time, the wife will not have imposed upon her an impossible burden of proof. I say "impossible", because the facts are essentially within the husband's knowledge.
Mr. Anthony Greenwood: As the hon. and learned Gentleman said, this matter has concerned us over a considerable period during the passage of the Bill. It was one of the most critical issues in Committee, and it was a source of great disappointment to the Opposition, on Report, that the ball from the umpire was not, unfortunately, stopped by the hon. and learned Member or ourselves. The fact that the Amendment was incorporated in the Bill is a tribute to the persistence particularly of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Aston (Mr. J. Silverman). Although he is not able to be present, I am sure that he would agree to our supporting the Amendment.
Mr. Ede: How did the umpire manage to get hold of the ball? He cannot do it even as a substitute. Under the rules a substitute shall not bowl.
Mr. Renton: One has many things to answer for from the Treasury Bench, but I cannot be expected to answer for the actions of an umpire.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): There is no Ministerial responsibility.
Question put and agreed to.
Lords Amendment: In page 7, line 15, leave out "in meeting the defendant's liabilities under" and insert:
"from time to time in satisfying the requirements of"
Mr. Renton: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
It may be convenient, Sir, if we take with this Amendment the next two, to lines 19 and 23, as they are all drafting. They are designed to remove any possible doubt that an attachment of earnings order is to cover not only the liabilities under the maintenance order when the attachment of earnings order is made, but also future liabilities as they arise.
The attachment of earnings order, therefore, will apply to secure not only those earnings which are outstanding—and there have to be arrears outstanding, as the House will remember, before an attachment of earnings order can be made—but also current payments as they arise, until such moment as the attachment of earnings order is, by discretion of the court, discharged. It is only for the
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removal of doubt that these Amendments have occurred to us as being desirable.
Question put and agreed to.
Further Lords Amendments agreed to: In page 7, line 19, leave out from beginning to "and" in line 21 and insert:
"(i) securing payment of the sums falling due from time to time under the maintenance order;"
In line 23, after "of" insert:
"any sums already due and unpaid under the maintenance order and".—[Mr. Renton.]

Clause 7.—(POWERS OF COURTS TO MAKE ATTACHMENT OF EARNINGS ORDERS IN PROCEEDINGS UNDER OTHER ACTS.)
Lords Amendment: In page 8, line 26, leave out from "order" to end of line 27.
Mr. Renton: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
This is the first Amendment which is both new to the House of Commons and an Amendment of substance, and, candidly, I found it a slightly complicated matter myself when studying it. It may help if I draw attention to the purpose of Clause 7 and compare it with the purpose of Clause 6.
Clause 7 deals with the power of the courts to make attachment of earnings orders in proceedings under existing legislation, and Clause 6 introduces the new power under the Bill to make attachment of earnings orders in proceedings taken against maintenance defaulters with that object. Clause 7 is designed to enable a court to make an attachment of earnings order in proceedings for the general enforcement of a maintenance order, proceedings which already exist under previous legislation and were codified in the Act of 1952. They are proceedings with a view to committing the defaulter to prison, and it is largely because that is the present position that we have this Bill at all.
Obviously, we have to dovetail the new procedure under this Bill with the procedure for the issue of a warrant of commitment for default under the existing legislation, and this is what Clause 7 does. It is a power additional to the power in Clause 6 to make an attachment of earnings order in proceedings taken with that purpose. However, the drafting of Clause 7, in its original form—that is to say, in the form in which

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it is to be found in the Bill as it left the Commons—did not cover the enforcement proceedings in respect of a certain small category of maintenance orders which is nevertheless within the scope of Clause 6, and ought to be within the scope of Clause 7 and of the provisions of the Bill generally.
There were in the Bill as it left us certain words of limitation, which are to be found in Clause 7, paragraph (b), lines 26 to 27. Those words of limitation are:
"… which is, or is enforceable as, an affiliation order …"
In other words, only those commitment proceedings under the Magistrates' Courts Act of 1952 which could be described as for the enforcement of a sum to be paid by a maintenance order which was or could be enforceable as an affiliation order.
I do not want to have to go into the whole of the 1952 Act to explain this point, but I hope that the House will take it from me that there is no need for us—indeed, that it is undesirable for us—to have those limiting words
"which is, or is enforceable as, an affiliation order".
In other words, there are various types of order which are maintenance orders but which, under the 1952 Act, are not enforceable as affiliation orders; they are enforceable by the civil debt procedure, which we keep quite separate from this Bill. Indeed, we have intentionally done so, as far as we could. We suggest, therefore, that so that we should not have any kind of maintenance order left out of this new attachment of earnings procedure, we should omit those words of limitation.
My explanation of this slightly complicated point has been perhaps a little confusing, but I hope nevertheless that hon. Gentlemen have been able to understand it; if necessary, I will try to clarify it further.
Question put and agreed to.
Lords Amendment: In page 8, line 31, after "unpaid" insert:
"and that the defendant is a person to whom earnings fall to be paid,"
Mr. Renton: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
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This is a drafting Amendment which is clearly intended to bring Clause 7 into line with Clause 6.
Mr. Lee: Is this Amendment strictly necessary, following the one which the hon. and learned Gentleman moved a moment ago, in which he pointed out that we were ensuring that not only past payments but present and future payments were attachable? I should think that we were merely duplicating that by inserting these words.
8.30 p.m.
Mr. Renton: I am advised not. Indeed, I am further advised that unless we inserted these words the courts would feel obliged as a matter of interpretation to find some different effect in Clause 7 from that in Clause 6 and that we should insert these words to bring the two Clauses into line.
Question put and agreed to.

New Clause.—(AMENDMENT OF 15 & 16 GEO. 6, AND 1 ELIZ. 2, c. 55, s. 74.)
Lords Amendment: In page 14, line 26, at end insert new Clause A:
(1) Section seventy-four of the Magistrates' Courts Act, 1952 (which relates to the enforcement of payments under affiliation orders and orders enforceable as affiliation orders) shall have effect, in relation to complaints under that section made on or after the date on which this section comes into operation and to proceedings in pursuance of such complaints, as if for subsections (3) to (7) thereof there were substituted the following subsections. that is to say—
"(3) In relation to complaints under this section, section forty-seven of this Act shall not apply and section forty-eight thereof shall have effect as if the words 'if evidence has been received on a previous occasion' were omitted.
(4) Where at the time and place appointed for the hearing or adjourned hearing of a complaint under this section the complainant appears but the defendant does not, the court may proceed in his absence:
Provided that the court shall not begin to hear the complaint in the absence of the defendant unless either it is proved to the satisfaction of the court, on oath, or in such other manner as may be prescribed, that the summons was served on him within what appears to the court to be a reasonable time before the hearing or adjourned hearing or the defendant has appeared on a previous occasion to answer the complaint.
(5) If a complaint under this section is substantiated on oath, any justice of the peace acting for the same petty sessions area as a court having jurisdiction to hear the complaint may issue a warrant for the

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defendant's arrest, whether or not a summons has been previously issued.
(6) A magistrates' court shall not impose imprisonment in respect of a default to which a complaint under this section relates unless the court has inquired in the presence of the defendant whether the default was due to the defendant's wilful refusal or culpable neglect., and shall hot impose imprisonment as aforesaid if it is of opinion that the default was not so due; and, without prejudice to the foregoing provisions of this subsection, a magistrates' court shall not impose imprisonment as aforesaid—

(a) in a case in which the court has power to make an attachment of earnings order under the Maintenance Orders Act, 1958, unless the court is of opinion that it is inappropriate to make such an order;

(b) in any case, in the absence of the defendant.

