HL Deb 16 February 1937 vol 104 cc138-48

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

Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Crawford.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly:

[The EARL OF ONSLOW in the Chair.]

Clause I:

Use of title "Architect."

1.—(1) A person, not being a registered person within the meaning of the principal Act, who after the expiration of two years from the commencement of this Act, shall take or use the name, style or title of "Architect" or any name, style or title containing the word "Architect" shall be deemed to have committed an offence under Section ten of the principal Act and the provisions of the said section including the provisos thereto shall apply accordingly:

Provided that nothing in this section shall affect the use of the designation "Naval architect" or "Landscape architect."

LORD STRABOLGI moved, at the beginning of the clause, to insert "The expression 'architect' means a person engaged in respect of the business of designing buildings and the supervision, in his capacity of designer, of the erection of buildings." The noble Lord said: There are a number of Amendments on the Paper in the name of myself and other noble Lords, and I am sorry that we did not give longer notice to the noble Earl in charge of the Bill, but it was not entirely our fault. The fact that he was rather energetic at the beginning of the Session, if he will allow me to say so, and introduced this Bill so early is the explanation. The reason for this first Amendment is that, while in the Bill the title of "architect" is said to be copyrighted—I am sure there will be weighty arguments for that—there is no definition in the amending Bill nor in the principal Act of 1931 of the term "architect." I do not think my noble friends are committed to the particular definition contained in this Amendment. It may be that the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, has a better definition, and if so I shall be interested to hear it, but I think your Lordships will agree that there should be some definition.

Amendment moved— Page I, line 6, at the beginning insert ("The expression 'architect' means a person engaged in respect of the business of designing buildings and the supervision, in his capacity of designer, of the erection of buildings").—(Lord Strabolgi.)

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, is quite right in saying that there is no definition of the term "registered architect" in the parent measure, and it is not proposed to insert a definition in this amending Bill. I must say that I am a little puzzled by the definition that the noble Lord has evolved. The Amendment reads: The expression 'architect' means a person engaged in respect of the business of designing buildings.… I do not know what is meant by "in respect of," nor do I know what is the connotation of the "business of designing." The Amendment is very obscure. As it stands, one of the greatest architectural feats of our time would not have qualified the man responsible for it to call himself an architect. That was the great work done when St. Paul's dome began to move. Sir Aston Webb did not design the building and he had nothing to do with its erection. This Amendment would therefore have excluded that particular kind of work from the denomination of "architecture."

It is, however, not on technical grounds that I would ask the noble Lord to withdraw this Amendment, but on much more general grounds. Where registration exists, in the medical profession for instance, it is found that it is impossible to define "surgery." The province of a surgeon begins when he rubs a dislocated knee and ends when he performs a major operation and removes a limb. So again it is impossible to define an architect in an Act of Parliament in a way which will be inclusive and at the same time exclusive. The process of definition that this Bill adopts is oblique. It is definition by qualification, and the qualification is examination. Those who have passed the examinations for certificates and diplomas laid down in the principal Act five years ago are now entitled to call themselves registered architects, and in the future those who pass the same examinations will be entitled to style themselves architects. I think that really is a fair answer to Lord Strabolgi's claim that definition is required. Definition is not only required but granted, but it is definition by examination rather than by analysis of powers, rights and duties in the sections of an Act of Parliament. I hope the noble Lord will not press the Amendment.

THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR

I am rather disappointed at the noble Earl's resistance of the Amendment. The definition of a profession is surely very desirable for more than one reason. It seems to me, as the noble Earl put the argument just now, that a man might pass an examination and then never practise or even become a member of an architectural association. Having passed the examination he could call himself an architect and yet never practise. I think a man ought not to be able to call himself an architect unless he is a practising architect. It seems to me extraordinary to resist a definition of the main point in the Bill, and I very much hope that, if this particular definition is not accepted, the noble Earl will agree to submit some sort of definition on Report. Certainly I am not satisfied with the Bill as it stands, with no definition. I think it was a mistake not to have a definition in the 1931 Act, and opportunity is now being taken to try to remedy what some of us consider a defect in the principal Act. I very much hope that we shall get a definition before the Bill leaves your Lordships' House.

