Lords Sitting of 11 March 1941

Preamble
The House met, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the' Woolsack.

SOLICITORS BILL. [H.L.]
LORD WRIGHT: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to require accountants' certificates as to compliance with the Solicitors' Accounts Rules; to establish a fund for relief in certain cases of loss due to dishonesty of solicitors; to reduce the stamp duties on solicitors' practising certificates; to make provision with respect to membership of the Law Society and with respect to the Council and Committees thereof; to amend the enactments relating to solicitors, and for purposes connected therewith. I beg to move that the Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a—(Lord Wright.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

PUBLIC AND OTHER SCHOOLS (WAR CONDITIONS) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SIMON): My Lords, Parliament has already made special provision for the financial difficulties arising out of the war of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and the colleges there, and has also passed an Act for dealing with financial difficulties which might arise in connection with the other universities of the country, called the Chartered and Other Bodies (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1939. But I now have to ask your Lordships' attention to the special difficulties connected with the war which are bound to arise in connection with some of the schools of the country. If your Lordships will be good enough to look at Clause I of the Bill you will see that three kinds of schools are dealt with. There is first of all "any school to which the Public Schools Acts, 1868 to 1873, apply" that refers to the seven schools, Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Westminster, Shrewsbury, Rugby and Charterhouse. Secondly, the Bill deals with "any school administered by a body incorporated by
610
Royal Charter," and, as the House knows, there are a great number of such schools, large and small, in various parts of the country, many of them with a great name and reputation—girls' schools as well as boys' schools. Thirdly comes yet another class of school, the schools which have an endowed and charitable trust foundation, in which the Board of Education is principally concerned, described in subsection (2) of Clause 1.
What is the nature of the difficulty which must be expected in the case of many of these schools, and which indeed has already presented itself in very acute form in some cases? Their difficulty is this, that owing to the circumstances of the war their finance is gravely interfered with, at any rate at two points. First of all, the income of such schools may in many cases be most seriously affected by war conditions. In some cases the number of pupils going there has been much diminished. The ordinary income of such a school, if it relies upon house property in some parts of the country, may have been destroyed owing to suffering bombardment. Therefore, on the one hand, such schools are liable to be losing a very substantial part of their normal income. On the other hand, the expenses of such schools in some respects may have been very considerably increased by the conditions of the war. Certainly, the prices of things are not less than they were. If it happens that the school has itself been a victim of bombardment or the like, it has an immediate need to meet the necessary outlay, and in some cases has the very greatest difficulty in finding how to do it. I have been myself communicated with by governors of some of these schools pointing out the character of the difficulties they have to face.
Consequently this Bill provides, very much in the same way as was provided by the earlier Bills to which I have referred, that the appropriate method may be employed to help them in the matter of finance. In the case of the great public schools or schools incorporated by Royal Charter, the appropriate machinery is that of an Order in Council. It can be made only on the application of the governors of the school. If the governors do not apply, or are not in favour of it, nothing can happen; and, as your Lordships will see, this Order in Council, on the application of the governing body,

611
"may make such provision as appears to His Majesty necessary or expedient for the purposes of securing economy or efficiency in the carrying on of the work of the school under war conditions."
On the other hand, if we turn to the third category of schools—schools which are endowed or have charitable trust foundations—then the appropriate instrument is that of a scheme drawn up by the Board of Education, for, as your Lordships are aware, the Board of Education has succeeded to the old jurisdiction of the Charity Commissioners in respect of educational trusts.
I would direct special attention to subsection (3) of Clause I, which says:
"Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provisions of this section, any Order in Council or order made thereunder"——
that is to say, by the Board of Education—
"with respect to any school may in particular provide for enabling the governing body of the school"
to do a number of things which are labelled (a), (b), (c), and (d). I shall read them, if I may. The language is brief, and it may be more convenient to some of your Lordships. The first of the four main purposes is
"to apply, during the war period, the income or capital of any endowment of the school for purposes other than those for which, apart from the provisions of the order, such income or capital might be applied."
Your Lordships will notice the phrase "income or capital." The question has been publicly raised as to the inclusion of the word "capital" in that subsection. I shall invite your Lordships to maintain the provisions of the Bill in that respect.
The second of the four purposes is
"to suspend or reduce, during the war period, any payments required to be made into any sinking fund established in connection with the administration of the finances of the school, and to extend the period during which any such payments are to be made."
The third purpose is
"to vary, so far as it relates to the war period, any provisions relating to the election or retirement of members of the governing body or to the meetings of that body."
And the fourth purpose is
"to delegate the exercise during the war period of any of the functions of the governing body to such person as may be provided for by and under the order."
I do not entertain any doubt that this House will be generally sympathetic to
612
the main purpose of this Bill and, indeed I do not think there is likely to be any serious question which will be discussed under the Bill other than that which may arise under the reference to "income or capital" in the first of these four paragraphs.
Therefore I address myself at once to that point, not with any idea that the House will at this stage wish to decide it, but because I wish to provide for those who are interested a short account of the considerations which, in the submission of the Government, make it necessary to include a reference to capital as well as a reference to income. First take trust income. It is very much better and simpler to take instances which are actual instances, though of course without mentioning the name of the school. There are many cases in which a school has a trust income which constitutes a special fund for awarding exhibitions or scholarships from the school to the universities. Under war conditions it is the actual experience of some of these schools that they cannot well use the full facilities thus provided because, as matters now stand, not only do the numbers of boys in the schools tend to be smaller, but when a boy gets to the age when he would be otherwise going to the university, it is extremely likely that, instead of doing so, he will at once enter on one form or other of preparation for the Fighting Services. Consequently, though the school may be oppressed in other respects financially, there lies there an income which is not, for the moment at any rate, being fully used.
Take another instance which happens in quite a large number of cases. In some schools there is a trust income which has to be applied, according to the terms of the trust, exclusively to assist foundation scholars; but when the needs of these scholars have been met there are cases in which there is a surplus which might very properly be used, one would think, during war-time, to help needy commoners to whose parents it may be of the greatest importance to get a measure of assistance. Yet that cannot be done if the strict terms of the trust are complied with. Or, again, there are many cases in which certain scholarships or exhibition funds are available, according to the terms of the trust, only to boys or girls coming from a very limited specified area, and there

613
are instances now arising in which there are not enough boys and girls from that area to employ that income, so that the income has accumulated and is lying idle. I cannot doubt that in cases such as I have illustrated the House will see the reason of making provisions, carefully guarded provisions, which will require the sanction of various authorities, as I will point out later, but provisions which, under proper safeguards, may, at least to a modified degree, make use of this trust income in war-time in a way not strictly authorised by the narrow terms of the trust.
I observe that my noble friend Lord Quickswood, in a letter which most of us will have read in The Times, called attention to the power which this Bill confers as to modifying the use of trust capital. Let me give an instance of the kind of thing which at any rate is in the minds of the promoters of the Bill. You have a scheme—I know of one in connection with a public school—by which a fund has been established and has been gradually accumulating with a view to improving buildings largely out of the contributions of the old boys, for example building a chapel. Supposing that the Germans dropped a bomb on the existing chapel and smashed it up. It is not a very unreasonable proposition to say that under war conditions, and with the safeguards I have mentioned, it might be convenient and desirable to devote the fund that has been collected, at any rate for the time being, for the purpose of reconstituting the existing chapel of the school. After all, the first thing a school has to do is to carry on as a school, and no amount of far-sighted provision under the strict tenor of the rules which rightly govern these things in time; of peace will enable the school to enjoy the benefit of this far-sighted provision later on if this school is not assisted to carry on now.
In the same way the income of the scholarship fund may have accumulated owing to difficulties in making awards and may have been invested. I will not discuss whether, when that accumulation has been made, it ought to be regarded as capita' or income, but suppose it be regarded as capital it may, I submit, be desirable to authorise the temporary borrowing from that fund, in exceptional circumstances, perhaps even to authorise the alienation of the capital. Sometimes
614
capital sums arc held for specific purposes which it may not be possible to use, and they might be loaned to a school or be used as collateral security for a loan. It is no good schools at this time of day seeking to raise a large loan; indeed we should discourage such a thing on grounds of public policy. I will only add that the Board of Education already has, under sections of the Charitable Trust Acts of 1853 and 1860, a very wide power to authorise the application of moneys for a variety of purposes which are not the strict purposes of the trust.
Now, if your Lordships will turn back to the Bill, you will see how it is proposed to safeguard this matter. It will be necessary, as set out in subsection (3) of Clause I, in the case of any Order in Council—and I have already pointed out that no Order in Council for this purpose can be authorised unless the governors of the school ask for it and approve of it—that the Order in Council should get the consent of the Lord President of the Council. The Lord President of the Council is traditionally the Minister who is the special guardian of these matters which come formally before the King in the form of an Order in Council, and there is no doubt, I think, that his is the proper authority whose assent is required. In the case of an order regarding the class of school which I have mentioned nothing would be done without the consent of the Board of Education. In subsection (4) it is provided that before any such order is made affecting property held in trust by trustees other than the governing body, the governing body shall consult those trustees; and any representations made by those trustees shall be submitted together with the application.
My submission is that if we take these provisions as a whole they are wise provisions. A tremendous responsibility rests on the shoulders of Parliament to see to it, in spite of the difficult times through which we are passing, that these institutions for the protection of our youth are not unnecessarily hampered in doing work which is essential for the future of the nation, and I should hope that the House will give sufficient confidence to the Lord President of the Council or to the Board of Education, as the case may be. We need not imagine that any fantastic or ridiculous or absurd

