Lords Sitting of 16 December 1947

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack.
Prayers.
The Lord Baden-Powell—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.
Prayers.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  The Lord PRIVY SEAL (Viscount Addison): My Lords, as your Lordships all know, Earl Baldwin of Bewdley has died since we last met. I have consulted with the noble Lords who lead the Parties opposite and, in agreement with them, I propose to put down a Motion on the Paper for to-morrow for the adjournment of the House as a mark of respect to the memory of the late noble Earl. On that Motion I have no doubt that your Lordships will then wish to pay tribute to the late Lord Baldwin.
  I would remind your Lordships that the meeting of the House to-morrow for public business is at 4 o'clock and not at the usual hour of 2.30 p.m. On Thursday next, I propose that we should meet at 2 o'clock instead of the usual hour of 4 o'clock, in order that we may have time to take the business postponed from to-morrow, Wednesday, until that afternoon owing to the adjournment, as well as the business that already stands on the paper for that afternoon, including the debate on the Finance Bill which, I understand, is to be of an important and comprehensive character. After that debate has been concluded and the Finance Bill has been passed, there will be a Royal Commission before the House adjourns for the Christmas Recess until Tuesday, January 20, in the New Year.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I rise merely to say on behalf of those who sit on these Benches how grateful we are to the noble Viscount the Leader of the House for the courtesy he has shown in this matter and how very warmly we agree with the procedure which he now suggests.
  Viscount SAMUEL: My Lords, noble Lords on these Benches fully concur.

COATBRIDGE BURGH EXTENSION, &c., ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Viscount ADDISON: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion on the Order Paper in my name.
Moved, that Standing Orders Nos. XXI and XXXIX be considered in order to their being suspended until the House adjourns for the Recess at Christmas, and that Government business have, except with the consent of the Government, precedence over other Notices and Orders of the Day.—(Viscount Addison).
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

HOUSES FOR AGRICULTURAL WORKERS.
2.35 p.m.
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, I beg to ask the first question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the returns from county agricultural committees in regard to the number of additional dwelling-houses required for those employed or to be employed on food production have now been collected, and if so, what number of dwelling-houses are expected to be required for the purpose.]
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, returns in respect of all the sixty-one administrative counties in England and Wales outside London have been received by the Ministry of Agriculture. The returns relate to the general need over the next few years for houses for additional agricultural workers. In this connexion I would refer the noble Lord to the statement made by my noble friend the Leader of the House in the course of the debate on December 11. What is immediately

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important is to estimate the number of houses for new agricultural workers to be employed in particular localities next year. To this end the general figures are now being examined district by district by the principal housing officers of the Ministry of Health in consultation with the Land Commissioners of the Ministry of Agriculture.
LORD LLEWELLIN: Cannot the noble Lord, having received the total figures, give us them?
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, the total figures are not available. They are large returns which have been sent in but they have not been collated and it will take some time to go into them. They are based on parishes and small districts. They have been sent down to the regions to be examined in the light of local circumstances, and in due course those reexamined figures will be in the possession of the Ministry.
LORD LLEWELLIN: May I put one further question? I understood the noble Lord to say that the returns had been received from sixty-one authorities other than the county of London, which can well be disregarded from the point of view of agriculture. Sixty-one authorities have sent in the returns and all I ask in my question is what the total of those returns is, so that we might know the magnitude of the figure that was estimated. In the housing debate I did say that I thought a test of whether the Government regarded the provision of houses for agricultural workers as a really urgent matter would be furnished by the presentation or non-presentation of these returns by the date on which I threatened to put down this question. I gave a week or ten days' notice in order that the Government Departments could deal with it. Unless the noble Lord can give me those figures, I must say that I shall think that the Government are not treating this as the urgent matter it really is.
LORD HENDERSON: I have stated that the Government are treating this as an urgent matter, and they are having the returns examined in the localities by the principal officers concerned. I am not aware of the totals myself; I do not think they have been worked out. I understand that they are without any real significance in their present form, and they have to
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be examined in the light of local circumstances. That re-examination is taking place.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: May I ask one further question? I understand that these returns have been received from the sixty-one local authorities. Therefore, they have been drawn up with full knowledge of local conditions. Why is it necessary for the Ministry, having got these figures from certain localities, to send them back for further information?
