MINISTRY OF HEALTH BILL.

HL Deb 08 May 1919 vol 34 cc544-606

Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.

Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Viscount Sandhurst.)

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

My Lords, on this Motion I wish to take the opportunity of asking my noble friend a question of which I have given him private notice—namely, to what extent appointments of women have been made in the housing administration?

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

My Lords, the question which the noble Earl asks is whether any women have been appointed to high positions in the housing administration. The reply that I have to give is that no women have so far been appointed; but I desire slightly to elaborate this reply as my noble friend has asked a very direct question. The work 'falls into three branches—(a) central administration; (b) professional and technical; (c) decentralised administration. The first two branches of the work, covering the preparation of the Housing Bill and work connected therewith and consideration and approval of housing schemes, with the professional and technical duties involved, are carried out by the Local Government Board staff, which has been reinforced by the appointment of Sir James Carmichael as Director-General of Housing, with other officers possessing special knowledge and experience of the problems involved. The Board are forwarding the progress of housing schemes in the several localities by making available to the responsible authorities the advice and assistance of Housing Commissioners, who are acting in ten of these areas, covering between them the whole of England and Wales. The Commissioners have under them a number of qualified inspectors and architects. In bringing about the expansion of the previous organisation of the Board to meet new needs, it was not found that any women possessed of the requisite qualifications and experience presented themselves for appointment either in an administrative or a professional capacity. But the Board have not been unmindful of the desirability of making use of the special knowledge gained by women in their daily lives of the advantages and drawbacks of various detailed arrangements in the design and equip ment of houses. In preparing the manual on housing recently issued, the Board paid full attention to the recommendations of the Women's Housing Sub-Committee appointed by Dr. Addison as Minister of Reconstruction, and women are being invited to serve on an Advisory Council on Housing which is in process of formation.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]

Clause 1:

Establishment of Minister.

1. For the purpose of promoting the health of the people throughout England and Wales, and for the purpose of the exercise of the powers transferred or conferred by this Act, it shall be lawful for His Majesty to appoint a Minister of Health (hereinafter called "the Minister"), who shall hold office during His Majesty's pleasure.

LORD DOWNHAM moved, after the words "Minister of Health," to insert "and Local Government." The noble Lord said: It seems to me that the title of the Bill and the title of the Minister should agree, and that the title of the Minister should correspond with the duties which he has to perform. The Minister of Health, in introducing the Bill, said that the Local Government Board would cease to exist. Yes, the Local Government Board will cease to exist, but local government throughout the country will not cease to exist, Indeed, it will be carried-on very much, as far as I can see, as it is at present; and it is especially stipulated that the Minister for Health shall perform all the duties at present performed by the President of the Local Government Board.

All these duties are to be transferred to him; none of them are at present to be taken away from him. He will have to perform such very extensive duties as sanctioning loans to the local authorities for various matters such as housing, water supply, cemeteries, and things of that kind. He will have to supervise the great Audit Department of the Local Government Board, which audits the accounts of all such local authorities as are subject to audit. He will have to sanction, or refuse to sanction, all irregular expenditure which is submitted to him for his sanction. He will have other very large matters to carry out that are not in the least connected with health or with anything concerned with health, such as the laws relating to our franchise, to our registration, to the conduct of elections, both Parliamentary and local; such duties as relate to disputed questions in connection with the Old-age Pensions Act, in connection with unemployment, in connection with the enforcing of laws relating to the purity of food, and in connection with many other matters with which I need not trouble your Lordships.

All these duties, hitherto discharged by the President of the Local Government Board, will still remain to be discharged by the Minister of Health; and I see no reason why the Minister should not be called the Minister of Health and Local Government, indicating that there is still a great Department of the State, well known to all the local authorities, that is expected by the local authorities to discharge these various duties. I cannot help thinking that, the duties themselves being a combination of health duties and other duties appertaining to local government, it would be very much better to describe the Minister-himself as the Minister of Health and Local Government, and to bring the first clause into consonance with the Preamble of the Bill, which especially says that the Ministry is to be set up for matters of health and matters of local government. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 1, line 9, after ("Health") insert ("and Local Government").—(Lord Downham.)

VISCOUNT HALDANE

I hope that the Government will not listen to this Amendment. It rests on a complete misunderstanding of the principle of the Bill, and if carried will only serve to introduce confusion into the minds of people who have to consider the system which the Bill inaugurates. It cannot be too distinctly understood that the principle of this Bill is not the government, of localities but the taking of a service and putting that service into the hands of a Minister responsible for it, separated from other services such as the Ministry of Education which also deals with another service under it. It cannot be too completely understood that the principle of local government which the Bill adopts and follows is the principle of delegating to proper committees of the existing local government authorities the execution of these services so far as they are to be locally formed. As there is a committee for education under the Act of 1902, so there will be a committee for health here.

It is true, as the noble Lord who has just sat down said, that there remain a number of functions which belong to the old Local Government Board and which will still for a time have to be performed. Yes, but they are going to disappear. For example, it is perfectly plain that when we come to deal with people like vagrants, and probably able-bodied poor, these will go to a different service—the service of justice. In the same way, when you take the clause which comes later in the Bill and which enables a transfer from the present Ministry of things which will no longer be appropriate because they belong to services which are hereafter to be provided for by a new re-arrangement, then these things will disappear. There will be no local government left which is peculiar to this Ministry. We have the same sort of function with the Minister of Education, as he administers local government in the same sense through the statutory committee of the local authority. As soon as the House gets out of its head that it is the government of local areas and realises that the Bill acts upon a principle which ought to have been used long ago, and the loss of which has led to great confusion and extravagance in the past—namely, the principle of allocating services and getting rid of the overlapping of those services—then it becomes plain that this Amendment is not only unnecessary but introduces confusion into the scheme of the Bill.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

The noble and learned Viscount has correctly stated, as of course he would, some of the objections to the Amendment of the noble Lord below the gangway. This Amendment revives a somewhat old controversy. I should like to repeat what was said by the noble and learned Viscount—that is to say, that the principle and main object of the Bill is that all health functions should be concentrated in the hands of one authority—the new Minister. As I think the noble and learned Viscount pointed out, by Clause 3 (3) the new Minister can at a future time divest himself of certain powers which will be better exercised by some other Department. The noble and learned Viscount said that supposing for a moment the House accepted my noble friend's Amendment there would be considerable confusion. That, of course, is perfectly correct. But there would be a great deal worse than confusion, because I think—and I desire to lay stress upon it—that it would appear to the minds of the many that nothing more was to happen than a change of name and that local government was to be mixed up with health; and we know that a very large number of our countrymen are opposed very strongly to such an idea. So strongly do they object to it that were your Lordships to accept this Amendment I think it would gravely imperil the success of the Ministry which we hope to see set up.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

For my own part I am in agreement with the Government on this Amendment, but I confess that I think there is a great deal more to be said for Lord Downham's view than would have been assumed from the two speeches to which we have just listened. The noble Viscount behind me (Lord Haldane) and the noble Viscount opposite seem to have left out of consideration altogether the words of the title of their Bill, which reads as follows, "An Act to establish a Ministry of Health to exercise in England and Wales powers with respect to Health and Local Government," and so forth. So that in the title of the Bill it appears—

VISCOUNT HALDANE

It is not my Bill, nor would I put those words in.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

No doubt when the time comes, which will be at the end, the noble and learned Viscount will move to amend the title of the Bill, but I have noticed no Amendment by the Government to amend the title. Not only that, but during the interim period the Minister will exercise all the powers of local government, and even Clause 3, subsection (3), only gives discretionary power to the Government to transfer other than health powers. I am very glad that the noble Viscount laid so much stress upon it, because I think it is most important that those non-health powers should be transferred as soon as possible, and I hope we shall hear during the debate what expectation the Government have of implementing Clause 3, subsection (3), and fulfilling the intention that is disclosed. On the whole I am of opinion that it is better to emphasise the purely health character of the intention of the Bill. Therefore I should not be able to support my noble friend Lord Downham.

LORD DOWNHAM

I am quite satisfied with the debate from this point of view, that I have at least drawn a strong expression of opinion front those in charge of the Bill, and those who support them, that the Government intend very shortly to take away from the Ministry of Health all functions specially relating to local government. I understand that the noble Viscount anticipates that in a very short time the Ministry of Health will have no more to do with the functions of local government than any other Department, and that those functions will shortly be transferred to some other Department. Had I known that, I should not have moved my Amendment, but I should have expressed very much surprise that the Government should have brought in a Bill "to establish a Ministry of Health to exercise in England and Wales powers with respect to Health and Local Government."

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2:

General Powers and Duties of Minister in Relation to Health.

2. It shall be the duty of the Minister in the exercise and performance of any powers and duties transferred to him by or in pursuance of this Act, to take all such steps as may be desirable to secure the effective carrying out and co-ordination of measures conducive to the health of the people, including measures for the prevention and cure of diseases, the treatment of physical and mental defects, the initiation and direction of research, the collection, preparation, publication, and dissemination of information and statistics relating thereto, and the training of persons for health services.

LORD BLEDISLOE

moved, after the words "transferred to him," to insert "or conferred upon him." The noble Lord said: This clause contemplates the transference of certain powers and duties already vested in certain Departments, including the Local Government Board, to the Minister of Health. I propose to ask your Lordships to make a somewhat important exception, adding new powers which would enable the Minister of Health to institute prosecutions in cases of frauds in connection with patent and proprietary medicines. The Amendment I am now moving anticipates a new clause which I propose later to move to this effect—that the Minister shall have power to deal with "the administration of the law governing the advertisement and sale of patent, secret, and proprietary medicines and appliances." I should like to remind your Lordships that just immediately before the outbreak of war there was presented to the House of Commons—

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

I am loth to interrupt my noble friend, but in this clause he wishes to insert the words "or conferred upon him." I am quite willing to accept those words, subject to one verbal alteration which I think will be necessary.

THE LORD CHAIRMAN

The noble Viscount (Lord Sandhurst) has pointed out to me that the word "him" now in the clause will have to come out, and so it will read "transferred to or conferred upon him."

Amendment moved— Page 1, line 12, leave out "him" and insert "or conferred upon him."—(Lord Bledisloe.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD SYDENHAM moved, after the word "diseases," to insert "and for maintaining hygienic conditions of labour in mines, factories, and workshops, and on board mercantile shipping" The noble Lord said: During the war the Munition Workers Health Committee, under the able guidance of Sir George Newnham, accumulated a vast amount of valuable information. They pointed out that without health there could be no energy and that without energy there could be no output: They added that more important than output was the vigour, strength, and health of the nation. They investigated the causes of industrial fatigue, and showed the necessity of limiting the hours of work and also of providing periods of rest. They decided that work before breakfast was quite wrong. They carefully considered such details as canteens, washing facilities, cloak rooms for women, and other matters all directly or indirectly affecting the health of the workers. They considered the question of the prevention of diseases due to special causes, and also made recommendations for protecting the eyesight of the workers.

It would be deplorable if all this valuable information should be thrown away, and it must be unless it is somebody's business to see that it is properly applied. At present I believe the fencing of machinery and the provision of so much cubic capacity of air per worker are questions dealt with by the Board of Trade; but all those matters to which I have referred are matters appertaining to the Ministry of Health, and if the Ministry does not carry out those duties I am sure it will prove a failure. That is the justification for my Amendment. I have added mines and shipping because I believe that in their case also some care and investigation would lead to better health and progress. The miners enjoy much better health than the rest of the population and their death rate is considerably lower than the death rate of doctors, but they are liable to special ailments which require care to prevent. The death rate among merchant seamen is much too high, and I think there is no body which deserves more care for its well-being than that of our heroic merchant seamen.

It may be said that it is inadvisable to define too closely in a Bill the duties of a Department, but I think when you are setting up a great new Department of State that it is of the first importance that its duties should be clearly and unmistakably laid down. It may also be said that Clause 2 is intended to include all the duties to which I have referred, and if the noble Viscount will give an assurance that that is the case I will not press my Amendment. Failing such an assurance I sincerely hope that your Lordships will pass this Amendment. I cannot think for a moment that it would be rejected in another place, and I believe that the addition I propose would confer actuality on what I regard as a somewhat disappointing Bill. Considering the very large number of workers involved of both sexes, I submit that it is of the utmost national importance that we should spare no effort to obtain the most healthy conditions possible for them by applying all the knowledge we at present possess, and I submit that this knowledge can only be properly and effectively brought to bear by the new Ministry of Health.

Amendment moved— Page 1, line 16, after ("diseases") insert ("and for maintaining hygienic conditions of labour in mines, factories, and workshops, and on board mercantile shipping").—(Lord Sydenham.)

