Lords Sitting of 2 April 1936

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
The Earl of Hardwick.—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

TRING GAS BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
BRIGHTON MARINE PALACE AND PIER BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.
WARKWORTH HARBOUR BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.
SOUTH ESSEX WATERWORKS BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.

DRAFT UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE (REDUCTION IN THE WEEKLY RATES OF CONTRIBUTIONS) ORDER, 1936.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE): My Lords, I beg to move that the Draft Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee, be approved. I do not know whether noble Lords opposite want me to say anything on this subject now, or whether they would prefer that I should speak after they have spoken.
LORD MARLEY: Perhaps it would save the time of the House if the noble Lord spoke afterwards.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: Then I beg formally to move.
Moved, That the Draft Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Wednesday the 25th of March last, be approved.—(Lord Hutchison of Montrose.)
LORD MARLEY: My Lords, I want to point out to the House exactly what

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this means from our point of view, and then the Minister will no doubt counteract what I have to say and point out how wrong I am. The Unemployment Insurance Fund has accumulated an annual excess of income of £6,500,000 and one of the reasons for that annual excess of income is that unemployment has been reduced, for which we are all very thankful; but the other reason is that the benefits paid out of this Fund to the unemployed are far too low. Your Lordships will remember that when we were discussing the case of agricultural workers a few days ago, I quoted a speech from the Minister in another place, in which he pointed out that so low were the benefits paid by the Fund that a large number of beneficiaries had to seek public assistance to supplement those benefits in order that they might live at all. We on these Benches therefore strongly resent that this surplus of £6,500,000 should be used to reduce the payments by the Government, the employers, and the workers, rather than be used to give the additional benefits which are necessary in order that those who become unemployed may live at all.
For this reason we say that the advice given by the Unemployment Insurance Statutory Committee should not in fact be approved by your Lordships' House. We say that, as a duty to the unemployed, who are unemployed through no fault of their own, we should send this question back to the Statutory Committee with the intimation that we do not approve this recommendation, but that we desire instead that this surplus should be used to give extra benefits to those for whom the Fund was established, and who are not getting enough out of the Fund to live. It is a fact that this penny reduction makes almost no difference to industry. The Statutory Committee say there will be relief to industry. It has been calculated that in the construction of a cargo vessel costing £90,000 this reduction of a penny in the weekly rates of contributions, which we are asked to approve this afternoon, makes a difference to the builders of that vessel of only £43. It is simply throwing away this surplus without any real benefit to industry when the £6,500,000 might be used to give a real living to the unemployed people by a slight increase in benefits.
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In the same way the reduction of the contributions by a penny amounts in the whole of the cotton industry to £60,000, and the total value of the production of the cotton industry every year is £132,000,000. What is the good of offering £60,000 to an industry the value of whose product is £132,000,000? It is simply a drop in the bucket, it is of no real value, whereas if the money were given to the unemployed for whom this very Fund was established, it would make it possible for these unfortunate people to live. We feel very strongly that your Lordships would not desire to inflict an injustice on those for whom the Fund exists, and we therefore urge that the House should not accept the recommendations of this Statutory Committee, but should return them for reconsideration and report in the opposite direction.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: My Lords, the reason I asked the noble Lord if he would like to make his remarks first was that I did not want to put up dollies and then knock them down. I am very much obliged to the noble Lord for putting his point of view, with which, I may say, the Government have every sympathy. We appreciate that the noble Lord feels very strongly on this subject, but it should be remembered that the scheme we are dealing with is an insurance scheme. It has not really anything to do with what I may call the means of subsistence of the individual who receives the benefit. This insurance scheme is based on the contributions paid. It should be remembered that out of the seven members of the Statutory Committee who examined this question five took the view that the Government are now taking. They said, and I think properly, that the rates which are now existent were the rates which were established by the National Economy Act and which have never been reduced, whereas in many cases where special measures were taken to meet the crisis of 1931—the cuts and other things—the position has been restored while these contributions have remained the same. Therefore the Committee consider it is only fair to industry as a whole that the first surplus that has come along and which, as the noble Lord rightly says, amounts to £6,500,000 per annum, ought to be used for the reduction of contributions.

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It is undoubtedly true that these rates, along with other rates, of course, are a very sensible weight on industry. His Majesty's Government have been doing everything they can to foster and push along industry in order to revive employment in this country, and, if I may say so, they are doing it with a certain amount of success. There is also this point—and I am sure noble Lords opposite will not think I am trying to make political points in any way—that if we increase the amount of benefit, when we come upon a less favourable period in industry it is much more difficult to reduce the benefit than it is to put up the contribution. I think that will be admitted, and I have no doubt it was one of the reasons that induced the Committee to take the view they have taken. Another point which I think is valid is that the statutory provision for unemployment under this scheme is substantially higher than that for sickness; that is, on the health side. In many cases it does approach the wage value. Immediately you try to raise the benefit too high, you have a tendency to compete with wages.
Be that as it may, the Government are undoubtedly guided very largely by what the Statutory Committee recommended, and they feel it would be very difficult indeed to go against the decision of the Committee. They feel it would be better for the country as a
Resolved in the affirmative and Motion agreed to accordingly.

PUBLIC HEALTH BILL [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
whole, and for industry, if the proposed reduction took place. It is a matter of opinion. When you have surpluses to handle it is always the case that various people want the money distributed in different ways. I would remind noble Lords opposite that if, as we hope, employment becomes very much better and we get a further surplus, their position will be very much stronger next year than it is now; but at present the Government take the view that this is the right appropriation to make in the case of this surplus. Therefore I recommend noble Lords to accept this Order.
LORD MARLSY: My Lords, if I may speak again by leave of the House, the-only point I want to make is that no mention is made of a rise in the cost of living. If the cost of living rises, the benefit naturally becomes of less value. Secondly, there is no mention in the Report, as far as I can see, of any approach to the level of wages. Further, it would be quite possible to spend the surplus without raising the benefit, by giving an extra week of benefit. I regret very much what the Minister has said. I am afraid we shall have to put the House to the trouble of a Division.
On Question, Whether the Motion shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 34; Not-Contents, 7.

CONTENTS.

Canterbury, L. Archbishop.

Munster, E.

Clwyd, L.

Onslow, E.

Dickinson, L.

Hailsham, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Strange, E. (D. Atholl.)

Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

Aberdeen and Temair, M.

Eltisley, L.

Camden, M.

Bertie of Thame, V.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.) [Teller.]

Salisbury, M.

FitzAlan of Derwent, V.

Gainford, L.

Goschen, V.

Hutchison of Montrose, L.

Airlie, E.

Hereford, V.

Maugham, L.

De La Warr, E.

Mersey, V.

O'Hagan, L.

Hardwicke, E.

Monsell, V.

Phillimore, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Rennell, L.

Mansfield, E.

Carrington, L.

Stanmore, L.

Mount Edgcumbe, E.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Exmouth, V.

Faringdon, L.

Snell, L.

Marley, L. [Teller.]

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Arnold, L.

Sanderson, L.

VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, this Bill represents a further stage in the task of consolidating and bringing up-to-date the Statutes for whose administration the Ministry of Health are responsible. The Bill is based on the work of a Departmental Committee appointed in

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1929 by Mr. Greenwood when he was Minister of Health, under the Chairmanship of the late Lord Chelmsford, to consider and report upon the consolidation of the law of local government and public health in England and Wales. Your Lordships will recollect that the first result of the labours of this Committee was the Local Government Bill which was introduced in 1933, on behalf of the Government, by the noble Viscount, Lord Sankey, and reached the Statute Book in the same Session as the Local Government Act, 1933. After the death of Lord Chelmsford the Committee continued its work under the Chairmanship of Lord Addington, to whom we are much indebted, and proceeded to consider the second part of their task—namely, the law of public health. The possibility of producing a single Bill dealing with the whole of the law on this subject was considered by the Committee, but they came to the conclusion that such a Bill would run to the quite unmanageable length of about 1,000 clauses and that the balance of advantage lay in the preparation of a series of Bills of moderate length, not exceeding 350 clauses each.
The present Bill represents the first of this series and deals with provisions of a strictly public health character, relating principally to sanitary matters and to the prevention and treatment of disease. Other and later Bills will deal with such topics as streets, open spaces, markets, food and so forth. If your Lordships will look at the Bill you will see that its range of topics cover local administration (including the combination and division of districts and the constitution of port health authorities); sanitation and buildings (including sewage disposal and building by-laws); nuisances and offensive trades; water supply; prevention, notification and treatment of disease; hospitals, nursing homes, and so forth; notification of births, maternity and child welfare and child life protection; baths, washhouses and bathing places; common lodging houses; canal boats; and other miscellaneous topics, together with a General Part dealing with matters common to the various subjects, such as the giving of notices, powers of entry, appeals, regulations, and so forth.
In the main, the clauses of the Bill are a re-enactment of the great Public Health Act of 1875, and of amending Acts passed
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in 1878, 1885, 1890, 1907, 1921 and 1925; but in addition a number of Acts, such as the Notification of Births Acts of 1907 and 1915, and the Maternity and Child Welfare Act, 1918, which deal with public health matters but do not technically form part of the public health code, have been re-enacted. The Bill does not deal with London, whose public health administration is founded on separate Statutes except as regards a few matters in which the London County Council have asked for the Bill to be applied to their area. The fact that the Bill repeals in whole or in part some 30 to 40 Acts of Parliament, and substitutes 334 clauses for something like 600 sections in the existing legislation, is a measure of the simplification which it achieves.
The terms of reference of the Departmental Committee required them to consider what Amendments of the existing law are desirable for facilitating consolidation and securing simplicity, uniformity and conciseness. The Bill, therefore, like the Local Government Bill of 1933, combines consolidation with the limited amount of amendment which the Committee found necessary to secure the objects to which their terms of reference refer. I have no intention of wearying your Lordships with the details of these Amendments, or the reasons which led the Committee to recommend them. A full statement of these is to be found in the Committee's Report. I will only say at the present stage that the opportunity has been taken to clear up a number of points on which the law has been notoriously obscure and unsatisfactory, the chief of these being, perhaps, the question of the vesting of sewers and the relation between sewers and combined drains. Many of your Lordships will be aware that the law on this matter is notoriously inexact and has for long been the subject of adverse comment from the judicial bench. It was recently described by an eminent member of the Court of Appeal as a "disgrace to English legislation." Another and important clarification which the Bill seeks to effect relates to the right of appeal against orders, requirements and other decisions of local authorities. Under the existing law appeals lie in some cases to Quarter Sessions and in others to the Minister of Health; but the language of the Acts is