615
use will be made of these powers. They will, of course, be strictly addressed to the necessities of the case—the necessities' of the cases that are urgent—and I invite your Lordships to give a Second Reading to this Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Addison has asked me to express our views with regard to this Bill. I want to say at once that we offer no opposition to it. At the same time, it does raise certain matters, one of which has already been referred to by the noble and learned Viscount and has been the subject of correspondence in The Times, not only from the noble Lord, Lord Quickswood, who, I am sure, all his former colleagues in another place and your Lordships generally will welcome here, but also from other persons interested, and this correspondence continues to the present day. It touches on a matter which also was referred to by the Lord Chancellor. If I understood the Lord Chancellor correctly, he said that the governors might not wish to act in this matter.
I do not want to intervene in this dispute at all, but I think it right to ask for some further explanation of paragraph (b) of subsection (7) at the top of page 3 on the printed Bill. If I may be allowed to read it, it says:
"the expression 'governing body' in relation to any school mentioned in subsection (1) of this section, means such body as His Majesty in Council determines to be the body charged with the government of the school …"
We accept the safeguards cited by the Lord Chancellor, and I am perfectly sure your Lordships will be satisfied on that point, but the Bill itself allows apparently any responsible body to be nominated as a governing body. Does that mean the governors of the school as hitherto understood or accepted can be overruled?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am sure that that is not the intention. I will make an inquiry, but I am satisfied from inspecting the definition that it is intended to cover the case where there may not be a governing body sufficiently identified. There is no intention of overruling the governing body at all.
LORD STRABOLGI: I am much obliged, but I think when the Lord Chancellor looks at the Official Report tomorrow he will see himself there is rather good ground for the inquiry I made owing to his use of the words "in certain cases the governors might not be prepared to act." I dare say there is a further explanation, and I am sure the noble and learned Viscount will give it in due course. There is quite a small matter in paragraph (c) of Clause I (3). There the war period is stated to begin on September 2. I may be wrong, but I had always understood that in other cases the date has been given as September 3. There may be a special reason in this case and I imagine it can be easily put right if it is wrong at a later stage.
The reasons for the Bill were very fully and lucidly explained by the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, but there is a difficulty which he did not mention which I think is worth referring to, and that is that certain of the great public schools have been compelled to evacuate into distant parts of the country. I myself, in the West Country, have had evidence of the tremendous difficulty they have met in housing their boys, in some cases in empty manor houses, some of which were half in ruins. There has been a general upheaval which has cost a great deal of money, but I am glad to say it has not really affected the efficiency of the schools concerned. The schools have carried on and will be none the worse, but perhaps better, for the experience.
Now, I think it my duty on behalf of the Party for whom I speak to say a word about the future. The noble and learned Viscount spoke of present difficulties, which we all understand, but I believe it will be found that the future may also be difficult for many of these schools. After the last war the public schools and proprietary schools generally—of course the proprietary schools are outside the ambit of this Bill—enjoyed what may be described as a boom. A great many people made fortunes in the last war and, quite understandably and creditably, they wanted their children to have the best education. The pressure on the public schools was so great in fact that Stowe was founded—and has been a marvellous success, thanks to brilliant leadership—to relieve some of the pressure on the older public schools. After this war the

617
Situation will be very different. From such evidence as I have many of these schools will expedience a lean period. This Bill enables them to live on capital—subject to various safeguards, of course—in order to carry on for the time being. But when their immediately realizable capital is used up, if they are still in difficulties, what then? I want to make it perfectly clear that the Party for whom I am speaking only wishes well of the British public school system. We do not subscribe to the jokes about the old school tie. We judge by results, and the great public schools of this country have helped to make this nation and Empire what it is—and we have not done too badly.
The seven special cases which come under Clause I (I) (a), the older public schools, have provided many brilliant leaders for my Party. I myself went to the best public school in the world and I sent my sons to the second best—they could not go to the best because the old "Britannia," the training ship run on public school lines, with the advantage of naval discipline, had gone. Nevertheless, we have the stream of public opinion to consider, and let me say at once that while recognising that much has been good in what we call the public school system—which good we wish to preserve-—we have to remember at the same time that those who went to these schools received certain advantages of education. It looks very much as if many of the social customs of pre-war days will not continue in the future. We are in sight, I believe, of a society in which there will be fewer class differences in the future. One of the class differences in the past—again I repeat that we are not criticising but only recognising their existence—has been an educational one. As we believe—and I believe most of your Lordships believe—in equality of opportunity for everyone, that equality must be extended to educational facilities.
We have here a large problem which is strictly relevant to this Bill and I hope my right honourable friend Mr. Arthur Greenwood, who is planning for the future of Britain, will turn his fertile mind, when he has time, to the problem of the future of the public schools, because that will have a tremendous effect on the generations which will have to be educated after the war. If certain of these institutions are to starve financially because of those social changes, brought about through the
618
wastage and impoverishment occasioned by the war, my friends consider it the duty of the State to rescue what is best in them and to maintain them as training centres for the youth of the future, who will be needed to rehabilitate this country. We have no opposition to offer the Bill itself which we recognise as a temporary measure.
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH: My Lords, I confess I view this Bill with a good deal of misgiving. I speak as one intimately associated with more than one of the great public schools and as one who is a governor of schools for girls and boys. I consider that those who really stand behind this Bill ought to be congratulated on having enlisted the services of the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack. When I first heard that he was going to introduce the Bill, I felt that in most cases I should be ready to follow blindly the Lord Chancellor, but when I discovered that he was the spokesman of others some of my earlier loyalty seemed to be reduced. Certainly the noble and learned Viscount in his speech put the Bill before us in a most attractive way and with many of the things he said I certainly would agree to a large extent. He chose his illustrations admirably and put the points in favour of the Bill with very great skill. When, however, he said that he would "inquire" with reference to a point raised by the noble Lord who has just sat down, I thought that his use of the word "inquire" showed that he was not really the author of the Bill and that he was speaking on behalf of others. Who are those others? I gather that they are a provisional committee who are to carry on such necessary work as comes within their ambit until there is formally constituted a joint committee of headmasters and governing bodies. I said to myself, is not this a very large step for a provisional committee to take, when one would have thought that all they had to do was to watch things and communicate with governors and headmasters and others interested if anything arose on the horizon which seemed worthy of attention?
Here we have a fully fledged Bill put before us by this provisional committee. My own view would have been that it would have been wiser that the Bill should not have come before your Lordships' House until it had the backing of a real

619
committee of governors and headmasters, unless indeed it is discovered that the provisional committee have made it unnecessary to set up such a body because all the work has been done beforehand by the provisional committee.
Now it is said to be only permissive. The Government say that those who want to can make applications and ask for permission to deal with the school conditions in this way or that way, and it is only to those that the Bill will refer. I cannot believe that that is really a full statement of what happens. My theory is that some may perhaps act hastily, and that such permission asked for by one set of school authorities may, in effect, lead to some pressure being put upon others' to do what they would not perhaps wish to do if the whole ground had been left clear for them.
And when you read that it is only for the duration of the war you can see that there might be a great tendency for things that are arranged for provisional use to get a permanent character. I do not feel too sure about the idea that it is only for the duration of the war. Do we really know enough about the future of the schools, about those who want to come to them, those who in the future will be able to come to them and those who will be induced by some rearrangement of the funds of the schools to come to them? My humble judgment is that those cases which the noble Viscount illustrated of using money collected for new charities for repairing might be put into a very much simpler Bill without leaving so many avenues open in other directions. Of course there are things quite obviously useful in the Bill and the Lord Chancellor mentioned them. It is desirable that if there are existing powers now in the hands of the Charity Commissioners and the educational authorities which can only be used in a rather complicated way, that procedure should be simplified. When one comes to the question of governors delegating the functions of a governing body to some other persons, one realises of course that many of the governors may be abroad or on service with the Forces and that such a provision is very desirable. Also, there is a regulation, I believe, about the number of meetings that may be held. These appear to me to be comparatively small matters. But I think it would have
620
been wiser to wait until the public school authorities, the combined body of governors and headmasters, should have been able to put a thoughtful Bill into our hands.
I do not think we can know enough about the future, about what the state of the educational world will be at the end of the war. All our plans for the end of the war are at present in the nature of guess work and in regard to this war-time legislation we are making a mistake, in my judgment, if we desire that it should relate to great and established systems that are a part of our English life. I think we want to see that the war provisions do really relate to conditions that have arisen from the war, such as the Lord Chancellor indicated. But I also think, with regard to this larger legislation, that there are not enough of us able to be present at these times, to deal with such large and comprehensive matters as the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has just indicated. The House has always desired to have a good attendance at its important meetings, and those here are not able to get down to the bottom of the thing and to give full and thoughtful consideration to such an important matter as it really deserves. There are so many people in war-time who are not able to think things out for themselves, perhaps because they have not the time, and are inclined to take up an easy-going attitude, saying: '' There are others who care strongly about the matter. I think the best thing we can do is not to interfere with them."
In this Bill, as it stands before us, there is no limit, that I can see, to the way in which these diverted funds may be used and I think that the words of the noble Lord who last spoke justify my misgivings. For example, I suppose if governors were in favour of it, funds might be used to subsidise pupils of very small means, and open the doors of the schools very widely. But so large and revolutionary a change ought to be made by a definite Act and not to be left possible under a Bill which in its essence has a much more limited purview. The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, opened a wider vista. I do not think this is the right way to go to work. We ought to have something more authoritative behind us. This is a very large question indeed, and I do not think it is one that