VISCOUNT HALDANE

With the purpose of the noble Lord and with his good intentions we probably are nearly all in agreement, but the point is that his words do something much more than and very different from what he is contemplating. If added to the Bill they would impose on the Health Minister the duty of keeping up a staff of inspectors of the hygienic conditions of labour in mines, factories and workshops, and on board mercantile shipping. Probably the noble Lord has not had occasion to give close attention to the way in which inspection is carried out in this country and of the nature of the reforms which will be required before it can be put in perfect shape. These things came in great detail before a Committee of which I was Chairman for a considerable time—the Machinery of Government Committee—and they formed the subject of a Report that we made. We found this. I take mines as an illustration because mines are a very good case.

The inspection of the mines takes place at present by a body of inspectors appointed by the Home Office and it is inevitable that the inspection which takes place in mines should be by one body. The members of the staff must be people who are trained in different things, because they have to look after not only health but "truck" and production, and conditions of life generally. Then, of course, it would be quite absurd to transfer to the Ministry of Health the supervision of the working of the Truck Act or the supervision of the question of whether the method of mining (or the conditions under which mining might be permitted) was a good method, having regard to conditions of safety. The only alternative would be to appoint a new set of inspectors, but the mines are already very heavily inspected, and if you had two Departments inspecting there is no certainty that they would be in agreement or that things would work out well. The conclusion, therefore, seems to be that the staff of inspectors requires reconsideration as a problem by itself.

It may have to be under some kind of joint organisation of the various Departments which require its services. It may have to be trained even more widely than it is trained now and it may be that each Department, including the Health Department, will require certain special inspectors, certain chief people who will be at the head and give direction for the particular kind of work or service which the inspectors are to perform. But that is a very different thing from setting up, alongside the already existing body of inspectors—and what I have said is in the same way true of factories—a new set of inspectors under the Ministry of Health, whose work will overlap the work of the others. It is perfectly inevitable that whoever does inspect should be, to a certain extent, an expert, not only in "truck" and in atmospheric conditions and in the laying out of mines, but also in health, and that the difficult problems are brought to the proper authority.

How necessary it is that the average inspector, even when he is inspecting for pure mining, should have knowledge of health and be a person who is performing more services than one, is brought out by what has happened in the Cornish mines. There nobody suspected anything wrong, but the mining inspectors went down and they thought the men were looking rather amæmic. They said, "there seems to be something which leads to an anæmic condition in your mines." Fortunately, they were intelligent enough at the Home Office to think that this required consideration from the point of view of health, and then it was found that the supposed anæmic condition was due to a certain worm brought by miners from the Transvaal and giving rise to disease, a very minute disease, called ankylostomiasis, which was discovered and promptly and completely dealt with. That shows that it is very desirable to keep the inspectors, if possible, as one corps, supervised by different Departments and with special inspectors with special knowledge. To set up a new body of inspectors only under the Health Ministry, to do over again the work which the others have to do, would be to my mind a departure from the right remedy, which is to put the whole corps of inspectors under different conditions and keep them as a single corps.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

Like the noble and learned Viscount I do, of course, express my sympathy with the object which my noble friend on the cross-benches has in view. The noble and learned Viscount has said something of what I was going to say in regard to the variety of subjects covered and also the variety of inspectors which he has mentioned. I would venture to recall to my noble friend on the cross-benches the words in Clause 2, to the effect that "It shall be the duty of the Minister in the exercise and performance of any powers and duties transferred to him," and so on; but the duties suggested cannot be transferred to the Ministry of Health at once, and it is possible, in view of what we heard just now, that they might not be transferred at all. The object of this clause, as I think I said on Second Reading, is to be illustrative and explanatory, and I suggest that you cannot work these things in watertight compartments or consider hygienic conditions alone in relation to industry.

I may, perhaps, remind the noble and learned Viscount of something, which I thought he was probably going to say, in regard to his own Report of the Machinery of Government Committee. He was very quick to perceive this, and the Report recommended that these functions should be transferred to Labour and further recognised a good deal of what was said by my noble friend that there should be a close working association in the shape of an Inter-Departmental Committee between Health and Labour. Of course, it must be understood—at least, I think it is very natural—that the Minister for Health must keep himself in close touch with all industrial conditions, and I hope that my noble friend, after hearing what I have said, supported by the noble and learned Viscount, will not press his Amendment.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

With great respect to my noble friend, I confess that I did think this Amendment not of very great importance; but I am afraid that the course of the discussion has rather led me to think that there is a good deal more importance in it than at first sight appeared. I am sure the noble Viscount will forgive me for saying that his speech has not altogether reassured me as to the difficulties in which we are placed. This is a Bill to co-ordinate and consolidate all these functions of health in the hands of a single Ministry. That is its object avowed over and over again by the Government and by all noble Lords interested in the Bill. Now we are told by the noble and learned Viscount, who is a great authority on these matters, that in respect to a large department of health work it cannot be put under this Health Ministry.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

I said that the corps of inspectors must be directed partly by this Ministry.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I see nothing about corps of inspectors. The real point is this. The noble and learned Viscount has quoted the case in which an obscure disease may be suddenly developed by a miner. Was that to be a matter which was to be removed from the cognisance of the Ministry of Health? I do not really see the relevancy of the illustration. If that is so, then let us be quite clear that all these matters of health, in mines and in factories, are to be put under the Ministry of Health. It seems to me that all the theory of abolishing the overlapping is undergoing a process of disintegration. We must be clear on this point. We mean these health matters to be entirely under the Ministry of Health.

There was an old branch of the subject in which I was interested, and it is directly germane to the point—health in underground workshops. For many years I promoted a Bill for the reform of the conditions in these workshops, but I entirely failed because it could never get through another place. So far as those conditions are at present controlled they are under the control of sanitary inspectors, who are officers of the Local Government Board. They will, of course, be transferred bodily by this Bill to the new Health Ministry. One of the difficulties of passing that Bill through was that you have to deal with the Home Office. They had all sorts of control over the health conditions in underground workshops, and consequently the Bill did not get through. There was opposition between the two Departments. If you pleased one Department you did not please the other, and owing to these difficulties, and partly the difficulty of dealing with another place, from that day to this the unwholesome conditions in underground workshops have been continued, to the scandal of those who are interested in the health of the people. We want by this Bill to bring all that to an end, and I am not sorry the noble Lord has put down the Amendment in which he urges that the hygienic conditions of labour in mines, factories, and workshops are matters which should be the concern of the new Ministry of Health alone and not of the Home Office.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

Hear, hear.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I am glad the noble and learned Viscount cheers that remark; and I should like to have it confirmed by the Government. There may be some objection to the words of the Amendment, but I should like the principle confirmed by the Government—namely, that health conditions, whether in mines, workshops, or factories, is to be the business of the new Ministry of Health. If the words of the Bill are not sufficient for that purpose perhaps the noble Viscount in charge of the Bill, before we reach another stage, will consider the point and see if the words require to be strengthened.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

I think we ought to know exactly where we stand in relation to this Amendment. As I understand the noble Marquess, his conception of the Bill is that all the functions of health previously exercised by all other Departments should be taken over by the new Department. But the Bill specifically and carefully avoids doing anything of the kind. What the Bill does, if you look at Clause 3, is to hand over insurance, certain powers of the Board of Education, powers of the Privy Council under the Midwives Act, and infant life protection. There is not a word about the Home Office, and if the noble Marquess's interpretation is correct Clause 3 is altogether unnecessary. If the Bill was intended to hand over at once all the powers of all Departments it clearly is not necessary to particularise in one Department.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

Not necessarily at once. I know it takes some little time. But there is power given, as I understand it, under Clause 3, subsection (2), to transfer all health powers from the other Offices to the Ministry of Health; and that is, I understand, the policy and intention of the Government.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

Yes; I do not think we differ. I understood the purpose of the Amendment was at once to transfer all the Home Office duties relating to factories, mines, &c, to the new Department. The noble Viscount opposite and Viscount Haldane have both stated the view that it cannot immediately be done, and I take it to be the view of the Government that it is wiser to leave this transfer over for a time. We are asked to trust the Government to take over the duties of the Home Office as soon as the requisite arrangements can be made. His Majesty's Government are not prepared to compel their being taken over at once. That being so, it seems to me that it is hardly possible for the House to force this Amendment on the Government after the explanation which has been given.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

May I refer for a moment to the Bill. You will see in subsection (2) of Clause 3 that it says— It shall be lawful for His Majesty from time to time by Order in Council to transfer to the Minister…any other powers and duties in England and Wales of any Government Department which appear to His Majesty to relate to matters affecting or incidental to the health of the people. That seems to me to cover the wishes expressed by Lord Sydenham. I do not think any of your Lordships would suggest that it would be possible to take all these powers and put them into what I may call Category 1.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

When the noble Viscount says "It shall be lawful" he means, I take it, that it is the intention of the Government to do it as soon as it can reasonably be done?

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

That is undoubtedly the view, I believe, of the President of the Local Government Board.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

It is perfectly obvious that Clause 2 covers that. It is a direction to the Minister to confer with the Home Office about health in mines, and it will be his duty to do so and take such steps as he can to co-operate. When you come to Clause 2 it is obvious what the result is and why there is some delay about taking bodily from the Home Office powers which it has now, and which, I agree, are not appropriate to the Home Office. The reason is you would strip the Home Office almost naked. The Home Office will have to be stripped, but it will also have to be given other clothes in the shape of other services, and that will take a little time.

VISCOUNT KNUTSFORD

I confess to being rather confused, but that is not your Lordships' fault; it is my own. Would it not be possible for the duties of the Minister of Health to include the investigation of the reason for the bad health in the workshops, and the reason for miners' diseases, and to have scientific investigations of all sorts upon the question of the health of workers? Having done that would it not be possible to help the Minister of Health to bring in his Acts of Parliament remedying those grievances or mistakes in the labour conditions, or to get an Order in Privy Council, and then to refer it to the general policeman, which is the Home Office, to carry out what the Minister of Health advises in order to remove the cause of the diseases. As it is now I understand that the Home Office have no powers except, so to speak, those of a policeman of carrying out the law made by other people. Though I quite agree with the object of the Amendment, it seems to me that the Bill covers it already. I do not know whether I am right in that.

LORD SYDENHAM

I am afraid from what the noble and learned Viscount said that he anticipates an enormous army of inspectors. That did not occur to me. I think the amount of inspection would be quite small, and generally would consist in visits for a special purpose when something was reported. I should have certainly thought that an inspector under the Truck Act or on some engineering question connected with mines would not in the least be the sort of person for performing duties such as have been referred to. When the worm to which the noble and learned Viscount referred was caught and discovered, I suppose it went to the Home Office to be investigated.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

The Home Office sent it on to the men of science.

LORD SYDENHAM

In future, if any worm of the same deleterious character is found will it go to the Minister of Health or to some independent scientist?

VISCOUNT HALDANE

It ought to go to the Minister of Health, and through him I hope to the men of science.

LORD SYDENHAM

The only other point is this. I do not think the Home Office has anything whatever to do with shipping, therefore a considerable amount of work in connection with the health of our merchant seamen has at present to be done by the Board of Trade. If that is so, I should have thought that such hygienic functions as the Board of Trade already possesses should be transferred to the Ministry of Health. The noble Viscount has suggested that this is to be considered, and that if it is not already included in some part of the Bill it will be brought eventually under the Ministry of Health. Therefore I withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD BLEDISLOE

I desire to move, after the word "diseases" in Clause 2, the insertion of the words "the avoidance of fraud in connection with alleged remedies therefor." In moving this Amendment I hope that your Lordships will not think me presumptuous, because it was on my initiative that a Select Committee of the House of Commons was set up to inquire into the whole condition of affairs relating to patent and proprietary medicines in the year 1912, of which I was myself a member. We sat for nearly three years, and the Report of that Committee was—perhaps unfortunately—presented on the very day of the outbreak of war. I should like to say, in passing, that in my judgment this Report is the most damning Report ever made by any Select Committee of either House. It discloses a network of fraud and deliberate crime against the physical well-being of the nation which in my judgment is unparalleled in any other civilised country. I say that after having listened to evidence brought from various countries where the most drastic action has been taken against the advertisers and vendors of these noxious drugs.