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ambiguous and the extent of the jurisdiction of each tribunal has for long been a matter of debate.
As I have already indicated, the present Bill, like the Local Government Bill of 1933, combines consolidation with a limited amount of amendment. The Departmental Committee explain in their Report the reasons which led them to adopt this course in preference to drafting an Amending Bill, to be followed by a Bill consolidating the law as amended. Put quite briefly, they found the existing law to be in a state of great confusion, mainly for the reason that the Public Health Acts, including the Act of 1875 itself, are largely founded on the clauses selected from local legislation. As a consequence, the individual Statutes—and still less the series of Acts as a whole—do not show the impress of a single draftsman. In these circumstances an Amending Bill assimilating the language of each of the hundreds of sections comprised in these Acts would have been a long, complicated and unintelligible measure, and accordingly the Committee, working on the lines which proved successful in the Local Government Bill, have produced a single measure of consolidation and amendment and have called attention in their Report, which runs into 134 pages, to all the more important proposals for amendment that they have made.
It is plainly necessary that a Bill of this size and importance should be subjected to a close scrutiny by Parliament, and as it is not a purely consolidating measure a reference to the Joint Consolidation Committee would be inappropriate. The Government accordingly propose to adopt the course taken with the Local Government Bill of 1933 and to invite the two Houses to appoint a Joint Select Committee to undertake a detailed examination of the clauses. It is hoped that the Committee may be in a position to begin its work shortly after the Easter Recess and that it may thus be possible for the Bill to reach the Statute Book in the present Session. The Bill is a non-Party measure and has been welcomed by the associations of local authorities (who are represented on the Departmental Committee) and by the principal bodies concerned with its subject matter, as a most desirable and necessary step towards rendering the law of public
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health intelligible and accessible. Valuable as it will be, if it reaches the Statute Book, to those concerned in public health administration, I am convinced that it will be of not less value to private persons who, whether as property owners or otherwise, come into contact with the public health administration. The obscurity and prolixity of the existing public health law has for long been a legitimate grievance to those persons and their advisers.
In commending the Bill to your Lordships' House I think it is necessary to state exactly what is the aim of the Bill. It does not seek to lay down a perfect public health code. To do so would necessarily involve some matters of acute controversy. It seeks rather to gather together for the first time in orderly and intelligible shape, the whole of the law relating to the matters with which it deals and thereby to provide a firm foundation and starting point for any necessary future legislation. Hitherto the complexity of the existing Statute law has been an effective obstacle to constructive criticism through the sheer difficulty of obtaining a clear picture of the subject matter. This Bill, combined with the later measures dealing with other aspects of public health to which the Departmental Committee will next turn their attention, should provide for the first time adequate material for a review of the whole law of public health. But to attempt to engraft on the present Bill extensive amendments of the law, however desirable in themselves, would be foreign to the purpose of the Bill and might well destroy its chance of reaching the Statute Book. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Gage.)
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I do not want to detain your Lordships for more than a moment or two, but I think it ought to be remarked in your Lordships' House how far this method of legislation departs from the usual precedents. No doubt there is a precedent for it, which my noble friend has recited, but it is an extremely doubtful practice, as the older members of your Lordships' House will recognise, to combine consolidation and amendment in the same Bill. Here is a Bill of a very large number of clauses which, as my noble friend has most frankly explained, involves in the

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main consolidation but in a large degree also amendment.
Where you are dealing with consolidation purely by itself the matter is referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, and your Lordships are not called upon to investigate closely the resulting provisions. You are quite satisfied that your Committee will see that there is no change in the law and that all that is involved is consolidation of the law. As soon as the Committee have considered it and reported to the House the Bill passes through as a completely uncontroversial matter. Where a Bill is purely an Amending Bill, those of your Lordships who are interested in the subject look into the matter closely and see how far you approve of the proposed Amendments. But when the two are thrown together it is a most bewildering process. You do not know upon any particular clause in the Bill whether you are dealing with consolidation or amendment. The result is to throw a far heavier burden upon those noble Lords who desire to do their duty by watching any changes in legislation than otherwise would be the case. From the point of view of the Departments also it is inconvenient, because once the House starts upon scrutinising the provisions of the Bill, noble Lords will probably scrutinise not merely Amendments of the law but old matter which has been on the Statute Book for years and is only the subject of consolidation. Immense confusion results.
I am not going to oppose this Bill—I have no doubt it is an important matter that ought to go through—but I do suggest to the Government, and particularly, if I may, to the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, that this procedure ought to be very carefully watched and that this combination of consolidation and amendment ought not to be allowed to grow up in your Lordships' House. If my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack will assure me that the matter will be very carefully scrutinised I shall not say more, but I must say that I regret very much the creeping in of this new practice. The old practice was well established—first amendment and then consolidation; two quite separate Bills. That is the old practice, and the right practice, and I venture to hope that it will continue.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, perhaps your Lordships will permit me to say a word or two as I have had some experience of Bills of this kind, especially the Bill of 1933. As your Lordships know, local government in this country has grown up in quite a different manner from that in which it has been established in countries abroad. I do not know whether any of your Lordships present to-day have read Local Government in Many Lands prepared unofficially by the Ministry of Health on reports which were received from foreign countries and from the Dominions. If any of your Lordships did so, I am sure you were struck by that circumstance: how our local government is a matter of growth. If your Lordships wish to go further into the matter, the works by the noble Lord, Lord Passfield—who I am sorry to see is not in his place this afternoon—are the most illuminating which have been published in any language.
With regard to the growth of public health legislation in this country, the first general legislation was the Public Health Act, 1848; but, as your Lordships are well aware, for many years before 1848 local authorities—towns only they were in those days—introduced Private Bills dealing with matters connected with health, such as the removal of nuisances, the provision of sewers, and kindred activities. This is an important point: the Public Health Act, 1848, was an adoptive Act. It gave powers to urban areas to set up authorities to deal with questions of the health of their areas and their inhabitants, and bestowed upon all those authorities powers similar to those granted to special authorities by Private Act of Parliament. It was in this year that the General Board of Health, which was the precursor of the Local Government Board, now the Ministry of Health, was established. Gradually, new powers adopted under the Act of 1848 came into general operation, and ultimately the whole country became organised for health purposes. The General Public Health Act, not adoptive-in all its provisions, was introduced in 1875, and that has been the backbone of our public health law. But it has, of course, been amended by many subsequent Acts.
That has been the evolution of our public health institutions: first of all by

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experiment, by Local and Private Acts, then by an adoptive Act, and lastly by means of general legislation. And we are, I think, going by this Bill to take the evolution a step farther. Of course the practice still goes on of local authorities bringing in Private Bills and trying new experiments whereby considerable changes in the general law affecting public health are instituted, because other authorities follow them. The clauses in a Bill become standard clauses and are followed by other municipalities, county councils and so forth. The effect of this is that the progressive, the larger local authorities go ahead regularly and amend the law as is required, but the general public health laws must to a certain extent lag behind the Private Acts of the more progressive, larger, more powerful and richer local authorities. That must be the case unless steps are taken from time to time to bring the general law up to the highest modern local standard.
Perhaps I might illustrate to your Lordships how the general law, by this means of experiment and by the adoption of clauses in Private Acts, operates. Only two or three days ago it came to my notice that there were a considerable number of clauses, which varied in their drafting, regarding charges for the supply of refrigerators and small instruments of that kind. I therefore asked the Ministry of Health to go through all the clauses and see what seemed to be the best private clauses which had been put forward. I hope that that draft will be accepted and that it will become the standard clause. Doubtless if it works properly it will be in due course brought into some subsequent Public Health Act. Even to-day I have on the Table a Motion on a kindred matter dealing with the unsavoury subject of sewers, and that is exactly the same thing. We suggest having a Joint Committee of both Houses to settle the vexed question of charges for general sewers and, if we can by general agreement settle that matter, the settlement will no doubt in due course be adopted into the general legislation. I have on more than one occasion, since I had the honour of being Chairman of the Royal Commission on Local Government about fourteen years ago, ventured to impress upon your Lordships very respectfully the desirability of bringing these matters of general
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legislation on public health up to the highest modern standard by the introduction of regular Bills, periodic Bills if possible, for that purpose. Your Lordships will remember that the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Private Bill procedure, which sat in 1930, recommended that a Public Bill dealing with local government and public health questions should be introduced every five years.
I should like to see something of the nature of a Standing Committee in continuous Session—I do not mean to say sitting every day, but regularly constituted—to scrutinise and examine all these public health clauses, new clauses which may appear in Private Bills, and to go into them carefully and thoroughly. Such a Committee might consist of representatives of the various Departments concerned who report on Private Bills, together with representatives of the Department which I represent in your Lordships' House and the similar Department in another place. It is only an idea. The constitution of such a Committee would, of course, have to be more carefully gone into, but I feel that some sort of authority of that kind for examining this type of clause and seeing that it comes forward regularly when public health legislation is brought forward, would be of advantage and save a considerable amount of trouble to Parliament and local authorities and to all those who are concerned with the administration of public health and local government. I should like, if I may, to commend the suggestion to my noble friend opposite and to ask him if he and his colleagues would be so kind as to give it their consideration.
As my noble friend has said, this Bill is one of a series, the first of which was the Local Government Act, 1933, which dealt with the constitution and function of local authorities. This Bill, as the noble Viscount has pointed out to your Lordships, is not a periodic Bill such as I have suggested might in future be brought forward to deal with public health; it is a Bill which is designed to clarify and to lay down the principles of the general legislation on public health as now generally accepted throughout the country. The noble Viscount has told us that this Bill will be followed by other Bills dealing with kindred subjects. It was thought possible that they might all

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have been included in one Bill, but, as he told us, that would be a Bill of over 1,000 clauses, which would be rather more than the Government could properly ask your Lordships to accept in one effort.
The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, has said a word to your Lordships on the undesirability of combining consolidation with amendment. I happened to be Chairman of the Joint Committee of both Houses which sat upon the 1933 Bill, and, although I have not perused this Bill very carefully, I gathered from what the noble Viscount has said and what I have seen myself, that this Bill is very much on the lines of the Act of 1933; that is to say, that it is mainly consolidation. It is not intended to revolutionise the public health law. Obviously, however, there are certain desirable points—perhaps minor points, but still points which obviously require amendment; and at least it was proved last time, in 1933, that a procedure of mainly consolidation plus a certain amount of necessary amendment is one which might commend itself to your Lordships. I quite agree with the noble Marquess that it is very desirable indeed to watch this procedure and not to allow consolidation and amendment to be mixed up indiscriminately; but when it is mainly consolidation, with necessary Amendments for bringing the law up to date, this procedure is one which might not unfavourably recommend itself to your Lordships.
I understand from the noble Viscount that it is proposed that the same procedure should be adopted this year of a Joint Committee. Indeed he has a Motion on the Paper for such a course, proposing that a Joint Committee of both Houses should be set up, not for the purpose of doing again what Lord Addington's Committee has done so adequately and so well, but in order to scrutinise the Bill from a Parliamentary point of view and to recommend such Amendments and offer such criticisms as may seem desirable to them. I may point out that the method pursued by the witnesses before the Joint Committee of 1933 was to point out clearly to the Committee what was an amendment of the existing law and what was consolidation, and I think the Committee scrutinised rather carefully from the point of view which my noble friend Lord Salisbury
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has raised—the desirability of not going further than was absolutely necessary in amendment to obtain consolidation as far as they possibly could.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: May I be allowed to ask one question? Is there any precedent except the precedent which the noble Earl has quoted of 1933 for the union of consolidation and amendment?
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: Speaking offhand, I do not think there is, and I think that at the time the matter was rather carefully considered. I am speaking now without notice but my recollection is that the 1933 Bill was a Bill of something over 300 clauses, and if you had gone through the procedure, which in ordinary cases I think is the right procedure, of consolidating and then amending—
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: You amend first and then consolidate the law as amended.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: I think it would be difficult, because a lot of these clauses are in Private Acts and have not appeared in Public Acts. I think you have to take the law as it is and then amend it. It is difficult to discuss a rather intricate procedure without having carefully studied it beforehand. There is one point which perhaps I might be allowed to touch upon, and that is the fear which I understand has been expressed in some quarters, that legislation of this kind might interfere with the rights of property owners. I do not think that that is likely to prove correct. When you have a large number of Private Acts of Parliament, which govern public health in different districts, it must follow that the general body of public health law is to a degree obscure. If you have a different law in Birmingham from that existing in Liverpool, it is bound to be puzzling to those who happen to live, say, in Manchester, and who visit first one town and then the other. I cannot but think that the promotion of consolidating and amending legislation is just as much in the interests of property owners and their advisers as it is in the interests of those who have to administer public health law, and of the public themselves. When this Bill becomes law all persons will know exactly where they are, and I cannot think that that will have an undesirable effect upon the interests of property owners.