(7) Notwithstanding anything in subsection (3) of section sixty-four of this Act, the period for which a defendant may be committed to prison under a warrant of commitment issued in pursuance of a complaint under this section shall not exceed six weeks.
(8) The imprisonment or other detention of a defendant under a warrant of commitment issued as aforesaid shall not operate to discharge the defendant from his liability to pay the sum in respect of which the warrant was issued."
(2) Subsections (7) and (8) of the said section seventy-four as amended by the foregoing subsection shall have effect in relation to a warrant of commitment issued on or after the date on which this section comes into operation in pursuance of a complaint under that section made before that date (not being a warrant of which the issue was postponed before that date by virtue of section sixty-five of the said Act of 1952) as those subsections have effect in relation to a warrant of commitment issued in pursuance of such a complaint made after that date."
Read a Second time.
Mr. Anthony Greenwood: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, in line 37, to leave out "for the defendant's arrest", and to insert:
"to arrest the defendant and bring him before the court".
The proposed new Clause relates to Section 74 of the Magistrates' Courts Act, 1952, the section which provides for the enforcement of payments under affiliation orders and orders enforceable as affiliation orders, and proposes to replace subsection (3) to subsection (7) of the Section by the subsections in the Clause.
I am seeking to amend subsection (5) of the proposed Clause, which provides that:
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"If a complaint under this section is substantiated on oath, any justice of the peace acting for the same petty sessions area as a court having jurisdiction to hear the complaint may issue a warrant for the defendant's arrest, whether or not a summons has been previously issued."
We tabled an Amendment to that because we were struck by the difference between Section 74 (3) and subsection (5) of the proposed new Clause. Section 74 (3) is very similar, reading as follows:
"A magistrates' court shall not hear a complaint under this section except in the presence of the defendant; and for the purpose of securing his presence a justice of the peace acting for the petty sessions area for which the court acts may, if the complaint is substantiated on oath, issue a warrant to arrest the defendant and bring him before the court, whether or not a summons has been previously issued."
Hon. Members will notice that the difference is that in the 1952 Act it is provided that the defendant should be brought before the court, but those words are omitted from the proposed Clause. We should be most grateful if the hon. and learned Gentleman would give the reasons for the omission.
Mr. Renton: It is true that the words:
"… and bring him before the court …"
are in Section 74 of the 1952 Act, but those words were unnecessary in that Measure. It is very strange how the words got there. They are a hangover from the days of the Bastardy Laws (Amendment) Act, 1872, under which enforcement proceedings were not formally on complaint. But the proceedings under both the 1952 Act and this Bill are, and will be, by complaint, and when a warrant for the defendant's arrest is issued the warrant must necessarily provide, and will state in its terms, that the defendant must be brought before the court to answer the complaint.
The words were, therefore, otiose in the 1952 Act, and we do not see why it is necessary for us to repeat words which were unnecessary then. The words "for the defendant's arrest" meet the case and the procedure, and that is why they have been inserted.
Mr. Anthony Greenwood: I am most grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for his explanation, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment to the Lords Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr. Renton: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
During the passage of the Bill through this House it was strongly represented that a logical consequence of Part I was that imprisonment imposed by a magistrates' court in default of maintenance payments should be subject to a maximum term of six weeks, and should not extinguish the liability to pay the arrears. It was fairly pointed out that if that were done the magistrates' court procedure would be assimilated with the procedure in the High Court.
At present, imprisonment imposed by a magistrates' court is subject to a maximum term not of six weeks, but of three months, if the amount of the default is more than £20. Further, that imprisonment at present wipes out the arrears. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary gave an undertaking on Report stage that, after the necessary consultatations with judicial and other authorities, a Government Amendment would be put down in another place to reduce the maximum term to six weeks and to provide that the imprisonment did not wipe out the arrears. He pointed out that it would also be necessary to provide that, as in the High Court, imprisonment could not be imposed more than once for the same arrears.
Therefore, these three changes which I have mentioned are made by these rather lengthy two new Clauses. An additional minor change has also been made, in that in future it will not be essential, as it is now, for the defaulter to be present throughout the enforcement proceedings. Of course, he will still have to be present when the court is inquiring into the reasons for his default, because his cross-examination on the matter and his opportunity of giving explanations are essential.
The other point is that the court will not be able, and this is the corollary to what I have just said, to impose a sentence of imprisonment in his absence. That seems a brief explanation for what looks like a great deal of law, but I can assure the House that I have explained the essentials, and if I can be of further assistance, with your permission, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I will try to do so.
Mr. Greenwood: I should like to thank the Joint Under-Secretary for the changes
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which have been incorporated in this Amendment which comes from another place. We particularly welcome the concession which the Government have made which limits the period for which the defendant may be committed to prison to six weeks, and also the subsection which provides that imprisonment will no longer wipe out the debt. That was a point which was very hotly contested on the Committee stage and later on Report, and my hon. Friends the Members for Salford, West (Mr. Royle) and Dagenham (Mr. Parker) both felt very strongly upon it. I think that all of us are grateful to them for having persuaded the Government to incorporate this improvement in the Bill.
The other provisions, to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred, regarding the fact that the defendant need no longer he there throughout all the different stages of the proceedings, is also a welcome concession which the Government have made. They have provided him with more protection from that character which we got to know so well during the Committee stage—the vindictive wife. We therefore welcome the changes which the Government have made, and we are prepared to support the hon. and learned Gentleman in hoping that the House will agree with the Lords in this Amendment.
Question put and agreed to.

New Clause.—(PROHIBITION OF COMMITTAL MORE THAN ONCE IN RESPECT OF SAME ARREARS.)
Lords Amendment: After the Amendment last inserted, insert new Clause B:
Where a defendant has been imprisoned or otherwise detained under an order or warrant of commitment issued in respect of his failure to pay a sum due under a maintenance order, then, notwithstanding anything in this Act, no such order or warrant (other than a warrant of which the issue has been postponed under paragraph (ii) of subsection (5) of section (Powers of magistrates to review committals, etc.) of this Act) shall hereafter be issued in respect of that sum or any part thereof.
Mr. Renton: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
I am sorry that, without your permission, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I referred to this new Clause in moving the other Amendment. I do not wish to repeat my explanation, but will just say that the new Clause will have the effect of preventing a man being imprisoned more than once in respect of the same arrears.

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There is, however, an exception of which I think the House might wish to take note. The case where a defaulter who applies for discharge before his term of detention has been completed, and whose commitment is suspended on conditions which he subsequently fails to observe, will be an exception to the general principle that no one will be imprisoned more than once in respect of the same arrears.
Question put and agreed to.

New Clause C.—(POWERS OF MAGIS TRATES TO REVIEW COMMITTALS, ETC.)
Lords Amendment: After the Amendment last inserted, insert new Clause C:

(1) Where, for the purpose of enforcing a maintenance order, a magistrates' court has exercised its power under subsection (2) of section sixty-five of the Magistrates' Courts Act, 1952, or this section to postpone the issue of a warrant of commitment and under the terms of the postponement the warrant falls to be issued, then—

(a) the warrant shall not be issued except in pursuance of subsection (2) or paragraph (a) of subsection (3) of this section; and

(b) the clerk of the court shall give notice to the defendant stating that if the defendant considers there are grounds for not issuing the warrant he may make an application to the court in the prescribed manner requesting that the warrant shall not be issued and stating those grounds.