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, in reply to that supplementary, I understand that one or two sample tests were made of the returns which were sent in. The regions are broken up into small areas running down to parishes. One or two sample tests were made and on the basis of the knowledge of the Ministries it was recognized that the figures were not reliable. Therefore, in order to get reliable figures the regional re-examination is to take place.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: May I ask the noble Lord this question, as he has the noble Earl, Lord Huntingdon, sitting next to him? The county agricultural committees were specifically asked by the Ministry of Agriculture to arrange to go round each of their counties and find out the number of houses that were required in each of their areas. Cannot those figures be published?
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, I have explained as firmly and clearly as I can that the figures have not been collated. They are not reliable, and in order to get reliable figures which may be given to your Lordships' House the re-examination is taking place.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: It shows the real value of these forms to which the Government attach so much importance! In any case, I hereby give notice that we shall ask this question immediately the House reassembles and I hope we shall receive some information.

HOUSES FOR MINERS.
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, in the hope that I shall receive a more satisfactory reply to this question, I beg to ask the second question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The question was as follows:
[To ask His Majesty's Government, what are the additional numbers of dwelling houses estimated by the National Coal Board to be necessary properly to house the persons necessary for full production of coal.]
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, in response to the Government's request in July, 1947, the National Coal Board drew up a list of places where the provision of houses could produce an immediate return in the shape of additional coal. This list covered fifty local authority areas and showed the total requirement in those areas to be 4,965 houses.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I am obliged to the noble Lord for his reply. Although completely dissatisfied with his previous answer, I congratulate him on the way in which he handled his bat despite the barracking. I hope we shall have as satisfactory a reply on agriculture as we have had on this question, because it is just as important.

APPLICATION OF PURCHASE TAX.
LORD BROUGHSHANE: My Lords, I beg to ask the Government the question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The question was as follows:
[To ask His Majesty's Government if they will state the statutory authority which enables Purchase Tax to be charged on goods which have been purchased and paid for prior to the imposition of the tax and are awaiting delivery to the purchaser.]
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (LORD PAKENHAM): My Lords, when Purchase Tax is imposed, or the rate of tax is altered, on any class of goods the relative Finance Bill provides, as on the present occasion, that the new tax or the new rate of tax, as the case may be, shall apply if the goods are delivered under a chargeable purchase on or after the operative date of the change, notwithstanding that the purchase may have been made before that date. Section 20 (3) of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1940, provides in similar terms in cases where the tax is imposed or the rate changed by Treasury Order made under that section.
LORD BROUGHSHANE: Is the noble Lord aware that the section to which he has referred does not enable Purchase Tax to be claimed where goods, have been paid for and are the property of the purchaser? The purchaser is entitled to sue the vendor for them if he does not deliver them. It is clearly impossible that Purchase Tax can be claimed in respect of goods which no longer belong to the original vendor and did not belong to him when the tax was imposed. I am not aware of any Finance Bill which gives power to levy Purchase Tax on goods already purchased.
LORD PAKENHAM: I would respectfully suggest to the noble Lord that if he wishes to debate this matter he should raise it when I introduce the Finance Bill on Thursday. I would repeat that we are simply continuing the usual practice and that, with our well-known liking for tradition on these Benches, we cannot accept the revolutionary proposal of the noble Lord.
LORD BROUGHSHANE: How can it be revolutionary to say that Purchase Tax cannot be levied on goods which have already been purchased and the ownership of which has passed to the purchaser?
LORD PAKENHAM: The noble Lord is misinformed in certain respects, but I suggest that we should return to it again with equal gusto on Thursday.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of the First Report from the Select Committee.
The Committee reported as follows:
1.—Sub-Committees.
The Library Sub-Committee was reappointed as follows: The Earl of Ilchester, the Earl of Drogheda, the Viscount Mersey, the Lord Stanmore, the Lord Macmillan, the Lord Soulbury, the Lord Simonds, the Lord Lindsay of Birker, with the Clerk of the Parliaments.
The Sub-Committee on the Refreshment Department was reappointed as follows: The Earl of Lucan, the Earl Fortescue, the Viscount Mersey, the Lord Stanmore, the Lord Jessel, the Lord Henderson, with the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Clerk of the Parliaments.