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I do not think I have anything much to add about the scope of the Bill. I have already mentioned that the first of these Public Health Acts, the Act of 1848, was an adoptive Act, and there were a great many adoptive clauses in the Amending Act of 1875. I think that public health administration has been so much developed in this country that there is a tendency to make these adoptive clauses part of the general law of the country, and that is the principle followed in regard to the majority of the provisions recommended by Lord Addington's Committee and put into the Bill. Another question is the vesting of sewers in local authorities. This has been a vexed question for a long time and I think we should be grateful to the noble Lord and his Committee for putting forward a constructive proposal. I do not think that it alters very much the existing law but consolidates and amends it in such a way as seems necessary. I am glad to see that the Bill deals with the unsatisfactory state of affairs as regards building by-laws. Fortunately this matter had already been examined by a Departmental Committee, and Lord Addington's Committee had the advantage of having their recommendations before them.
I do not want to detain your Lordships any longer, but I do think I may very respectfully venture to say to my noble friend Lord Salisbury, that I think this procedure is a workable procedure, although I entirely agree that it should be utilised with very great caution and without any attempt to over-ride the rights and duties of this House itself or of individual members of this House. I hope that some consideration may be given to the idea of a Standing Committee to keep a careful eye upon local legislation as suggested in Private Acts, and perhaps the matters might be considered periodically for the purpose of Amending Acts. I hope your Lordships will give a Second Reading to this Bill and, if your Lordships do, I think that local government and public health interests will benefit thereby.
LORD ADDINGTON: My Lords, having spent about two and a half years assisting to draw up this Bill, may I make one or two observations upon it. In the first place I wish to express very great appreciation of the services
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rendered to us by the draftsman and official members of the Ministry of Health, and of the great energy and ability with which they supplied us with drafts and the materials which we had to consider. I listened with great interest to the observations of Lord Salisbury. Our principal aim was the consolidation of existing Acts, but with a view to that consolidation, we were asked to consider what Amendments of the existing law were desirable for securing simplicity, uniformity and conciseness. We tried very hard not to go beyond that in suggesting Amendments, but we found that the law stretched over so many Acts of Parliament, in such a variety of terms, that pure consolidation was impracticable. We have, however, done our best to limit Amendments to those which were necessary for consolidation, clarity and conciseness, and where we have amended the law we have put down very clearly in our Report covering the Bill what new Amendments we have thought necessary to introduce.
An instance of consolidation to which I might refer is Part VIII, which concerns baths and washhouses. We have replaced in thirteen clauses what formerly was the subject matter of sixty-eight different sections, spread over many different Acts. As has been said already, perhaps the most important alteration we have made is with regard to drains and sewers. This part of the law was most unsatisfactory and, as the noble Viscount has told you, it has called forth severe strictures and comments from His Majesty's Judges. Many of these Acts were adoptive, particularly some of the earlier Acts, and we have felt it desirable now to make many of these provisions the general law, particularly after the re-adjustment of boundaries and areas under the Act of 1929, which made the distinction between urban and rural areas very much less. We have further introduced certain provisions from Local Acts where these had become acceptable owing to changes in circumstances, so as to save any local authority desiring these facilities the expense of obtaining a Local Act. We have further fried to keep the balance as far as possible between public and private interests, and particularly has it been our endeavour to see that the private person is in no less favourable a

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position under the Bill than he was formerly. We hope that he will find that we have made the position more precise and intelligible, and we have endeavoured to give him more effective remedies against any arbitrary action taken by any local authority.
The Committee are very well aware that the Bill as drafted is not perhaps in perfect form and that there are very many matters connected with local government and with public health that are very far from satisfactory. But we have felt—I hope the noble Marquess will agree—that it was not our business to make a perfect law or to produce Amendments many of which are extremely controversial, and if we had tried to introduce them into the Bill there would have been little chance of getting it through Parliament at an early date. We hope that the House will accept the Bill, as we have drafted it, mainly as a foundation on which further Amendments can be made.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: My Lords, the National Federation of Property Owners wishes this Bill to be amended in certain respects, and would like to know what the procedure is. Can the Federation be represented before the Joint Select Committee, or will Amendments only be possible when the Bill is re-committed to a Committee of this House? I should be much obliged to the noble Viscount if he would tell me when the re-commitment stage will be likely to take place.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I had not proposed to address your Lordships on this Bill and I hope I may be forgiven if I say that it is a Bill that I do not know a very great deal about, but I have had a direct appeal made to me by my noble friend Lord Salisbury and, like any other of your Lordships, I am naturally anxious to answer any appeal which he addresses to the House. My noble friend has pointed out that this Bill proceeds by what he regards as normally an inconvenient method, that is to say, by attempting to consolidate and amend the law in one measure, and he would prefer first an Amending Bill, and then after that a Consolidation Bill. I have not had the opportunity to look into the precedents. I accept at once, of course, what my noble friend says, that the most usual
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way of dealing with Amendments and consolidation is to do it by two separate methods, of which the amending measure comes first.
My recollection is that some seven or eight years ago, when we were considering the question of amending the law of public companies, I had occasion to look into the matter and, speaking only from recollection and therefore not binding myself, I think the conclusion which I then reached was that there were precedents for all three ways of dealing with the matter. That is to say, there were precedents for what the noble Marquess quite correctly says is the most usual way, first an Amending Bill and then a Consolidation Bill. I think there was also some precedent for first a Consolidation Bill so that Parliament might know exactly what the law was, and then an Amending Bill to make any alteration which they thought necessary; while there were also precedents for combining the two processes in one measure. But I cannot pledge myself to that being so, because I have not had any opportunity of refreshing my memory of what occurred rather a long time ago. But I entirely agree with the noble Marquess when he says that it is right that the House should watch carefully any procedure of combining the two because, as he says, there might be a risk that members of your Lordships' House would be left in some doubt as to what was consolidation and what was amendment, and might even overlook Amendments under the impression that they were merely consolidation.
In the case of this particular Bill, as I think my noble friend will appreciate, the question as to the most convenient method of procedure was specifically considered by the Committee, which was so very successfully presided over by the noble Lord, Lord Addington. In the Report of that Committee your Lordships will find that they actually discuss this very point and set out the reasons which led them to the conclusion that in this particular case it was more convenient to proceed by one Bill. Among other reasons they said that an Amending Bill would contain so large a mass of detailed Amendments that it would be little shorter and far less intelligible than the draft Amendment and Consolidation Bill which they had produced. And, to give your Lordships only one instance

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which they themselves cite in their Report the earlier Acts were themselves very largely consolidated, and embodied a number of somewhat inconsistent provisions on matters of detail in a number of earlier Acts of Parliament. In such a matter, for example, as the power of entry which is given in certain cases there are, as they point out, something like eight different methods of exercising that power provided in various sections of the Acts which they were seeking to consolidate. There was no difference in principle with regard to them, but differences in detail, and if you tried in the Consolidation Bill to bring the whole eight in you made a very confused medley. If, on the other hand, you merely tried to amend, with all these different powers scattered over different sections of the Act, it became a very complicated matter to express clearly or simply.
Therefore they came to the conclusion that in this case only it was convenient to adopt the method which they have recommended, and your Lordships will appreciate that the particular danger to which my noble friend, quite rightly, if he will allow me to say so, called attention—the danger of some matter being overlooked—is very much minimised, if not entirely removed, because the Committee in their Report set out the explanation with regard to each clause, as to whether it is consolidation or amendment, and, if it be amendment, the reasons why the Amendment is sought for. So that anyone who took any interest in the matter and desired to acquaint himself with the provisions of the law and the reasons why the Bill took the particular form which it has taken, had only to look to the Notes on Clauses and the Appendix to the Report, which is printed and of course available to everybody, to find there every clause of the Bill examined and criticised and explained. That, I think, goes a long way at any rate to meet that particular criticism.
Then my noble friend Lord Bertie asked what procedure is to be adopted. I think I am right in saying that when this Bill goes, as it is proposed it shall go, to a Joint Select Committee, that Committee will normally and naturally desire to hear evidence from persons who are interested in the matter, and if any
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people who wish to give such evidence will communicate with the Secretary of the Committee they will then get the particulars as to when they are to appear and when the meetings are to take place.
As to the suggestions of my noble friend the Chairman of Committees, I have only to say that in a matter of this kind the Government and the Ministry would naturally pay the greatest attention to any suggestion which he put forward. While I cannot give him an answer as to how far his suggestions can be adopted, I can assure him that they will be most carefully considered, and that they will receive the attention which the weight of his authority demands. I hope that that explanation may have gone some way to relieve any anxieties which exist in this particular case, and that in the circumstances your Lordships will think it right to give this Bill a Second Reading, and then to send it to a Joint Select Committee. I hope that anyone who is in any way perturbed as to any proposals in the Bill will foe good enough to acquaint himself with the reasons which justify, or would seem to the Committee to justify, the inclusion of these provisions, looking at the interim Report in which the matter is carefully and fully considered. I would only add once more how very much we are indebted, in this most complicated and intricate question of public health legislation, to the efforts of the Committee over which Lord Addington presided with so much distinction.
On Question, Bill read 2a.
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, I rise to move the Second Motion standing in my name—namely, that it is desirable that this Bill be referred to a Joint Committee.
Moved to resolve, That it is desirable that the Bill be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament.—(Viscount Gage.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Ordered, That a Message be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith and to desire their concurrence.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE (AGRICULTURE) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Hutchison of Montrose.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF ONSLOW in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Employment in agriculture to be insurable employment.
1.—(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act employment in agriculture shall be insurable employment for the purposes of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1935 (hereinafter referred to as "the principal Act ") so, however, that Part II of the First Schedule to that Act (which contains the general list of excepted employments) shall have effect as if there were included therein the employments specified in the First Schedule to this Act.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE moved an Amendment to make subsection (1) read as follows:
" Subject to the provisions of this Act every employment in agriculture that is an employment specified in Part I of the First Schedule to the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1935 (hereinafter referred to as ' the principal Act '), shall be an insurable employment for the purposes of that Act unless it is an excepted employment, and Part II of the said Schedule (which contains the general list of excepted employments) shall have effect as if paragraph 1 were omitted therefrom and as if there were included therein the employments specified in the First Schedule to this Act."
The noble Lord said: This is a drafting Amendment. It is put down to make perfectly clear that the Bill does, in fact, in law carry out what the original drafting intended.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 6, leave out from (" Act ") to (" as ") in line 12, and insert the said new words.—(Lord Hutchison of Montrose.)
LORD ELTISLEY: May I ask a question in regard to the position of the drainage worker? I understand there has been some difficulty in regard to legislation in the past as to the position of the drainage worker, and I would like to have it quite clearly stated that drainage workers will either be insurable persons under the Act of 1935 or that they will be classified as agricultural labourers under this Bill.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: I can assure my noble friend that drainage workers on land do come within the scope of this Bill.
LORD PHILLIMORE: I think this is probably the appropriate clause on which to inquire whether the type of labourer known as "garden labourer," not gardener, is or is not included in the scope of the Bill. I would have raised the point on the clause relating to private gardeners, but I understand there is a contention that these men are not, properly speaking, gardeners.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: My attention has been drawn to the noble Lord's point. It is difficult to give an absolutely straightforward answer to the question. If these labourers working in private gardens are also engaged in agricultural pursuits part of their time, it would be possible, under the Minister's direction, to bring them within the scope of the Bill, but if they are working as labourers in a private garden all the time, then they come under the definition of "gardeners."
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: The next Amendment is purely consequential.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 8, leave out (" under any contract of service or apprenticeship ") and insert (" an employment specified in Part I of the First Schedule to the principal Act ").—(Lord Hutchison of Montrose.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3:
Rates of benefit in respect of agricultural contributions.
(2) Sections thirty-eight and thirty-nine of the principal Act (which relate to increase of benefit in respect of adult dependants) shall, in their application to agricultural benefit, be subject to the following modifications, that is to say—