621
ought to be settled in this way in a Bill which professes to be a comparatively harmless little measure concerning wartime difficulties. We might find that some governing body would ask for a scheme that would allow it to use its funds for dealing with cases that are really not contemplated in the Bill as it stands, and for dealing with the improvement of the educational facilities of those who are not in the general purview of the Bill. If we are to have a revolution in our education, I think that it certainly ought to be done with an important Bill, not leaving it to one governing body or another to make such proposals, but saying "We have got to make a start here. We are not in a position to do more at this time."
I would like to think that this Bill came before us with greater authority than it does. I think we ought to agree that, until the time when all governors and all headmasters have had an opportunity of expressing their views, we should limit the possible operation of the Bill to ways that are now properly open to us. I hope that no one will suppose that I feel that there is no fault to be found with our present system of education. Far from it. I think that there is a great deal to be done, but I do not think that this is the right way to deal with this subject. It ought to be dealt with by a more comprehensive Bill, and the Bill which is out into our bands ought to have behind it the full authority of those who are responsible for the management of our great public schools.
LORD QUICKSWOOD: My Lords, if I venture to intrude myself upon the attention of your Lordships it shall be only for a very few minutes. I speak as one who in the main supports this Bill. I believe that a great many of its provisions will work advantageously to the public schools, and (specially to those poorer public schools which are, as the noble and learned Lord Chancellor has very lucidly explained to us, in difficulties, or at any rate threatened with difficulties, at the present time. I cannot say, however, that I like what may be called the atmosphere of the Bill. It reeks of dictatorship. The Board of Education, the President of the Council and the Secretary for Scotland can do exactly what they like, if the governing bodies once set them in motion. The language of the Bill allows the Board of Education, for example, to make "such provision as appears to the Board to be
622
necessary or expedient," and that refers to a previous subsection for "securing economy or efficiency in the carrying on of the work of the school."
That might really allow anything in the world. Let me give a quite pleasant illustration. Suppose that the governing body of Eton thought that the Provost would conduct his duties with more dignity if he had a new and better suit of clothes. There is nothing in the world to prevent them going to the Privy Council and procuring an Order in Council, approved by the President of the Council, for spending the money devoted usually to the Newcastle Scholarship in providing the Provost with such a suit of clothes. It may be said that they are not very likely to do that. Perhaps not; at any rate if it were confined to the Provost that would be so; but if it were extended to all the Fellows, one hardly knows whether their virtue would be proof against such a temptation! But, however absurd an illustration you take, there is no limit to the powers that are given.
I greatly regret that the Bill was not confined to the four provisions which the noble and learned Lord Chancellor read to the House, and that this very general provision with which the Bill begins was not left out. But we live in an age which welcomes dictatorship, and we must, I think, think with respect henceforth of the President of the Board of Education as Der Führer, of the President of the Council as Il Duce, and of the Secretary for Scotland as El Caudillo. In that way we may bring them into line with their own legislation and accustom our minds to an age which is obviously going to be, before all other things, authoritarian.
Although I dislike the atmosphere of the Bill, I do not complain of what it does so far as it is strictly confined to the war period. By all means take what temporarily available funds there are from the income of the school to carry it over the difficulties, also temporary, of the war period. The danger is surely very great, however, that a governing body pressed hard by financial difficulties may lay hands on the capital (which does not, in any moral sense, belong to them) and use it in the hope that perhaps something may turn up if they can only get round a few months of financial embarrassment. That is what happens, to private individuals, and always disastrously; they

623
take money which they had better not take in the hope that presently they will be all right again and perhaps able to repay it. The event almost invariably disappoints them; and, not having an Act of Parliament ready, as the governing bodies will have, they go to prison for embezzlement.
How foolish it is, then, to put this temptation in the way of governing bodies in financial difficulty, who may imperil the subsequent career of the school by destroying the capital or the interest on which a good deal of the efficiency of the school depends. You may have all the money now devoted to scholarships or to other means of promoting education consumed in the course of the war, and the school, left to scrape along as best it can after the war, probably collapsing all the same, because if it is in such difficulties as to tempt it to these courses it is not at all likely to survive in what may easily be the more difficult conditions after the war. The wise policy is surely to confine yourself entirely to the war period, to take the funds that arise during the war period and make those available for the special exigencies which also arise during the war period, but to go back on the day that the war period ends to the position that you were in before the war began, and leave the school in full possession of what the piety and educational zeal of pious founders in the past have made available for the advantage of education.
I do not follow the noble Lord opposite in his interesting little excursus into what may happen after the war. We do not in the least know what will happen after the war. It is possible that there may be a time of great financial embarrassment and narrowness, not only for those who are now well-to-do but also for the whole community. That, however, has never happened in the past. Every war in history, I think we may say, has been marked by the pessimistic expectation that after it the country will be ruined; but in fact the country has always been richer after such wars than it was before. I doubt, therefore, whether the community as a whole will be at all poorer two or three years after the war is over; but no one can tell, and it is certainly likely that those who at present have wealth will be very much poorer than they are now.
624
It is better, however, to leave these problems until we know the facts, and above all it is best to try to avoid in time of war launching out on changes which raise problems which we have neither the attention nor, I think, really the sanity to solve amidst the distresses of war. I read sometimes in the verdicts given by coroners' juries in cases of suicide that the act has been committed "under the temporary loss of balance of mind." Well, in war-time we are all suffering from a temporary loss of balance of mind; and we ought, therefore, strictly to avoid doing anything which will permanently change the future of our country or, in respect of these schools, which will permanently affect the life of the public schools. We should cultivate a devotion to the memory of Mary Lamb, who, being herself subject to attacks of lunacy, always put herself under restraint when she saw the premonitory symptoms of the attack beginning. We should put ourselves under restraint, the Houses of Parliament should in their legislative activities be under restraint to prevent them from committing the country in a moment of unbalanced folly to what in the years of peace no one would listen.
Let us, then, postpone all questions of the ultimate fate and utility of public schools. We may perhaps remind ourselves that they are grossly misnamed, and that they are in fact private institutions, fulfilling, like other private institutions, the function of providing what some people want to have, and that one might as well speak of working all the tailors' shops in London into a national system of tailoring as speak of forcing the public schools into a national system of education. They are private institutions, depending on their market, like other private institutions, and obliged therefore to accommodate themselves to that market. But let us leave the future of public schools to the future and let us in respect to this particular Bill not take away from the public schools of the future, in a moment of financial improvidence and difficulty, those resources which the piety of past ages has provided for them, but leave the capital and property of the schools untouched, while we use freely the income which arises from day to day.
VISCOUNT MERSEY: My Lords, I feel that a word ought to be said from these

625
Benches in support of the Bill, and the fact that it falls to me to say it puts me in the invidious position of being so bold as to congratulate the noble Lord, and, if I may also do so, your Lordships' House, on the pleasure that we have all experienced this afternoon in listening to him for the first time in this House. I confess, however, that I never thought in my younger days that it would fall to my lot to congratulate the Provost. It shows how times change as we get older. There is only one question—which I think is more a Committee point—which came into my mind. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack said something about hypothecating the funds used for those in College which might be set apart for those living in houses. How long would this hypothecation continue? Would the governing body be charged with the complete education for several years after the war owing to a promise which was made during the war? I agree entirely with what the noble Lord, Lord Quickswood, has said, that a strong element of dictatorship is being introduced by the Bill, and one would like to know who really is the determining authority. Is it the Minister, is it the Lord President, or is it going to be the person who acts for them? Otherwise, noble Lords on these Benches support the Bill.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: My Lords, I only want to raise one point. This House is extremely jealous of entrusting large powers to the Executive, but it also has customary methods of restricting those powers. In this Bill large powers are given to make Orders in Council, no doubt subject to the consent of other authorities, but there is no provision for Parliament to review those Orders in Council, and I suggest that a good deal of suspicion and anxiety which is felt at giving these large powers would be allayed if in Committee the Government were to consent that any Order in Council would be laid before both Houses of Parliament, and either their assent should be required, or the customary thirty days should be allowed for a prayer to be made against them. I suggest that this is a practical consideration, and if it were adopted it would in no way harm the Bill, but it would be a considerable safeguard against possible abuse.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I hope that the House may now
626
be prepared to give the Bill its Second Reading. If I may, I will just say one or two words before I put the Question. As regards the point just put by my noble friend, I will gladly consider the suggestion which he makes, but I would prefer not to give any assurance about that at the moment, nor would he, I think, expect me to do so. The right reverend Prelate sees in this Bill more revolution than I am able to find in it myself. I agree that it effects a certain change, a change which is limited in the terms of the Bill to the war period, but I do not think that a change of this sort is one which really could be described as a revolution in education. He asked, and very naturally asked, what was the source of the Bill. Well, the Bill is a Government Bill. It may be all the better or it may be all the worse for that, but that is what it is; it is a Bill which is promoted by the Government as a whole, not by any particular Minister, after very full consideration, as I happen to know.
But at the same time it is material to know that on May 9, 1940—well within the period of "temporary insanity"—there was a full meeting of governors and headmasters, not of course limited to the public schools, but of different classes of schools, at the Charterhouse, and there it was agreed that a Standing Joint Committee of Governors and Headmasters should be set up, and the Committee of the Headmasters' Conference was empowered to nominate it. The Headmasters' Conference did so. I believe I am right in saying that it consists of five governors and five headmasters. It was admittedly provisional in this sense, that it cannot commit, and does not seek to commit, the governors of any particular school, but I would have thought that, as far as it was possible to gather the views and the helpful suggestions of this important body of men, the governors and headmasters of these schools, what had been done was not an unreasonable way of doing it. There was a slip in the letter written by my noble friend to The Times, because I see that he said that that provision about capital was, as he was informed, put in by the Government, and not suggested by the Joint Committee of Governors and Headmasters. That is an error. I have made inquiry, in fact I have seen the document, and the Committee of the Governors and Headmasters