2.—Revision of Salary Scales.
The Committee authorized a revision in the scales of salary of certain grades and the application of assimilation terms as laid down in Treasury Circular No. 10/47.
3.—Reporting Staff.
The Committee sanctioned a special payment to the Editor, Assistant Editor and Reporters in respect of additional duty performed in the latter part of the 1946–47 Session.
4.—Official Shorthand Writer.
The Clerk of the Parliaments informed the Committee of the resignation of Mr. Herbert George Wilde, who has been Shorthand Writer to the House of Lords since 1934, and of the appointment of Mr. William Sugden in his place as from November 15, 1947.
The Clerk of the Parliaments was asked to convey to Mr. Wilde the Committee's appreciation of the ability and efficiency with which he has performed his duties.
5.—Retirement of Principal Doorkeeper.
The Committee sanctioned a pension and an additional allowance under the Superannuation Act, 1935, to Captain William Edwards, M.B.E., Second Principal Doorkeeper, who is due to retire on December II, 1947, at the age of 65 after 23 completed years' service.
6.—Retirement of Messenger to Lord Chancellor.
The Clerk of the Parliaments informed the Committee of the voluntary retirement from February 1, 1948, of Mr. Frank Flatt, Messenger to the Lord Chancellor, after 40 completed years' service.
The Committee sanctioned the payment of a pension and an additional allowance under the Superannuation Act, 1935, to Mr. Flatt.
7.—Estimates.
The Estimate for the House of Lords for 1948–49 was laid before the Committee by the Clerk of the Parliaments and approved.
The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (The Earl of Drogheda): My Lords, there are no matters to which I desire to draw the attention of your Lordships in this Report. I beg to move that the Report be now considered and agreed to.
Moved, That the Report be now considered and agreed to.—(The Earl of Drogheda.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
2.45 p.m.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
Clause 4:
Delegation to education committee.
4. Where in an administrative scheme under the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1947, provision is made for delegation by the council to the education committee of any function, then until a revised administrative scheme recalling the provision comes into force the function shall be discharged by the education committee and not by the council, and
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the council shall not be entitled to instruct the committee as to the manner in which the function shall be discharged.
THE EARL OF ELGIN and KINCARDINE THE EARL OF ELGIN and KINCARDINE moved to delete Clause 4. The noble Lord said: My Lords, probably some apology is due to the House for introducing an Amendment of this kind at such a late stage of the Bill. An Amendment so drastic as the deletion of one-sixth of the Bill certainly is one which requires some explanation, but I think your Lordships will understand that the matter has already been referred to in the previous stages through which the Bill has gone. When the Bill was read a second time, Lord Polwarth stressed the fact that it had not been available for examination beforehand and that therefore it was impossible to do more than make a protest. Similarly, in the Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, voiced a certain amount of agitation which had arisen in Scotland concerning the Bill, and in deference to that the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, who introduced the Bill as non-contentious, modified his description by saying it was "as non-contentious as any Bill which dealt with Scotland could be." I do not think that is strictly accurate, or strictly in accordance with the picture as it presents itself to me. The real ground on which I think the Bill could be held to be non-contentious was that it was kept a closely-guarded secret and nobody was allowed to see what was in it.
I would like to express my gratitude to the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, and to Lord Morrison for having extended the period between the Committee stage and this stage to allow local authorities to go into the Bill and to formulate and present their views, upon it. That is the matter with which I am concerned to-day in moving the Amendment, which I do, to delete Clause 4. It is true that in the 1947 Act delegation was an agreed policy. Delegation has been recently put into practice. Quite a number of schemes have been produced and a number of them are in operation, in which the majority of the functions are delegated by education authorities to the education committees. But the present Bill goes a great deal further than that. One cannot help feeling that in this Bill there is hidden the wish, the open secret which we know is the fact, of several

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predecessors of the present Secretary of State for Scotland to return to the ad hoc education authority instead of the education authority being the county council, and one is tempted to think that this Bill is really an attempt to secure that by the side door. As I have said, delegation is not objected to, but it is this proposal in Clause 4, beyond the power of delegation, which is objected to and which has raised a storm of protest among education authorities in Scotland.