(2) If no such application is received by the clerk of the court within the prescribed period, any justice of the peace acting for the same petty sessions area as the court may issue the warrant of commitment at any time after the expiration of that period; and if such an application is so received any such justice may, after considering the statements contained in the application—

(a) if he is of opinion that the application should be further considered, refer it to the court;

(b) if he is not of that opinion, issue the warrant forthwith;

and when an application is referred to the court under this subsection, the clerk of the court shall give to the defendant and the person in whose favour the maintenance order in question was made notice of the time and place appointed for the consideration of the application by the court
(3) On considering an application referred to it under the last foregoing subsection the court shall, unless in pursuance of subsection (6) of this section it remits the whole of the sum in respect of which the warrant could otherwise be issued, either—

(a) issue the warrant; or

(b) further postpone the issue thereof until such time and on such conditions, if any, as the court thinks just; or

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(c) if in consequence of any change in the circumstances of the defendant the court considers it appropriate so to to do, order that the warrant shall not be issued in any event.

(4) A defendant who is for the time being imprisoned or otherwise detained under a warrant of commitment issued by a magistrates' court for the purpose of enforcing a maintenance order, and who is not detained otherwise than for the enforcement of such an order, may make an application to the court in the prescribed manner requesting that the warrant shall be cancelled and stating the grounds of the application; and thereupon any justice of the peace acting for the same petty sessions area as the court may, after considering the statements contained in the application—

(a) if he is of opinion that the application should be further considered, refer it to the court;

(b) if he is not of that opinion, refuse the application;

and when an application is referred to the court under this subsection, the clerk of the court shall give to the person in charge of the prison or other place in which the defendant is detained and the person in whose favour the the maintenance order in question was made notice of the time and place appointed for the consideration of the application by the court.
(5) On considering an application referred to it under the last foregoing subsection, the court shall, unless in pursuance of the next following subsection it remits the whole of the sum in respect of which the warrant was issued or such part thereof as remains to be paid, either—

(a) refuse the application; or

(b) if the court is satisfied that the defendant is unable to pay, or to make any payment or further payment towards, the sum aforesaid and if it is of opinion that in all the circumstances of the case the defendant ought not to continue to be detained under the warrant, order that the warrant shall cease to have effect when the person in charge of the prison or other place aforesaid is informed of the making of the order;

and where the court makes an order under paragraph (b) of this subsection, it may if it thinks fit also—

(i) fix a term of imprisonment in respect of the sum aforesaid or such part thereof as remains to be paid, being a term not exceeding so much of the term of the previous warrant as, after taking into account any reduction thereof by virtue of the next following subsection, remained to be served at the date of the order; and

(ii) postpone the issue of a warrant for the commitment of the defendant for that term until such time and on such conditions, if any, as the court thinks just.

(6) On considering an application under this section in respect of a warrant or a postponed warrant, the court may, if the maintenance order in question is an affiliation order or an

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order enforceable as an affiliation order, remit the whole or any part of the sum due under the order; and where the court remits the sum or part of the sum in respect of which the warrant was issued or the postponed warrant could have been issued, section sixty-seven of the Magistrates' Courts Act, 1952 (which provides that on payment of the sum for which imprisonment has been ordered by a magistrates' court the order shall cease to have effect and that on payment of part of that sum the period of detention shall be reduced proportionately) shall apply as if payment of that sum or part had been made as therein mentioned.
(7) Where notice of the time and place appointed for the consideration of an application is required by this section to be given to the defendant or the person in whose favour the maintenance order in question was made and the defendant or, as the case may be, that person does not appear at that time and place, the court may proceed with the consideration of the application in his absence.
(8) A notice required by this section to be given by the clerk of a magistrates' court to any person shall be deemed to be given to that person if it is sent by registered post addressed to him at his last known address, notwithstanding that the notice is returned as undelivered or is for any other reason not received by that person.
Read a Second time.
Mr. Lee: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, in subsection (2), line 7, to leave out from "received" to the end of line 14 and to insert:
"the clerk of the court shall refer it to the court".
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I understand that it is the intention that this and the other Amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) shall be discussed together.
Mr. Lee: That will be convenient, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
The point about which we are concerned is the provision in subsection (2), which states:
"If no such application is received by the clerk of the court within the prescribed period, any justice of the peace acting for the same petty sessions area as the court may issue the warrant of commitment at any time after the expiration of that period;"
We object to such a responsibility being placed upon one of the justices rather than upon the court itself. One can envisage all kinds of circumstances arising. If I wanted a warrant to be issued I think that I could spot the man who would be most likely to agree without
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too much investigation into whether the warrant should or should not be issued. We fail to see what advantage there can be in including the words about which we complain. We would prefer that the court itself should make the decision, subject to the words in the other part of the new Clause, rather than that the responsibility should devolve upon one member of the bench.
I do not think there are benches of magistrates which are composed of one person sitting to hear cases. It would be very invidious if less than three magistrates were present, although I believe that the law permits two. It would be wrong for a single person to make decisions which, in our submission, should be made by the bench concerned and not merely by one of its members.
Mr. Renton: It will be appreciated that this new Clause gives to magistrates power to discharge a warrant of commitment which they have already made themselves. It therefore follows that somebody is in prison who is likely to make an application to them for a discharge. There are only 25 local prisons in this country. All these men will be in local prisons, and it is by no means certain that a man will be in the local prison for the same petty sessional division as the one to which the application would have to be made.
What we have to do is to provide a safeguard—I will deal in a moment with whether it is too stringent a safeguard or not—against frivolous applications by men in prison, applications which are made partly for the relief of the tedium of prison life or partly in order merely to annoy the wife, to put her to the trouble or expense of going to court.
We also have to remember that whenever an application is made to the court, the prison authorities have to provide an escort, and we certainly do not want the courts or the prison authorities or the wife to be troubled with such applications without some simple safeguard. The safeguard which their Lordships, in their wisdom, decided to insert in the Bill, was that before a man came to the court with his application for a discharge of the commitment order he should make a simple statement in writing which could be considered by a single justice of the peace—without calling the court together—merely to see whether there was a reasonable cause or prima facie case for