The chief vendors are those whose operations are directed with a view of playing upon the weakness, particularly the sexual weakness, of mankind in this country by advertising preparations claiming to cure incurable diseases or to cause abortion. There are many other nefarious practices which they carry on, as for instance advertising alleged remedies of no value at all to cure certain diseases and selling them at a very high price. Those I pass over as comparatively unimportant. But what is important is that there was disclosed as a result of the deliberations of that Committee a whole network of fraud directed very largely against harmless, and in many cases innocent, females in this country, without any attempt on the part of any Government Department to put a stop to this practice. It appears that there are no less than four Government Departments that are nominally responsible for dealing with these crimes, but it was discovered, as a result of the most severe cross examination of the Assistant Public Prosecutor and others who came as witnesses before us, that no Department considered it its duty to prosecute these offenders, and in most cases it was perfectly clear that they were quite impotent to institute any such prosecution.

I think that your Lordships must agree that this is a matter that first of all cannot be trifled with, and secondly cannot be unduly deferred. That is, why I ask your Lordships, at the earliest possible opportunity, to make it clear that it will come within the functions of the new Minister of Health to put his foot down upon these noxious practices which are so inimical to the health of the population. I do not want to weary your Lordships by reading any large part of this Report, but with your leave I should like to refer to two or three paragraphs. I will make the reference as short as possible. First of all, after referring to the various Departments of State that are nominally supposed to have responsibility in this matter (the Privy Council, the Home Office, the Local Government Board and the Patent Office) the Report goes on to say— So far as the prevention of fraud is concerned, all the Statutes or powers relating to these matters are of little or no value. There is no Department of State officially concerned with the sale and advertising of these articles. Proceedings for fraud against proprietors or vendors of proprietary medicines on the ground that they cannot cure the diseases they mention are practically unknown. The same tale goes on throughout this long Report, and it ends by making a strong recommendation that the administration of the law concerning the advertising and sale of patent, secret, and proprietary medicines should be part of the functions of the Ministry of Public Health when such Department is created, and in the meantime that it should be undertaken by the Local Government Board. I do not want at this stage to press the matter any further except to ask your Lordships to have specifically put within the proper sphere of the work of this new Minister the duties of putting a stop to this nefarious practice.

Amendment moved— Page 1, line 16, after ("diseases") insert ("the avoidance of fraud in connection with alleged remedies therefore")—(Lord Bledisloe.)

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

The noble Lord has three different Amendments dealing with this subject. The first is the one to which he has just alluded. The second is on page 2, line 33, and he proposes to insert a new clause. Perhaps it may be convenient if I now make a short statement about the subject. The noble Lord has said enough to show how enormously surrounded by difficulties it is. It teems with difficulty, as is shown in that Report of the Committee which he moved for, and which I have had an opportunity of perusing. But the Amendment which he suggests will not extend the provisions of the law that are now in force.

The Select Committee were satisfied that the difficulties of bringing powers into successful operation were so numerous and so great for all practical purposes, with the exception of registered poisons, that the sale of these horrible things went on unrestricted. But in Paragraphs 56 and 57 a number of proposals were put forward which required regulations, including the Amendment of the Stamp Acts and other Acts of Parliament. The new legislation was enumerated under nine heads one of which, if I remember correctly, had six sub-heads, by which these various practices should be made illegal. The Committee drew attention to the fact that the sale of patent medicines came under a variety of Acts—I think six different Acts—and under a variety of authorities—the Home Office, the Privy Council, the Local Government Board and the Patents Office. They also said that they should be under one Department, and in the meantime it was suggested that they should be under the Local Government Board, and under a Health Department if and when such a body was instituted. I mention all this to endorse what the noble Lord said as to the extremely complicated and difficult nature of the case before us.

With those difficulties I feel that, even if I were to accept the Amendment in the spirit in which the noble Lord has proposed it, I really hardly see how it would advance the view held by the noble Lord. It could not now be made effective, and the Report of his own Committee shows how very much has to be done. The acceptance of his new Clause now and of the other proposals to which I alluded would, I submit, merely cumber up the new Minister with new duties that he could not now perform, and obligations that be could not now fulfil.

But perhaps I may, on behalf of the President of the Local Government Board, give this pledge and undertaking, that the President will, in view of the Report from which the quotations have been made, consider without delay the whole problem; and, secondly, that he will also as soon as possible make proposals to Parliament for whatever new powers are needed to bring about the necessary action. I submit that in saying this I may be giving a more practical undertaking than to accept the noble Lord's Amendment, which would commit the Minister to saying that he would be willing in the early days of the new Ministry to assume the responsibility for the administration of the existing law which the Select Committee said was inadequate to secure the proper control of the matters in question; and enforced acquiescence (if I may use the term) really would be hardly more than illusory. I hope the noble Lord will look upon that as a statement meeting the three suggestions which he makes in regard to the Bill.

LORD BUCKMASTER

This question is one that I raised on the Second Reading of the Bill. It is, I am quite satisfied, impossible to over-rate the importance of the question that is raised by these Amendments of my noble friend. It requires nothing but the most cursory glance at the Report of the Commission to which he refers to satisfy your Lordships that this country is at the present moment at the mercy of a gang of people who in many cases are quite destitute of honour or scruple, and who are busily engaged by fraudulent and dishonest means in vending drugs and food that in many cases are absolutely dangerous to the health of the people by whom they are consumed.

The Report shows that upwards of£2,000,000 a year is spent in the advertisement of these goods. It points out that owing to the enormous influence that is necessarily exercised by a body of people having such wealth at their disposal the proper public investigation of the evils associated with their business rarely takes place. The Report gives one particular instance where one of these remedies was stigmatised as a gross fraud, the whole business being examined under conditions which in normal circumstances would have led to elaborate publication in nearly every newspaper. The Report of the proceedings was practically suppressed, and I may say that that is nothing but an example of a matter that is within the professional knowledge of people who practise the law.

We therefore have to remember, first, that it has been determined that this trade and craft is a mischief to the public; and, secondly, that it is being carried on under conditions that prevent the public from realising the danger with which they are brought into contact. The next thing then is, What is to be done? It is, I think, equally plain that the present remedies are ineffectual. The Report so finds. They are ineffectual for many reasons, but one is the old, common complaint that you never quite know which is the Board, Office, or Department on which rests the duty of taking the matter up. If I understand the object of this Bill aright it is precisely to avoid this confusion in the future that this Ministry has been set up. And, if that is so, I cannot see why the noble Viscount should suggest that it is not right at the inception of the Ministry to burden it with the very powers which the Ministry is created to enjoy and to enforce. This is not a Bill which hands over to it stage by stage a variety of powers in various degree, but a Bill which puts on to it at once the powers which it is to use; and if once it be accepted (and it seems to me it must be accepted) that these particular powers are essential for the preservation of public health—I say nothing about the preservation of public morals—I see no reason why these powers should be excluded.

The noble Viscount—who, if I may say so, gave us a kindly and sympathetic answer, and who showed that he realised the gravity of the matter—suggested that it would be no use transferring these powers, and that the Ministry of Health would undertake to take steps in the future for the purpose of obtaining further powers. I am sure the noble Viscount will not think that I am needlessly severe as a critic if I say that the thing which is going to be done in the future is very often long postponed, and there is no reason that I can see why these existing powers should not be transferred at once to the Ministry of Health, recognising at the same time that they are inadequate and that the Minister in whom should be vested the existing powers will at some early future date come down to the House and ask that those powers may be further increased. Really all that these Amendments of my noble friend do is to mention the fact, in the first one, that they are to have the powers in connection with remedies for disease; and in the one on page 3 (which I think is one of the most importance) that in them is to be vested—I do not like the word "administration," I think it ought to be "execution" of the existing law governing these matters. Possibly the noble Viscount may think that between now and Report he will be able to assent at least to that last proposal. With all respect I may say that I think his explanation, that you do not want to encumber the Ministry with such powers at its birth, is not an adequate answer to the proposal, and I trust that in the public interest some further and better answer may be given.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I do not know whether my noble friend, after the important speech which has just been made by the noble and learned Lord, would undertake to reconsider this question. Unfortunately I was not lucky enough to hear the opening part of the noble Viscount's speech; but this is an important matter and I feel that the attitude taken up by the noble Viscount—though it was very sympathetic, as the noble and learned Lord said—was not very satisfactory. He has admitted the fact that a great evil is disclosed; he has admitted, as I understand, that this ought ultimately to be under the Ministry of Health; and one of his arguments was that the law was so imperfect that it was not worth while transferring it to the new Ministry of Health. The other argument was that it was a little hard on the Ministry of Health to burden it with this matter early in its career. I am not sure that the two pleas are quite consistent. What we have to deal with in this matter is the broad principle. If it is a matter which ought to be undertaken by the Ministry of Health let us say so, and then let my noble friend or his chief come to Parliament hereafter in' order to strengthen the law if such a course be necessary. I would say with respect that if the noble Viscount thinks we have made out a rather strong case, and he will say that he will consider it very carefully between now and Report, that would probably be the most satisfactory way of dealing with it.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

I was one of the Ministers, like the noble Earl who leads the House, who was directly concerned with this matter. What these three Amendments do is to amplify the proposal in paragraph (e) of subsection (1) of Clause 3 by transferring to the new Ministry of Health at once all the powers of the Privy Council which relate to health and medical matters, in addition to those explicitly transferred under the Bill—namely, those under the Midwives Act. I do not expect the noble Viscount, after the appeal made by the noble Marquess and others, to give a final answer now. But the question at issue is whether it is possible for the new Ministry of Health to take over now (as I have no question it ought to do at as early a date as possible) all the powers of the medical and hygienic kind which are now entrusted to the Privy Council. I think one of the later Amendments of my noble friend even covers the whole question of the Medical Register and the entire care of the medical profession which at present is exercised by the Privy Council. It may be that all those functions ought in time to be handed over to the new Ministry of Health and I have no doubt that the noble Earl who leads the House and the noble Viscount in charge of the Bill will both consider whether it is possible to meet my noble friend above the gangway by making the addition to the Bill which would cause that state of things to be brought about at once.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

After listening to what has been said by the noble Marquess who has just sat down, by the noble Marquess who sits beside him, and by one or two others may I state that in what I am going to say I hope the noble Marquess and his friends will understand that I am not pre-judging the case. But, in accordance with what I take to be the wish of noble Lords opposite, I will undertake to consult the President of the Local Government Board on this question and refer to it at a later stage, probably on Report. The noble Marquess will understand, of course, that I do not give any undertaking, as I am not in a position to do so.

LORD BLEDISLOE

In the circumstances I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment. I should like to point out that I have not attempted to explain my further Amendments, although my noble friends have done so to some extent for me. There is, however, one that I might mention in reference to the transfer of all the powers relating to health from the Privy Council. Your Lordships will notice that I include the powers that the Privy Council possess in relation to qualifications and conduct of dentists, chemists, and veterinary surgeons, and also the scheduling of poisons. I only want to say that there are an immense number of "quacks" in the country at the present time of which a large section of the public are victims, and I hope that it will be a proposal which the noble Viscount will take into account if he is prepared to help us when the Bill conies to the Report Stage.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD DOWNHAM moved after the words "the treatment of physical and mental defects" to insert "the treatment and care of the blind." The noble Lord said: The noble Viscount in charge of the Bill said just now that Clause 2 was illustrative and explanatory of various matters and questions concerning health with which it was hoped and desired that the Minister of Health would specially concern himself; and the Parliamentary Secretary, helping to conduct this Bill through Grand Committee in the other House, said that Clause 2 conferred no new powers and that under the clause it was not intended that the Minister should take any new powers, ha that it imposed on the Minister the necessity of taking a special interest in certain matters concerning health and in keeping in touch with everything that concerned those special interests.

I desire that it should be imposed on the Minister of Health as a duty that he should take under his charge the treatment and care of the blind. Possibly the noble and learned Viscount in charge of the Bill may say that this is covered by the words "the treatment of physical and mental defects." I hope he will not say that, because, having myself been very much in touch with the blind, I know that there are few things which hurt their feelings more than to be classed with those who can be truly said to have mental defects. Many of the blind, as we all know, are singularly free from mental defects, and are among the best balanced people in the world.

There is another special reason why I want these words in the Clause. It so happens that I was appointed by Mr. Herbert Samuel, when President of the Local Government Board, as Chairman of a Departmental Committee to inquire into the welfare and treatment of the blind. After taking evidence for a very long time, we reported, and part of the Report, which was unanimous, I would like to read to your Lordships— We have come clearly to the conclusion that the condition of the blind in the United Kingdom calls for the more active intervention of the State to secure (a) central control, organisation, and assistance for the existing agencies of voluntary help which could be utilised with far greater effect if centrally directed, and (b) additional assistance for the blind. It has long been a reproach to this country that we have done so little as a State for the blind, and we hoped to remedy that by recommending that, in order to give effect to our proposals, "a special department, whose function should be the general care and supervision of the blind, should be set up in the Ministry of Health, whenever such a Ministry is created, and in the meantime it should be set up in the Local Government Board." I did set up a Committee in the Local Government Board, and the Under-Secretary, Mr. Walsh, very ably presided over that Committee. I regret to say that it is no longer presided over by the Parliamentary Secretary of the Local Government Board, and I cannot help feeling that this Committee is being lost sight of.