627
did in their proposals include capital as well as income.
Although the matter has been already very gracefully referred to by my noble friend Lord Mersey, I must be allowed to say on my own behalf—and I am sure it is what the whole House feels—what a delight it is to us to have had this first contribution from the noble Lord, who did not conceal from us that he was the Provost of Eton. Noble Lords will realise in time, as I with long House of Commons experience have long known, that there is nobody who can put a matter more persuasively, while sometimes I think being a little extreme in his view, and nobody who can urge' the familiar objection that the language of the Statute is dangerously wide, more ingeniously and with more amusing illustration. But, after all, there are one or two checks. It would be a mistake to suppose that my noble friend could get a new suit of clothes merely because the other members of the governing body of Eton thought it was high time he should be so provided. It would be necessary also to secure the approval of the Government of the day to an Order in Council embodying this permission. It would be necessary to have the special attention of the Lord President of the Council given to the matter. It would only be when the Government of the country and the War Cabinet were prepared to take the responsibility of first diverting the funds of this great institution that my noble friend would find himself more conveniently apparelled. The argument from an extreme illustration is not always very apposite.
I ask the House to give a Second Reading to this Bill because it does unquestionably seek to meet what is an immediate and very serious anxiety. The right reverend Prelate says we should not be so rash. He considered that the number of those attending in this House at the present moment was not large enough to justify such a step. I can only say it is a larger number than I can recall having seen in the House on most occasions since I have been here. Of course there are many noble Lords who are absent, but while fully sympathising with the feeling of the right reverend Prelate that we should examine these matters carefully and not proceed rashly, I venture to remind
628
him and the House that what is happening here is that a large number of schools are in the greatest possible immediate danger. It may be that the right thing to do is to say, as the right reverend Prelate suggested, that we do not know enough about the future, but that would put a stop to almost all the war legislation which we try to pass. When you are faced with a practical emergency known in detail in the case of some schools, I venture respectfully to submit to the House that' it would be reasonable to let this Bill go forward and to recognise that it does not embody some immense revolutionary change but is an attempt to bring very much needed help in certain specific quarters, for the period of the war only, when the governors of the school in question and those responsible for drawing the Order in Council, the Board of Education, the Lord President of the Council, and the Government as a whole feel that they are prepared to stand by and support the measure.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, before the Lord Chancellor puts the Question, I should like to remind him, because he alluded to the Joint Committee of Governors and Headmasters, that the headmasters were elected by the Headmasters' Conference, while the governors have been elected by nobody. How they got on that body I do not know, but there was no organised body of governors to elect them like the headmasters, so that at the present moment they do not represent anybody.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS (POSTPONEMENT OF FINANCIAL INVESTIGATION) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THEPARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA AND BURMA (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, in 1937 Parliament passed an Act called the Air Raid Precautions Act. Section 10 of that Act laid upon the Home Secretary, whose functions have since been transferred to the Minister of Home Security, the duty of causing an investigation to be made into the workings of the financial provisions

629
of that Act within three years. The investigation was to be made in consultation with such associations of local authorities as might appear to him to be concerned and with any local authorities with whom consultation appeared to be desirable, with particular reference to the expense to be borne by local rates. The duty was also laid on him of making a report to Parliament of the results of his investigation. Preliminary discussions on the subject took place in the early part of last year between Sir John Anderson, who was then Minister of Home Security, and representatives of the local authorities, but they were suspended because local authorities, and indeed the Government Department concerned, found themselves too much occupied with the active and urgent development of civil defence measures to enable them to give the necessary time and attention to this financial investigation, which might clearly involve the collection and collation of a very large amount of statistical material.
Consultation with the local authorities was resumed last December, and it was then agreed that Parliament should be asked to extend by one year the period during which the investigation is to be made. That is the object of the Bill, and it is the only object. It is a very simple Bill, and I hope your Lordships will be prepared to pass it. My right honourable friend the Minister of Home Security tells me that he does not intend to avail himself of the full period allowed by the Bill, and means to proceed with this investigation and consultation as soon as opportunity offers. The Departments concerned are already in active consultation with the representatives of the local authorities, and agreement with them has already been reached as to the general plan on which the investigation should proceed. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.— (The Duke of Devonshire.)
On Question, Bill read 23, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

LAND DRAINAGE (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORDALNESS: My Lords, I am well aware that your Lordships' House desires,
630
without avoidable delay, to pass to consideration of the War Damage Bill in Committee, and accordingly I shall compress the observations which I propose to make in moving the Second Reading of this Bill as severely as is consistent with my public duty. The purpose of the Bill is to enable the Secretary for Scotland, during the present war, to carry out arterial drainage operations in various parts of Scotland where agricultural land is unproductive, or nearly so, by reason of its liability to floods. I should perhaps explain at "the outset that in Scotland, differing from England, we have no drainage or catchment boards, and accordingly no body of that sort is charged with the duty of maintaining arterial drainage systems or of protecting land against flooding. One reason for the difference between the two countries is that the problem in them is essentially different in character and also in dimensions. Scottish rivers are, as a rule, not long, and, in point of fact, most of them have a good natural fall. Accordingly any flooding which may take place is generally of a local character.
Be that as it may, Parliament in 1930 recognised the impossibility of legislating for England and Scotland on parallel lines in this matter, because in that year was passed the Land Drainage (Scotland) Act, 1930. Under that Act the Scottish Department of Agriculture was empowered for five years—subsequently extended to seven years—to carry out arterial drainage operations where they were required in Scotland. The powers conferred by that Act are now spent, and something must be done to repair the existing situation. I should perhaps add that the financial stringency of the times, coupled with the extraordinarily complicated and cumbrous provisions of the machinery embedded in the Act of 1930, resulted in its usefulness and effectiveness being very much impaired. This Bill, as I propose to show, recommends a much simpler and swifter method of procedure.
The main operative part of the Bill your Lordships will find in Clause I. It provides that, if the Secretary of State is satisfied by a report from an agricultural executive committee, that drainage operations are necessary to reclaim agricultural land or to make it fully productive or to protect it from the danger of flooding, then he may make a draft scheme setting

631
out the proposed works, the estimated cost of them, the amount of the estimated cost to be recovered from owners on the score of betterment, the estimated cost of maintenance, and its apportionment among the respective owners concerned. The scheme which the Secretary of State for Scotland is empowered to devise is conditioned by two further provisions in the measure. The first is that the cost of the work contemplated shall be reasonable, having regard to the benefit to agriculture which shall accrue; and secondly, that the cost shall not exceed £10 for each acre which is benefited from the operation.
Moreover, the scheme which the Secretary for Scotland devises and sets forth must be advertised; it must be open to inspection; and there must be an opportunity to all those who are affected by it, including owners and tenants, of lodging objections and claims. These objections and claims having been lodged, the Secretary of State for Scotland must consider them. If it is decided by agreement to satisfy these claims, good and well, but if, on the other hand, the matter cannot be settled by agreement, and some objections and claims are left outstanding, then the matter goes to the Scottish Land Court, which is a tribunal possessing authority and I think I may say confidence, on the other side of the Border.
Where this Bill parts company from the Bill of 1930 is in this—and I do not desire to conceal from your Lordships the importance of the contrast—under the Act of 1930, before the Board of Agriculture could carry through the scheme which the Act contemplated, all disputed claims for compensation, questions of betterment, and so forth had to be satisfied and met. Under this Bill, while the unsettled claims and objections go for settlement to the Land Court, the Bill provides that the Secretary of State for Scotland, without waiting for the adjustment of these claims—very often a tedious proceeding, as the 1930 Act has abundantly proved—and without waiting for the settlement of all the complicated questions of compensation and betterment which may arise, may at once proceed with a scheme which he has devised, and which in his considered judgment the country requires.
632
Despite what has been said in your Lordships' House this afternoon about war-time measures, I think that this particular provision may be justified on the ground that this is a war-time measure—an urgent war-time measure—and the reason why I say so is that, as your Lordships will agree, it is essential that we should get as much land as possible, and as quickly as possible, restored to full productivity. That need is all the greater for this reason; that a great deal of good land in Scotland has been taken, and very properly taken, for necessary defence purposes. Therefore it becomes all the more urgent to secure that land which is unproductive to-day, or nearly unproductive, should be restored to productivity, and so serve the needs of the country at a critical time such as this. I may say that there are already in contemplation schemes for the treatment of 12,000 acres of flooded land in Scotland, and that it is calculated that those acres when restored under the provisions of this Bill to productivity will yield some 51,000 tons of food, which I think at the present time may be regarded as a great boon.
With regard to its financial provisions the Bill is quite a simple one. All the money which is collected for the payment of betterment secured at the public expense will fall to be borne by the owner, who can discharge his liability either by payment of a lump sum or by payment of an annual sum over a period of not more than thirty years. All the expenses over and above betterment charges will be charged to the State. I may say that it is in contemplation that, while £100,000 may be required to carry out the operations which are contemplated by the Bill, probably £50,000 or thereabouts will be yielded by betterment, the remaining £50,000 being paid out of public funds.
The remaining clauses of the Bill are more or less formal, and I should not be justified at such a time in detaining your Lordships by considering them in detail. They deal with machinery for entering on the land, for the service of notices, for payment of moneys provided by Parliament, and for the protection of Crown rights and the Board of Trade rights in works below high water mark. These are formal provisions which contain no contentious matter at all. I would only add that the Bill commands the approval, as I understand, of all