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the man to make an application to the court.
It is rather a late stage in the Bill to challenge the Opposition to produce a better safeguard than that, and I certainly would not like to appear to be doing so. All I can say is that after very careful consideration by high judicial authorities, as well as by the Government and those who advise them, we feel not only that this is a reasonably simple and just safeguard to insert but that there is no other effective one which can be conceived.
8.45 p.m.
Mr. Lee: Is not there also the case of the man who is at liberty where the warrant has been suspended? In that case it would be a question of the justice of the peace making a decision to bring the warrant to bear—in other words, to place him in prison—and not the case of a man making a frivolous attempt to get out of prison.
Mr. Renton: I agree that such a case will arise, but I think that it will be much less frequent. It is surely best that we should make a safeguard which will be of general application. The fact that it will also be a safeguard in the case of a man who is not in prison does not invalidate it. I hope that that answers the hon. Member's point.
Mr. Anthony Greenwood: I am not altogether happy with the explanation of the hon. and learned Member. He said that we must try to devise a method which is of general application. What worries us is that under subsection (2) it is quite possible for anybody who is at present at liberty, but against whom a suspended committal order has been issued, to be sent to prison on the decision of a single justice of the peace.
In my experience magistrates' courts never sit with only one justice unless it is by the consent of the parties, and merely for the purpose of adjourning the case to an agreed time. I should have thought that as the cases covered by the subsection cannot be matters of urgency, it should always be the rule that they are referred to a properly constituted court and decided in open court by a full bench of magistrates, or at least not less than two, and not a single justice of the peace acting on his own in private.
Mr. Ede: I support the view put forward by my hon. Friend. In this kind of matter, where all sorts of small personal issues inevitably arise, and when, on occasion, there may be a suggestion that a certain magistrate knows something about the parties to the case, or that he is more likely to be influenced in favour of the husband or the wife, as the case may be—as has been observed from what is regarded as his general attitude in these cases—I should have thought it was desirable that the application should be heard by at least two magistrates. The clerk can generally collect a couple of magistrates at very short notice if he wants to, and they can meet to consider the application, with the advice of the clerk if there is any difficulty. Generally speaking, the practice for a good many years has been not to put too much responsibility upon a single lay magistrate acting by himself.
Question, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Lords Amendment, put and agreed to.
Mr. Renton: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
This is a Clause which will enable magistrates' courts to discharge an order committing a man to prison for default. It not only meets the substance of a view which was put forward by the Opposition at earlier stages of the Bill, but it implements a recommendation of the Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce, contained in paragraph 1110.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary gave an undertaking that he would consider the arguments again if an Amendment were moved in the House of Lords, which was done. It is interesting to note that the Amendment moved by Lord Silkin was based upon a somewhat different type of case from that put forward by the Opposition here. The noble Lord was concerned more with the warrant the issue of which had been postponed—that is to say, where the man was still at liberty—while the Opposition here were more concerned with the case of the man actually in prison. At any rate, it will be a matter of satisfaction for hon. Members to know that both types of case are now covered.
Various procedural ramifications have been found necessary in the proposed new

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Clause, which is a very long one. It would not be to the advantage of the House if I were to start explaining in detail the significance of every subsection of the proposed new Clause, but I will, with permission, endeavour to do so if explanation is required on any particular point.
Mr. Lee: In the main, we are grateful for the proposed new Clause, many of the issues in which my hon. Friends and I argued in Committee and on Report. The Joint Under-Secretary referred to the fact that the House gave a majority view that the Government were wrong in resisting the arguments which we adduced. We notice that when the Bill went to another place arguments were adduced in Committee which deplored the fact that at that stage of the Bill the Government had not produced this Clause, but on Report there the Clause appeared, and we are grateful for it.
There is, however, in subsection (8) a principle to which we take considerable exception. The subsection reads:
"(8) A notice required by this section to be given by the clerk of a magistrates' court to any person shall be deemed to be given to that person if it is sent by registered post addressed to him at his last known address, notwithstanding that the notice is returned as undelivered or is for any other reason not received by that person."
On tries to take a balanced view of this matter. I know there are people who deliberately change their addresses and resort to all sorts of subterfuges, such as refusing to accept a registered letter if they are pretty certain what it is. I accept that there is a need for control of this situation, but on the other hand there is far too great licence here.
It could be that the type of person we have in mind may be living in a lodging house in which many other people are living. He may never really have the opportunity to receive the letter which may go back to tthe court. There are cases of that type in which great injustice could be done. If we take it for granted that because a letter has been registered, therefore automatically it must have been received, and that the fact the letter returns to the court unopened and undelivered presupposes that the man himself has refused to accept it or, despite the fact that he is still living at a certain address, he refuses to answer the door, it is asking a lot of this
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House to give powers of this type to the courts.
The hon. and learned Gentleman may say that the type of people with whom we are dealing would take all sorts of advantage unless some sanction of this type were given. I concede that there is a point in that, but surely we do not base our justice on that. If there were only three cases in a hundred in which an injustice was done because of this very strong wording, to condemn a man in this way without real proof that he has deliberately avoided receiving a registered letter is not in the best traditions of our justice. Therefore, we on this side of the House are somewhat troubled about the matter.
The hon. and learned Gentleman is entitled to say that we cannot suggest any form of words as a substitute. I am very certain that if we did so at this stage he would not accept them anyway. That is the sort of difficulty which confronts us in reviewing Lords Amendments with which we do not wholly agree. At this stage of the discussion of Amendments arising from a Measure the House is in a very difficult position in that we accept and welcome almost everything in this new Clause and certainly do not want to divide against it for obvious reasons, yet, within it, we find this provision to which we take the greatest exception.
I can only ask the hon. and learned Gentleman if in some way the courts can be made aware that it would not be in the spirit in which this House has discussed the new Clause C if they were not to make the most detailed inquiry into every specific case before coming to the conclusion that a returned unopened registered letter meant that the man concerned had deliberately avoided the matter and sought to thwart the intentions of the court. With the exception of subsection (8), we on this side of the House welcome the new Clause.
Mr. Renton: If I have the leave of the House to reply to the hon. Member for Newton (Mr. Lee), I wish to say that I am very sorry he is so upset, because the position is not quite so bad as he thinks. I would ask him to remember that what we are doing in this new Clause is in the cause of freedom. We are improving the position of the defaulter. It may appear on the face of

1707
it that the new Clause is a little harsh, but, on the whole, it is in favour of liberty because it prevents the automatic issue of a warrant irrespective of changes of circumstances. But it is necessary to combine with that improvement of the defaulter's position a safeguard to ensure that enforcement cannot be frustrated by a man who deliberately changes his address or, as the hon. Gentleman himself said, avoids receiving the notice.
9.0 p.m.
There has been some experience of this problem within existing law in the service of summonses under the Road Traffic Act, 1930. This explicit statement in the new Clause that a notice
"shall be deemed to be given … notwithstanding that the notice is returned as undelivered"
is necessary having regard to the cases decided under the Road Traffic Act. It might interest the House to know that the culminating case was Beer v. Davies, reported in The Times on 29th April this year, in which it was held that a notice of intention to prosecute required under Section 21 of the Road Traffic Act, which had been sent by registered post and returned, had not been served because it was not delivered.
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will understand that the law might be frustrated if we do not bear in mind what was held by the courts in that case and enact accordingly. Again, having had the matter considered by high judicial authority, the conclusion we have cone to is that we should have those words "deemed to be given" put in. We feel that there will be no injustice and that, in the circumstances in which we are passing the legislation, it is the right and just thing to do.
Question put and agreed to.