I desire to put these words in the Bill because I think that if they are put in, and more especially if another Amendment later on the Paper is carried, we shall ensure that there shall be a State Department which shall take in charge the special interests of the blind. It is a most hopeful case. There are something like 20,000 blind in our country, and it is established now beyond doubt that 10 per cent. of those cases are due to ophthalmia neonatorum, and that is a disease which can be, I think, enormously diminished and I believe actually suppressed. Therefore it is peculiarly the duty of a Minister of Health to set up a Committee within his own province, which shall take under its care and charge all measures which will conduce to the well-being of the blind. It is a most hopeful problem and there is time now for the State to do what it has never done before, and I hope that this Amend ment will meet with sympathy from your Lordships and that you will insert it in the Bill.

Amendment moved— Page 1, line 17, after ("defects") insert ("the treatment and care of the blind").—(Lord Downham.)

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

I know very well the work that the noble Lord below the gangway did in respect of the blind when he was associated with the Local Govermnent Board, and I can assure him that I in no way associate the blind with those others he mentioned, such as the mentally defective. My objection to putting the blind into this Bill is, as I should have said if Lord Muir Mackenzie had been here and wanted to put in venereal disease, that if one puts in one thing after another in this particular clause, which is illustrative and explanatory, I do not quite see where we are to stop. That is my main objection to putting this Amendment into the clause. At the same time if it be the sense of the House that it should go into the clause, I would not oppose it to the extent of going to a division.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD TENTERDEN had on the Paper an Amendment to add at the end of the clause the words: "The Minister will not interfere with the treatment prescribed by properly qualified medical men, except in so far as to see that it is carried out. The subject shall be free to determine what medical treatment he or she shall undergo provided he or she do undergo medical treatment by properly qualified men."

The noble Lord said: I spoke on the Second Reading of the Bill with regard to this clause, and I said that so far as I was concerned I was unable to understand what it meant or did not mean; and I must confess that the more I hear about this Bill, and the more I hear about this clause, the more bewildered I become. Therefore I shall be extremely obliged if I obtain any enlightenment as the result of moving this Amendment. It is not so much what is intended or may be intended by the Government as what is put in the clause and how the clause might be construed.

Not even do I confine myself to the actual clause and the construction that might be put upon it, but there is also the power that might come from the Orders in Council by which a great deal of the legislation under this clause may be carried out. With regard to that point I would draw attention to what the Speaker said in the other House. He said, referring to the compulsory notification of venereal disease, that it was covered by Clause 2, because he said it will be the duty of the Minister to take all such steps as may be necessary for the prevention and cure of disease. If that is the case, it seems to me that the matter becomes more confused, and I should like to know whether or not the Government are taking upon themselves new powers, because on the one hand an Amendment was moved for compulsory notification and was thrown out by the Government, and on the other hand the Speaker did seem to believe that they had power if it was considered to be a necessary part of the prevention of diseases, to carry out compulsory notification. That is one point which I am rather uncertain about.

Then I want to call attention to what Mr. Betterton said on the subject of Orders in Council. He said he viewed with great concern the tendency to delegate powers to the heads of Departments and proceed by Order in Council. I entirely agree with him. I think so much might be done under this clause that there should be some clear definition of what is intended, and therefore in suggesting to the Government that they should accept this Amendment I am inviting them to make it clear what it is that is intended. Surely if the Government do not intend to do a thing there can be no objection to including a clause to that effect. If the clause is objected to one might argue that it is intended to place the nation under a medical and Ministerial autocracy such as has never yet been tolerated in this country, and such as, I am sure, your Lordships would not desire to see set up. I move the Amendment in a slightly amended form.

Amendment moved— Page 1, line 20, at end insert ("The minister will not interfere with the treatment prescribed by properly qualified medical men. The subject shall be free to determine what medical treatment he or she shall undergo, provided he or she do undergo medical treatment by properly qualified men or women").—(Lord Tenterden.)

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

The Amendment of the noble Lord says that "The Minister will not interfere with the treatment prescribed by properly qualified medical men, except in so far as to see that it is carried out."

LORD TENTERDEN

Pardon me; I have deleted the latter part, have I not?

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

I beg pardon. The President of the Local Government Board, the Minister for Health, has nothing to do with hospitals under this Bill. The measure confers no power on the Minister to interfere in any way, and he has no connection whatever, with voluntary hospitals. As I have said many times and as I will repeat to the noble Lord, the object of this Bill is to establish a central authority for health, and I do not see myself that the Amendment really has any great bearing upon the clause. I cannot quite follow how the Minister is to determine what medical treatment a person is to undergo. I understand that the noble Lord has withdrawn that part of the Amendment about treatment of medical men—that he has withdrawn the first half of his Amendment.

LORD TENTERDEN

The words "except in so far as to see that it is carried out" are omitted, and at the end are added the words "or women."

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

My answer is that the Amendment is totally inapplicable to the subject of the Bill, and I do not think there is any more to be said about it.

THE LORD CHAIRMAN

I understand that the Amendment is moved in the form as printed, but that the words "except in so far as to see that it is carried out" are omitted and that the words "or women" are added at the end.

On Question, Amendment negatived.

Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 3:

Transfer of Powers and Duties to and from Minister.

3.—(1) There shall be transferred to7 the Minister—

1. (a) all the powers and duties of the Loca Government Board;
2. (b) all the powers and duties of the Insurance Commissioners and the Welsh Insurance Commissioners;
3. (c) all the powers of the Board of Education with respect to attending to the health of expectant mothers and nursing 571 mothers and of children who have not attained the age of five years and are not in attendance at schools recognised by the Board of Education;
4. (d) all the powers and duties of the Board of Education with respect to the medical inspection and treatment of children and young persons: Provided that, for the purpose of facilitating the effective exercise and performance of these powers and duties, the Minister may make arrangements with the Board of Education respecting the submission and approval of schemes of local education authorities and the payment of grants to local education authorities so far as such schemes and payment relate to or are in respect of medical inspection and treatment provided for under paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of section thirteen of the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act, 1907, as amended and extended by section eighteen of the Education Act, 1918; and the powers and duties of the Minister may under any such arrangements be exercised and performed by the Board on his behalf and with his authority under such conditions as he may think fit;
5. (e) all the powers of the Privy Council and of the Lord President of the Council under the Midwives Acts, 1902 and 1918;
6. (f) such powers of supervising the administration of Part I. of the Children Act, 1908 (which relates to infant life protection), as have heretofore been exercised by the Secretary of State:

Provided that—

1. (i) the power conferred on the Insurance Commissioners by the proviso to subsection (2) of section sixteen of the National Insurance Act, 1911, of retaining and applying for the purposes of research such sums as are therein mentioned shall not be transferred to the Minister, but the duties heretofore performed by the Medical Research Committee shall after the date of the commencement of this Act be carried on by or under the direction of a Committee of the Privy Council appointed by His Majesty for that purpose, and any property held for the purposes of the former Committee shall after that date be transferred to and vested in such persons as the body by whom such duties as aforesaid are carried on may appoint, and be held by them for the purposes of that body; and
2. (ii) in such matters of a judicial nature under the National Insurance (Health) Acts, 1911 to 1918, as may be prescribed under those Acts, the powers and duties of the Insurance Commissioners and the Welsh Insurance Commissioners by this Act transferred to the Minister shall be exercised 572 by the Minister through a special body or special bodies of persons constituted in such manner as may be so prescribed.

(2) It shall be lawful for His Majesty from time to time by Order in Council to transfer to the Minister—

1. (a) all or any of the powers and duties of the Minister of Pensions with respect to the health of disabled officers and men after they have left the service;
2. (b) all or any of the powers and duties of the Secretary of State under the enactments relating to lunacy and mental deficiency;
3. (c) any other powers and duties in England and Wales of any Government department which appear to His Majesty to relate to matters affecting or incidental to the health of the people.

(3) It shall be lawful for His Majesty from time to time by Order in Council to transfer from the Minister to any other Government department any of the powers and duties of the Minister which appear to His Majesty not to relate to matters affecting or incidental to the health of the people.

And it is hereby declared that it is the intention of this Act that, in the event of provision being made by Act of Parliament passed in the present or in any future session for the revision of the law relating to the relief of the poor and the distribution amongst other authorities of the powers exercised by boards of guardians, there shall be transferred from the Minister to other Government departments such of the powers and duties under the enactments relating to the relief of the poor then vested in the Minister (not being powers or duties relating or incidental to the health of the people) as appear to His Majesty to be such as could be more conveniently exercised and performed by such other departments.

(4) His Majesty may by Order in Council make such incidental, consequential, and supplemental provisions as may be necessary or expedient for the purpose of giving full effect to any transfer of powers or duties by or under this section, including provisions for the transfer of any property, rights, and liabilities held, enjoyed, or incurred by any Government department in connection with any powers or duties transferred, and may make such adaptations in the enactments relating to such powers or duties as may be necessary to make exerciseable by the Minister and his officers or by such other Government department and their officers, as the case may be, the powers and duties so transferred.

(5) In connection with the transfer of powers and duties to or from the Minister by or under this Act, the provisions set out in the First Schedule to this Act shall have effect.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST moved, in subsection (1) (d), after "persons" and before the proviso, to insert "under paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of section thirteen of the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act, 1907, as amended and extended by the Education Act, 1918." The noble Viscount said: This is a drafting amendment and I think the noble Lord below the gangway has a similar one on the Paper.

LORD DOWNHAM

My Amendment is similar with considerable additions.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

The second Amendment, yes. The noble Lord's first Amendment is similar to mine and, oddly enough, I consider it quite right. But Lord Downham will see that the reference to Section 18 is not sufficient by itself. Section 2, subsection (1) (b), of the Act of 1918 should also be covered in order to avoid clumsy wording, and the Act of 1918 should be referred to as a whole.

Amendment moved— Page 2, line 9, after ("persons") insert ("under paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of section thirteen of the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act, 1907, as amended and extended by the Education Act, 1918").—(Viscount Sandhurst.)

THE LORD CHAIRMAN

Does this Amendment satisfy the noble Lord?

LORD DOWNHAM

It quite satisfies me. I think it is in better form.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD DOWNHAM moved to delete from subsection (1) (d) the whole of the proviso after the word "person." The noble Lord said: I desire to omit the words of the proviso in the Bill, because these words were put in on the Report stage of the Bill in another place. The chief object of the Bill is to unify the central control in one Department, namely, the Ministry of Health, and it was obviously the desire of the Standing Committee which dealt with the Bill that the Bill should go further than it did in unification of central control. At all events as regards the child, the Standing Committee argued, and it was their full intention (as I trust it will be the intention of your Lordships) that one Minister and one Minister alone, namely, the Minister of Health, should be responsible for the health of the child, and that that authority should not be divided between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education. The Minister of Health did not desire to take over these powers from the Board of Education, and he brought to his assistance in argument the President of the Board of Education, but not, even the united arguments of the two were able to prevail with the Committee.

The Committee insisted on putting into the Bill powers which gave the Minister of Health no option whatever but to take over all the powers of the Board of Education in connection with the medical inspection and treatment of children. They showed quite plainly that they did not desire a child to be put, as it were, into compartments and, when he was of school age, to be doctored by one set of doctors acting under one Committee and under one Government Department, while, when he was no longer of school age—or before he was of school age—he was doctored by another set of doctors acting-under another Committee and under another Government Department. The Board of Education apparently were not satisfied with the Amendment as carried or with the instruction from the Grand Committee, and when the Bill came down to the House the two Ministers put their heads together and put in this proviso which your Lordships will find in Clause 3.

This proviso, to use the language of the Bar, enables the Minister of Health to "devil" his powers as regards children to the Minister of Education. It says quite plainly that the powers and duties of the Minister may, under any such arrangements as may be made with the Board of Education, be exercised and performed by the Board on his behalf and with his authority under such conditions as he may think fit. I should say that the Minister of Health could now, without those words, give general instructions to the President of the Board of Education that he desired such and such a proportion of clinics to be established in connection with a particular group of schools, and that certain dental treatment should be given; and he could employ the Minister of Education and the staff of that Minister as his agents to carry out the principle which he laid down.