(a) subsection (1) of the said Section thirty-eight shall have effect as if for the words "nine shillings" in both places where those words occur there were therein substituted the words "seven shillings ":

(b) the said Section thirty-nine shall have effect as if at the end thereof there were inserted the following subsection:—

" (4) Where the weekly rate of agricultural benefit increased under the last two foregoing sections would exceed thirty shillings the rate of benefit payable to the agricultural contributor shall be reduced by an amount equal to the excess."
LORD MAELEY LORD MAELEY moved, in paragraph (b) of subsection (2), to omit the words "reduced by an amount equal to the excess" and insert "thirty shillings or an amount equal to his normal weekly wage reduced by two shillings, whichever is the greater. "The noble Lord said: The Amendment I have put down was discussed on Second Reading, and the Minister seemed very sympathetic. I shall very briefly explain its purpose. The idea is that when an agricultural labourer is earning considerably more than the normal minimum wage, which averages 32s., it is rather hard on him, when he becomes unemployed, that he should be tied down to receive the maximum allowance under this Bill, which is based on the minimum wage of the mass of the agricultural labourers. The point is that the minimum wage, being about; 32s., the maximum amount such a man may receive is 30s. It is not fair that the better paid agricultural labourers who may become unemployed should be compelled to receive only this maxim am benefit of 30s., because it is a much greater hardship to them suddenly to find their income reduced by 25 per cent. or so as compared with the mass of agricultural workers who only find themselves reduced by a couple of shillings. Therefore it seems not quite fair they should be tied down to the maximum in the Bill which is based on the minimum wage. The Amendment does not apply to the whole of the agricultural labourers. I suggest there might be what may be called an escalator maximum, which would give to agricultural workers unemployment benefit which is in each case 2s. below their normal wage. That is the meaning of the Amendment.
The only other point I want to raise is this: Will this be a drain on the finances of the Fund which is being established by this Bill? I have not the information which is available to the Ministry, of course, but as far as I can work it out there are about 700,000 agricultural workers, of whom 500,000 are married, so right away we knock off all the unmarried. As far as I can make out there are only about 20 per cent. of the remainder who earn more than the minimum, and their average is about 35s. That represents only 100,000 workers. All these workers are naturally the very best workers. They are workers whom employers dare not risk standing off. It
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may be confidently reckoned that not more than 10 per cent. of this 100,000 will ever be unemployed. As they are, in any case, likely to be unemployed or stood off for only three months in the year on the average, it really becomes a question of 10 per cent. for one quarter of the year, which is 2½ per cent. for the year, and that brings within the scope of this Amendment only 2,500 workers. When you consider that of these 2,500 the Amendment will only apply to those who have four children, the position is simple. Those with three children are already covered under the Bill, because workers with three children will receive the maximum of 30s. It will not give more than 33s. on the average, and in practice it will only apply to men with four children. Assuming that 10 per cent. have four children, the cost of the scheme would be under £2,000 a year—about £1,800. That amount is so small, and yet the fairness of the proposal is so obvious, that I very much hope that at this eleventh hour the Minister will be able to accept this little Amendment, and that I shall have the support of many of your Lordships in putting it forward.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 18, leave out from (" be ") to the end of line 19, and insert (" thirty shillings or an amount equal to his normal weekly wage reduced by two shillings, whichever is the greater ").—(Lord Marley.)
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: The noble Lord, with his very persuasive tongue, has made a good case, but his financial deductions do not quite coincide with the information that has been put at my disposal. The facts are these. The difficulties of applying the scheme, which is an ingenious one, are numerous. First of all, it would involve two different types of payment in return for the same contribution. The second thing is the difficulty of finding out exactly the normal wage which the insured persons would be drawing. The third is that it would be breaking the rules of a purely equal form of insurance. You would be giving a privilege to one type of worker as against another, and I am informed that at the present moment it is impossible to estimate with accuracy what this will cost. The noble Lord, Lord Phillimore, pointed out during the debate on the Second Reading that the financial provisions of this Bill are drawn on

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a narrow margin of safety, and the risk which would be run in adopting a proposal such as that suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Marley, is, I am advised, too great to be run. Perhaps I might remind the noble Lord that the Statutory Committee will inevitably examine this case in due course, certainly within two years of the commencement of the Act, and if they find that an alteration of the kind advocated by Lord Marley could be introduced, they will be at liberty to recommend its adoption to the Minister, who could bring before Parliament an alteration by Order. I take the view of my
Resolved in the affirmative and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clauses 4 and 5 agreed to.
LORD PHILLIMORE LORD PHILLIMORE moved, after Clause 5, to insert the following new clause:
Claims for benefit and payment of benefit through Post Office.
" 6.—(1) As soon as may be after the passing of this Act the Minister shall confer with the Postmaster-General and with his concurrence make regulations under the principal Act providing for the payment of agricultural benefit through the Post Office and for enabling claimants for such benefit to make their claims through the Post Office of the locality in which they reside.
(2) Section fifty of the principal Act (which relates to regulations for payment of and claims for benefit through the Post Office) shall not apply to agricultural benefit."
The noble Lord said: The object of this Amendment is to substitute for the labour exchange the Post Office for the
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right honourable friend the Minister, with whom I have discussed it. He tells me that he is not prepared to accept the scheme at present, but that it will be examined by the Statutory Committee in due course. I therefore regret very much that I cannot accept the noble Lord's Amendment.
On Question, Whether the words proposed to be left out shall stand part of the clause?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 40; Not-Contents, 6.

CONTENTS.

Hailsham, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Bertie of Thame, V.

Gainford, L.

FitzAlan of Derwent, V.

Glenravel, L.

Aberdeen and Temair, M.

Goschen, V.

Hutchison of Montrose, L.

Camden, M.

Hereford, V.

Lamington, L.

Salisbury, M.

Mersey, V.

Maugham, L.

Monsell, V.

Newton, L.

Airlie, E.

Ridley, V.

O'Hagan, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Phillimore, L.

Mansfield, E.

Addington, L.

Redesdale, L.

Midleton, E.

Carrington, L.

Rennell, L.

Mount Edgcumbe, E.

Clwyd, L.

Stanmore, L.

Munster, E.

Eltisley, L.

Stonehaven, L.

Onslow, E.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Teynham, L.

Radnor, E.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.) [Teller.]

Wolverton, L.

Strange, E. (D. Atholl.)

NOT-CONTENTS.

Arnold, L.

Hare, L. (E. Listowel.) [Teller.]

Marley, L. [Teller.]

Faringdon, L.

Sanderson, L.

Snell, L.

use of agricultural labourers when claiming or receiving benefit. There are many reasons why the agricultural labourer should be allowed to use an office which is sure to be in his village and within easy reach of his cottage. In the first place, there is the very simple reason that it is a hardship for an agricultural labourer to be asked to walk five or six or even ten miles twice a week, or perhaps oftener, to the local labour exchange and back again. He is not a man who habitually uses even a bicycle. Generally he has not got one. It would be hardly fair to expect him to pay an omnibus fare, even if there were an omnibus available. He will have to occupy time which he might spend in his garden and wear out boot leather in constant attendance at the labour exchange.
A further point arises. If he goes into the town he is travelling away from his sphere of employment. He will not find agricultural employment in the town. Another point is that he will be handled

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no doubt by a most admirable and adequate staff at the labour exchange, but a staff that is not accustomed to dealing with agricultural labour and that cannot be expected to understand all the different branches of agricultural labour. Imagine, for instance, a man who had been second cowman in a certified milk herd. He would have had a very special training as regards cleanliness and the milking and handling of cattle. The particular market for his services would be a similar herd. Do you think that the ordinary labour exchange official would appreciate the fine points that that man had to offer?
Then there is this very serious point. Suppose he goes to the labour exchange, a lusty agricultural labourer. The labour exchange manager possibly will look at him and say: "You are a man who can use a pick and shovel; very well then, take a job under the Corporation at picking up the road." It would be admirable in a certain sense if he gets a job, but two things would happen in such a case. First, he would take the place of a townsman who might be applying for that job; and secondly, he would be taken out of agriculture and any possible substitute by a townsman for his services is quite out of the question, because the townsman who formerly perhaps dug up drains would be quite useless on the farm. The cowman's skill would be irreplaceably lost. Then there is the difficulty that the employer of agricultural labour is not to be found at the labour exchange and usually is not in contact with the labour exchange. Very few farmers are on the telephone even, whereas the town business man is certain to be on the telephone. Whereas in the town an employer can run down to the labour exchange and interview a man, it is a journey which a farmer would be very unlikely to be able to take.
Then the agricultural labourer would lose all the advantage of his neighbourly relations in the village. He is probably one of a dozen, possibly twenty, agricultural labourers in the village. They will all know each other and mostly they will be known to the adjoining farmers. How convenient it would be if the farmer should want a man for him to step down to the Post Office and find him registered there, and only have to go a mile or two to the man's cottage or
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to send for the man so that he could see him at once. Apart from that, we should find a kind of village patriotism coming into play. The people in the village will all help a man they know to be unemployed to get into a job.
The last point I have to make is this. Supposing we are told by the noble Lord in charge of the Bill that numerous sub-offices in agricultural districts would be erected, I would like to point out that that of course would involve very great expense. I do not know if the noble Lord would be prepared to give figures to show what the expense would be, but it would involve renting buildings or erecting new ones and setting up separate staffs, which could be employed only on that particular job, and at certain times of the year would probably have nothing to do whatever. Altogether there seems to be every argument for substituting the Post Office. I would like to explain that there already exists in the General Act a section which makes the use of the Post Office permissive. That is Section 50. The only reason why my Amendment has been drafted as a new clause is that it seems simpler to proceed in that way rather than by reference to the section of the principal Act and an amendment of that section.
It may be asked why, if there is a permissive clause in the Act already, I seek to make this mandatory, especially when the noble Lord in charge of the Bill has already said that he and the Minister are most sympathetic to this point of view and will, under the regulations, treat the agricultural labourer with every sympathy. I do not doubt that that is their intention. The Parliamentary Secretary in another place said:
" He [the Minister] will certainly bear all these questions fully and sympathetically in mind in devising machinery and regulations for the payment of agricultural benefit in these cases."
That sympathy is of course valuable. Presumably it existed when the Act of 1935 was passed and this permissive section was inserted. But what do you find? The Parliamentary Secretary later went on to say:
" The actual section in the principal Act to which the honourable and gallant member refers is Section 50, but in point of fact that section is not operative. It has never been operated."
If the noble Lord in charge of the Bill says, as I hope he will not say, that this