LORD AMULREE

This matter of definition was discussed when the principal Act was under consideration in another place. It was discussed more than one and no satisfactory definition was ever reached. It was agreed that no definition should appear in the principal Act, but that practical men should be left to work out the definition in practice. That matter is covered by Clause 1 of the Bill, which describes what the architect is—namely, a person who is registered and whose name appears in the register. Nothing more, I conceive, is required than that.

On Question, Amendment negatived.

THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR moved, in subsection (1), to substitute "five years" for "two years." The noble Marquess said: When the original Bill was presented it was drafted as a more or less compulsory measure; then it was re-drafted as a permissive measure. The compulsory provision was for five years but in this permissive Bill the period is cut down to two years. Two years is not a very long period for an entire change from what has been the practice in enabling architects to become fully fledged and fully acquainted with the new regulations, or rules, or customs which this Bill will provide. I would strongly urge the noble Earl in charge of the Bill to extend the time to five years. That cannot do any harm; it would not prejudice the principles of the Bill at all, but would give more time for those people who wish to qualify fully to do so. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page I, line 8, leave out ("two") and insert ("five").—(The Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair).

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

I think that my noble friend is under some misapprehension. He suggests that this Bill will produce new rules, regulations and customs. It will do nothing of the sort. All this Bill does is to ensure that in the future the style and title of "registered architect" shall be "architect" sim-pliciter. There are no new rules, no new customs, no new regulations at all, and when the noble Marquess says that the Bill produces an entire change he is wrong. This is an alteration, a very desirable alteration, in nomenclature. I have already expressed to your Lordships my strong opinion that two years is sufficient. Two years is the period laid down in the parent Act; the two years after the passage of the Act, that is to say, during which a person who wishes to call himself a registered architect has to make application. In this amending Bill the same period, two years, is laid down as the period during which the man who wishes to call himself an architect is required to apply to do so. That is a very simple thing.

The Act is now working with admirable smoothness, and all architects know all about it. Six months will be quite enough for all the architects, with their very excellent methods of information in all the technical journals, to make application. The Architectural Board, however, thought that two years should be put in the amending Bill as in the original Act, and of course I very readily agreed. I should be very sorry to extend that period to five years. What we want in these things, my Lords, is promptitude and dispatch. Every day that goes past makes more and more clear how alive the public is becoming to the ever-growing urgency of better education in our architects and our town planners, and to everything which can be enacted by Parliament for maintaining the beauty and dignity of England. That is why I think that, although this looks a very small Amendment, it is open to serious objections. Two years is quite long enough a period for a man to say he would like to become an architect. Five years would, in my opinion, be much too long.

LORD STRABOLGI

I hope that the noble Marquess will stick to this Amendment and press it. Your Lordships, I am sure, must have been very relieved to hear the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, say that the present Act is working smoothly and well. Why, then, this amending Bill? There is a great deal of resistance to it in the profession. As the noble Earl knows, one of the great bodies catering for the needs of the professional architect is hotly opposed—

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

Not to this provision.

LORD STRABOLGI

No, to the whole Bill. Surely, before we put these penalties on a body of men who are generally respectable, we should give them time to qualify and be outside the penal clauses of the original Act. Let us look at Section 10 of the Act of I93I. If any person uses this title when he is not qualified to do so under this Bill, then he is liable to a fine not exceeding £50 for the first offence and £100 for every subsequent offence. That would be very serious for a young man who is perhaps not very well established, and I presume also for a number of British architects who are practising abroad, in foreign countries and in the British Empire. Five years is not too long to give such men the chance to qualify.

I will, if I may, come to the real crux of this matter, and it is a justification for postponing the operation of this part of the Bill for five years instead of two. The great art of architecture has been beautifying the world for thousands of years. It has passed through periods of great depression, through one of which I believe it is passing in this country at present. The most wonderful monuments have been built by architects without all these examinations and this registration and—if I may call it so with great respect to the noble Earl—all this over-organisation of a great profession. I can name two countries which are vastly in advance of this country in the practice of architecture, not because British architects are inferior but because there is a public demand in those countries for beautiful buildings. One is undoubtedly the United States of America, and I believe that most wonderful architectural work is being done in the new Germany—one of the few good things that I find in the new Germany at the present time.