633
sections of the agricultural industry in Scotland. It encountered no hostility whatever in its progress through another place, and in those circumstances I have no hesitation in inviting your Lordship to give the Bill a Second Reading this afternoon. I beg to move
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Alness.)
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, I may perhaps be allowed to intervene for a moment. As one who was responsible for the English Land Drainage Act I congratulate the noble Lord upon this Bill. As I was listening to the noble Viscount below the gangway, having had the very profitable and interesting experience of bearing him so very many times in years past in another place, I wondered if he had given any thought to this Bill, because this Bill does establish the authoritarian system during the war for a war measure, and it seems to me an entirely wholesome and sensible thing to do. It helps to make good the defects of the Act now deceased, to which the noble Lord referred, which Act was encumbered with so many provisions to safeguard us against the exercise of authoritarian powers that it became a dead letter and was completely useless. This Bill, I am glad to say, proceeds on other lines and is in marked contrast, I think, to some of the sentiments expressed by the noble Viscount and comforts me a good deal on that account. Anyhow, I am very glad to support the Second Reading.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY: My Lords, I am sure we all are pleased to welcome a measure designed to promote the fertility of the soil and to recover flooded areas for the use of cultivation. I would like to be allowed for a few moments before a Second Reading is given to this Bill to ask the Government to give attention to certain points. Do they consider that they will have the necessary labour available to carry out these schemes at the present time, and do they intend to give priority to their schemes over normal agricultural work and other forms of drainage? I hope they will be able to avoid competing for the labour required by large areas of land and an immense number of enclosed fields which very badly require drainage, and which, if drained or re-drained, may well provide
634
cultivation for 1942. There is a very great shortage of men available for field drainage now, and I would ask if it is not better first to use what labour is available for this necessary work rather then divert it to arterial schemes of drainage. We all have had experience of large Government and public contracts in which it is customary for the contractors to be guaranteed against loss, and this enables them to secure men by offering wages far above the normal agricultural wages in the district, If this happens again, will it not become even more impossible for farmers to collect men for draining their fields and for important seasonal farm work?
The first scheme announced by the Scottish Office applied to the river Nith in Dumfriesshire. It is suggested that this scheme may take fifty to a hundred men, and even when the work is accomplished there will still be for a considerable time farm drainage and tile drainage before these fields are ready for cultivation. Is it not better that the same labour should be applied to the work which requires to be overtaken now before embarking on these other schemes? May I also remind the Government of a comparatively small scheme under the previous Act for a neighbouring river in the same county, the river Annan, the cost of which was far more than was estimated. There was considerable divergence of opinion among agriculturists as to the value of the improvement effected, but there was general agreement that the cost was high in proportion to the moderate results obtained.
I would like to ask the Government to take the opportunity of this Bill to redress certain grievances felt by county ratepayers alongside these rivers and one or two rivers which have been previously drained. They complain of the high assessments made upon them and they are not allowed to know what has been the expenditure of the Government. The local authorities collect the rates but do not know, and therefore cannot divulge, the amount spent by the Government, whereas the county councils themselves have to publish a full account of their expenditure. Ratepayers naturally advocate that that should also apply to the Government. Is there any reason why this should not be done? The request seems reasonable and there cannot be

635
any argument for secrecy. More publicity would encourage economy and efficiency in the execution of the work. I should like to ask that this matter be considered during the passage of this Bill.
LORDALNESS: My Lords, perhaps you will allow me to say a word in reply to my noble friend the Duke of Buccleuch. He was good enough to tell me beforehand the first of his points, and I am able to give him an answer on that. With regard to his second point, about particular schemes, I am afraid I have no information at the moment, but I can undertake to look into the matter and I will certainly do so before the Committee stage. With regard to the other point which the noble Duke raised—namely, the possibility, as I understood, of abstracting men from the very vital task of field drainage and drafting them into the kind of operations which this Bill contemplates, I rather think that my noble friend's fears are unfounded. I would remind him that mechanisation plays a very large part in all this work, and that as compared with years ago—years which many of your Lordships will remember—less man-power is required because of the use of mechanical apparatus. Apart from that consideration I think that the class of work that is contemplated under this Bill is not work which would attract men from the particular industries to which my noble friend referred. Much of this work will be unskilled navvy work.
What is in contemplation, I understand, is that quite a number of unemployed miners from the West of Scotland, who will be well adapted to carry out such work, will be drafted to various parts of Scotland for that purpose. I cannot myself imagine skilled tile drainers being attracted from the work they are doing to work as navvies in the particular territories to which the noble Duke refers. At any rate I can give my noble friend this assurance, that I am quite alive to the danger to which he refers of diverting men at a time like this from a more useful industry to one that is less useful. At the same time, I would re-emphasize what I ventured to say to your Lordships' House to-day, that I cannot conceive a more vital national purpose to serve at this moment than to reclaim wholly unproductive agricultural land and bring it into produc-
636
tivity and thereby produce food which the nation urgently requires at a time such as this. Accordingly, all I can say on that subject is that his observations on that point will be borne in mind, and that on the other topic he dealt with I shall be glad to give him information if it is available at a later stage.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

WAR DAMAGE BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD RANKEILLOUR: My Lords, may I take this opportunity of raising—I hope very shortly—a matter which is strictly relevant to the Bill but is not capable of being dealt with by Amendment to the Bill? If I had been able to do so I ought to have raised it on Second Reading, but I was away on work which I may say is work of distinctly national importance. I am a trustee of a mutual indemnity society. That society is worked by a management company in which I have no interest either as a director or as a shareholder, and as admittedly the company will have to cease operation on the passing of this Bill such interest as I have as trustee is not affected. This company was formed last year when the whole policy of the Government was against any comprehensive Government scheme, or any Government scheme, to insure against war damage. The Committee presided over by the noble Lord, Lord Weir, had reported in October, 1939, that no such scheme as is now put forward was practicable, and the same attitude was taken by the representative of the Government in reply to a deputation sent by industrial and commercial interests. Therefore the field was open, and it may be almost said that private effort in this direction was encouraged by the Government attitude.
This company and the trust involved started early last year, the greatest possible attention having been paid to the

637
drafting of the trust and of the scheme as a whole, which was passed by the Board of Trade. For the first few months it met with great success—with great and growing and encouraging success—until the statement made in September last by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Government were proposing a comprehensive scheme. This has placed the company in a position of great difficulty. Possibly some of your Lordships are directors of insurance companies, and if so you will know that the expenses of running such companies are extremely high. Forty per cent. is a very low rate of expenses, but the working of this trust prescribed a rate of not more than 25 per cent., which was, as work of this kind goes, exceptionally low. But, of course, the preliminary expenses were extremely high. The result has been that the company finds itself landed, owing to the sudden cessation—the compulsory cessation—of its operations, with a heavy loss, and I submit that there cannot be under the text of this Bill any equitable claim. They took' the utmost care in forming the scheme by submitting it to the Board of Trade and by taking counsel's opinion, and the text of the typograph was gone over time after time. In the natural expectation of business the expenditure incurred was perfectly justified. If they had had premiums for a second year the expense would have been very soon wiped out. Now I do not ask the Lord Chancellor to say anything about this on the present occasion, but I do put it to him that it is an equitable claim and that the Government in considering other claims arising out of the war ought not to forget this.
On Question, Motion agree to.
House in Committee accordingly
[The Earl of Onslow in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Constitution and functions of War Damage Commission.
1.—(1) For the purposes of this Act there shall be constituted a Commission, to be called the War Damage Commission (in this Act referred to as "the Commission") consisting of persons appointed by the Treasury in accordance with the First Schedule to this Act, which shall be charged with the duty of executing the provisions of this Part of this Act relating to the making of payments in respect of war damage to land, and shall exercise such other functions as are conferred upon them by this Act.
LORD ADDISON LORD ADDISON moved, in subsection (1), after "Treasury," to insert "and by the Board of Trade with the approval of the Treasury." The noble Lord said: This Amendment and the other two in my name on this clause stand together and raise a very important point of administration. I called attention to it in my speech on the Second Reading and I have put Amendments on the Paper in order, I hope, to elicit an appropriate statement from the noble and learned Viscount in charge of the Bill. Of course the drafting of the Amendments is designed, quite clearly, to raise a point, and the point is this. Under the Bill as it stands there are three insurance schemes. Houses, land and property—that is land and houses and buildings standing on it—are compulsorily insured. This scheme is to be administered by a body, to be set up under the clause which is called the War Damage Commission. Later on in the Bill there are two other insurance schemes; one compulsory and one voluntary.
The compulsory scheme is the one which secures the insurance, under Clause 59, of the goods of a business, "goods" being widely interpreted, and I am not concerned now with that interpretation. There is another scheme in the same clause, administered by the Board of Trade, which is called the chattels insurance scheme—clothes, personal belongings and so on, which I need not particularise. And there is also, we are glad I am sure to know, a scheme for the free insurance of clothes and suchlike, of people's persona belongings below a certain amount. There are, therefore, these three schemes, one as to land and houses administered by the Land War Damage Commission, another as to business belongings coming under the scheme administered by the Board of Trade, and chattels voluntary insurance also administered by the Board of Trade. Well now, if we were to go out into the streets anywhere we should see the results of a bomb, and while not in every case but in a large proportion of cases, we should find that the bomb involved all three classes of things. We should find that property was bombed, that the house was destroyed, or partially destroyed or damaged, that the people living in it, if it was a business house, would certainly have had some of their