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matter should be left to be dealt with in regulations by the Minister, I am bound to point out to him that that trust resulted in the permissive section in the 1935 Act being neither operative nor operated. I therefore trust that this very small Amendment, which goes in no way contrary to the principles of the Bill and which will cause no extra expense but will indeed, I believe, save a good deal, will be accepted by the noble Lord. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 34, at end insert the said new clause.—(Lord Phillimore.)
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTEOSE: The noble Lord who moved the Amendment knows that I hold his Amendment, as he has said, in the greatest sympathy, and I hope he will not believe that this is an ordinary reply when we say we will look into this question very closely and with great sympathy. It is much more than that. I have discussed this for hours, not only with the Minister but also with his staff, in trying to get a solution of this difficulty, and in trying to get a solution I have discovered various facts. The first fact is that, if you bring in this system of dealing with the payment of claims for benefit through the Post Office, you will produce a system which is not in keeping with what the Ministry thinks is the best way of dealing with insurance benefits as a whole; but they believe that in cases where the applicants are sufficiently far distant from the various centres of payment, it might well be that the Post Office should be used for that purpose. At the present moment, in industrial insurance, the Post Office is used to a considerable extent in the actual payment of benefit.
In many of the country districts there are small country towns into which the agricultural worker is in the habit of coming at least once a week and often twice a week by omnibus, and it will be far and away the easiest method if, in dealing with unemployment in a particular area, the claims are handled by an office in the centre town into which the workers are in the habit of coming. The Minister assures me that he has every intention of handling this agricultural insurance system by means of rural people in rural surroundings. There are many people coming under this Bill who are employed by public authorities and
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others, and who no doubt are closely collected round ordinary towns where there are already labour offices. But the pure agricultural worker, the Minister assures me, will undoubtedly be dealt with not only by opening fresh offices in areas where they are required, but also by visiting officers, who will not only visit the centres into which the ordinary farm servant comes, but will actually visit farms where there is a sufficient number of people to warrant a visit. These visiting officers will undoubtedly go round and visit the farms.
There are two distinct types of farm service to be dealt with in the Amendment which the noble Lord has put down. The Minister takes the view that six miles is the maximum that any individual ought to have to walk, or to go by omnibus or bicycle, into a centre in order to get his necessary benefit. That is the maximum distance, and for anything beyond that he will provide facilities whereby claimants will not have to go more than that distance. That is one of the promises which he lays down. Further, there is this difficulty. In many of the remote districts the Post Offices are run by women, sometimes by the daughter of a small shopkeeper; and the Minister doubts whether such persons would be suitable and able to assist the claimants in filling up the necessary forms or to deal with claims for insurance. That is the Minister's view. The actual payment through the Post Office is a much more simple thing.
I may point out that Section 50 of the principal Act, into which this Bill is bringing agriculture, lays down that the Minister may, with the consent of the Postmaster-General, make the necessary arrangements not only for the payment of claims but also for the establishment of claims through the Post Office. The reason why this method has not been used in the past in industrial insurance is that the distances in industrial insurance do not exist, at least to any great extent. Here you have a new departure in agricultural insurance. Under the powers given by the Act of 1935 the Minister can, if he knows of the desire and need, carry out such an arrangement. I hope that the noble Lord will not press to bring the method in as a general one but will rely on what I am saying now. The Minister promises, with the experience of the Bill, within one

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year personally to examine this question and, if there are causes for complaint whereby these people in the remoter districts are not able to get the necessary attention from the claimant's point of view, he will undertake to look into the matter and deal with it. Either he or his successor will undoubtedly "cash" that promise and do everything that he can to carry it out. You must have experience. This is a new Bill; we are dealing with a situation which we know, but we do not know the numbers that will be affected in the far-distant and scattered areas remote from the various centres. Therefore I hope that the noble Lord will not press me, but will accept an assurance from the Minister that he will deal with the situation after his experience of one year.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: I regret that I cannot find the reply of the noble Lord anything other than highly unsatisfactory, and I hope that my noble friend Lord Phillimore will insist upon taking his Amendment to a. Division. The noble Lord's answers, I am sure, do not come from his own kind heart. I see trailing all over them the slimy foot of officialdom and of Government Departments who are afraid that the importance of their particular little section may be minimised and the Post Office may have to take over a certain portion of what was formerly the responsibility of some other Department. Seriously, I cannot see that any case has been made out against this proposal, and I really do not think it can be seriously contended that rural Post Offices, which already have to handle a vast amount of form work in connection with old age pensions, are unable to deal with the filling up of claims for unemployment benefit. The noble Lord speaks airily of farm workers going into the towns twice a week in motor omnibuses; but do omnibuses ply for charity, and is it likely that a farm worker is able to expend a few pence, or it may well be a few shillings, per week on running into the towns? I think that such a contention is unfair to the farm worker.
Lord Phillimore has spoken about farm workers living in villages. That may be true in England, but in Scotland a farm servant who is unemployed may find accommodation in an isolated cottage, or group of cottages, and I submit that the refusal to accept this Amendment is going
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to do a great deal of harm to the rural worker. The noble Lord has also spoken about this being an experiment, and it is necessary to see how it works. That is another variant of the old maxim "Try it on the dog," and the dog, for the purpose of this Act, is going to be the agricultural labourer. I suggest that he is worthy of being treated with a great deal more consideration than is now being handed out to him. Otherwise, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Phillimore, will take his Amendment to a Division.
LORD GAINFORD: I should like to say, from this side of the House, that we are rather impressed with the arguments of Lord Phillimore. Certainly, in my district, it would be quite impossible to expect agricultural labourers to pay one shilling for transport, or to walk eight or nine miles into a town. They have got Post Offices within a mile and a quarter, but in most cases they would have to go some eight or nine miles to a town to reach a labour exchange. The farm labourer has got plenty of walking to do in following the plough, without our expecting him to hire a bicycle or walk that distance into the town, and he would much sooner go to the village Post Office than go to the exchange, at great expense and loss of time. I think that this is a case in which the Government should try the system of utilising the Post Offices. Having served as Postmaster-General, I know what these rural Post Offices are, up and down the country, and I see no reason to doubt their ability to deal with such a matter. I am sure they are quite capable of dealing with the requirements under this Bill. I press the Government to accept this Amendment, and at any rate to give it a trial. Otherwise I think the noble Lord will be justified in going to a Division.
LORD ELTISLEY: I hope we have not heard the last word about this matter. The Amendment says "the Minister shall confer with the Postmaster-General and with his concurrence make regulations." I think it is worded in very generous terms. If, for any reason, it is found impracticable, or highly undesirable, then no action would be taken. A loop-hole has been purposely left in the drafting of the Amendment, and so, if it is found to be unworkable, it will simply die. I would like to point out that even not very far from here, where we are at work, there

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are large areas where there are very few towns. In my own county there is only one town with more than ten thousand inhabitants, and it is a 2s. fare from many parts of the county. In view of the great experience which small Post Offices in rural areas now have acquired in the payment of old age pension claims, and in the filling up of claim forms of every kind, I cannot conceive that there would be any real working difficulty in the Amendment now submitted. I do not know how the distance of six miles has been arrived at. It is generally said that a man does a good day's work if he walks twelve miles behind a plough. Is it arrived at by taking half of that figure? I hope the Government will take a generous view of this matter. After all, it is to the interest of the man that he should receive his pay in the area in which he resides, and I hope the Government will see their way to reconsider the statement which the noble Lord, Lord Hutchison, has just made.
LORD MARLEY: The Minister's reply to this Amendment has raised a number of points which I think must be explained a little more carefully. As I understood him, the six miles limit was limited to the distance which the man had to walk, and that if an omnibus is available he has got to use it.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: May I correct that? The declaration is that under existing regulations no one can be required to travel more than six miles.
LORD MARLEY: As the crow flies?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Three miles each way?
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: Six miles each way.
LORD MARLEY: That makes it up to twelve miles in all, which may be a very heavy strain, and I think it reinforces the argument of Lord Phillimore that the man should have the power to use the Post Office where it may be necessary. I am not quite certain whether this Amendment is permissive or mandatory. It uses the words "for enabling." Does it mean that they must go to the Post Office or does it merely give a choice where there is no labour exchange in a district? Perhaps I may get an answer when Lord Phillimore replies. Also, I
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think it is a pity that this little discussion has, I am sure quite unwittingly, been made the vehicle for a little attack upon public servants. I am quite sure that those in charge of Post Offices are capable of doing this work, and I do not think the Postmaster-General would agree that they are not capable, even in the villages. I think Lord Mansfield was a little bit unfair when he spoke about the slimy foot of officialdom because, after all, postmistresses are officials. The noble Earl's observation is capable of an application which I am sure was not meant, and it was a pity to bring it in. I hope the Minister will make the matter clear. Suddenly we learn that there are to be officials to visit the farms. That means that a man may have to go to the farm where he has been working to draw his benefit in certain circumstances.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: No. The point of the visiting officials is that in any area where there is the farm or cottage where the man happens to be who is out of employment, the visiting officers of the Ministry can go round to make arrangements for assisting claimants to fill up their forms and establish their claims.
LORD MARLEY: I am very much obliged. That means that these payments can be made by post without the worker having to go either to a Post Office or an employment exchange.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: Certainly.
LORD MARLEY: That of course at once does away with the difficulty of the alleged incompetence of post-mistresses and enables the Post Office to be used.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: The difficulty in the case of some postmistresses is not in the payment of the claim, it is in answering questions in dealing with the claimant who is trying to establish a claim.
LORD MARLEY: That brings me to this point, that the duty of an employment exchange is in fact principally to find employment and not to administer benefit, and it is quite clear that a Post Office may not be as good at finding employment as would be an employment exchange. But in the villages it may be possible to secure that there are arrangements made, either by notices in the

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Post Office or by postal means, for bringing agricultural workers into touch with other farmers or employers. If this Amendment, in fact, is permissive I still hope that the Ministry will accept it, because if not we on these Benches certainly shall support Lord Phillimore if it comes to a Division.
THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR: I am sorry that the noble Lord in charge of the Bill did not deal with the question of bringing agricultural people into contact with urban. It is not desirable to offer urban employment to agricultural people for a good many reasons. One main reason is that we have not got too many skilled agricultural people in the country, and if you take them to exchanges in the towns in order to get their benefits, even if they are only six miles away, it will reduce the number of people on the soil. Agriculture is a very skilled employment, and a lad who is going to go into it must start as a lad. If he does not take up agricultural employment early in life he will probably go into some other trade altogether and be lost. It is most important, that we should not mix up urban and rural employment.
I would say one word on the question of Post Office employees; and, by the way, the noble Lord did not say that the Minister had consulted the Postmaster-General at all. I lather gather from all absence of reference to the Postmaster-General that the Post Office has not been consulted as to whether they could carry out this work. But from my own experience of rural post offices, the men and the ladies in charge of the Post Office counter very often know a great deal more about these things than I do myself. They are extraordinarily well informed as to how to fill up forms, and some of them, I think, would be quite qualified to attend to inquiriers in the local offices of inspectors of taxes. I think it is rather unfair to suggest that Post Office employees are incompetent to advise a man or woman how to fill up a form for unemployment benefit. I do not think any suggestion was made that they were incompetent to pay over the appropriate sum due. It is suggested that the Minister will go into the whole question of rural payments within a year after the Act comes into operation. But all the damage may be done in that one year. You may have a whole lot of
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people taken from agriculture into urban employment, and the agricultural industry would be worse off than ever. If you are going to be fair to agriculture, do it now. Do not wait until it is too late and you have got an urbanised agricultural community, becoming more and more favourable to town conditions, thus robbing agriculture of those who have been brought up and trained to it.
The visiting officer is a most interesting suggestion, but the noble Lord in charge of the Bill did not tell us whether the cost of all these visiting officers will come out of the workers' and employers' Fund, and therefore reduce the balance and certainly do away with any possibility of either reducing the contributions or increasing the benefits. You cannot visit distant places in the country with civil servants without a great deal of extra cost. I know from sad experience that civil servants do not believe in visiting distant places except in fairly good company, and you cannot get that for nothing. I am sorry that my fellow-countryman who is in charge of the Bill was unable to persuade another countryman of his, who represents a very urbanised area, to have a little more sympathy for the country, and I think that we who know agriculture perhaps better than many members in another place should really tell the Government that we know what we are talking about and vote accordingly.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT HALIFAX): Although I was not able to be present during the earlier discussion of this Amendment, being obliged to be elsewhere, I have endeavourd to inform myself of the situation, and I would like to say one word before your Lordships proceed to express your opinion on this Amendment. I am not sure, from what I have been able to hear of the debate, whether there might not still be some slight misunderstanding in the minds of some noble Lords as to the precise position. I need hardly say that in my personal capacity, as one interested in those whom this Bill will affect in a most remote and scattered agricultural district, I am not at all insensible to any of the arguments that have been adduced in favour of this Amendment, and I think it is most certainly true that in a great many cases the method of administration that the Amendment contemplates will most probably be found to be one that is not only