It claims that the education authority must denude itself entirely of any authority to criticize the actions of the education committee, if a delegation scheme has been passed, until a new scheme is introduced and becomes law. That may seem an inoffesive clause, until it is examined in more detail. You find when you examine it in more detail that what is meant is that an education authority denudes itself of any power to criticize its education committee unless and until a new scheme is promoted which receives the sanction of the Secretary of State for Scotland. What is the use of having a popularly elected education authority if the Secretary of State for Scotland, a single individual, is to become the autocratic controller of what may be criticized and what may be done? That is, in effect, the position that will be produced by this Clause 1f it is allowed to be enacted.
It may seem and may probably be considered a rather wild and extravagant statement for me to say that there is wide objection in Scotland, but I should like your Lordships to understand what actually has happened in the interval. As soon as the Bill became known, it was taken into consideration by the County Councils' Association, a body formed of representatives of all county councils. It was considered by two definite, independent committees, one of them definitely charged with education and the other with the general purposes of the association. Both these committees came to the unanimous decision that this clause must be opposed and a protest made on account of the wide powers which it was taking. Moreover, I have received from the City of Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, a letter saying that that authority supports the action of the County Councils' Association. Following on that, a number of county councils—my own
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is one of them—have taken independent resolutions protesting against this clause. The decision of the County Council of fife was a unanimous one, taken after full deliberation and debate on a prepared paper submitted to every member of the council before the county council meeting; the subject was on the agenda. Therefore, I think your Lordships may take it that we have the Association of County Councils, one, it any rate, of the largest cities, and a number of the county councils independently opposed to and protesting against this clause. That, I claim, and I think your Lordships will admit, is a fairly wide protest on the part of Scotland.
I come now to the root of the matter and the basis of our grounds for objection. As I have said the principle of delegation is not objected to, but the position is seriously altered when this delegation is followed up as it is in Clause 4. Clause 4 says:
"… until a revised administrative scheme recalling the provision comes into force … the council shall not be entitled to instruct the committee as to the manner in which the function shall be discharged."
As I have said, a revised scheme can be brought into being only with the approval of the Secretary of State for Scotland. Therefore, I would repeat, because I thick it is important, that no such provision can take place except under the authority and with the consent of the Secretary of State for Scotland, who, after all, although he is a Minister of the Crown, is only one individual, as against popularly elected members of the county councils as education authorities. Surely, this cannot be described as democratic.
If the clause becomes law, it also seriously affects the interior economy of the county council. I can best illustrate this by figures taken from my own county council The County Council of Fife consists of no members; the education committee numbers forty. It will, therefore, be seen, from these round figures, that seventy county councillors, members of the education authority, will be disfranchised in all questions of education. But that is not the end of the matter, because included in these general figures are the members representing twenty-four large boroughs. Of those twenty-four, only four have seats on the education committee. Therefore, taking four for each of the boroughs, sixteen of those would

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be completely disfranchised from entering into any question of education policy. I wish to stress here that these large boroughs are linked with the county council simply and solely for the purpose of education. Therefore, it does seem strange that these members of the county council should be allowed to sit as members of the education authority and take no part in the deliberations on education. Further, there are some sixteen members of small boroughs who would be similarly deprived, and a similar number of the landward members. It is from this point of view, I think, that we must appreciate that the action proposed by this Clause 1s completely and utterly undemocratic.
Further, on the education authority there are eight co-opted members, who do not seek their place on the education authority through popular election, but are brought in to represent various interests; two represent the churches; two represent those who are specially interested in education, and with experience of it; two represent religious instruction; and two represent women. I do not wish in any way to decry the valuable services given by these co-opted members. They have given very great assistance to the authority in all its deliberations, and have taken a live part in the work of the committee. But is it fair that these eight members who do not seek popular election, and who gain their places through nomination, should be put in a privileged position above those who find their way to the education authority through popular election and, therefore, definitely represent the people? It is on that point of view that I think the whole basis of the opposition to this clause rests.