639
business goods destroyed, and in a very large number of tragic cases that the people had lost all their personal belongings as well.
At the smaller houses where a man has had a shop and has lived on the premises, it would be found, most probably, that all three have gone together, the house, the goods of his business—his stock-in-trade—and his clothes and furniture—the whole lot. These are the losses which the Bill is designed to meet. Now, under the Bill as it stands, the people who have suffered such losses will be able to recover compensation from the War Damage Commission as regards the house and buildings, and from the Board of Trade, under the goods insurance scheme, in respect of the business stock, and also under the chattels scheme if they insure their chattels. What I have been wondering is how the ordinary citizen is going to get his money—how is he going to proceed? I am rather appalled at the prospect and I want to get some simplicity into it if I can. That is the purpose of these Amendments. I can see that unless we are very careful this kind of thing is going to happen. There will be somebody or other established in an office, in the first place, let us say an office set up by the local authority—and as we know a very large number of people have been very splendidly and promptly helped by the local authorities or various administrations which have had a room in the town hall or somewhere else to which they have been able to go to get advice.
There were difficulties at first, that was inevitable, but here we shall have these Commissions—I do not know whether they will have separate offices or not—and the first thing people will have to do will be to find out who they have to go to and where they have to go. Then there will be various forms to fill up; various claims will have to be made, and someone will have to advise the people as to how to fill up the forms. We all know, even those of us who are accustomed to these matters, like Parliamentarians, what difficulty there is in filling up forms sometimes. I do, anyhow. But the ordinary rank and file of the people who have suffered damage will be caused great distress and they will find themselves in a great dilemma. If a man
640
has had his house, his shop goods and furniture all bombed, as has happened in hundreds of cases, he may find that he has to go to at least two offices and fill in three different sets of forms because there are different schemes of insurance. I do not want the average well-meaning citizen who has suffered all this devastation to be exposed to any more worry and bother than we can avoid. I think we all sympathise with him. We have all had a very bad time. We do not want to compel our fellow-citizens to have to go to two offices at least and fill in at least three sets of forms. They will have to do so under the Bill as it stands.
That is explanatory of my Amendments. What I want in these Amendments—and what I believe is the right thing—is that we should have one Commission to deal with the lot; that is really what I am getting at. Under the Bill as it stands, by Clause 59 the Board of Trade will administer the two insurance schemes, relating to business goods and to chattels. Subsection (3) of Clause 59 says:
"The War Damage Commission shall exercise such functions for the purposes of this Part of this Act as the Board of Trade may, with the approval of the Treasury, direct."
In other words, the Board of Trade may say to the War Damage Commission, who will administer the scheme of insurance of property: "You look after the business goods of these people," or they may ask the War Damage Commission to see to everything; or they may do nothing effective. I am sure that the Board of Trade will do their best, as they always do; but there is nothing to show that this Commission will act with regard to business goods. It is quite impossible to act, however, without taking account of the contents of the shop. A man may have his house destroyed as well, and lose all the groceries on the shelves in the shop and in a room at the back. In ascertaining the loss which he has sustained you must take account of the whole affair; that is inevitable.
It is quite impossible to expect that the scheme of insurance in such a case shall be administered by two separate bodies. I think, therefore, that we ought to aim at so adjusting the constitution of the War Damage Commission set up under this clause that it will be competent to deal with all the three classes of insurance.

641
There will be, of course, various reservations. It will be subject to such powers as may be remitted to it, as the clause sets out, for the purposes of this measure; but the whole point of this series of Amendments which I have put down is to try to secure that we shall have a War Damage Commission on which the Board of Trade will be represented, because it will be dealing with the Board of Trade group of insurances as well as with the others. It is necessary, therefore, to have a combined Commission with representation of the Board of Trade upon it, competent to deal with every class of case.
Having said that, I would direct attention to the words of my proposed Amendment. Subsection (1) of Clause 1 states that the War Damage Commission shall consist "of persons appointed by the Treasury," and I there wish to insert "and by the Board of Trade with the approval of the Treasury." Those words are taken out of Clause 59, under which the Board of Trade appoint the persons to deal with their insurance schemes with the approval of the Treasury. My next Amendment, which is to leave out the words "of this Part" in subsection (1) of Clause 1, and the subsequent Amendment, to leave out the words "to land" in the same subsection, are intended to provide that this body
"shall be charged with the duty of executing the provisions of this Act relating to the making of payments in respect of war damage."
In other words, it is comprehensive. I sincerely hope that if the noble and learned Lord Chancellor cannot accept this Amendment—I hope that he will, though I do not say in this particular form, because I am not a Parliamentary draftsman—he will be able to give the assurance that people will not be saddled with the kind of embarrassment which, though only in the briefest outline, I have indicated, and that the procedure and the administration will be simplified and unified as far as is humanly possible.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 11, after (" Treasury ") insert (" and by the Board of Trade with the approval of the Treasury ").—(Lord Addison.)
LORD JESSEL: I am sure that we have all listened with the greatest care to the words which have fallen from the lips of the noble Lord opposite in moving this
642
Amendment. I have considerable sympathy with him, and I hope that the Government will favourably view what he has said. It is perfectly true that as far as local authorities are concerned, you have only to go into the town hall and you can have all your requirements looked into under one comprehensive roof. If that could be done so far as the point raised by the noble Lord is concerned, it would simplify matters.
There is one other question in connection with this matter which I should like to put forward for the sympathetic consideration of the noble and learned Lord Chancellor. It is most difficult for people to know what to do in these circumstances. On the Second Reading I put various points to the noble and learned Viscount, and to most of my feeble points he was good enough to reply. One question which I asked was whether the Government, when this Bill is passed into law, would issue some memorandum for the guidance of the public as to what they were to do and how they were to do it. That would be of very great assistance; and I hope that the noble and learned Lord Chancellor, when he replies on behalf of the Government on this Amendment, will give some indication of whether that point has been considered. It would be of the greatest benefit to everybody; it would do away with a great deal of misconception and also, I hope, with a great deal of red tape.
THE EARL OF CLANWILLIAM: I should very much like to support the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Addison, because I personally am interested in this matter and shall very shortly have to make these returns and ask for assistance from these various Departments. As this Bill stands at present, we shall, as the noble Lord has stated, have to apply to at least two Government Departments. I do not wish to criticise any Government Department, but they are all, of course, and especially the Treasury, very much overworked to-day. This Commission, which will have to deicide the questions which will be put to them in connection with the consideration of our claim, will certainly be overworked to begin with, because the claims will be multitudinous. We shall not only be kept waiting for a reply for a very long time, but we shall probably find the greatest difficulty in getting any of our claims

643
settled. If the whole of the business could be placed, as my noble friend Lord Jessel said, under one roof and dealt with by one Department, with representation of the Board of Trade on the Commission, as the noble Lord, Lord Addison, suggested, the Commission would be able to deal with all questions relating to houses, furniture, chattels and, if necessary, goods, and that would simplify our business very considerably.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Lord opposite put his point, if I may be allowed to say so, very clearly and persuasively, and it is evident from the two speeches which have since been made that what he said is recognised as a very serious suggestion. I do not dispute that at all. He is in search of simplicity. Well, so are we all; the difficulty is not to decide what we are in search of but to decide what is the better organisation to arrive at it. My noble friend who has just spoken says he anticipates that there may be delay. I should be very sorry if that occurs. I am sure that everything possible will be done to prevent it. But is there going to be more delay or less delay if, in addition to the enormous burden which is put upon the War Damage Commission, you say that that is not enough, that it has got to take the responsibility for two other great departments of business which of course are quite distinct in their character, though I agree with Lord Addison that both may arise in a single case?
Observe that the Board of Trade, in dealing with Parts II and III of the Bill, is dealing with insurance policies and the collection of premiums. Not only is that class of matter quite obviously, as between Government Departments, a Board of Trade matter, but the Board of Trade has in fact very great experience of that class of work. They are doing it now in connection with commodity insurance, and they have duties in connection with many other forms of insurance, and manirestly those who have to deal with that part of the task must be helped by men of great experience and experts who are in the closest touch with the methods and duties of insurance business. I doubt very much whether you will really either simplify or hasten proceedings if you say, "No, I wish the whole of this Bill to be put in the charge of a single organisa-
644
tion"—I mean the War Damage Commission. I recollect the other day that Lord Addison, in the kindest way, reminded me how, long ago, he and I as junior Ministers in another place had to do with national insurance. Yes we had, but it was divided into two parts there was national health insurance, which I think was the part which he more particularly attended to, and there was national unemployment insurance, which was the part that I particularly attended to. And ever since they have been separate, and I do not think anybody would suggest that you would have made a better thing of it if you had thrown the whole thing into the hands of a single body.
I agree, of course, that if you have a disaster of this sort it may very easily bring into play not only Part I of the Bill but Part II also. That is a perfectly fair point. But the question is, What is the best way to deal with those two matters? They are in one Bill, but they are in different Parts. And the view the Government deliberately formed—because I am not improvising on this matter; it is naturally one of those fundamental things which was gone into at an early stage and has been considered since—was that the War Damage Commission should be a body which is created and staffed with a view to dealing with compensation, which brings in the use of valuers. I do not know that we shall find it easy to get a sufficient number of experts to deal with the whole thing at once, and administer this immense collection of clauses in Part 1. Then Part II deals with policies of insurance—of course Part I is not insurance, it is compensation paid in return for a class of contribution but it is not based on insurance. Part II is insurance. You pay a premium, which is related to the value of the thing which is going to be paid for. All that is familiar ground for the great Department of the Board of Trade, and there is no reason in the view of the Government why you would make things either more simplified or quicker by putting them both into one control.
There is an important subsection to which the noble Lord, Lord Addison, referred, in Part II. It is subsection (3) of Clause 59, which does provide in order to get a contact that:
"The War Damage Commission shall exercise such functions for the purposes of this Part of this Act."—