What I dislike in this proviso is that it divides the responsibility between two Ministers and that, whereas the Standing Committee (which was a very strong Committee in some respects) was practically unanimous in deciding that the whole of this responsibility as regards the health of the child should fall upon the Minister of Health and that he alone and the staff working under him should shoulder it, those who were in charge of the Bill in the House of Commons afterwards went back on that. They give the impression, by putting in this proviso, that the Minister of Education is just as responsible as the Minister of Health. What I fear is that the Minister of Health will more or less be able to shuffle off his responsibility to another Minister, and, for my own part, I think it is far better that there should be one set of doctors treating these children—that the same doctor who treats them in the school should be the doctor who doctors them in the home—

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

And the same nurse.

LORD DOWNHAM

And that they should be acting under the same Department. For my part I prefer, and I believe a large number of members of the House of Commons would much prefer, the Bill as it left the Standing Committee. It was quite clear in placing the full responsibility upon the Minister of Health. I hope we shall adopt that.

Amendment moved. Page 2, line 9, leave out from ("persons") to the end of paragraph (d).—(Lord Downham.)

THE LORD CHAIRMAN

In order to secure the right of the noble Viscount, Lord Sandhurst, who has an Amendment to leave out part of the words which the noble Lord now moves to leave out, I will put the Question from the word "persons" to the end of line 17—"inspection and treatment." If that is accepted the remainder can go out as consequential. The Question is whether the words proposed to be left out shall stand part of the clause.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

I dealt fully with this matter on the occasion of the Second Reading, and I need not repeat what I said then. The matter was discussed and the result was as has been mentioned by Lord Downham, but when the Amendment was put into the Bill, I think on the Report stage, I am correct in saying that there was no division against it. The Government inserted their Amendment so as to facilitate the work of the local education authorities, who in the absence of some such arrangement would have found themselves bound to go to two Departments in Whitehall instead of one. It really was a matter of administrative convenience. Medical inspection and treatment could not be entirely divorced from the system of educational schemes and grants as a whole, and the local education authorities will obviously prefer to deal with the Board of Education which has a knowledge of these things and of the administrative questions arising out of their schemes and in relation to their grants. But all the members, so far as they concern health, will be under the Ministry of Health. I may perhaps add that the body over which Lord Downham so ably presides, the London County Council, were quick to draw attention to the inconvenience which would have arisen by the Amendment, as the clause left the Standing Committee. I trust your Lordships will not agree to the Amendment.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

I appreciate very fully the difficulty which has led to these words. No one has tried to identify himself more definitely than I have with the principle of the single service and one Minister being responsible for the single service, and only one Minister. But unfortunately services are only notionally quite separate, and occasionally they overlap. I mentioned the other day—it is quite germane to what we are dealing with—that it was found under the old system before the war that the care of school children, the care at home as well as in the school, was a matter where overlapping came in, and the question was how much should be given to the local Health Committees, which were looked after by the Local Government Board, and how much should belong to the Care Committees, which were committees under the local educational authorities. That proved to be a most difficult thing, and in those days there was no such provision in the law as these words, making attempt of inducing the two Ministries to work together. It had to go to arbitration, and as I had the honour to occupy the Woolsack at the time I had to determine who should do what between the two Ministries. It was a difficult thing. I made an award, and I made it over again, and on the second occasion the two Departments were no more satisfied than on the first occasion. All I heard of it was that they refused to act on the award I had made. The reason was that each of them had the duty, and unless they could agree by some such machinery as this proviso for the distribution of the duty, and for relieving the local authorities from the complications of their position, I do not see how that difficulty is really to be got over. It is not a very happy state of things, but on the whole I think the Government have taken the best course they can in putting in these words.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I cannot quite take the view of Viscount Haldane. It is a very difficult thing for a layman to understand the full effect of a proviso of this length, drafted in the peculiar manner with which we are familiar. I cannot but suspect that it goes a very long way to negative the decision of the Grand Committee in the House of Commons. That Committee heard the whole of the question argued; they heard the whole of the education people, and also the health people, and quite deliberately decided to take away from the Education Department the concern for the health of the children in school. This proviso is represented by Viscount Haldane as a method for enabling the two Departments to provide administrative machinery for carrying out that, decision. With great deference to his knowledge I profoundly suspect that it goes a great deal farther than that. Why should it? It goes farther than what my noble friend Lord Downham said. You may have one medical officer inspecting the child for some disease in its home, and another inspecting it in the school, in the same street, for the same disease. You may have one nurse superintending the treatment of the child in its home, under the care of the doctor, and another nurse superintending its treatment in the school under the care of another doctor. That duplication, to my own knowledge, actually occurred.

After all, this question in both its aspects will be worked in most cases by the same authority. The county council, the county borough council, or the borough council, will be the authority to deal with education in the locality, and also with health, under the supervision of the Ministry of Health. Speaking for my own county council area, I do not believe there will be any difficulty whatever in working it quite satisfactorily in the Hampshire villages as it came down from Grand Committee to the House of Commons. All of us who have had the experience, and the great advantage, of holding office in a Government Department know that there is an amiable weakness which they all share—they cannot part with any powers under any circumstances whatever. They are like Rachel, weeping for her children, if it is proposed to remove any duty from them. I asked Lord Ernle yesterday whether the Board of Education had agreed by Order in Council, as the law permits, to transfer certain powers in respect of agricultural education to the Board of Agriculture, and he had to tell me across the floor of the House that that had hitherto been found impossible. The dispute between Mr. Runciman, who was then Minister for Agriculture in Lord Crewe's Liberal Government, and the then Minister of Education on this question became so acute that it had eventually to be decided by the personal authority of Mr. Asquith. He said that the functions which the Board of Education is now attempting to fulfil in the matter of agriculture belong clearly to the Minister of Agriculture and not to the Board of Education. The Minister accepted that as a personal decision and all succeeding Ministers have acted on it. But nothing would induce the Board of Education to allow that to be given proper effect to in a constitutional manner. So it is in this case, either the care of the children in these schools is a. matter of health belonging to the Ministry of Health or it is not. The Grand Committee of the House of Commons decided it is, and I hope your Lordships will support that.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

Perhaps I may say another word. I can assure your Lordships that there has been no jealousy and no friction. The noble Earl looks rather incredulous, but I can assure him that there has been no jealousy and no friction between the Local Government Board and the Ministry of Health in regard to what he said just now. As to the condition in which the clause came from the Grand Committee, I do not think the decision was challenged in the House. I suggest that there was no Division whatever, but I only rose to make it clear that the local authority arrangements are left untouched, and the jurisdiction of the education authority in the locality remains untouched too.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I hope that the noble Viscount will reconsider this question. I have a great desire to emphasise what has already been said. We are engaged in unifying the health administration, and the noble Viscount really has not, if I may say so, with all his knowledge of this subject and all the knowledge of those who advise him, attempted to answer the case put by my noble friend below the gangway opposite.

For national purposes the child up to the age of five is under the supervision of the Ministry of Health; then, under the clause as the Government have now submitted it, the child will pass under the Board of Education until it is fourteen years old, when it once more reverts to the Ministry of Health. Surely that is not reasonable, and no justification has been given for it. Later on my noble friend Lord Selborne, speaking with great authority derived front his own experience in his own County Council, said that he knew a case in which a child was under double authority. It was partly under one doctor and partly under the other doctor and partly under one nurse and partly under another nurse. This case requires an answer. I know that the question is a very difficult one. There is always a difficulty where you have the clash of the authority of two Departments, but the case put by the noble Lord below the Gangway, and by my noble friend behind me, has never been replied to. That is what your Lordships will realise.

I do not doubt that what really happened in the House of Commons was this. In the Committee, where there is considerable freedom of action, the true sense of the House of Commons was displayed. I believe that there was an almost unanimous feeling in the Committee that the child for the purposes of health—I mean the purposes of health proper, not physical drill and matters of that kind—ought to be entirely in the hands of the Ministry of Health. Then, when it got down to the House of Commons, the Board of Education hied round to the Leader of the House and said, "You know we must plant this out somehow; we must get rid of it somehow. Cannot you invent a proviso which will seem to maintain in its integrity the position of the Committee upstairs but really will take the whole thing away again?" They did that.

The proviso practically takes away the Amendment which the Grand Committee put in. I want your Lordships to realise that. Certain words are put in—very elaborate words—and it is rather difficult even to understand them, but the general effect is that the Ministry of Health is practically directed to devolve the whole of its authority in respect of children at school upon the Board of Education, and the subordinates of the Board of Education; and of course it will have to do so. In other words, the whole intention of the Committee upstairs was destroyed by the action of the House upon Report. What the noble Lord below the Gangway asks you to do is to restore to the Bill what is in reality the true sense of the House of Commons. It is not a contest between the two Houses in the ordinary sense. It is a going back from the mechanical majority on the Report stage of the Bill to the true sense of the House of Commons as it was expressed upstairs, and I hope that the Government will reconsider it.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

I cannot think that the matter is quite so simple and straightforward as the noble Marquess behind me has endeavoured to show. This Amendment of the noble Lord opposite undoubtedly represents the remains of a very ancient controversy. "Even in our ashes live their wonted fires." It is quite true that the Local Government Board, of which the noble Lord, Lord Downham, was the distinguished President, tried for a long time to obtain, before the Ministry of Health could be founded, the health powers of the Board of Education.

There is, of course, everything to be said on papa for having all the health of the country everywhere administered by one Department, but there are one or two other considerations which have to be borne in mind. In the first place, the medical inspection and care of children when carried out by the Board of Education was by common consent admirably done. It was probably the best performed public medical duty in the country. I say that without hesitation. Therefore nobody can be surprised if the complete divesting of the Board of Education of these particular functions is a matter which requires some considertaion.

It is also, I think, to be borne in mind that it is only in the class of the public elementary schools that there is any question of entirely separating the medical treatment and care of children from their education. In our class it never will be supposed that the medical care of children could be separated from those who have the care of their education. At the private schools to which your Lordships' boys, and some times girls, go at the same age as these children the whole business [...] in one hand. And therefore, although it may be a reasonable thing that the education authorities should have no word in the matter, yet it is not in complete consonance with what those do who can afford to bring up their children in the way they please.

I think also there is this to be considered, that, as has already been pointed out, the local authority is in its essence the same, whether it be the county council or the city council working through different committees. I must confess I do not see why locally in actual practice a quite friendly arrangement for joint action and a certain degree of devolution should not be arrived at between the two representatives of the different committees of the same local authority. I feel, therefore, that the noble Lord's Amendment is one which it can hardly be expected that His Majesty's Government would accept offhand.

The noble Marquess behind me made tremendous play with what happened in the Committee room upstairs in another place, as compared with what happened when the subject was remitted to the House—almost as though the Committee room upstairs was a sort of Mount Sinai where the truth was revealed in this particular matter. I have not had the advantage of reading the account of what happened in that Committee, or what the arguments were that were used, and therefore I refrain from saying anything about it. I have no doubt that the noble Viscount opposite would be prepared to consider the whole matter before the Bill reaches another stage, but I honestly do not think that he could be expected to accept the Amendment at this moment.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

Perhaps I may once more repeat, if I did not make

quite clear what I endeavoured to say, and also what I said in my explanation on the Second Reading, that the proviso only enables the administration of this business to be carried out by the Board of Education. The Minister will settle the standards of work to be attained and to be secured from the local authority by the Board of Education. The proviso is not intended in any way to deprive the Health Minister of his responsibility to, Parliament for the health standard.—

LORD DOWNHAM

The remark which the noble Viscount in charge of the Bill has just made appears to give a very innocent interpretation to what I still think to be a very dangerous proviso. There is no doubt whatever—I have read the whole of the debate, on this question in the Standing Committee—that the two Ministers had no Support in that Committee at all. The Committee was unanimous that it should be made quite plain in the Bill that there should be one Minister only responsible for the health of the children in the school and out of the school; and what I fear is this, that, if this proviso is carried, there is going to be a separate medical service still acting under the Board of Education and under the various Education Committees—a separate medical service which will dig itself in under this proviso, and which it will be very difficult afterwards to dovetail into any general State service. For my part, I believe I am representing the virile opinion of the House of Commons in this matter, and, believing that, I shall ask your Lordships to give me support for this Amendment.

On Question, whether the words proposed to be left out shall stand part of the clause?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 37; Not-Contents, 23.