There is a suggestion that there still remains to an education authority, and to the members not included in the education committee, the power of criticizing from a financial aspect the deeds of that committee. But is that really so? If that is so, it means that there will remain with the finance committee, who have the responsibility of criticizing the budget, and of vetting every additional proposal which may come up, the charge of looking into whether or not this new service, or this full service, should be granted to the education committee, thereby, I think, engendering—and I have seen it myself in
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my own county council—interminable irritation between the two committees, which is not conducive to good work. For those reasons, I submit that there is a case for further consideration of this clause. I would repeat that we do not object to the principle of delegation, but we do strongly object to the delegation being taken so far that the authority, though they still remain the authority, have no right or title to criticize in any way the doings of their own education committee. I hope I have said enough to convince some, at least, of your Lordships that this is not democratic and that it should be resisted. It is in that spirit that I beg to move the deletion of Clause 4.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 4.—(The Earl of Elgin and Kincardine.)
3.0 p.m.
THE EARL OF GLASGOW: My Lords, I am also a member of a county council in Scotland—whether I am in touch with them or not, I leave your Lordships to judge. I wish, however, sincerely to congratulate the Government on Clause 4. What does it mean? It means that at long last education committees will have real control over all important matters of education. That was the intention of the 1945 Act, and I am informed that the new clause has been introduced because of a recent decision in the Law Courts which indicated that under the present Act County Courts would remain paramount even in delegated functions. My experience shows that in certain County Courts decisions taken by the education committees have been turned down on non-educational grounds, to the detriment of the children. Education, in my opinion, and I am sure in the opinion of all your Lordships, should be above politics, and the education authorities should make the welfare of the school population their first consideration. They should not be deflected from that by demands from Party caucuses, whether from the Right or from the Left.
The Association of County Councils want Clause 4 deleted. They say that all those members of the county council who are not members of the education committee would be debarred from participating in the exercise of the council's educational functions, and that amongst them might be large borough representatives,

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whose principal interest in county councils is education. The simple answer to that is for the large boroughs to see that their representatives are appointed to education committees.
THE EARL OF ELGIN and KINCARDINE: They cannot do it. They are limited.
THE EARL OF GLASGOW: If not all, at any rate some of them. I listened carefully to the speech of the noble Earl who introduced the Amendment. He made little or no reference to the political partisanship to which I have referred, which in my opinion is detrimental to education. This may not be the reason for the introduction of this clause by the Government, but it is the reason for my supporting it. Then the noble Earl said that there was a storm of protest amongst educationists in Scotland—
THE EARL OF ELGIN and KINCARDINE: I said education authorities.
THE EARL OF GLASGOW: I wonder whether the noble Earl knows that directors of education throughout Scotland held a meeting and were entirely in favour of this clause, and not against it. In moving the deletion of Clause 4 the noble Earl has undoubtedly the backing of most, if not. all, of the county councils of Scotland. But, as your Lordships who have had experience of local government know, nothing is more resented by members of county councils than any limitation of their powers. It is for this paltry and petty reason that they want the deletion of this clause, and they will still want deletion even if it should be proved to them that deletion would be harmful to the school population. The noble Earl, Lord Elgin, who has a record of public service which has earned the respect and esteem of all Scotsmen, has traditional ties with one powerful Party whose principles used to be "Peace, Retrenchment and Reform." What they are now I do not quite know. If your Lordships allow this clause to pass my noble friend should be happy to know that reform will be efficiently carried out in peace. I am not so sure about retrenchment, but even that might be possible in an atmosphere which would be much more clear of Party bias than it is at present.
The short point is that members of education committees, however they may be elected, are more directly interested in
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education than are the average members of the county council; and the passing of this clause will ensure that in future decisions of an education committee will not be trammelled and trampled upon for political or other extraneous reasons. When I was in Scotland last week. I was told that some county councils proposed to get round the clause by appointing all their members to the education committee. I hope the Government will take note of that. Never before in your Lordships' House have I backed the Government; but on this occasion I do so from my heart.
3.8 p.m.
LORD MORRISON: My Lords, in the light of the two speeches to which we have just listened, I feel that the only thing I can do in passing is to offer my apologies to your Lordships for my foolishness at having said at an earlier stage that this Bill was non-contentious. What I meant and what I endeavoured to explain on the Committee stage was that from a Party political point of view, I was sure that it was non-contentious—at least as non-contentious as any Scottish Bill can ever be. But the two speeches this afternoon have convinced me that even that was too optimistic a statement.