645
that is, the insurance scheme—
"as the Board of Trade may, with the approval of the Treasury direct".
That does provide for a shifting, if need be—experience will show—of whatever it is thought well to shift, and therefore, after due consideration, the view has been clearly adopted that it is right to set up this War Damage Commission to deal with the enormous problems of Part I, but that Part II is better dealt with by the Department which is naturally associated with insurance.
I hope what I have said shows that I am not in any way scouting the noble Lord's suggestion, but of course he is proposing a fundamental change in the whole Bill, and I must say quite firmly that, having considered it, the Government are not able to approve of that suggested re-arrangement. As regards my my noble friend behind me, who asked me whether or not there could not be some sort of child's guide to the Bill created, well, it world be a fine work, but since he made the suggestion the other day I am informed that the matter has been actively considered, and that if it proves advisable, as it well may, it is perfectly possible for us to try to get a simple and abbreviated statement. But, as far as these Amendments are concerned, the arrangement which is usually associated with the name of Pooh-Bah, by which all the offices fall into one hand, is not necessarily the best way to get simplicity and speed, and I hope the Committee will, after that explanation allow us to get our teeth into this delightful menu that is awaiting our consumption.
LORD ADDISON: The noble and learned Viscount has given the reply which I of course expected. I knew very well that the Amendments related to a fundamental matter, and I put them down, not with the anticipation that they would be accepted, but in the hope that I should be able to elicit a statement from the Lord Chancellor as to the importance of simplifying the procedure from the point of view of the ordinary citizen to the utmost possible extent, and of unifying that procedure, as it is provided in Clause 59, to the utmost possible extent also. I was not quite so reassured by his speech as I had hoped. Because I was not proposing that the very important insurance function of the Board of Trade
646
should be transferred to this Commission. That is not suggested at all. The Commission would be charged with duties relating to the making of payments in respect to war damage, that is to say, after the damage has occurred. The business of the Board of Trade—assessing value, collecting the insurance and all the apparatus of collecting and administering the insurance scheme—is entirely apart, and not included, or intended to be in-eluded, in my Amendments. These Amendments merely relate to simplifying the procedure in the case of the citizen who has suffered damage. However, I thank the noble and learned Viscount for his reply. With the admonitions which we are suggesting for the authorities concerned, I hope that we shall get a child's I guide, if it can be so described, for a measure of this kind, as simply expressed as possible for ordinary people to use. I hope, too, that the procedures will be made as simple as may be. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2:
Payments under Part I and hereditaments that are to be units for purpose thereof.
2.—(1) Payments shall be made by the Commission, subject to and in accordance with theprovisions of this Part of this Act, in respect of war damage to land occurring during the risk period: …
LORD ADDISON LORD ADDISON had given Notice of two Amendments in subsection (1)—namely, to leave out "to land", and to substitute "period of the war" for "risk period". The noble Lord said I am sorry to have to intervene again so soon, but your Lordships will see from the Order Paper that you will not be troubled by my interventions very often. This Amendment relates to another equally fundamental matter. It is put down, not because I expect the noble and learned Viscount to accept it, but because it is the only way in which I can raise the point. Your Lordships may not be aware—at least, I was not aware, and I am sure the general public were not aware—that this is not an insurance Bill at all in respect of this class of property—land and houses—after August 31 next. The compensation provided in the Bill is for properties damaged up to and including August 31. That is to say, if your house is damaged at 11.55 p.m. on
August 31 you will be entitled to compensation, but if it is damaged at 1.5 a.m. on September 1 you will not. Nevertheless, you will go on paying premiums for five years; it does not make any difference so far as that is concerned.
What I want to know is what comfort can the Government offer to us as to what is to happen after August 31? I do not suppose any of us are sanguine enough to expect that no damage will be caused after August 31. We must expect a great deal of damage to be inflicted after that date but those on whom the damage is inflicted will not be entitled to be compensated under this Bill at all. The money provided by the payments to be made by everybody according to the value of their property, with the Government contribution, if need be, is designed to provide a fund necessary to compensate damage which has been committed on or before August 31, 1941. If, as we may expect, damage is inflicted after that date, additional funds will have to be provided in order to pay for that damage. These Amendments which I have put down on this clause are in order to obtain from the Lord Chancellor, if I can, some statement as to what the Government contemplate will be done in respect of property damaged after August 31. That is the point.
The first Amendment proposes to omit the words "to land" in order to make the clause comprehensive. The "risk period" is defined in a later clause, as your Lordships may not have discovered before the Second Reading of the Bill, and as my noble and learned friend assisted us to discover, as up to and including August 31, 1941. The whole scheme is limited to what happens before that date. If these words were omitted, as I propose in another Amendment, the Bill would extend to the period of the war. Of course the funds provided under the Bill would no doubt be completely inadequate for the purpose. There are thus two points on which I hope we may get some statement from the noble and learned Viscount—namely, whether the Government have in contemplation any particular plan for continuing this scheme of giving compensation for damage committed after August 31, and, if they have, whether the Lord Chancellor can indicate whether the Government will be able to
648
give us definite information on the point. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 8, leave out ("to land")—[Lord Addison.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Lord who has just moved this Amendment raised the point, as your Lordships will remember, on the Second Reading, and I shall repeat, perhaps more precisely, what I endeavoured to say then in reply. The scheme of the Bill is to cover damage for two years. It begins on September 3, 1939, and goes on to August 31, 1941. That is a very considerable period, and I do not think, when we are dealing with such enormous sums of money, and when the factors which will be involved are still so uncertain in amount, that there can be any great surprise that it was thought wiser to proceed by stages. But it does clearly involve, and it is the Government's intention, that unless conditions so change that this becomes unnecessary, there should be provision made for the period which will follow after. It is not possible to define now exactly what the provision will be, because it is one of the advantages of causing the present Bill to operate for a risk period that terminates at the end of August that we shall by that time, all of us—administrators and critics alike—discover where the present scheme can be improved. It may be found that the rate of contribution is unnecessarily high, it may be found that other arrangements can be changed for the better, and of course all that will be taken into account in the new Bill; but it is the definite intention of the Government to introduce, in case of need, further legislation for a further period which would make provision for war damage after August 31 next.
While I cannot fix a date for that legislation, I would suppose that such legislation must be not only introduced, but in a fair way to completion, by about that date. At any rate it would be better if it were so. How far the scheme applicable to the present risk period may have to be amended is obviously a question we can all decide much better together when we have had experience of the working of this Bill, but the Committee may be assured that the Government's proposals for the future will be framed in the same spirit as that which prompts the present Bill—that is to say, with the desire and intention

649
tion that the repair or replacement of the building or business property of all our citizens should be assured to the fullest extent compatible with all aspects of the public interest.
LORD ADDISON: I am exceedingly grateful to the noble and learned Viscount for the most important assurance he has given to us, and I beg to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3:
Payments t o be either of cost of works or by reference to value.
(4) The amount of a value payment shall be an amount equal to the amount of the depreciation in the value of the hereditament caused by the war damage, that is to say, the amount by which the value of the hereditament in the state in which it was immediately after the occurrence of the damage is less than its value in the state in which it was immediately before the occurrence of the damage.
(5) For the purposes of the last preceding subsection the value of a hereditament in the state in which it was at any time shall be ascertained by reference to prices current at the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine, and shall be taken to be the amount which the fee simple in the hereditament in that state might have been expected to realise on a sale thereof made in the open market on the said day with vacant possession and free from any incumbrance, other than any restrictive covenant, easement, quasi-easement, or other right inuring for the benefit of other land, to which the hereditament was subject at that time:
Provided that provision may be made by regulations made by the Treasury for the valuation by reference to such matters as may be therein specified of hereditaments consisting of or comprising premises of a kind not normally the subject of sales in the open market, or having a value winch could not be fully realised on such a sale.
(6) The amount of a payment of cost of works shall be reduced by an amount equal to the value of any articles which formed part of the hereditament and become available as materials in consequence, whether directly or indirectly, of the war damage, and in computing the amount of a value payment the value of any such articles shall be included in the value of the hereditament in the state in which it was immediately after the occurrence of the war damage:
Provided that—
LORD ADDISON LORD ADDISON moved, in subsection (4), after the first "damage," to insert "including the non-payment of rent." The noble Lord said: This is the last Amendment standing in my name. It
650
only happens by chance to have come at the beginning with the others. This deals with a very subordinate matter, and I have put it down again in order to elicit, if possible, a statement from the Lord Chancellor. If your Lordships will refer to subsection (4) on page 3 of the Bill, you will see there are references to the amount of a value payment, which, it says, "shall be an amount equal to the amount of the depreciation in the value of the hereditament caused by the war damage." I was asked by the treasurer of a large friendly society of which I happen to be the senior trustee—the Liverpool Victoria Society—to inquire what the extent of that was because, like many other friendly societies, this society has very large investments in ground rents and such like things. I put the Amendment down, not to press it, but in order to elicit a statement from the noble and learned Lord Chancellor as to whether the damages inflicted will cover cases of the non-payment of rent. As we know, in large numbers of cases these people go away and do not pay any rent, and I do not blame them for that, because they have no property left to pay any rent for. But the land is left, and I should have; thought it would in the future have the same potential value. At all events, in order to get a statement from the noble and learned Viscount, I move the Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 28 after ("damage") insert ("including the non-payment of rent").—(Lord Addison.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It is natural that the question should be raised, and it is convenient that it should be raised in this way by an Amendment, but there can be no doubt as to the answer. The scheme in Part I of the Bill is a scheme for making provision against physical damage to buildings and so forth, and it is not a scheme for offering compensation for loss of profit in any form. If once we were to embark on that particular adventure, we should in Part I have to compensate not only landlords who had not got payment of their rent, but also professional men who had lost their business, hotel keepers who had lost their customers, and everybody who could show loss in connection with some property or other or who were suffering business loss. The scheme is a scheme in