CONTENTS.
Birkenhead, L. (L. Chancellor.)	Farquhar, V. (L. Steward.)	Elphinstone, L.
Curzon of Kedleston, E. (L. President.)	Sandhurst, V. (L. Chamberlain.)	Faringdon, L.
	Finlay, V.	Forteviot, L.
	Haldane, V.	Glenarthur, L.
Sutherland, D.	Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)	Hylton, L.
Wellington, D.		Inverforth, L.
Aberdeen and Temair, M.	Peel, V.	Newton, L.
		Rathcreedan, L.
Crewe, M.	Llandaff, L. Bp.	Rothschild, L.
Bradford, E.	Annesley, L.	Saltoun, L.
Chesterfield, E.	Bledisloe, L.	Somerleyton, L. [Teller.]
Fitzwilliam, E.	Buckmaster, L.	Stanmore, L. [Teller.]
Jersey, E.	Colebrooke,	Tenterden, L.
Portsmouth, E.	Denman, L.	Wigan, L. (E. Crawford.)
NOT-CONTENTS.
Northumberland, D	Knollys, V.	Forester, L.
	Knutsford, V.	Lawrence, L.
Bath, M.		Ludlow, L.
Salisbury, M.	Askwith, L.	Monckton, L. (V. Galway.) [Teller.]
Onslow, E.	Avebury, L.
Selborne, E.	Balfour, L.	Monk Bretton, L.
Stanhope, E.	Chaworth, L. (E. Meath.)	Sandys, L.
	Downham, L. [Teller.]	Sydenham, L.
Hood, V.	Erskine, L.	Willoughby de Broke, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

The next Amendment is consequential.

Amendment moved— Page 2, line 17, leave out from ("treatment") to the first ("and") in line 22.—(Viscount Sandhurst.)

LORD DOWNHAM moved, in subsection (2) (c), after "Department," to insert "other than the Board of Education." The noble Lord said: This is very little more than a drafting Amendment, but it does appear to me that, having taken over all the powers the Ministry of Health desires to take over from the Board of Education, those words are needed.

Amendment moved— Page 3, line 27, after ("Department") insert ("(other than the Board of Education)").(Lord Downham.)

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

I am not quite sure that I correctly understand the Amendment. I rather gathered that the noble Lord thought that our Bill was hardly courageous enough, and now I understand that he wants to prevent our taking for ever anything to do with the Board of Education. Activities may develop in future which might be properly handled by the Minister, and all we ask is freedom to make such arrangements in case of need.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD DOWNHAM moved to omit subsection (3). The noble Lord said: We have heard from the noble Viscount in charge of the Bill that it is the intention of His Majesty's Government very soon to transfer to some other Departments the enormous powers of the Local Government Board which are not connected with matters of health—such matters as the supervision and direction and administration of the laws relating to franchise, to registration, to elections, and to-many other subjects, the whole of the Poor Law except that which relates to health. His Majesty's Government may at any time by Act of Parliament transfer the supervision and direction and administration of any powers from one Department to another. What I question is whether we ought to part with the power that we have in both Houses of criticising the decision of His Majesty's Government to transfer to some Department such very large powers as those relating to elections and registration and matters of that kind. Supposing His Majesty's Government proposed to transfer those particular powers to one Department, it would be quite possible, but they might be far better transferred to another Department. At the same time they might by Order in Council impose certain conditions on the new Minister in administering those great functions. Some of those functions are about the most important that any Minister has to administer. I cannot imagine any decisions more important than those which the Minister may often have to give under the Representation of the People Act, and so on. Surely it ought not to be able to transfer these enormous blocks of powers merely by Order in Council, which we shall have very little opportunity of criticising. I am aware that the Order in Council in this case must be one which is subject to a clause later in the Bill which says that no such Order in Council will become operative unless resolutions of both Houses are passed in favour of the draft Order in Council which proposes to transfer these powers. That certainly gives some opportunity to both Houses to criticise such Orders; but I still maintain that it would be more in consonance with the privileges and power and duties of both Houses if such important functions as those were not transferred by Order in Council but by Act of Parliament. I only raise the question in order that I may invite your Lordships' opinion upon it.

Amendment moved— Page 3, line 30, to line 5 on page 4, leave out subsection (3).—(Lord Downham.)

THE LORD CHAIRMAN

In order to secure the rights of a later Amendment, I will put three lines, from line 30 to the end of line 32—that those words stand part.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

The Amendment touches two great subjects, although we have not yet come fully to the second of them. The question to which the noble Lord has drawn attention—because I think he put it more in the form of a. searching question than of a desire to insist upon the proposition—is whether the principle embodied in subsection (3) is right. Obviously this subsection contemplates that the present distribution of executive functions is not a satisfactory one. It contemplates some reorganisation. The Ministry of Health is the service of health. Because there is not at once a complete reorganisation, and ad interim someone has to discharge functions at the Local Government Board other than health for the time, it leaves the Health Ministry exercising functions which have nothing to do with the service of health. That is only so because it is contemplated that other Departments would be reorganised also.

For instance, you are presently going to strip the Home Office of a great deal of health work. When you do that completely the Home Office will require other functions, and surely there are a number of those referred to by Lord Downham which may well pass to the Home Office—all those functions which relate to justice and such questions as franchise and areas and so on. These naturally would pass from the Local Government Board, where they used to be; and from the Ministry of Health, where they will be under this Bill, to the Home Office, with—and this is pure hypothesis—its newly-defined functions for the service of justice, as the proper office to administer those functions. I do not know the intentions of the Government, but I only know the conclusion to which I have come in my own mind after two years of thought and investigation given to this subject.

If that is done it must be done to a very large extent not by Statute but executively. No doubt the Prime Minister of the day will be held deeply responsible to Parliament for making proper redistribution of the functions of the Executive Government. But it may be done more by the re-allocation of duties amongst Ministers, and it is impossible to legislate in advance for what may turn out to be the best policy. Accordingly, instead of defining in a rigid fashion what cannot be defined until you know the redistribution and reorganisation of different services, you put in this subsection (3), which says that by Order in Council to be laid on the Table it is to be possible piecemeal, as these Departments come into existence, to transfer powers. The very Bill under discussion is an illustration of that. A great deal of powers are to be transferred to the new Ministry, and a great deal of powers and duties are to pass from it, and you could not have made at this stage a proper allocation of the items which were to come within the service of health. The only way was to take the method of proceeding ad interim, and put in such a subsection as this. For these reasons I think it is a useful subsection, and also—it arises more properly on Lord Muir Mackenzie's subsequent Amendment—although it is a very unusual thing to put a declaration into a Bill as to what is the intention of the Government, I can see why it has been fitted in. There was an almost passionate desire on the part of large numbers of people that the Government should declare their policy in this Bill, and therefore there is that declaration of principle upon which the power is to be exercised.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

It is true that in the case of the Poor Law further legislation will be needed, but I think it is essential to lay down in this Bill the principle that the Minister should be enabled to define the functions which can be better assigned to some other Department, and it is also hardly less essential to indicate in this Bill that the Government have adopted a means to carry out the principle suggested by the Maclean Committee. A safeguard is that—I think the noble Lord alluded to it—the Order in Council must lie on the Table for thirty days, and in addition to that in the case of new functions the Order in Council must be endorsed by Resolutions of both Houses of Parliament. It can be either accepted or rejected or modified. I trust, therefore, that your Lordships will not accept this Amendment.

LORD MUIR MACKENZIE

As I happened to be for a great many years very familiar with practices of this kind, doing things by Order in Council, I should like to say a word on this point. It struck me when I first read this clause that it was not desirable by Order in Council to do such very large things as were proposed, but a subsequent clause in the Bill provides that in this class of case not only is the draft Order in Council to be laid for thirty days on the Table but there is to be a positive Resolution by both Houses approving of the draft Order in Council, and also giving power to make arrangements for carrying it into effect. I do not think that is a practice that has prevailed hitherto. It is a new thing, and it seems to me to be a most admirable thing. Laying the Orders in Council upon the Table of both Houses very often is of no real effect, because people do not look at them; but here you have to have a definite resolution put down upon the subject, and it seems to me this enables the House to have complete control without having to go through the whole process which would be necessary if you brought in a separate Bill to give effect to what is proposed. Therefore I think the objection of Lord Downham goes further than it need, and I hope he will not press his objection so far as Orders in Council are concerned.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD MUIR MACKENZIE moved, in subsection (3), after "Minister" where that word secondly occurs, to insert "whether relating to the relief of the poor or otherwise." The noble Lord said: My first Amendment is closely related to the second one. It has already been alluded to by the noble and learned Viscount opposite, but if you take the first part of Clause 3 by itself I apprehend that the powers of the Local Government Board with reference to the Poor Law could be transferred to any Department that it was thought proper to transfer them to under the words as they stand. My recollection, from reading the account of what happened in the Grand Committee of the House of Commons, was that there was a very strong opinion expressed that it was desirable to have upon the face of the Bill something about the Poor Law itself, and to give in that way a kind of indication of what would be done at any rate as regards Poor Law. It seems to me that by putting in the words that I suggest, or some such words, you do that thing, and you do it in a perfectly regular and draftsmanlike manner. What has been done here has been to put in a clause which, according to my view, is entirely unnecessary, and as to which I should like to recall to the memory of the House what was said by Lord Balfour of Burleigh with regard to some words which are put in the Scottish Bill. Anybody who is familiar with Acts of Parliament, and who knows what are the powers of an Act at any particular time and the powers of a Government, cannot help being shocked at reading words of this kind. If they are not necessary I cannot see why they should be put in.

Amendment moved— Page 3, line 33, after ("minister") insert ("whether relating to the relief of the poor or otherwise").—(Lord Muir Mackenzie.)

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

I have no objection to these words, but in accepting this Amendment I do not pledge myself to accept the next Amendment. I do not know whether that will be of any use to the noble Lord.

LORD MUIR MACKENZIE moved to delete from subsection (3) the whole of the second paragraph commencing "And it is hereby declared" down to "such other departments." The noble Lord said: I need not trouble the House with any further remarks, but I hope that the noble Viscount, if not now, will after consideration allow these words, which are quite unnecessary, to be taken out.

Amendment moved— Page 3, line 34, leave out from ("people") to the end of the subsection.—(Lord Muir Mackenzie.)

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

In regard to the first Amendment, which I have accepted, I quite admit that it is a shorter cut to the general aim of the clause than the phraseology of the Bill. At the same time, while I acknowledge this, I hope the noble Lord will not press the Amendment which has just been read. These particular matters were the subject of considerable debate at different stages of the Bill. Not only that, but they were the subject of many conferences and discussions in the very early stages when this measure was being contemplated, extending, I think, over the last two or three years. It was stated at one time that the opinion was held by friendly societies, trade unions, and labour generally that they would sooner be without a Health Bill than let there be any doubt whatever as to the separation of the Poor Law from the Health Bill.

LORD MUIR MACKENZIE

Hear, hear.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

But they recognise that to wait for the reform of the Poor Law and the result of the Maclean Committee would be unduly to prolong delay, and, subject to the insertion of this subsection, the position was accepted. The Minister gave an undertaking to adhere to this subsection, and, that undertaking having been given, I am unable to retreat front that position.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

If this were a question of drafting, I should agree entirely with my noble friend Lord Muir. Mackenzie. It is very extraordinary to say, "And it is hereby declared that it is the intention of this Act" about matters which do not appear in the Bill. Nevertheless, I should be sorry if this House struck out those words, and I will tell your Lordships why. The conflict between the two Poor Law Reports, the Majority and the Minority, seemed almost insoluble until years after, with the advance of opinion, there came the happy solution of Sir Donald Maclean's Committee on Local Government. They said, "Why should there be a Poor Law at all? Let us break it up." They analysed it into elements, into different services and fragments of services, and the Report was adopted by the Government. That is to say, there was an official announcement made in Parliament that the Government would carry out that Report. Then came the difficulty, how was this to be put on legislative record?; and there came the Health Bill.

I agree with Lord Muir Mackenzie that the Health Bill has very little to do with the great, wide question which was embodied in the Maclean Report, but numbers of people who felt most passionately upon this, who felt the inhumanity of our Poor Law and the wrongness of the system which treats children, women and sick people and puts them for many purposes in the same category with vagrants and able-bodied people—many people who took that view almost passionately and who thought the Poor Law was one of the surviving abuses of the past which ought to be got rid of, looked about for an opportunity of making a legislative declaration, and in making it in such a form that the Government would be bound by it whenever it came to executive action. Consequently, these words, with the very extraordinary appearance they present in line 35, were put in, and they express something so very real that, speaking for myself, I sigh as a lawyer but I obey as a reformer the instinct of keeping these words standing where zealous people put them.

LORD MUIR MACKENZIE

By the leave of the House I withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 4:

Consultative Councils.