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the most convenient, but in a great many cases the only possible one by which the interests of those drawing benefit can properly be served.
The noble Lord opposite asked my noble friend whether the Amendment was in his judgment permissive or mandatory, and it is on that point that I am not sure that there may not be some slight misunderstanding. As I understand the position, under the clause of the main Act, Clause 50—to which no doubt much reference has been made, though I was not present to hear—all this proceeding that is desired under the Amendment is permissively possible. That is quite clear. What this Amendment does is to make that permissive procedure provided under the main Act mandatory. The effect of this Amendment as drawn would be to impose the obligation upon the two Ministers, acting concurrently, to use this method on all occasions within the limits that the Amendment covers. I am not sure that that might not be going further than was wise, and the suggestion I would wish to make to your Lordships, with all respect and all the reserve that must come from not having had the advantage of hearing the whole debate, is this. I have no doubt that my noble friend, after having heard the debate, will take steps to see that the arguments that have been put before your Lordships are laid before my right honourable friend the Minister of Labour and receive his full consideration. On the other hand, your Lordships, or those who are at present disposed to take a different view to that of my noble friend, might not be unwilling to give some fuller consideration to the arguments he no doubt adduced.
Therefore, unless your Lordships think it unreasonable, I would suggest that this Amendment might perhaps be withdrawn on the understanding that the matter was perfectly free for debate again on the Report stage, my noble friend between whiles undertaking to convey the sense of the debate, as I understand it to have been, to my right honourable friend the Minister of Labour, and noble Lords, on the other hand, undertaking to consider the arguments adduced by my noble friend. It is impossible for him at this stage, or for me, to give any undertaking that my right honourable friend the Minister of Labour would be able to meet, to the
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full at least, the wishes of those who have moved this Amendment, but it might not be unreasonable to assume that with a little fuller consideration we would not be proceeding, on misunderstanding, to do what we might not wish to do.
LORD MARLEY: As I understand, the Report stage is to be taken on Monday. Monday is a dies non as far as this House is concerned. Only this business will be taken, and therefore very few members may be present, and there may be disadvantage from the point of view of the House in such a procedure.
LORD GAINFORD: May I suggest that there is a certain amount of latitude already in this Amendment, because the Minister has to confer with the Postmaster-General and, with his concurrence, make regulations? It is a question of what these regulations will be as to whether the agricultural labourer is going to be properly treated under this Bill in regard to the distance he may have to walk in connection with his benefit. I suggest that the better plan would be for us to pass the Amendment in its present form by general consent and with, I hope, the acquiescence of the Government—and if the Government really desire that this should be amended in any particular later, they would have the opportunity of amending it—rather than that we should withdraw it and run the risk of not looking after the interest of the agricultural labourer.
THE EARL OF RADNOR: The noble Viscount was quite right in pointing out that the argument of the Government was that Section 50 was in the principal Act and therefore should be used, but the noble Lord in charge of the Bill, as I understood his argument as to the first part of the Amendment, was that the Departmental point of view was that the Post Offices were entirely unsuitable for this purpose. He then proceeded to ask us to trust him to make use of the permissive powers in Section 50 as it exists to-day. Having told us that Post Offices, from the point of view of the Department, are not suitable, he can hardly expect us to trust him to make use of the permissive powers. Therefore I still feel we want something rather more mandatory than Section 50.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: I perhaps did not make myself sufficiently clear. What I did say was that in many places the people in charge of the Post Office were not suitable. I quite agree that this system of applying at the Post Office might be used in very many cases. Here you have it permissive in the Act, and you have the promise from the Minister that within a year, when he sees the experience of the working of the Act, he will go forward under Section 50 of the principal Act, in consultation with the Postmaster-General, and see how far he can institute offices where they are really required in far distant areas. What I do object to is that you are going to make it absolute that the Minister has got to do this. The Minister tells me he does not think that would be a good thing. Therefore I hope noble Lords will accede to what my noble friend the Leader of the House has suggested, and allow me to convey to my right honourable friend the great volume of opinion expressed this afternoon, and try to convince him and bring him round to the noble Lord's point of view. I cannot promise more than that.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: I hope the noble Lord will not withdraw his Amendment, because in this sort of case it is always better to get the principle embodied in the Bill. That makes the officials get busy.
THE EARL OF AIRLIE: I must admit that at the outset of this debate I was swayed by the argument of my noble friend Lord Phillimore, but on receiving that undertaking from the noble Lord in charge of the Bill, I must admit I am somewhat inclined to favour waiting for a year. We must remember that practically all legislation in these days is new and touches new ground. We have got to look at it from the point of view of something experimental; but what we do want to ensure is that we can gradually, I hope, educate, if I may say so deferentially, Ministers and officials to take advantage of lessons which are learned from this legislation. Therefore I find myself bound in this case not to support the noble Lord.
LORD STRABOLGI: May I point out to the noble Earl that in that year you are going to create a great vested interest? You are going to have these
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visiting officials, and I was amazed to hear the Paymaster-General say that within six miles of every agricultural centre there is going to be a new labour exchange.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: A new arrangement made so that they would not have to walk more than six miles.
LORD STRABOLGI: If you are not going to use the Post Offices, and yet you are going to have such an arrangement made, I shudder to think what the result will be. The noble Lord and I both love the highlands of Scotland, and I cannot think what the Society for the Preservation of Rural England are going to say before we are through with this scheme. The great argument adduced by the noble Earl is that after one year the matter will be reconsidered. But after a year these people will have dug themselves in, and it will be very difficult to dig them out.
LORD PHILLIMORE: I think it is only right that I should say that full notice was given to the noble Lord in charge of the Bill that this point would be raised and pressed, so that he has already, I think I may say, had a fair opportunity of consulting the Minister and the officials of the Department. With regard to this experimental year, I do not think it is necessary for me to labour the point very much, but I wonder if the noble Lord in charge of the Bill has done a simple calculation of what he is going to ask the agricultural labourer to do. An insured person is going to be asked, if he goes twice a week to the labour exchange, six miles there and six miles back, to walk at the rate of 1,248 miles per year. I may point out, and it is perhaps interesting, that a labourer living in the middle of Dartmoor would have to walk 3,536 miles during the year to get to the nearest labour exchange. This matter is not so easily brushed aside as might be imagined.
I think by far and away the most important point raised, if I may say so, was that brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Marley, who asked: Is this Amendment mandatory or is it not? It is, of course, mandatory on the Minister, subject always to the concurrence of the Postmaster-General, as the noble Lord,

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Lord Gainford, quite properly pointed out, but it is only mandatory on the Minister to provide for the payment of agricultural benefit through the Post Office and provide for enabling claimants for such benefit to make their claims. In other words, it is permissive to the claimant to use the Post Office, I presume, or, if there is an alternative place to which he can go, to use that. That meets the point made by the noble Lord in charge of the Bill, who said there were a number of agricultural labourers who live within easy reach of labour exchanges or live on the edge of towns in which there
Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
LORD PHILLIMORE LORD PHILLIMORE moved to insert the following new clause:
Special arrangements with associations.
6. Sections seventy and seventy-one of the principal Act (which relate to the conditions of making special arrangements with the associations specified in Section sixty-eight of that Act and to provisions where such special arrangements are in force) shall, in their application to agricultural benefit be subject to the following modifications, that is to say—

(a) subsection (i) of the said Section seventy shall have effect as if—

(i) for the words "three shillings," "two shillings and sixpence," "one shilling and sixpence," and "one shilling and threepence," in sub-paragraphs (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv) of paragraph (a) thereof, there were substituted, respectively, the words "one shilling and sixpence," "one shilling and threepence," "ninepence," and "eightpence "; and

(ii) for the words "seventy-five shillings," "sixty shillings," "thirty-seven shillings and sixpence," and "thirty shillings," in sub-paragraphs (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv) of paragraph (b)

is a labour exchange. I do not think I need dwell upon the other points which have been raised in the debate. I regret that, having given this notice, I cannot withdraw my Amendment, and I apologise to the noble Viscount who leads the House for putting him to the trouble of considering such a very small point when I know the great labour he has had to undertake lately.
On Question, Whether the proposed new clause shall be there inserted?
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 33; Not-Contents, 9.

CONTENTS.

Aberdeen and Temair, M.

Exmouth, V.

Gainford, L.

Camden, M.

FitzAlan of Derwent, V.

Hare, L. (E. Listowel.)

Salisbury, M.

Goschen, V.

Lamington, L.

Hereford, V.

Marley, L.

Mansfield, E.

Mersey, V.

O'Hagan, L.

Midleton, E.

Phillimore, L.

Mount Edgcumbe, E.

Addington, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Onslow, E.

Bayford, L.

Redesdale, L.

Peel, E.

Carrington, L.

Sanderson, L.

Radnor, E.

Davies, L.

Stanmore, L.

Eltisley, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Bertie of Thame, V. [Teller.]

Fairfax of Cameron, L. [Teller.]

Wolverton, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Hailsham, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Airlie, E.

Monsell, V.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Halifax, V. (L. Privy Seal.)

Munster, E.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.) [Teller.]

Strange, E. (D. Atholl.)