This sort of Bill will not improve British architecture. I ventured last year to ask your Lordships to support me in some means of checking jerry-building, and I am glad to say that not only was the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, who acts for the Ministry of Health in your Lordships' House, sympathetic to my suggestion, but now much more stringent regulations have been brought in to prevent jerry-building. That evil is not the fault of architects; it is the fault of the public and of the local authorities who do not do their jobs. It is the fault of the young people who buy cheap jerry-built houses and do not even have them examined by an architect of any kind, whether registered or unregistered, whether he has passed an examination or has not passed one. I feel rather strongly on this point. I hate to see not only ugly buildings, but shoddy buildings which will fall to pieces in a decade, studding parts of the country. As I have said, that is not the fault of the architects; it is the fault of the public and of the local authorities, who do not insist on the employment of architects. The hideous buildings that are being put up by great corporations in this country are another example of not using the talents that we possess. This Bill is not going to help in that respect.

I believe that architecture is the expression of the very soul of a nation, and when I hear criticism of the United States and what is going on in that country in other directions, I ask the critics to look at the American buildings that are going up. The country that can support those who design such buildings has the principle of virtue in it. When I think of this Bill, which is so insistent on a certain basis of examination, and on the penalties put on men who have not passed those particular examinations, who probably could not, and who yet are great natural geniuses in this wonderful art, I hope your Lordships will forgive me for speaking with a certain amount of impatience. I think there is a good case for putting off this proposal for five years.

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

I do not in the least mind what the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, calls impatience, but I really rather dissent from inaccuracy. He said, in effect: "This Bill will be of no use. Look at a great country like America. They are not over-organised. They have not got these penalties. Why do you have a Bill like this when America, without one, is producing this magnificent architecture? "

LORD STRABOLGI

I did not say that.

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

That was the whole purport of the noble Lord's argument—that we do not require this Bill here, and that in the freedom of the United States glorious architecture is being created. The answer to that is very simple. In forty-one States in the United States there is legislation of this precise character. In the majority of those forty one States it is far in excess of anything contained in this Bill or in the parent Act, and there is a whole series of restrictive provisions prevailing throughout the United States, none of which appears in Great Britain. It is partly because we are so uncontrolled, partly because our education is perhaps not so good as that in America, perhaps also because our legislative control is inadequate, that we may suffer so seriously in comparison with the United States, as Lord Strabolgi indicated. But do not think that this Bill is excessive. There are five British Colonies and Dominions overseas which have legislation of this character—all more serious than this—there are a dozen countries in Europe also and, as I say, there are forty-one States in the United States of America where there is legislation of this character.

LORD STRABOLGI

This matter touches me closely and I am sure the noble Earl will forgive me if I correct what he has said. Does he really pretend that this Bill is going to raise the standard of architecture in this country to the standard in the United States? I believe the standard will be raised, but not by this Bill, and not by examination. Why have you fine buildings in the United States? Not because the American architects are better than the British, or because they have to pass examinations and are fined if they use the name without having passed, or because of pettifogging regulations of this kind. That is not the reason why the Americans build beautiful utility buildings. It is because there is in America a public demand. The reason why we have these rather ugly buildings and mean buildings in so many cases in this country is that public opinion is asleep and tolerates it, and does not demand something better. This Bill does not affect that. The fact that they have all sorts of examinations and regulations in Russia or America or the British Colonies docs not really affect the argument at all.

On Question, Amendment negatived.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2:

Date of application for registration.

2. Subject to the provisions of this Act, a person shall, on application made to the Council in the prescribed manner and on payment of the prescribed fee, be entitled to be registered under the principal Act, if the Council are satisfied on a report of the Admission Committee that his application for registration was made within two years from the commencement of this Act and that at the commencement of "his Act he was, or had been, practising as an architect in the United Kingdom.

LORD STRABOLGI moved to add to the clause: or (b) that, at the commencement of this Act or thereafter, he had passed the examinations qualifying for associate architect membership of the Royal Institute of British Architects or of the Incorporated Association of Architects and Surveyors; or (c) that he possesses such diplomas and experience as will qualify him to be considered an architect.

The noble Lord said: This Amendment is to alter the proposal with regard to examinations. As the noble Earl is aware there is a great deal of dissatisfaction felt with his Bill by the Incorporated Association of Architects. I do not want to take sides in this matter except that I and my noble friends and the noble Marquess, Lord Aberdeen, have sponsored this Amendment. It is a fact that the Royal Institute of British Architects have a system of examination and they have spent a great deal of money in helping architects generally, and it seems reasonable that their examination should be recognised as entitling a person in the profession to call himself an architect if he has passed it.