651
respect of compensation for physical damage. I may perhaps remind your Lordships that the Prime Minister, who was, I think, the first to make a statement on this general subject of Government intention, when he made that statement said most emphatically that what was contemplated was compensation in respect of physical damage to buildings and land, cutting out altogether these other considerations. There are of course other provisions of the law which may help on the tenant's side. There are provisions in the existing war code which may enable him to be protected against pressure to pay rent for property which has been destroyed, and there are many other provisions, but this Bill, if I may say so, already contains quite enough, and I am unable to receive as an extra cargo all these suggested claims for compensation for loss of profit.
LORD ADDISON: I thank the noble and learned Viscount for the very clear statement he has made. It will, I think, render a useful service because it was quite clear that the Bill was designed to deal with physical damage and not with these other potential claims. I think it is very useful that the statement which the learned Viscount has made should be put on record.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR had on the Paper several Amendments to the clause, including three to subsection (5), which proposed to substitute "subject to" for "and free from any incumbrance, other than"; to insert, after "land," the words "any public right of way, right of common, or other right inuring for the benefit of the public or of any section thereof, and any restriction or liability imposed by or under an enactment;" and, after "time," immediately preceding the proviso, to add "but free from any other incumbrance." The noble and learned Viscount saidWith the permission of the Lord Chairman I think that this Amendment and the two Amendments following it could be quite well taken together. The first of these three Amendments is drafting, and I need not say any more about it. The purpose of the second Amendment is as follows. If noble Lords will look at Clause 3, subsection (5), they will see that it provides
652
that the depreciation in the value of a hereditament caused by war damage is to be ascertained by comparing its market value before the damage occurred with its value after the damage occurred. It will be manifest that the valuation that is needed for that purpose is a valuation of the hereditament as a whole, not of the particular interest in it, whether it is the interest of owners, tenants, mortgagees and so on. Therefore, account must be taken of incumbrances that diminish the value of the land as such. As the subsection is now worded it is defective because it only requires account to be taken of such incumbrances in so far as they consist of restrictions inuring for the benefit of other land, such as a private right of way which one piece of property might have over another, and does not cover public and statutory rights that would diminish the value of the land. The purpose of the Amendment is to cure this defect. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 40, leave out from ("possession") to the second ("any") and insert ("subject to").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I now move the second Amendment which I have already explained.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 42, after ("land") insert ("any public right of way, right of common, or other right inuring for the benefit of the public or of any section thereof, and any restriction or liability imposed by or under an exactment.").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD STRABOLGI: If I am not mistaken I think a word is left out which is necessary to make this clause scan. It seems to me that the Lord Chancellor's second Amendment is at fault and requires either the word "and" or the word "or" in front of "any public right of way." May I read the subsection to show that unless some word of that sort is put in it will not read? Beginning at line 39 it now reads:
"thereof made in the open market on the said day with vacant possession subject to any restrictive covenant, easement, quasi-easement or other right inuring for the benefit of other land "
and it is now proposed to add
"any public right of way, right of common, or other right inuring for the benefit of the public …"

653
Am I not right in saying we ought to have either "and" or "or" in front of the second part?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: In its amended form it will be a list of several things—(a), (b), (c), (d), (e). It is only between the penultimate one and the last one that you want to insert a word, as it is inserted, and that is the word "or"—"or other right." I need not say I will ask the draftsmen to look at it, and perhaps if there is anything to be done it can be done on Report.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I now move the third Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 43, at end insert ("but free from any other incumbrance").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (6), after "value," where that word first occurs, to insert "ascertained in accordance with regulations made by the Treasury." The noble and learned Viscount said: Here again I think it would be convenient to take this Amendment and also the following one on line 8, to insert "ascertained as aforesaid," together. The point is a simple one; it is this. Subsection (6) of Clause 3 required the value of debris which is available as material to be taken into account in settling the amount of a cost-of-works payment or a value payment. It has been represented to us that doubts may arise as to the manner in which the value of the debris is to be ascertained, and as to the time at which the value is to be ascertained. We wish to make that clear. The provisions required are, however, really of a detailed and technical character, and it is, therefore, proposed that they should be made by Treasury regulations. I think this is a case where the House will accept the introduction of regulations by the Treasury. I may point out that all such regulations are subject to control by Parliament.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 5, after ("value") insert ("ascertained in accordance with regulations made by the Treasury"),—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I now move the next Amendment on line 8.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 8, after the second ("value") insert ("ascertained as aforesaid").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 4:
Cases in which payments of cost of works and value payments respectively are to be made.
4.—(1) Subject as provided by subsection (2) of this section the question whether a payment under this Part of this Act (other than a temporary works payment to be made under Section five of this Act) is to be a payment of cost of works or a value payment shall be determined as follows, that is to say—
(b) in the case of a hereditament not being a developed hereditament the payment shall be a payment of cost of works in a case only in which the permissible amount of that payment would be likely to be less than the amount of the depreciation in the value of the hereditament caused by the war damage.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "(other than a temporary works payment to be made under Section 5 of this Act)." The noble and learned Viscount said: The words which I propose should be omitted from this subsection are misleading because there are other special classes of payment provided by the Bill. For instance, there are payments in respect of tenancies in hereditaments of exceptional site value, and payments in respect of land held for charitable purposes. I move this Amendment in order that the reference should be correct.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 27, leave out from ("Act") to ("is" ) in line 29.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (1) (b), to leave out "the depreciation in the value of the hereditament caused by the war damage" and insert "a value payment in respect of the damage." The noble and learned Viscount said: This Amendment and the next Amendment on the Paper are drafting Amendments which are really consequential on the insertion in the Bill in another place of a provision by which the value payment in certain cases will not be got at simply by reference to the deprecia

655
tion in value. Your Lordships will remember that Clause 14 provides for the possibility of compensation being extended if there is a serious change in the value of money.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 43, leave out from the first ("of") to end of line 44 and insert ("a value payment in respect of the damage").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The next Amendment is consequential, as I have explained.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 19, leave out from ("amount") to ("and") in line 20 and insert ("that would have been payable if a value payment had been the appropriate payment").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 5 and 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Provisions for securing the public interest in the making of payments]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 41, leave out ("that purpose") and insert ("making good war damage").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8:
Time when payments may be made.
(2) Interest at the rate of two and a half per cent. per annum shall accrue on a value payment from the time of the occurrence of the war damage, and shall be payable when that payment is discharged.
LORD MONKSWELL LORD MONKSWELL moved, at the end of subsection (2), to insert:
"Provided that, if on application to the County Court, a direct contributor to whom such interest is due, can establish that owing to the destruction of his property he is no longer able to meet his liabilities, including the cost of the expert assessment of such damage, he shall be entitled to payment when such interest falls due."
The noble Lord said: I have put down this Amendment in a form which I am sure is not satisfactory, but I had to do it in that way so as not to propose new expenditure. I put the Amendment down
656
in order to call attention to what appears to me to be a rather serious grievance. The position, I am informed, is that before the Government will do anything in the matter of value payments they insist upon a professional valuation. I understand that the charge for a professional valuation is 5 guineas per cent. That is to say, if a person has a house worth £10,000 and that house is completely destroyed, it is necessary to pay a valuer £525 before anything can be done at all. I may be wrong, but if that is the position it certainly seems to me most astonishing.
I hope the noble and learned Viscount will be able to tell me that I am wrong, but if I am right it seems most unsatisfactory. I know a case in which a woman, living in a country town, had put all her savings amounting to £800 into the purchase of a house. That house was completely destroyed. She had to employ a valuer, who sent in a bill for 40 guineas. All she has to live on now is 3s. a day, which she earns by her own labour. Of course, that woman is bankrupt at once. It seems to me most unsatisfactory, and I hope the Government will be able to assure us that they will take action in some way, either by appointing their own valuers, or by cutting down very drastically the ordinary percentage charged as a fee, or in any other way open to them. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 13, at end, insert the said proviso.—(Lord Monkswell.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am sure your Lordships will feel the sympathy which I myself feel for the sort of case which the noble Lord has described, but I am afraid it is quite impossible to accept such an Amendment as the one he has proposed. In the first place I think the Amendment is to some extent based on a misapprehension. It is intended apparently that there should be added a proviso to subsection (2), which provides that:
"Interest at the rate of two and a half per-cent, per annum shall accrue on a value payment from the time of the occurrence of the war damage, and shall be payable when that payment is discharged."
LORD MONKSWELL: I began by saying that I did not think the form of my Amendment satisfactory, but I had to put it in that form in order not to propose new expenditure.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am not making any criticism on technical grounds but I war t to point out to the noble Lord that the value on which interest depends is not necessarily ascertained immediately. Indeed, there must be cases in which an interval, and it may be a considerable interval, will elapse before it is ascertained, "Therefore it will be quite impossible to pay 2½ per cent. on the value payment when that payment in itself has not been finally ascertained. There is a further consideration. It really cannot be regarded, I am afraid, as within the scope of this Bill, or of the work that we can do in trying to improve the Bill, to proceed as the noble Lord suggests in regard to the appointment of valuers. The Government most certainly does not make any stipulation of the" kind suggested by the noble Lord. The scheme in most cases, and especially in regard to small houses, ought to be a very simple one.
The claim, I presume, in such a case would be that a man had a house in a certain situation, that he had bought it for a certain sum of money, and all material information would be given that can properly be given. It is the Government valuer who will do the valuing and who will say what the property was worth at a particular date before it was smashed and what it is worth after the smash. Every possible assistance ought to be given to the claimant, and particularly to the poor and small claimant, but it is a misconception on to suppose that we could pay 2½ per cent. interest as it were in the dark. The best that can be done is to see that this Bill is worked as rapidly as we can and that the valuation is done fairly and properly. I could, if necessary, give the noble Lord further illustrations of the
658
difficulties, but I realise that he has put this Amendment down rather to call attention to a difficulty than to propose an actual remedy. What he says will certainly be carefully considered, but I cannot accept this Amendment.
LORDMONKSWELL: I am much obliged to the noble and learned Viscount for what he has said. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD SNELL: I think that this might be a convenient time to break off consideration of the Bill. I beg to move that the House do resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that no Standing Orders are applicable to the following Bill:
Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Shipley).
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.

CARDIGAN AND FISHGUARD GAS ORDER, 1941.
Special Order proposed to be made on the application of the Cardigan and Fishguard Gas Company Limited:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and referred to the Special Orders Committee.
House adjourned.