Hutchison of Montrose, L.

thereof, there were substituted the words "thirty-seven shillings and sixpence," "thirty shillings," "eighteen shillings and ninepence," and "fifteen shillings ";
(b) the said Section seventy-one shall have effect so that the Minister may, with the consent of the Treasury and subject to such conditions and otherwise as the Minister may prescribe, pay to any association, with which a special arrangement is in force, by way of contribution towards the administration expenses of the association in connection with the arrangement, such sum in respect of each year during which the special arrangement is in force as shall, in the opinion of the Minister, be equivalent to the amount of the administration expenses (other than the expenses of any Government department attributable to the exercise of any functions performed in connection with the insurance of employed persons against unemployment in manner provided by this Act) which would, if the said special arrangement had not been in force, have fallen to be borne in respect of that year out of the contributions paid under this Act by employers and employed persons and out of moneys provided by Parliament in respect of the persons who were during that year members of the said association.
The noble Lord said: I do not know whether there is any hope of my getting the right and the left on my side on this Amendment. I should very much like to press on the Minister from the start that neither of my Amendments is in any way hostile to the principle of the Bill, nor does it involve any extra expense. That holds true of this Amendment, which is rather difficult to explain but is in its object quite simple. Its object is to allow the administration of unemployed benefit in agriculture to be by means of approved societies or trades unions, as is the case in respect of national health insurance. In case your Lordships think this is a new and startling departure, I would point out that this very thing is provided for in this Bill, because the Bill incorporates within itself the Act of 1935 and that Act, by Sections 68, 69, 70 and 71, makes provision for this sort of administration. All I have done by way of amendment of the particular section in the Act of 1935 is to make conditions easier for setting up these approved societies and to provide that their fair share of the money, which will in any case be spent on administration, is handed to them to administer themselves.
Those figures which look so alarming on the Paper can really be ignored except for the first figure, which is exactly half the figure in Section 50 of the Act of 1935. It is half because the contribution that the agricultural labourer is asked to make, and can afford to make, is half what it is in the industrial scheme. There is no difficulty in the Government accepting this proposal. They are including in their Bill the same principle which I am advocating, but they are merely making its application more difficult. They have not considered that these conditions, in order to be fair to the agricultural labourer, must be adapted to his needs and capacity. It is not difficult, in the case of a society formed of men earning 50s. to 60s. a week, for that society to undertake in the case of one of their members being unemployed to pay an extra cash benefit of 3s., but in the case of the agricultural labourer on a much lower standard of wages that would be prohibitive and the section could not be used. I hope I have made myself clear on that point.
The advantages of using this section in the case of the agricultural labourer are overwhelming, and they are of the same
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nature as the advantages we were discussing under the previous clause. It will enable the agricultural labourer to have the scheme administered in lodges composed of people of his own sort, people engaged in his own trade and living in his own locality. The choice lies between his being allowed to administer the scheme or having it administered purely from the labour exchange. There is only one way out and that is to have a clause which enables him to set up his own scheme. All the arguments as to locality, neighbourliness, efficiency and economy apply with equal strength to this Amendment as they did to the last. I cannot conceive that the Government can have any real reason for opposing this Amendment except that they did not happen to think of this particular matter. If they are going to reject this Amendment they ought to be able to show that it is fair to make this scheme permissive and at the same time to put in its way obstacles which the agricultural labourer cannot possibly surmount.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 34, at end insert the said new clause.—(Lord Phillimore.)
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: The noble Lord rightly said that this is a somewhat intricate and difficult question. He rightly pointed out that Sections 70 and 71 of the principal Act deal with the proposals which he wishes to amend. The reasons why I regret that I am not in a position to accept the Amendment are these. The Act demands that if an association is going to handle benefit it will undertake to pay some benefit from its own funds as well as the benefit under the insurance scheme. I notice that the noble Lord halves the minimum benefit which the association will have to pay under the agricultural scheme. Under the industrial scheme the benefit is 17s. but under this scheme the agricultural labourer will receive 14s. It seems to me therefore very drastic to cut down the minimum of 3s. under the industrial scheme to 1s. 6d. under the agricultural scheme. The Blanesburgh Committee in their Report particularly stress the point that great care must be taken to safeguard the arrangements by which associations are permitted to administer State benefits. I venture to think that if we did accept this Amendment the associations

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dealing with benefits under the industrial scheme would immediately ask for a reduction of the minimum benefit which they have to pay. They might ask for a reduction from 3s. to, say, 1s. 9d.
LORD PHILLIMORE: Would it matter much if they did?
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: If the benefit under the agricultural scheme is 14s. as compared with 17s. under the industrial scheme and we accepted this Amendment to reduce to 1s. 6d. the benefit which the association shall pay, surely it is only reasonable to suppose that the associations on the industrial side would immediately say that 3s. was too high in their case. As a matter of fact, so far as my information goes there are at the moment no societies which are paying any benefit at all to agricultural workers. It means that you would have to start to construct that type of association. They do not in fact exist now.
LORD PHILLIMORE: Because the conditions are too onerous.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: If such associations did exist, they would be able to handle the benefit in the ordinary way. Why the noble Lord should want to reduce the minimum benefit to 1s. 6d. it is difficult to understand. In any case before you did that you would have to be very careful indeed that the financial arrangements were such that the funds were sufficiently secured. I hope the noble Lord will not press his Amendment, because it is not one that can be accepted.
LORD PHILLIMORE: Before we dispose of this matter I should like to ask the noble Lord in charge of the Bill: Does he want, or does he not want, approved associations to function?
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: I do.
LORD PHILLIMORE: He does want that. Then he would want the industrial ones to function, and they do function.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: They do function.
LORD PHILLIMORE: Quite so. Does he appreciate that the argument which he used with regard to the Agricultural
456
Workers' Union is directly contrary to the objection which he is putting forward to my Amendment? He told us as a fact, and in that he repeated what the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Labour said in the Standing Committee in the other place, that the Agricultural Workers' Union had never paid that additional benefit. Is that right?
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: He said that his information was that as a matter of fact no union or society at present paid benefit in the agricultural societies.
LORD PHILLIMORE: That refers to the Agricultural Workers' Union, does it not, or those that include agricultural labour? Why do they not pay? Because, of course, the societies, which are poor societies dealing with agricultural labourers, cannot afford to pay, and the noble Lord intends that they never shall be able to afford to pay. That is why he resists my coming down on the amount of the condition. In other words, although the industrial labourer, with his higher scale of wages, is to have the advantages held forth by Sections 70 and 71, they are never to be granted to the agricultural labourer. Why? Why do our Front Bench make themselves responsible for this proposal? After all, what is the point of the condition? The only point is that there should be a raison d'être for these societies and reasonable conditions under which they should work. Of course the noble Lord is quite right in saying that Lord Blanesburgh said that we should be most particular about the finances of a society, and that no society should be allowed to be started of which the finances were not in order. But why make that impossible?
And the noble Lord said: Is it fair that in the one case you should insist on a lower contribution as a condition of these societies being founded? Of course it is fair. Is it fair that you should only ask the agricultural labourer to pay 4½d. when you ask the industrial worker to pay 9d.? The only reason why you do it is that the agricultural labourer cannot pay 9d., and you know it. Well, he cannot pay 3s., and you ought to know it. I cannot understand how the noble Lord can say that he wishes these associations to be formed,

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and at the same time insist on maintaining conditions which make their formation impossible. I am sorry, but I must press my Amendment, unless the noble Lord can see his way to meet me on the point.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: I do not see how I can meet the noble Lord on the point. The point is that these associations can be run under the Act as laid down, and the argument I have adduced to show why I could not agree to reducing the benefit paid by the association to 1s. 6d. was that I should immediately receive the demand from the
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
Clause 6 [Reckoning of agricultural contributions]:
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: The four Amendments to this clause are drafting.
THE LORD CHAIRMAN: Then with the permission of the Committee I will put them en bloc.
Amendments moved—
Page 4, line 37, after (" year ") insert (" agricultural ")
Page 4, line 40, after (" days ") insert (" agricultural ")
Page 4, line 42, after (" days ") insert (" agricultural ")
Page 5, line 1, after (" no ") insert (" agricultural ").—(Lord Hutchison of Montrose.)
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 7 to 9 agreed to.
Clause 10 [Regulations as to yearly and half-yearly hirings]:
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: The Amendments to this clause also are drafting Amendments.
industrial side to reduce the minimum of 3s.
LORD PHILLIMORE: What harm would that do? Suppose these conditions were lowered on the industrial side, what specific harm would be caused? I do not think the noble Lord really understands, if I may venture to say so, the point of these societies.
On Question, Whether the said new clause shall be there inserted?
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 18; Not-Contents, 13.

CONTENTS.

Mansfield, E.

FitzAlan of Derwent, V.

Marley, L.

Midleton, E.

Hereford, V.

O'Hagan, L.

Mount Edgcumbe, E.

Mersey, V.

Phillimore, L.

Peel, E.

Rennell, L.

Radnor, E.

Fairfax of Cameron, L. [Teller.]

Sanderson, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Bertie of Thame, V. [Teller.]

Lamington, L.

Wolverton, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Hailsham, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Munster, E.

Bayford, L.

Onslow, E.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.) [Teller.]

Halifax, V. (L. Privy Seal.)

Strange, E. (D. Atholl.)

Hutchison of Montrose, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Airlie, E.

Goschen, V.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Monsell, V.

On Question, Amendments agreed to.

Amendments moved—
Page 8, line 21, at end insert:
(" (3) In calculating the amount of any repayment to be made in accordance with the regulations made for the purposes of this section, fractions of a penny shall be disregarded.")
line 23, leave out (" under ") and insert (" for the purposes of ").—(Lord Hutchison of Montrose.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 10, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 11 and 12 agreed to.
Clause 13:
Power to provide for insurance of private gardeners.
13.—(1) As soon as may be after the passing of this Act the Minister shall refer to the Unemployment Insurance Statutory Committee the question whether it is desirable and practicable to include employment as a private gardener among insurable employments, and the Committee, after giving such notice as they consider sufficient of their intention to inquire into that question, and after taking into consideration any representations submitted to them by persons appearing to them to represent persons employed in that employment and the employers of such persons, shall make a report to the Minister thereon.
(2) The minister shall lay the report of the Committee before Parliament and if,

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after considering the report, the Minister is of opinion that it is desirable to amend this Act for the purpose of including any class of employment as a private gardener among insurable employments as employment in agriculture he may, with the consent of the Treasury, lay before Parliament the draft of an Order making such amendments of this Act for that purpose as he thinks fit.
(3) If each House resolves that the draft, of an Order laid before it under this section be approved, the Minister shall make an Order in the terms of the draft to take effect on such date as may be specified in the Order, and as from that date the provisions of this Act shall have effect subject to the provisions of the Order.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL THE DUKE OF ATHOLL moved, in subsection (1), after the words "private gardener," to insert "gamekeeper, game watcher, fish keeper, fish watcher, deer stalker, or deer watcher." The noble Duke said: I do not, for one moment, suggest that the wording of my Amendment is not rather ample, and that the various types of workmen mentioned in it might not have been included in one word, or a couple of words, at least, but I have no intention of pushing this Amendment to a Division, because I know pretty well what the answer of the Government will be, and I know that the matter has already been discussed in another place. I wish, however, to impress upon the Government the necessity, if possible, of bringing this very deserving class within the ambit of the Bill. The principal object of the Bill is to extend the Unemployment Insurance Act to include agriculture, which includes horticulture and forestry.
I shall be told that as gamekeepers do not come within the Preamble of the Bill therefore it is ultra vires to include them, and that the noble Lord is therefore quite unable to assist me. As a matter of fact, all you have to do is to declare that gamekeepers are employed on the land and then they come under the heading of agriculture and its many branches. Also, in subsection (2) of Clause 1, the Minister may modify the provisions of the principal Act as he may think proper. You are bringing in private gardeners, and I do not see why gamekeepers and the like should not also be included. On this point the Minister of Labour, in Committee in another place, said:
" As I understand it, a gamekeeper is not an agriculturist or a horticulturist, or a forester, and therefore he is outside the scope of the Bill."
I maintain that he is an agriculturist, and of great value to agriculture. He also stated later on, in winding up, that he must bear in mind in future the claims put up on behalf of the gamekeeper. I know that the Minister has not got prejudices, that he can look in a broad-minded way at most cases, and that he is a man of wide sympathies. Therefore I hope I may ask him to be really as good as he has undertaken to be.
A rather strange document has, however, come into my hands. It says nothing about the law, but it tells us that the intention is to treat as pariahs among the unemployed those who minister to the sporting needs of the employer, that is, those engaged in occupations which may come under the heading of what I may call "field sports." The document was sent from the Ministry of Labour on January 23 to the secretary of the Gamekeepers' Association. It said, amongst other things:
" In reply, I am to say that the Minister is advised that, broadly speaking, it may be said that persons employed as gamekeepers, warreners, kennelmen and fish keepers are outside the scope of the Bill as at present drafted where the real or substantial purpose of the employment is to minister to the sporting needs and wants of the employer or his guests. On the other hand, fish keepers and kennelmen employed for purposes other than the above are regarded as falling within the general provisions of the present Unemployment Insurance Act, and not within the provisions of the Bill; while gamekeepers and warreners employed in the breeding, rearing or care of the stock and the land that is devoted to that purpose, and for a purpose other than the above-named sporting needs and wants, are regarded as employed in agriculture, and accordingly within the scope of the Bill."
Personally, when a distinction of that sort is made, I will not say it is made for political purposes, but one would have thought it had been made in Bedlam, and not in one of the great Departments of the State.
Is it not rather rough to visit the supposed sins of a certain class of sportsmen on one of the finest sections, morally and physically, of men in this country? Is it not rather petty on the part of a Government that rejoices in—I will not say rejoices, but has a "National" prefix, to carry out a distinction of this sort? It seems to me strange that men in analagous occupations, suffering no hardship at all, should be allowed to have the benefit of this Act, while men doing