New Clause D.—(REVOCATION AND VARIATION OF ORDERS IN COUNCIL UNDER 10 & 11 GEO. 5. c. 33, s. 12.)
Lords Amendment: After the Amendment last inserted, insert new Clause D:
"Her Majesty may by Order in Council revoke or vary any Order in Council made under section twelve of the Maintenance Orders (Facilities for Enforcement) Act, 1920 (which provides for the extension of that Act by Order in Council to certain oversea territories), and an Order under this section may contain such incidental, consequential and transitional provisions as Her Majesty considers expedient for the purposes of that Act."
Mr. Renton: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
This new Clause is designed to enable the many Orders in Council which have been made under the Maintenance Orders (Facilities for Enforcement) Act, 1920, to be consolidated. A very strange position has come to light in that that Act does not contain any power for the Orders made under it to be either revoked or varied. Forty-four Orders have now accumulated, some of which really ought to be varied, such as, for example, several which cover what is now the State of Ghana. We ask the House to accept this new Clause in these terms to enable Her Majesty, by Order in Council, to revoke or vary any of the Orders in Council made under the 1920 Act.
It may seem surprising to hon. Gentlemen that we have brought this into the Bill but, as we are dealing with maintenance orders, it seems a very convenient Amendment to clear up this strange and rather old statutory anomaly.
Mr. Ede: It seems to me that there is no objection to using this Bill to do something which is common sense for once. I am quite sure that my hon. Friends will not wish to object to its coming in.
I have been rather handicapped in following some of the last of the Lords Amendments because of their excessive length. The first Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) to one of the new Clauses alluded to line 26 in it. I still retain just sufficient acquaintance with numbers to be able to count up to 26, but could not the authorities of the House consider putting numbers by the side of every fifth line so that, when one has to find one's way about these very long Lords Amendments, one could do it with the ease that their Lordships should allow to Commoners who have to work very hard?
Mr. Renton: May I be so bold as to support what the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has said? While I was working out one of these Amendments, the telephone rang twice while I was about half-way down the page. It really would make for very great ease if Lords Amendments could be numbered as our own always are.
Mr. Lee: I support what has been said by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) and by the hon. and learned Gentleman. We on this side have not the advantage of the assistance of civil servants, and it is certainly very difficult, when trying to find one's way through very long Lords Amendments, to be sure whether one is at line 25, 30, or whatever it may be.
Question put and agreed to.

Clause 16.—(SPECIAL PROVISIONS AS TO MAGISTRATES' COURTS.)
Lords Amendment: In page 15, line 16, at the end to insert:
(3) It is hereby declared that a magistrates' court has jurisdiction to hear a complaint by or against a person residing outside England for the discharge or variation of an attachment of earnings order made by a magistrates' court; and where such a complaint is made against a person residing outside England, then—

(a) if he resides in Scotland or Northern Ireland, section fifteen of the Maintenance Orders Act, 1950 (which relates to the service of process on persons residing in those countries) shall have effect in relation to the complaint as it has effect in relation to the proceedings therein mentioned; and

(b) if the said person resides outside the United Kingdom and does not appear at the time and place appointed for the hearing of the complaint but it is proved to the satisfaction of the court, on oath or in such other manner as may be prescribed, that the complainant has taken such steps as may be prescribed to give to the said person notice of the complaint and of the time and place aforesaid, the court may, if it thinks it reasonable in all the circumstances to do so, proceed to hear and determine the complaint at the time and place appointed for the hearing or for any adjourned hearing in like manner as if the said person had then appeared.

Mr. Renton: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
This Amendment arises from the fact that a magistrates' court has no general jurisdiction to hear a complaint where one of the parties resides outside England and Wales. It is no disrespect to the Welsh but a matter of interpretation that the word "England" only is used in the Amendment. That is the usual form. With an attachment of earnings order made in a magistrates' court, the fact that there is no jurisdiction to hear a complaint where one of the parties resides outside England and Wales could mean that if the woman later leaves the country
1710
the man could not get a complaint for the variation or discharge of the order on its feet, even although he might have a very good case—and the order would remain binding on the employer, which would be a very strange result. I am sure that the House will agree that that is clearly wrong.
The effect of the Amendment is to confer jurisdiction on a magistrates' court to hear complaints for variation or discharge, even though one of the parties—it may be either the husband or the wife—has gone to live outside England and Wales. However, provision is made for the party who has gone abroad to be notified in the appropriate manner whenever possible.
Question put and agreed to.
Lords Amendment: In page 16, line 23, at the end to insert:
( ) A complaint for an attachment of earnings order may be heard notwithstanding that the complaint was not made within the six months allowed by section one hundred and four of the Magistrates' Courts Act, 1952.
Mr. Renton: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
This is a purely technical Amendment. Section 104 of the Magistrates' Courts Act, 1952, provides:
"Except as otherwise expressly provided by any enactment, a magistrates' court shall not … hear a complaint unless … the complaint was made within six months from the time"
when the matter of complaint arose—a sort of statutory limitation. Section 74 (2) of this Act—which, by the way, has not been amended by one of the Lords' new Clauses which we considered earlier—provides that a complaint for maintenance arrears under the existing procedure may be made at any time, notwithstanding the limitation period in Section 104.
It is desirable to make a similar exception for a complaint for an attachment of earnings order. In other words, we do not want attachment of earnings orders to be frustrated by a six-months statutory limitation period, bearing in mind—and this is the crux of the matter—that there has already been a court order made, namely, a maintenance order, and the attachment of earnings order is merely a method of enforcement. As far I know, we have never had statutory limitation periods applied to orders of the courts.
Question put and agreed to.
Lords Amendment: After the Amendment last inserted, insert:
( ) For the avoidance of doubt it is hereby declared that a complaint may be made to enforce payment of a sum due and unpaid under a maintenance order notwithstanding that a previous complaint has been made in respect of that sum or a part thereof and whether or not an order was made in pursuance of the previous complaint.
Mr. Renton: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
This is another technical Amendment, and is very much a lawyer's point. It is for the removal of a lawyer's doubt, and starts off with the words, "For the avoidance of doubt". There is a general rule of law known to the lawyers as the principle of res judicata—that is the robust anglicised pronunciation of the courts—whereby once a court has made an order one way or another no other court can consider the same matter and make any other order, except, of course, a court of appeal by way of appeal. It is just possible that, unless we remove the doubt, the principle of res judicata might be thought to prevent an attachment of earnings order from being made recovering an amount for which a complaint has previously been dismissed.
The sort of circumstances that might arise are these. A wife would think that she has ground for an attachment of earnings order. She would go to the court and prove her arrears, but, unknown to her at the time she went to court, her husband had lost his job and had no earnings which could be attached; and so the application would be dismissed. A few weeks later, the husband might win something on the football pools or might find himself once more in a very good job. We would not wish the principle of res judicata to apply so as to frustrate the wife from going to the court again and trying once more to get an attachment of earnings order. The Amendment will ensure that the wife will not be frustrated in that way.
Question put and agreed to.

Clause 19.—(SHORT TITLE, EXTENT, COMMENCEMENT AND REPEALS.)
Lords Amendment: In page 19, line 7, after "Act" to insert:
", except paragraph (a) of subsection (3) of section nineteen"
Mr. Renton: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
I suggest that this Amendment might be taken with the other Amendment in line 7.
Both of these Amendments are consequential on the Amendment at page 15, line 16 and on the fourth new Clause.
Question put and agreed to.
Further Lords Amendment agreed to: After "except" insert:
"section (Revocation and variation of Orders in Council under 10 & 11 Geo. 5. c. 33, s. 12) the said paragraph (a), and".