The charge against this part of the Bill is that the noble Earl and the friends of the Bill are trying to create a monopoly for one professional body as against another. That, in a few words, is the conflict, as I am advised. I am sure the noble Earl does not want to create this monopoly and does not want to put one professional body above another, and I hope he will be able to meet us with regard to this matter, which, after all, is comparatively unimportant. With regard to paragraph (c), that covers the case of the man who is already practising, but I am not pressing paragraph (c). I should like to have the noble Earl's views with regard to it, but I personally have not any strong feelings about it. I think, however, that an answer is required with regard to paragraph (b).

Amendment moved— Page 2, line 2, after ("Kingdom") insert the said paragraphs.—(Lord Strabolgi.)

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

I agree that paragraph (b) is much more important than paragraph (c). I do not think (c) is necessary. I think the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has overlooked the fact that in the principal Act Clause 6 (I) (d) gives substantially what Lord Strabolgi proposes in paragraph (c).

LORD STRABOLGI

Yes, I think it does.

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

Paragraph (b) is much more serious. I really cannot understand why Lord Strabolgi should be under any misapprehension about the system of examinations drawn up under the Architects (Registration) Act. He said that it is reasonable that the Royal Institute of British Architects' examinations should be recognised. His Amendment goes very much further than that. The crux of his speech was that this Bill sets up a monopoly for one professional body against other bodies, and he said that I would not countenance such a thing. Of course I would not dream of doing so. But I must point out the complete misapprehension of the system as it is working to-day. So far from there being a monopoly of one professional body against others, there is any number of bodies which, pari passu with the Royal Institute of British Architects, can and do regularly hold examinations.

From Lord Strabolgi's speech you would have thought there was only one examination, run by the R.I.B.A. Let me tell your Lordships what examinations there actually are to-day which are being regularly worked and through which admission to the style and title of registered architect is permitted. There are thirteen examining bodies in Britain to-day and no fewer than twenty different examinations—The Royal Institute of British Architects, the Colleges at Aberdeen, at Birmingham, at Cardiff, the Edinburgh College of Art, the Glasgow degree, the Leeds University degree, the University of Liverpool, the Architectural Association of London, the Bartlett School of Architecture in the University of London, the School of Architecture in the University of Manchester, the Department of Architecture in the University of Sheffield, and the Armstrong College, the University of Durham, Newcastle-on-Tyne. It is really absurd to say that there is a monopoly by the R.I.B.A. examination. Here are twenty examinations conducted by the authoritative bodies I have mentioned. If Lord Strabolgi goes to Aberdeen or Manchester or Liverpool or Cardiff and tells the University authorities there they are being bossed by the R.I.B.A. in Portland Place, he will get laughed at for his pains. The fact is that there is no monopoly in this question of examinations. The noble Lord said that the Association of Architects and Surveyors had a grievance about their examination. They applied, as is generally known, for their examination syllabus to be passed, and it was not considered adequate by the Board of Architectural Education; but they can send up a syllabus the day after tomorrow, if they like, and if it conforms to the general standard of technical and academic excellence which is demanded by the Board of Architectural Education they will get their examination approved just like the other twenty I have mentioned.

It is very important that the highest possible standard of education should be imposed upon the architectural profession, and to insert paragraph (b) would in my opinion almost break down the whole of the architects' registration. Let me in two words say how that comes about. All the twenty examinations I have mentioned worked by the thirteen different authorities operate under the Second Schedule to the Act of 1931 which established the Board of Architectural Education. Lord Strabolgi wants to take two examinations outside the sphere and scope of the Board of Architectural Education, and allow the R.I.B.A. and the Incorporated Association of Architects and Surveyors to have any examinations they like without any standard of excellence, without any supervision or control by the Board of Architectural Education, which is not only the strongest but certainly the most catholic body, the most far-flung and widespread body, of education in this country. There must be some misapprehension. Lord Strabolgi's Amendment is as clear as it can be. It can mean nothing that I do not read into it, but it seems to me it would be a perfectly fatal move on the part of your Lordships to accept it, and I very much hope that Lord Strabolgi will not press it.

On Question, Amendment negatived.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Remaining clauses agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.