4.—(1) It shall be lawful for His Majesty by Order in Council to establish consultative councils in England and Wales for giving, in accordance with the provisions of the Order, advice and assistance to the Minister in connection with such matters affecting or incidental to the health of the people as may be referred to in such Order.

(2) Every such council shall include women as well as men, and shall consist of persons having practical experience of the platters referred to the council.

LORD DOWNHAM moved, in subsection (1), after "establish" to insert "three." The noble Lord said: I move to put in the word "three" before "Consultative Councils." I am not at all sure, holding the opinions I do about these very strange new bodies called Consultative Councils, that I ought not to move to leave cut Consultative Councils altogether. I cannot help thinking that these bodies which are statutory bodies and are put in a powerful position inside a Department for a period of years, will ultimately strike at the responsibility of Ministers and equally at the responsibility of the permanent officials, on whose advice we all now rely.

Quite apart from that, it seems to me that it may greatly embarrass a Minister coming into a Department when he finds there Consultative Councils, well entrenched, every member of which was nominated by his predecessor with whose policy he happens to be in violent disagreement. I do not think that is going to make for good administrative government. I cannot help thinking that such a Council as I might have established at the Local Government Board might have been singularly distasteful to my right hon. friend who has succeeded me, and also that there have been other Presidents of the Local Government Board who might have established Consultative Councils with the view of doing a good deal of propaganda work in certain branches of policy with which I might have found myself in total disagreement when I came to administer the functions of that high Office.

Apart from the probability, as I think, that these Consultative Councils will strike at the responsibility of Ministers, both Parliamentary and official, I invite your Lordships' attention to this—there is no limit in this clause to the number of Consultative Councils which this one Minister may appoint. It is quite true he has informed the House of Commons, through his Parliamentary Secretary, that at present his intention is to limit his appetite to four of these Councils—one for medical questions another to deal with national insurance questions, another to deal with local government questions, and another to deal generally with all questions affecting any of his powers and functions. Each of these Councils is to be composed of not more than twenty. I can assure the President of the Board that he will have great difficulty in keeping them within the number of twenty. There will be a great clamour to be appointed on these bodies. They have considerable privileges and powers, and it appears to me to be a most cumberous method of administrative machinery.

There will be four Councils, consisting altogether of eighty people. They will each have a paid secretary; they may have any staff that the Treasury will allow them to have—and the Treasury appears now to allow you to have almost anything. They will have any number, as far as I can see, of inspectors at their disposal. I am sorry for the permanent officials, because they will have not only their present master, the President, and the Parliamentary Secretary, but they will have to be at the beck and call of all these various bodies. I am not surprised that the hotels are being very carefully guarded by the First Commissioner of Works. I think a great many hotels will be needed soon, if each Minister is to set up at least four Consultative Councils, with all their staffs—and this is only a beginning under a Bill of this kind. I contemplate an enormous expenditure under this head because I am quite sure it will become Popular with a good many politicians, and they will desire not only that committees of this kind should be set up in the Local Government Board, but in the Foreign Office as well—I think it has been proposed to do so already—in the Board of Trade, in the Labour Department, and in many other Departments. I see a great army of these members of Consultative Councils gradually being moved up: their travelling expenses paid, their subsistence allowance paid whenever they like to come to London from Northumberland or Cornwall, and also remuneration being given to them for the loss of their time. Very soon there will be a demand for salaries equally proportionate to those which are enjoyed by legislators.

I cannot see how the demand can be resisted—if you set up a Consultative Council in the Local Government Board to deal with local affairs, pay the expenses of that council, and give them their lunches—of the Labour Party on the London County Council, which has already been made that they, too, should be paid their out-of-pocket expenses, or paid some moderate salary for the work they do—and very good work they do. I think we are gradually breaking down the whole system of gratuitous public service. It is a very serious matter. It is a system of subsidising Soviets, which is likely to prove expensive and very embarrassing.

What is the position of a Minister as regards committees. Any Minister can call into being as many committees as he chooses to help him. I myself, when I was at the Local Government Board, had several committees to assist me on housing and health questions, and matters of that kind. It is always possible to set up any committee; and in this country men are most generous in giving their services. There is hardly a Minister who has held office for any length of time who is not indebted to many generous members of the community for sitting on committees and giving him their advice and assistance in any legislation which he desires to promote. I see nothing to prevent that. Why then set up this system of Consultative Councils, to be appointed, according to tile Draft Order we have seen, all of them by the Minister, to stay in office for three years, with the possibility of a further three years. The Consultative Councils are probably to be allowed to set up any number of sub-committees. I wonder whether these sub-committees are to be paid their travelling and out-of-pocket expenses, and all the expenses which can be claimed by the Consultative Committees.

Then as regards their powers. Their powers go much further than some of the speeches seem to indicate. I gathered from some of the speeches that their powers were confined to advising on matters which had been referred to them. That is not so, They go much further than that— The Council may also present to the Minister from time to time a report on any matter affecting or incidental to the health of the people, if appertaining to the functions of the Council, which has not been made the subject of reference to the Council under the foregoing provisions of this Order. It will be possible for them to make any Reports on any matter, whether referred to them or not—and, I presume, to publish them. I know that this new system of Consultative Councils met with a great deal of support in another place, and therefore I have not put down an Amendment ruling out this clause altogether. I am trying to ascertain the opinions of your Lordships on the general principle. I have limited my Amendment to three, and no more, Consultative Councils in connection with this one Department. I have indicated also in the Amendment later on that one of these Councils should deal with the prevention and cure of diseases—it is one of the Councils which the President of the Board desires to set up, and which will be composed to a certain extent of women—another dealing with matters relating to national insurance, which the President also asks for, and a third Council to deal with the treatment and care of the blind. I have added this because I take a personal interest in that section of the community. It is only turning into a statutory body a body which has already been sitting on the treatment and the care of the blind. Now that I have obtained the insertion of these words in a previous clause I am not so anxious to press that part of my Amendment, unless your Lordships should support it.

What I am anxious about is to limit these Councils, which we are told the President of the Local Government Board is about to set up, to a Council for the prevention and cure of diseases—I agree to that—a Council for matters relating to national insurance—I agree to that—but I want to exclude the other two which are mentioned. One is a Council dealing with questions relating to local authorities. I will tell you why. That Council is to be nominated by the President; they will be his nominees. How do any of us who are connected with large local bodies like the London County Council know but what any single member may be put on that body. Supposing one or two members of that great body were selected, are we to take it that these members nominated by the President are to represent the views of the London County Council, and that when he wants to know the views of the London County Council he will say, "Oh, I have obtained those views, because I have two members representing the London County Council upon that Council." There is a good deal of opposition among the municipal associations to this desire on the part of the President of the Local Government Board to set up a special Consultative Council for local affairs. The Association of Municipal Corporations is also strongly opposed to it, and I think on very good grounds. Those of us who have had anything to do with local government, and have been within the four walls of the Local Government Board, have always found that we could obtain the views of the County Councils best through the County Councils Association, and the views of the various borough councils best through the Association of Municipal Corporations. Again, if you want to obtain the views of the urban district authorities you can obtain them from their Association. So is it also in the case of the rural district authorities. I see no advantage whatever in setting up a body of this kind, nominated purely by the President of the Local Government Board, and saying "It is from that body that I am going to ascertain the views of the county councils or of the borough councils." For my own part, I think that those views are much better ascertained from the bodies which most of these councils or boroughs have joined, and which are always capable of being sounded on any occasion, and of giving the real, effective, and most up-to-date opinion of the county councils or of the borough councils.

I want also to exclude the power of appointing a General Council. What is a General Council nominated by the President of the Local Government Board What is the good of it? Is it to have power to range over all the matters that are already subject to the advice and counsel of the Medical Council and the National Insurance Council and so on? If not, what is the good of it, and of whom is it to consist? Who can you put on the General Council and say "those are representative of the people." There is nothing more ridiculous. I hope that we shall, at least, if we agree to set up these Consultative Councils limit this particular Minister to setting up not more than three; indeed I would not mind if it were limited to two. I hope that the whole system of Consultative Councils will be carefully watched. For my own part I am thoroughly suspicious of it. I believe that it will be found to strike at the root of the responsible Ministers and those who hitherto have advised them.

Amendment moved— Page 4, line 22, after ("establish") insert ("three").—(Lord Downham.)

VISCOUNT KNUTSFORD

I wonder whether the noble Viscount who is in charge of the Bill will tell us why he wants these Consultative Councils. I must say that they do not appeal to sue. If a Minister wants advice he can always get it from well-known men. He can get advice from men well-known at the moment, and that will be much better advice than he can possibly get from a Consultative Council set up some years before he wants the advice. The members of that Council may not be skilled in the matter upon which he wants advice. It is so much easier to put people on a Council than it is to get them off, and these Consultative Councils are a sort of resting place for ancient men when they are a bore, or when they think they know more than they do. These Councils seem to me to be a great danger. We are already paying a large number of officials in the Department. The Minister of Health will have under him a very well-paid and a very good and efficient staff, and I cannot conceive why he wants to set up in addition Consultative Councils which he will be rather obliged to consult upon a lot of different matters. I hope that he will drop all idea of having these Consultative Councils. I fancy that they must have been put into the Bill to try and soften any opposition that there may be to it, and I think that they will create a great deal of trouble, and I hope that we shall not have them.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

If my noble friend on the cross-benches seriously thinks that I am in a position to drop the Consultative Councils, I am afraid that he will be disappointed. We consider that the Consultative Councils will be useful, and will render active assistance to the new Ministry. When my noble friend spoke of the sort of people you could put on but who would be very difficult to put off, and also that frequently Consultative Councils were associated with bores, he was a little wide of the mark in regard to these particular Consultative Councils which I believe were pressed upon the Minister by the General Medical Council and other bodies of that description. Only the younger and most up-to-date men are to be given scats upon these Councils.

It is quite true that the noble Lord below the gangway does not exclude altogether a Medical Council, but he was very critical of the fact that there were to be sub-committees. Such sub-committees would be for ancillary purposes, and they would render the most valuable aid to the Council. One is anxious of course not to have too many Committees, and that is the reason for restricting the number to twenty. At the same time in order to deal with the various ramifications of the numerous questions that will be submitted for consideration it is necessary to have the assistance of sub-committees. It is no new thing for a Minister to set up Advisory Councils. These Committees can only be set up under the proposed Order in Council, and they must be for special purposes approved by the Minister, and only members can be co-opted who are approved by him.

In regard to the other Councils, I submit that what has been called the General Council will be a much more useful body than my noble friend below the gangway suggests. They will represent the public in matters that are vital to every household, and they will represent public opinion, though they will not necessarily be opposed to expert opinion on these matters. I may add that the House of Commons took a very great interest in these Consultative Committees. My noble friend was critical also with his knowledge of local government and of the Association of Municipal Corporations. I insisted, I am afraid with tiresome repetition, that in no way are these bodies to interfere with or displace local authorities, while the Minister will have, a the President of the Local Government Board had before him, the power to consult individual local authorities or associations of local authorities whatever they may be. He will also have a. body composed of persons with great experience in these various matters, and I think that. I may fairly claim that they will greatly strengthen his hands.

The noble Lord referred also to the question of pay, and said, "Are we going to set up a number of Councils the members of which will be paid?" The payment resolves itself into travelling allowances and subsistence grants, and what is called, I think, reasonable remuneration for time lost. I know there are a great many people who think that all work should be done for nothing, and it is perfectly true that there is not any country in the world where so much voluntary work is done as is done in this country. But at the same time it must be remembered that there are a great number of very valuable people who really cannot afford to lose the time for which they are earning wages, and if you were obliged to exclude them because you could not pay them I think certainly in regard to the health of the people you would lose a very valuable adjunct.

In regard to the blind, there is already a valuable ad hoc Committee to which I referred just now, in regard to which the noble Lord below the gangway had so much responsibility. It might be suggested that if these Consultative Committees are not set up it might be because we already had ad hoc committees on certain subjects, but that is not the case at all. Indeed, I think it will be found that these Consultative Committees will be of real service to the Minister. I believe that they will go further, and that they will give a great deal of confidence in the policy that the Minister will develop, and further that they will keep him in close touch with advancing opinion and advancing methods. I sincerely trust that the Amendment will not be agreed to.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

I am sorry to say that the speech of the noble Viscount does not convey much conviction to my mind. I confess that I am in general agreement with the noble Lord, the Chairman of the London County Council, who barely attempted to conceal his opinion t the three Committees suggested in his Amendment are three too many, and that he would prefer to sec none. I cannot think that the noble Viscount has made out a case for the substitution of these stereotyped bodies for the ad hoc Committees, as they are called, of which everybody recognises the value and use. The noble Viscount said that they would be regarded as exponents of the popular view, and that they would thereby increase confidence in the decisions of the Minister. Decisions backed by nominated persons do not acid largely to public confidence, and I share the fear which the noble Lord, Lord Downham, expressed, that an attempt is being made to treat these outside bodies as to some extent representing the public, in place of the real representatives of the public—the great local authorities.