Title
Lords Amendment: In line 5, after "orders;"insert "to make provision".
Mr. Renton: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
I suggest that it might be convenient to take at the same time the other Amendment to the Title.
I should like to express my appreciation for the help which the House has given me in getting through six pages of rather complicated Lords Amendments in just under the hour. I am grateful for the help which the House has given.
These Amendments to the Title are consequential on the four new Clauses which we have added to the Bill, all of them Clauses coming from the Lords.
Mr. Anthony Greenwood: Of course, we on this side agree with the Lords in the Amendment. This seems an appropriate moment for me to say that this appears to us to be an infinitely better Bill than when it first saw the light of day. We have, I think, now obtained every major concession from the Government that we have tried to get in the various stages of the Bill and which it was practicable for the Government to give us. We only wish that they were equally open to persuasion on some of the more reprehensible Measures that they bring before the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Further Lords Amendment agreed to: In line 8, after "orders;" insert:
"to amend section seventy-four of the Magistrates' Courts Act, 1952; to make provision for the review of committals to prison by magistrates' courts for failure to comply with maintenance orders; and to enable Orders in Council under section twelve of the Maintenance Orders (Facilities for Enforcement) Act, 1920, to be revoked or varied;"

ROADS, ROSS AND CROMARTY
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Colonel J. H. Harrison.]
9.13 p.m.
Mr. John MacLeod: I welcome this opportunity to raise a subject which is greatly disturbing the County Council of Ross and Cromarty and, I believe, many other Highland county councils who are faced with much the same problem; that is, the old, sore problem of the lack of sufficient money to provide the minor roads which are essential to small rural communities if we want to keep them alive and see them develop. There are today townships in my constituency that are virtually dying through the lack of adequate road communications. In some areas houses are vacant because people have left for that very reason and because development is impossible.
This problem has existed for years and has been recognised by all Governments since 1897, when the first positive step was taken to deal with the problem under the Congested Districts (Scotland) Act.
There is no need for me to go into the history of that Act and the reason why it was brought forward, but it is well to recollect that the people were forced in many instances on to the seashore and to rely upon sea communications only. Naturally the coast, particularly the west coast, that narrow strip beside the sea, became congested. The Act at that time, of course, covered a very much wider range than it does today. For instance, at that time the Congested Districts Board which was then set up had power to aid agriculture, fishing and rural industries, to acquire land for land resettlement purposes, and to assist in the problem of public works such as roads, piers and harbours.
It is very tempting tonight when one has longer than one normally has in an Adjournment debate to develop all these various matters which would probably be eligible for grant, but I want to deal only with the problem of the small rural roads. The area is certainly not congested now, and many bodies in the Highlands, I think too many, are advising now how to keep people there and are attempting to
1714
keep people from drifting away, as they are still doing.
I submit that one of the principal reasons is the lack of roads and communications. The problem is stated in a sentence in "A Programme of Highland Development" brought forward in 1950, which reads:
"Fundamentally the Highland problem is to encourage people to live in the Highlands by making it possible to secure there, in return for reasonable efforts, proper standards of life and the means of paying for them. The depopulation of the Highlands has long been viewed with concern."
Those words come from that Government paper.
The problem was acute and is still very acute, and I hope that tonight my noble Friend will take to heart my remarks and help to solve the problem, because, surely, roads are the first essential in any development of any area. These communications which we lack and which we are discussing tonight are essential for the every-day use of the local inhabitants. They are the very life-blood of the area.
The House needs only to picture some of the conditions in all the Highland constituencies today to understand the problem. There we have communities without roads. The children may be seen wading along unsuitable tracks to school as they did a century ago. The doctor has difficulty in getting about among his patients. People have to clamber down rocks to the seashore to get the ill away to hospital. Goods have to be carried by the people on their backs for long distances. These things are going on today despite the tremendous advances which have been made in the social services of the world.
If we are going to keep these people there it is essential that they should be able to reach the main highways of the country, and that they cannot do today. Today even our sea communications are being curtailed still further, and nowadays generally more use is made of road transport. This is happening all over the country, but it is particularly acute on the Western seaboard of my own area. The lack of these roads is now being felt more acutely. I did a survey with some members of the Highland Panel not long ago when it was found that throughout the whole area most of the bulk commodities now came in by road from the east.

1715
These communities, therefore, as a result of being without adequate roads to reach the main roads, are put into an intolerable position, and all development is thereby hindered. I believe that full use is not being made in the area of grants given by the Department of Agriculture and the Crofters Commission and other bodies because people are not able to convey fertilisers, tile drains, and so on, by road to develop the land. They are equally unable to send produce by road to market in a suitable condition. The nation, therefore, is losing through lack of this development, because of the condition of these very minor roads.
Apart from the lack of agricultural development as a result of not opening up these areas, one of the most important industries in the Highlands, the tourist trade, is being strangled. In Scotland generally and in the whole of Great Britain this industry is of inestimable value, and we must do all we can to encourage it. A great deal is being done today in the Highlands.
The crofters in the Highland counties take more and more tourists each year into their houses. These tourists come by car and leave behind them hard cash which is of the greatest benefit to these communities. The amount of development that has taken place over the last year or two in places to which these tourists have been able to penetrate is really quite incredible.
I know an area where a road has been made in the last two years, where the crofting houses look smart, where a water supply has been installed and where there are vegetable gardens in places where people had never thought before of having a garden. They now grow a certain amount of horticultural produce to feed the people who come there. These things are happening now in the Highlands, yet, through lack of these roads, full development is not taking place.
I have spoken to tourists who complain that they cannot get to these delightful spots because of the lack of roads. In many of these places there are attractive beaches for bathing, but parents constantly say that they will not come back to them with their children because of the bad condition of the existing tracks.
1716
I need not go further into the reasons why these roads are essential. I have given these examples, but the Minister must be aware of the necessity and I am sure that he appreciates it. But does he appreciate the urgency? All the Highland counties today have programmes which at the present rate of progress will take years and years to complete. The main reason for this slow progress is the Department's niggardly, mean and parsimonious attitude.
This is why I raise this matter tonight and demand that these grants should be speeded up and that there should be greater co-operation between the Government and the local authorities. The Government speak of giving more power to the local authorities, and I think they have brought forward legislation recently to do that. Here is a power which the local authority has already, and I think it is being strangled, certainly slowed down, since the authority is not able to make use of it because of the action of the right hon. Gentleman's Department.
A lot of people do not realise that the area of Ross and Cromarty is almost as large as the whole of the industrial belt of mid-Scotland and yet has only one-tenth of the population. In my constituency the product of a penny rate is £500, so to solve the problem one must emphasise this co-operation that is necessary between the Government and the local authority.
What do we find? As the Minister knows, each year the local authority puts forward a list of roads to qualify for the grant under the Congested Districts (Scotland) Act. This was done by Ross and Cromarty County Council for the coming year 1958–59. On 19th May last the county clerk received a letter refusing grant for the current programme, which was confirmed by the answer given to me by the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland on Tuesday last.
I understand that the reason for this was that the county's programme for 1957–58 had not yet been completed. In my opinion this is a fantastic reason. The county clerk, in a letter dated 29th May sent to the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture for Scotland, wrote:
"My Council's programme for minor roads proposed for D.O.A.S. grant for the year 1957–58 was submitted to the Department on 13th March, 1957, and it was not until October, 1957, that the Department intimated that grant