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practically the same work, and much harder work, should not get that benefit. I will give your Lordships a case in point. Take an industry which is growing up in Scotland—the silver fox industry. The men employed in that have a not very difficult job, and not very hard work, but they are all entitled to unemployment benefit, and I do not suppose there is any unemployment in the industry. Their job is to rear the silver fox pelts for putting round the necks of probably the most well-to-do ladies in this country. On the other hand, the wretched gamekeeper or deer stalker is out in very inclement weather, to kill hinds, the meat of which is sold to these silver fox farmers. It seems to me rather unfair to make a difference. Farther, the business of these keepers is to kill off surplus hinds. You cannot have it both ways: you cannot keep grumbing from some of the Benches in this House about deer forests and depredations while at the same time you will not do anything to help the men who have to try to prevent those depredations and who are performing a very useful part in agriculture.
Take the case of rabbits. I remember a debate here about traps and everybody getting frightfully excited about the necessity of keeping down rabbits. Rabbits are probably the greatest enemy of agriculture that we have got in the North; yet the man who keeps them clown is treated as an enemy of the National Government and is not to be assisted. If you do without your keepers you will also do without a good many of your crops. The keepers have also to keep down vermin, and are not used for game purposes alone. Gamekeepers on the estate that I know best are really there to keep down the vermin which is inimical to farming as well as to commercial forestry. If you did not keep down stoats and weasels and so forth you would find it would be almost impossible to keep poultry, in Scotland at all events, and of late years almost every field that is not under crops is occupied in some form or other with poultry.
I would like the noble Lord to tell me what in his opinion comes under the heading of sport. For instance, I suppose he would say that cricket is not a sport because the keepers of a cricket pitch are receiving money. And what about golf and football—are they sports? Then
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why should the keepers of those grounds come under this Bill, and not the keepers to whom I have referred? Then take the man in the shooting school. Why is he covered by insurance, while if the person he teaches goes out of the school and takes him on as a keeper doing much harder work, he is disqualified from insurance? You would probably find also that most of those who make their living by poaching are often classed as unemployed and are able to add a little to their rather precarious incomes; while the keeper, who has to be out day and night to try to maintain the law against the poachers, and probably gets his head hammered, receives no reward—he is not insured. It does not seem to be quite fair. There is no finer stock in Britain than the keepers and deer stalkers of Scotland. I heard a celebrated politician before the War say what wonderful people they were. In the War, as I think the noble Lord will admit, there was no class that did better than the gamekeepers and stalkers. All that I am asking is that my proposal may receive the same sympathetic examination as is proposed in the case of gardeners. There is no reason at all why the Preamble should not be altered, provided that the Government are prepared to class these men as agriculturists. They live on and by the land; why should they not be brought in?
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 10, after (" gardener ") insert (" gamekeeper, game watcher, fish keeper, fish watcher, deer stalker, or deer watcher).—(The Duke of Atholl.)
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: I should like to reinforce the plea made by the noble Duke and to urge the Minister to request the Government to give it their most earnest consideration. A great many large estates have been broken up in the last few years and many gamekeepers have found it impossible to get work in their own trade, and equally impossible in any other. It is perfectly true, as I know from personal experience, that in a great many cases the gamekeeper's work consists, not so much of preserving game, but, sometimes to the extent of at least 80 per cent., of keeping down rabbits and other vermin. This class has not been very fairly treated in the past, and it is only right that its interests should be looked after a little more in future.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTBOSE: I appreciate to the full the very fine qualities of the gamekeepers and stalkers referred to in this Amendment. They are the salt of the earth, as I well know, but unfortunately, as I am advised, they cannot really be classed under this Bill as agriculturists, for the simple reason that it has been decided in the High Court that they are employed in domestic service. As the noble Duke well knows, this particular Amendment was put down in another place and after discussion it was ruled out of order. I can assure my noble friend, however, that I will draw the attention of my right honourable friend the Minister to his remarks. I can only say that this particular Amendment is not within the scope of the Bill or the Title of the Bill, and therefore I am not in a position to accept it.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: Is it not a fact that private gardeners come within its scope although they are described as domestic servants?
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: I understand that the gardeners are not so described, provided their case has been examined by the Statutory Committee. But I will convey to my right honourable friend what the noble Duke says with regard to gamekeepers and others, and see whether they can be brought into the same category.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: The noble Lord has told me of what he is advised and I am going to withdraw the Amendment, though I would remind him that even a High Court Judge may make a mistake. When we have a state of things which is working to the detriment of a certain class of people, surely something ought to be done by a Government which has more physical power, if I may so put it, than any Government we have ever had.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: On the point of order taken by the noble Lord, Lord Hutchison, I speak with diffidence because I have not looked up the precedents, but surely the fact that these particular classes of men do not come within the Title of the Bill is not final. Surely there have been cases, I think in another place, and certainly in this, where comparable Amendments were admitted into a Bill and the Title was afterwards changed. I do not wish to go into the merits of the
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Amendment, but I should have thought it was quite possible for your Lordships to include a class of this sort and then change the Title. There again, I speak with diffidence, but if that were done I doubt whether Mr. Speaker would necessarily hold that such an Amendment must be rejected. It is a matter of looking into precedents, but perhaps before the next stage the point might be considered.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: Far be it from me to cross swords with a man of such experience of these matters as the noble Lord, but there is one thing I might point out. If this Amendment were accepted, and a new class of persons were brought into the Bill, it might upset the financial side. That might be one of the reasons why it was ruled out of order in another place.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved to leave out Clause 13. The noble Viscount said: I put down this Amendment for the purpose of pointing out that, such is the state of unemployment among gardeners, if they are included the Fund will become bankrupt. I do not know what evidence is going to be offered to the Unemployment Insurance Statutory Committee, but I suggest they should call for evidence from the advertisement departments of the gardening papers and the great daily newspapers, the officials of which would doubtless inform them that, when an advertisement is inserted in their papers under a box number, literally hundreds of applications arrive. I know that from my own personal experience, because about six months ago I advertised for a head gardener, and I think I got very nearly 300 applications.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 13.—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: No doubt the finance of the Bill will have to be considered when the Statutory Committee examine as to whether or not it is desirable and practicable to bring these gardeners into the scheme. I have no doubt that matter will be closely examined. There is one point I might mention in this connection, and that is that during the six months from May to November there will, in fact, be something like £800,000 subscribed by the people who pay contributions, and, after

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allowing £100,000 for expenses, £700,000 will be carried forward as against benefit. Therefore there will be a large block of money which will tend to keep the scheme solvent.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: I certainly do not press my Amendment because I would not like to risk inflicting another defeat on a fallen foe. I think the noble Lord has answered satisfactorily, and I beg leave to withdraw.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 13 agreed to.
Clause 14 agreed to.
Clause 15 [Interpretation]:
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: My Amendment to this clause is consequential.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 16, leave out lines 16 to 23.—(Lord Hutchison of Montrose.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 15, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
First, Second, Third, and Fourth Schedules agreed to.
Fifth Schedule [Consequential and minor Amendments of principal Act]:
LOUD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: These are drafting Amendments.
Amendments moved—
Page 17, leave out lines 14 and l5 and insert (" not to be an excepted employment ")
Page 17, line 29, in the second column leave out lines 29 to 34 and insert (" At the end thereof there shall be inserted the following subsection:
' (5) the following persons shall not be insured under this Act in respect of employment in agriculture, that is to say—

' (a) persons not domiciled in the United Kingdom who are ordinarily resident outside the United Kingdom;

' (b) persons who are, to such extent and in such circumstances as may be prescribed, ordinarily dependent for their livelihood on occupations in agriculture that are not insurable employment;

and if any question arises as to whether any person is by virtue of this subsection not insured in respect of employment in agriculture, the question shall be decided by the Minister subject to the provisions of Section eighty-four of this Act.' ")—(Lord Hutchison of Montrose.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Fifth Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

BRITISH SHIPPING (CONTINUANCE OF SUBSIDY) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

PUBLIC SEWERS (CONTRIBUTIONS BY FRONTAGERS).
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, at this late hour of the evening I will not inflict on your Lordships any long explanation of the Motion that stands in my name. The short history of this is that in 1931 a Private Bill was brought in by the Romford Urban District Council dealing with the question of contributions by frontagers to public sewers. Since then various other Bills have been passed, notably one in regard to Wigan and another in regard to Rugby, and there are several in this Session not yet passed. There has been some doubt as to the best method of dealing with this somewhat complicated question, and, after a considerable amount of discussion with the same Department as my own in another place, we came to the conclusion that the best method would be to refer the question to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament who would go into the whole question and devise the best and fairest means of settling what is a rather complicated and difficult matter. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That it is expedient that a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament be appointed to consider the provisions of Sections 62 and 64 of the Romford Urban District Council Act, 1931, with respect to contributions by frontagers to the expenses of the construction of public sewers, and to make recommendations as to the circumstances in which, and the conditions upon which, similar provisions should be allowed in future Bills.—(The Earl of Onslow.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Ordered, That a Message be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith, and to desire their concurrence.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
LORD MARLEY: My Lords, before the House adjourns, could the noble Viscount give us any information about the proposed course of business for next week?
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble Lord. On Monday it is proposed to take the Report stage of the Unemployment Insurance (Agriculture) Bill. On Tuesday there will be the Third Reading of that Bill, and several Orders under the Government of India Act. On Wednesday, as the noble Lord knows, there is a Motion on the Paper in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Snell, and on Thursday there will be a Royal Commission, the Second Reading
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of the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill, and, I hope, the Adjournment.
LORD MARLEY: Will Thursday's business be taken in the morning?
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: Yes, I think, for general convenience, that will be so.
LORD MARLEY: I am very much obliged to the noble Viscount.
House adjourned at half-past seven o'clock.