I cannot feel that the actual service and the weight of knowledge brought to bear by these new bodies—although I have no doubt some very good men and women will be placed upon them—would compensate for the dangers which the noble Lord has indicated. I have no doubt that the noble Viscount does not feel himself empowered to deal with this matter, but I confess I hope that the House will show that it is in sympathy with the fears which have been expressed by the noble Lord who moved the Amendment. Neither on the Second Reading nor in this debate has any independent voice, so far as I can recollect, been raised in defence of this particular expedient. It seems to me to have many dangers attached to it, and if the noble Lord divides I shall certainly vote with him.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I share with the preceding speakers, except the noble Viscount, Lord Sandhurst, considerable apprehension as to the value of this provision. It is not that I think with my noble friend that nothing but bores and people who think they know better than they really do are on consultative committees. I can hardly say that, because I belong to three such bodies myself and therefore I should hardly like to go that length. There is no doubt that where a consultative committee is really used for consultative purposes it may be very valuable—that is to say, that if you have a number of gentlemen who know a great deal about the subject and you ask them their opinion it may help you to form your own judgment. That is perfectly true, and if I was quite sure that these Consultative Committees were to be really and truly consultative I should have less apprehension of the working of this clause.

But what I am very much afraid of is that what is really intended is to shelter the responsibility of the Minister. I know that if my noble friend were the Minister it would not be so, but what is really intended is to shelter the responsibility of the Minister behind a vague body of consultative official. I say so not merely because that is evidently possible, but because we have had a good many indications of a tendency in that direction during the last few years. When I entered public life it was never considered correct for a Minister to say "My officials advise me," or, let us say, "The Board of Admiralty takes this view." He always took the responsibility himself, but now quite a common thing is for a Minister to say "Well, I have the support of this important committee, or council, or body in my office, and I shelter my responsibility behind those persons." That, I think, would be a very deplorable result. I do not think that it would be at all right, and I think that the House of Commons and public opinion which are certainly anxious for these consultative bodies, will one of these days find that they have fallen into being a machinery under which they have lost their power of control over the Minister which they used to possess. That is one great danger.

Another great danger is the one to which my noble friend below the gangway has pointed—the expense which will gradually grow under such a system. The noble Viscount, with a candour which we always know we can expect of him, told us exactly the kind of expenses which were contemplated. They were not merely travelling expenses; they were not merely subsistence expenses; they were actually expenses for loss of time. It is a very short step from that to an actual salary. I am afraid that the result will probably be the calling into being of a large extra number of salaried officials protected by nothing but the power of Parliament to resist an Order in Council. That is a serious matter. The conclusion I should have drawn from all this is that it would have been far better, if we were to have advisory councils with these risks, that they should be advisory councils of a purely informal character appointed by the Minister in his ordinary discretion and to be dropped if they did not succeed. Bat that is not the proposal presented to us by the Government. They are going to make these bodies statutory. I should like to ask the noble Viscount why they want to put it in the Act of Parliament. It would be possible for him to have his three or four councils, indeed he could have twenty councils, without putting it into the Act of Parliament. I am afraid that the fact that they are statutory will intensify the dangers I have indicated. It will be much easier for the Minister to say, "I really have very little responsibility in this matter. The statutory councils which your Lordships and the other House of Parliament appointed have come to this conclusion. Was I to oppose a council for which Parliament in its wisdom had provided?" It is a very strong measure to oppose a council which Parliament itself has set up.

I do not suggest that, in the present condition of your Lordships' House and at the present hour of the evening, any great advantage would come from a Division on the subject. I personally should deprecate a Division. What I should like to do is to ask the Government to reconsider their decision. I believe they would get all they require without the statutory provision, and it would be a safer experiment than ii they pot it in the text of the Act. I hope they will take that view. I do not suggest that they are wrong in having advisory councils. Advisory councils are an experiment which they may legitimately try; but they ought to do their best to prevent the dangers I have indicated.

On Question, Amendment negatived.

LORD BLEDISLOE rose to move, in subsection (1), after "Wales," to insert composed of persons possessing practical knowledge or experience." The noble Lord said: I think the Amendment speaks for itself. My main object in moving it is to ensure that these Consultative Councils shall contain men of practical knowledge of the subject on which they are asked to advise. In his Second Reading speech the noble Viscount referred to certain councils which would in any case be set up. One was a local administrative council, and in that connection I suggest it is only right that there should be representatives upon it of the various local authorities—

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

I interrupt the noble Lord merely to save time. I think he will see that the words he proposes to put in are in subsection (2) just below.

LORD BLEDISLOE

Yes, that is so.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD MUIR MACKENZIE moved, in subsection (1), to omit "of the Order" and to insert "set forth in the Schedule to this Act." The noble Lord said: I was much struck, during the debate on the Second Reading of the Bill, with the observations that were made by my noble friend below me in the way of asking questions as to what these Consultative Councils really were, how they were composed, and the various conditions connected with them. The noble Viscount in charge of the Bill said he thought that the noble Lord could not nave seen a certain Paper which had been circulated and which contained the terms of the Order; and I think he referred to several of these terms as answering the questions which were put to him. It seemed to me that if those particulars of the Order in Council were of so much importance they ought to appear somewhere in the Bill itself; and when I came to see the Paper referred to I found that the Order in Council was actually in draft and that all the particulars had been practically settled. It would be in accordance with practice in similar cases that such a document should be put as a Schedule to the Bill, which course gives an opportunity for noble Lords, when considering the Bill itself, to see exactly what is referred to in the general words of the clause. There could be no difficulty about doing that and letting the draft Order in Council accordingly be seen by the House before the Bill passed its final stage. I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name, of which the result would be that at the next stage of the Bill there would appear in a Schedule the terms which at present are in a Paper which some have seen and others have not seen.

Amendment moved— Page 4, line 23, leave out ("of the Order") and insert ("set forth in the Schedule to this Act").—(Lord Muir Mackenzie.)

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

This matter was much discussed in another place on the question of Orders in Council; but I sub mit that there is something in the idea that it is more advisable to have these proposals put in an Order in Council, subject as it now is to the surveillance of Parliament more than before, because it is advisable to have these powers elastic. I mean this, that supposing for a moment the Minister in his experience discovers that for one reason or another a line is unsuitable, he can change it by Order in Council and make it more suitable. But supposing the idea of the noble Lord is followed, and it has to be put in the Schedule, the change could not take place without considerable delay, and it would involve further legislation. An Order in Council, as I explained on the Second Reading, has the advantage of greater facility and rapidity, instead of the delay which would be caused by legislation.

LORD DOWNHAM

Do I understand the noble Viscount in charge of the Bill to say that these draft Orders must be subject to Resolution by both Houses? The words he used just now were that these Orders would be subject to increased surveillance on the part of both Houses. I do not know what he meant by that.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

I was, perhaps, a little obscure. If new powers are put in the Order in Council they will have to be passed by Resolution of both Houses, wholly in addition to the Order lying for thirty days on the Table of the House; but I am not quite certain if it is applicable to this.

LORD MUIR MACKENZIE

Clause 4 is not included.

LORD DOWNHAM

I was hopeful that the noble Viscount was going to accept an Amendment in my name, under which these Orders are to be added to the Orders subject to the new rule, under which Orders could not obtain the force of law until a Resolution of both Houses had been passed in their favour. I am hoping that he is going to accept that Amendment, and if he is not I hope that the noble Lord behind me will press his Amendment. What is really happening? You are now engaged in setting up an unlimited number of Consultative Councils. Those Councils have powers which can hardly be known to most of your Lordships. Only those of your Lordships who have taken the trouble to get a copy of the draft Order circulated to the House of Commons can know what powers are given to these Councils. These powers are most important, and the fullest opportunity should be given to both Houses of discussing them. This can only occur if these powers are put in the Schedule as suggested by the Amendment, or subjected to the new system by which Orders in Council can be debated by both Houses. I hope this Question will be seriously considered by the Government, and that between now and the Report stage we may have another opportunity of discussing this most important subject.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

I did not intend to convey that these particular Orders in Council would be subject to Resolutions.

MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

That is a very serious explanation of my noble friend, because if he had been able to accept such a change he would have modified the situation, and I suggest that he requires to reconsider these provisions as to Orders in Council. It is evident that many of the most influential members of the House are very anxious on this subject of Orders in Council. There is an Amendment now before us which provides the protection of a Schedule in the Act of Parliament itself, rather than the unlimited power of Orders in Council. That is a very important matter which the Government should consider. Then there is the protection which Lord Downham is going to suggest later on—namely, that Orders in Council like those relating to transfers should require a positive Resolution of Parliament. These are matters which the Government ought to consider, and as it has been already rather assumed that a further opportunity will be given for discussing this whole subject of Orders in Council on the next stage of the Bill, I myself venture to think that the best course will be to postpone any further dealing with the matter now upon the assurance of the Government that they will between now and the Report stage consider whether they cannot make substantial concession upon this clause. I hope they will, and probably your Lordships will consider it better to postpone discussion upon the Amendment until we reach that stage.

LORD MUIR MACKENZIE

I think I had better withdraw my Amendment for the present.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD BLEDISLOE had on the Paper an Amendment to insert, at the end of subsection (1), the following proviso: "Provided that the adoption of such advice or assistance shall in no way abate the personal responsibility of the Minister to Parliament in relation to such matters." The noble Lord said: I understand from the Lord Chancellor that there are legal difficulties in the way of accepting this Amendment, and therefore I will not move it.

LORD TENTERDEN moved to leave out subsection (2) and to insert the following new subsection: "(2) The Councils shall include persons of both sexes, and one Council shall be composed of women only; all persons having practical experience of the matters referred to the Councils."

The noble Lord said: Your Lordships will have gathered from what I have said already that I am not in favour of legislation by Orders in Council, and I think I am supported by a great deal of what has been said upon the point. If, however, there is to be legislation by Orders in Council, I think Consultative Councils are required; and if so, I hope it will be possible to appoint one Council of women only. Women are vitally concerned in the health of the whole nation. They are vitally concerned in such matters as housing, the preparation of food, nursing, and sickness, and the medical inspection of children also should come under them. Then there are many subjects which they find it distasteful and difficult to discuss in the presence of the other sex, and even the most strong-minded woman would object to discussing some matters affecting their own sex in the presence of men. Women sub-committees will not meet the point, because their decisions would have to come before a mixed Council.

The Health Minister has supported the idea to some extent in saying that he thought there should be a Committee composed of women, but I think he rather referred to sub-committees. If he requires women to support his various schemes, and without them I do not think they can be made a success, then I think he should seriously consider the composition of a Consultative Council consisting entirely of women. There are no fewer than eighty organisations representative of all classes, rich and poor, in favour of Women Consultative Councils. Several points will arise which it is not possible for them to discuss in the presence of men. Quite apart from this a large number of women, who have not got husbands and, therefore, cannot be represented by husbands, will not be represented at all. As the thing stands the representation of women in this Bill will be totally inadequate to their influence and numbers. Take the Medical Council. At present there are very few women doctors and, therefore, there cannot be many of them on that. Take the Local Authorities Council, very few would be on that. Few, if any, would be on the Insurance Council. Women will be outnumbered by no less than four to one on three out of the four Councils, and on the fourth they will have only half representation. I do not think that is a proper or fair state of things. I think the Government ought to consider whether it would not be desirable to have a Consultative Council composed exclusively of women.

Amendment moved— Page 4, lines 27 to 29, leave out subsection (2) and insert the following new subsection: (2) The Councils shall include persons of both sexes, and one Council shall be composed of women only; all persons having practical experience of the matters referred to the Councils."—(Lord Tenterden.)

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

This question was very thoroughly considered in another place, with the result that no decision was reached in favour of a Council composed entirely of women—

Several NOBLE LORDS

Agreed, agreed!

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

Then suffice it to say that I must refuse the noble Lord's Amendment.

On Question, Amendment negatived.

Clause 4 agreed to.

Committee stage adjourned, and House resumed.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

May I ask on what day the noble Viscount proposes to resume the Committee stage of the Ministry of Health Bill.

VISCOUNT SANDHURST

If it suits the convenience of the noble Marquess and his friends, on Tuesday next. It comes practically as the first Order.