1717
would be given. The work on three of the roads had to be done under contract and taking in tenders and departmental approval took further time. It is clear that in so far as this county is concerned the late start with the work coupled with the bad winter are the reasons for the unfinished state of the programme at 31st March, 1958."
That is the reason given why no grant will be made under the new programme. I submit that the Department must accept responsibility for the late start. The county clerk's letter continued:
"My Council have on occasions in the past asked the Department to give earlier intimation of grant in order that advantage could be taken of the summer weather for the road works but the representations have had no effect."
That is the point. Many of these minor roads have to be built over bog and soft land, and it is only in the summer months that the work can go ahead.
It is ridiculous if intimation is given only in October. By October up there the winter is beginning, and, consequently, work cannot be completed in the necessary time. As the county clerk says:
"Intimation three months earlier would have permitted completion of the programme by 31/3/58. What the Department are in effect doing as far as this county is concerned is spreading the money promised for one year over two years."
Thus, I do not think that my accusation about the Department being mean is in any way excessive, because that is just what it is. The county council is in a position to go on with the programme. Incidentally, the county clerk has not yet had a reply to his letter, and I have not had a reply to my letter of 11th June asking for the Minister's comments.
In his letter the county clerk also said:
"My Council also wish to know what the Department have in mind in stating that your request for grant towards the cost of reconstructing four unclassified roads at an estimated cost of £28,500 has been noted."
What does "noted" mean? Can a grant be given for unclassified roads? I believe that some unclassified roads have been given a grant under the Congested Districts (Scotland) Act.
I consider the situation most unsatifactory. I ask the Minister now to enable the Ross-shire County Council, which, after all, is trying to do its best with the inadequate sums available, to build the minor roads. I ask the Government to reconsider the whole question so as to enable the county council to get on as
1718
quickly as possible during the remaining summer months of this year with its minor road programme which has been submitted to the Department. These roads, I would emphasise, are a matter of right for the people living in the community. If they are built, I believe that they will be of value not only to the local communities but to the nation.
9.34 p.m.
Mr. J. Grimond: There is considerable anxiety throughout the Highlands about communications, including roads, and about employment and the future generally.
To follow the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. John MacLeod) about roads, I, too, am very conscious of the fact that there are many districts in the Highlands which are still almost, if not entirely, inaccessible by road. There really is still a very great need for adequate roads of all classes throughout the Highland area.
I am particularly interested tonight in the minor roads. Nowadays vans, travelling shops and tractors have to move about even in the most remote areas. It is not sufficient merely to have a track; one must have a surfaced road. As I am sum the Government are well aware, there is nothing more wasteful than the patching up of water-bound roads and the throwing on of gravel and chips which will be flung off by the first tractor which passes along the road. There is also a great deal of waste over the Highland road programme because it is always done in bits and pieces.
I notice in my own constituency that equipment is moved up to one stretch of road, a certain amount of repair work is done and a quarry opened, then the whole apparatus is taken away somewhere else or laid up. I know that it is out of order to suggest any changes in legislation in this debate, but I suggest to the Government that they should look into the whole system of grants and the various forms of grants for roads.
There is the further point that there is no doubt that, owing, unfortunately, to the continued depopulation of many areas in the Highlands, there are now districts where very few people are living in very scattered houses. Again, I ask the Government, when considering the roads programme in future, to take into

1719
account the desirability of connecting up such districts with water, sewerage and, indeed, improving housing itself, and trying, as far as they can, to draw the existing population together, because it is infinitely cheaper to service them in these ways if they are not too scattered.
It is not always possible, but cannot we organise district schemes for communications, and, indeed, for other amenities, as they are now called? I do not think that we, as Highland Members, can stress too much the need for adequate roads, and particularly byroads, if the Highlands are to be opened up, and if the existing population is to be held, far less any new population being encouraged to go there. There is also the question of any new industries and indeed, of agriculture, because all these depend on roads.
Under the Congested Districts (Scotland) Act, grants are also made for piers, and in my constituency this again is a matter of great urgency and of great public anxiety. We have waited year after year for an adequate pier in North Ronaldshay, Papa Westray and Wyre. I know that there is always the question whether piers come under the Department of Agriculture or that of Fisheries, but all these are agricultural piers.
In this connection, I want to support what was said by the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty about the importance of telling the local authorities what they can do in time, and bearing in mind the fact that the only time of the year when it is possible to do anything in many parts of the Highlands is the summer. Unless they can make plans and get started early, they may lose the whole year.
These schemes have been put off year after year, generation after generation, and this applies in Shetland, too. We have a need for piers in Yell-Unst and other islands, where, from the point of view of fisheries as well as agriculture, it is most important that there should be good transport arrangements between the Shetland Islands. It is clearly deplorable that, half-way through the twentieth century, these islands should not have adequate piers. These communications are just as important for them as are the roads in the Lowlands. I ask the Government to see what they can do to
1720
further advance their plans for these roads and piers.
Furthermore, there is at the moment throughout the Highlands a very high rate of unemployment. I am very well aware that today this kind of work does not give quite the same amount of employment which it once did, but it could be useful in giving employment. Further, it could give the people the hope that somebody is seeing that something is to be done, and that is of great psychological value. They sometimes feel that we do not appreciate the need to help their districts, and they have the impression, especially the people in the more remote islands and townships, of having been to a great extent written off.
It is particularly appropriate that we should debate this matter tonight, because we have had today an important statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has announced that the credit squeeze is to be raised, the Capital Issues Committee limit is to be put up to £50,000 and, in general, the credit stringency is to be relaxed. I am told that part of the reason for this is that the banks cannot get anyone to take their money, because no one has sufficient confidence under the present Administration to launch out on a large scheme requiring an overdraft.
Be that as it may, we are surely due to receive a statement about what is called the public sector, which was refused to us this afternoon. It cannot now be long delayed if these schemes, which have been referred to and many others just as necessary in the Highlands, which have been delayed because of the financial situation, are to proceed. This is now better, as the Chancellor himself has told us, and so I hope that at the earliest possible time we shall get a statement by the Scottish Office that they have been to the Treasury and have extorted from it a more generous allocation of grants.
Finally, there is this question of local authority finance. The enormous road mileage which Highland counties have to maintain and the difficulties of sea communication put a great strain on these authorities which have a small and usually impoverished population. It would be out of order tonight to suggest any legislation which might deal with that matter, but without generous Government grants it is not possible for these authorities to do very much.

1721
I should like to draw attention to the works set out in Table 50 of the Report on Agriculture in Scotland for 1957. The Table relates to public works in congested districts. In that Table are two roads in the County of Zetland which were offered aid in that year. They are the Herra-Bouster Road and the Quendale Road. Aid for these roads has been needed for years, and it is a demonstration of the way in which these public works in the Highlands have been put off until the population in some places has become desperate and in many cases has gone.
I hope that the result of this debate and of the other debates which have been initiated on this subject will be to persuade the Government first to go to the Treasury and obtain more generous grants, and secondly to consider the whole system of dealing with Highland roads. We have had all sorts of schemes, including the million pound scheme", and others. We want a comprehensive scheme which will restore life in these districts which still contain populations which can be developed. When this comprehensive scheme is drawn up, I hope that the Government will not forget piers and the financial difficulties of the Highland authorities.
9.42 p.m.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord John Hope): This has been a very useful debate, and for once we have been able to have a debate on this subject, in which there has been no undue rush and in which all Members who have wanted to speak have had the time to do so.
I am in sympathy with much of what hon. Members have said about the need for more work to be carried out on the minor roads and on the marine works in the Highlands for which grant aid is provided under the Congested Districts (Scotland) Act, 1897. As I said in the debate on the Department of Agriculture's Estimates on 26th June, we have not been able to get on with it as quickly as we would have liked. The reason, as the House knows, is financial. With the current restrictions on capital expenditure, there must be, however unwelcome, a limit to what we can do in this direction, as indeed in others.
Reference has been made to the Chancellor's statement. The hon. Member who made that reference will not expect me to enlarge upon it or to apply it in any
1722
particular direction at such short notice, but clearly nobody who has these matters at heart, as we all have, could consider that statement as anything but extremely welcome and hopeful.
I should like to give the House a few facts which will put the matter in its proper perspective and show that despite the restrictions, progress in these matters is undoubtedly being made at a by no means negligible pace. I have already admitted that it is not as fast as we would like. The hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. John MacLeod) will agree, I am sure, that we must put the matter in proportion, and just as I must be prepared to admit that we would like to go faster, so he will be the first to agree that on the facts the pace is not negligible.
First, as to the amount of grant given to county councils to carry out these works, for many years grants given under the 1897 Act have been at the rate of 75 per cent. for the construction or improvement of marine works and the construction and improvement of un-adopted township roads which, on completion are taken on the county highway list as unclassified roads.
For the improvement of unclassified roads already on a highway list, grants were made at the rate of 65 per cent. Since the coming into operation, in 1957, of the Agriculture (Improvement of Roads) Act, 1955, grant-aid for the last two categories has been raised respectively to 85 per cent. and 75 per cent. for Congested Districts Act works where, as in general in the Highlands, the conditions of the 1955 Act are fulfilled.
Here I should stress that, prior to this, grants under the 1897 Act towards the improvement of unclassified roads were given only in exceptional circumstances, since these roads were already on the highway lists of the counties concerned.
Another point that I should like to make strongly at this stage is that whatever views hon. Members might hold as to the extent to which the Government should go to provide money for works of this kind, the assistance which we are giving and have been giving for the past eight years, is far higher—even after making full allowance for changes in money values—than was ever given before. Before the war the annual level of grant under the 1897 Act was about £13,000; in 1951–52 we paid £138,000 in

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grant, and the amount has risen steadily since. In 1956–57 grants totalled £240,000. I am aware that in 1957–58 the sum fell back to £139,000, but this was largely due to the delayed effect of the capital expenditure restrictions which the Government were obliged to impose in 1956. That is the answer to my hon. Friend's complaint, which he put in the words of his local authority.
These restrictions imposed a virtual embargo on certain kinds of local authority expenditure which could be deferred without risk to public health or safety or to other vital interests, desirable as they otherwise were. The expenditure on roads other than trunk or classified roads was affected. This naturally interrupted progress with grants in aid under the 1897 Act.
Mr. John MacLeod: The reason given by the Department was not that the money was not available; the accusation was that the previous programme had not been finished. I tried to stress the reason why the programme had not been finished.
Lord John Hope: I will look into that point, which is an interesting one, but, over all, the reason for the short-fall was the restriction of capital. I was saying that progress was interrupted, and I wanted to add that I do not think that any reasonable man, least of all my hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. J. MacLeod) would claim that any part of the country should be completely exempt from making some response to the national call.
So far as township roads are concerned, it was the practice of local authorities to present each year to the Department a programme of schemes for consideration for grant purposes. Several programmes for 1956, which were before the Department when the restrictions were announced, had to be deferred, but all the councils were informed that it was open to them to make out a case for exceptional treatment for individual schemes on grounds of special urgency. It took quite a bit of time before local authorities responded. They eventually did so. Moreover, grant aid continued at a high level on the large volume of existing works, and grant payments increased in 1956–57 as councils were able to concentrate their efforts on finishing old schemes.
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The position with marine works was necessarily different. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) referred to this matter in connection with the Act. Where a pier or jetty was in a dangerous condition, improvement could clearly not be deferred, and grant aid continued to be given in a number of cases, as the hon. Gentleman knows.
In 1957, the position was reviewed and councils were invited to submit priority lists of works that had become most urgent. Offers were made in the late summer and autumn of that year. Work on most of these schemes has still to be finished and involves a continuing commitment on the funds voted by the House for this purpose in the current financial year, amounting to £236,000. All these funds are in fact committed in one way or another. We cannot, therefore, see our way to offering grants for new works at this particular stage. I can, however, assure my hon. Friend that we shall make further offers of grant soon.
Mr. MacLeod: Are the figures which my noble Friend has produced, for the period up to 31st March this year?
Lord John Hope: These are the figures up to date. I assure my hon. Friend that we shall make further offers as soon as possible. I noted what was said about the desirability of making these offers as early as possible in the year. I realise that it is an extremely important point. I am not prepared to say that it is as easy as it sounds or that we could have done better in that respect, but I give my assurance that there will be no slipping up in that particular. We shall make these offers just as early as we can in future. We shall not lose sight of it.
This is an extremely important and vital subject for Scotland. I speak for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State as well as myself in saying that there is nothing I would like to see more than a dramatic quickening of the pace in the direction in which we all want to go. If we could have gone further and faster we would have done so. We could not do it, for the reasons I have given. I can say no more in that respect except to assure my hon. Friend who opened the debate that I shall not rest until we have got on with this job, which we all admit so terribly needs doing.
9.55 p.m.
Mr. Thomas Fraser: I do not want to detain the House for long at

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this time of night, but there are one or two things I want to say. I was very shocked to hear the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. John MacLeod) say that no grants had been made to his county council this year because it was so far behind with last year's programme. He gave us the reasons why it was so far behind. It would be ungenerous to pursue that matter because the Joint Under-Secretary said that he was unaware of it and will look into it.
The Joint Under-Secretary said that we all want more of these road and marine works to be done in the Highlands. He said that progress is very much better than it was before the war, but not so fast as the Government and all of us would like it to be. He said that has not been possible because of financial restrictions and referred to the cut-back in 1956. He went on to say—I think I heard him aright—that any reasonable man would agree with his right hon. Friend that no area should escape from some part of the restrictions made in the national interest. I am bound to say that I do not take the same view as the Joint Under-Secretary. Maybe he would regard me as an unreasonable man.
If the country got into real difficulties in 1956 because we were over-taxing our capacity to produce, because we were trying to do too much and over-spending—I think that is what the Government said at the time—and if, on examination, we found that some parts of the country were trying to do far too much while in other parts the economy was not being stretched at all, if we found that the industrial South was over-spending and trying to do too much and there had to be some restriction of expenditure there, it surely would not follow that there should be an equal cut imposed on those parts of the country which were even then languishing in semi-idleness.
I should have thought that there is every reason why the Highlands should have been excused participation in the cuts which were imposed two years ago. It was to make that point that I rose. I do not move about very much in the Highlands, but I go there when I can. I see even less of the Islands, I am sorry to say. No one who moves about in the Highlands and Islands can feel that anything like enough is being done to improve communications by road or by sea. One sees too many examples of what the
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hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) called attention to, essential works being done here and there, but with inadequate co-ordination.
One sees that in the industrial South, and not only in the North. One sees it everywhere, but in the industrial South a small job is large in comparison with one in the North and the amounts of expenditure mentioned by the Joint Under-Secretary for the whole of the Highland area shows that. The amount of money spent in Parliament Square would take up many years of the kind of expenditure which was referred to by the Joint Under-Secretary. It is obvious that there is a lot of wasteful expenditure. I am not saying that it was possible to avoid all of it in the past, but there is a need for us all to have a look at this problem in future to see whether we cannot plan a little better and carry jobs through to their conclusion.
I travelled many miles in the Highlands last autumn and I was not surprised to hear from more than one tourist that the—
It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Chichester-Clark.]
Mr. Fraser: I was not surprised to hear from more than one tourist last year that it was not too easy an experience to move around in the little narrow roads with passing places, particularly for those tourists who came with larger cars, or, even more, with caravans.
In view of the growing traffic in the country and the many buses trying to make their way round the narrow Highland roads today, there is no doubt that if we are to enable the Highlands to take fullest advantage of the tourist traffic which wants to go there, we shall have to make a very considerable improvement in our road programme.
However, I do not want to develop that at this time of night. I merely got to my feet to say that, on the Joint Under-Secretary's definition of a reasonable man, should not be a reasonable man because I would not share his view that the cut should be equally applied in all parts of the country.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at two minutes past Ten o'clock.