The noble Earl, Lord Elgin, has produced a somewhat unusual Amendment for your Lordships' House. He proposes at the Report stage of this small Education Bill a major surgical operation to remove entirely the main clause of the Bill. Clause 4 is the main clause of this Bill, and I am sure that your Lordships would assent to this drastic surgery only if the arguments in favour were overwhelming—and that, of course, is for your Lordships to decide. The noble Earl made out an excellent case, as he always does. My only complaint would be that possibly he made the matter appear a little more complicated than it really is. I know that we, in your Lordships' House are accustomed to matters from Scotland always being of a complicated character; but I thought the noble Earl made this particular dispute between us even more complicated than it is. I have already explained twice to your Lordships how this particular situation arose, and I hesitate to do so again, but I will in a sentence or two.
The Scottish Education Bill was introduced by the National Government in

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1945, the Second Reading being moved in another place on May 1, 1945. It was then referred to the Scottish Grand Committee and the Scottish Grand Committee had given, I think, only one day's consideration to what was a very large Education Bill, almost comparable to the English Education Bill, when it was announced that the National Government had come to an end and what was called the Caretaker Government took over. This meant a change of Secretary of State for Scotland from the Right Honourable Tom Johnston to the noble Earl, Lord Rosebery. Then conversations took place through what are called in the other place "the usual channels" as to what legislation should be dropped and what should be completed; and it was decided that the Scottish Education Bill, having by and large received the assent of all Parties in the House, should be proceeded with. Therefore, the amount of discussion was very small in another place, and smaller still in your Lordships' House where, I think, the Committee stage lasted something like half an hour.
Those were the circumstances in which that Bill was passed. It is not surprising, therefore, that in these conditions one or two faults should develop fairly early. It is to remedy some of these defects in the Act that this Bill is introduced. The principal one is that which we endeavour to remedy in Clause 4. The Scottish Education Act of 1945 delegated certain powers to education committees, so that they should have powers, within certain financial limits, to conduct the education business of their areas. Some time after the Bill became law, legal doubts arose as to the meaning of the particular section of the Act dealing with this matter, and there was a decision in the Courts. First of all, there was an English case of over fifty years ago, followed by a decision in a Scottish Court which created doubts as to whether the clause actually meant what the Government and all those who had supported it thought it did mean—namely, that education, apart from finance, was delegated to the education committees. So the object of Clause 4 is not to introduce any new principle into our legislation, but merely to restate again, in language about which I hope there will no longer be any doubt, what the Education Bill of 1945 had already laid down. It merely restores the position
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of delegation to what it was generally understood to be when the 1945 Act was passed.
The noble Earl, Lord Elgin, says that, as a result of my hasty introduction of this Bill, a storm has arisen in Scotland. The noble Earl, of course, is much more closely in touch with Scottish affairs than I am, and so is the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow. From the rumblings I have heard this afternoon, probably that is correct, but, whether it is true to say that they constitute a Scottish storm, I am not so sure: it sounds to me more like a storm in a teacup. The real question at issue is: Is delegation good or not? If your Lordships would permit me, I should like to quote what was said by an ex-Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr. Tom Johnston, in moving the Second Reading of the 1945 Bill in another place. This is what he endeavoured to make clear, but unfortunately, the language of the Bill did not do so. He said that the purpose was to secure (and these are his own words) the
"continuance of the present system of running education as a conjoint service with health, housing, water and the other services but qualified by delegation of real and effective education powers to the education committee from its parent body … "
That is a quotation from the Parliamentary Debates in the House of Commons, dated May 1, 1945, column 1274. From these words, your Lordships will see—at least, I do, at any rate—that it is perfectly clear that the purpose of this section of the 1945 Act was to prevent a council from interfering with the education committee exercising a delegated function, and that a council which exercises a function which it has delegated is not carrying out its administrative scheme. Clause 4 seeks to put this beyond dispute, as I have already said.
May I remind your Lordships of this further point? This Bill, unlike a good many Bills, originated in this House and it has still to go to another place for all its stages and discussions in Committee. In these circumstances. I should be surprised if your Lordships would be willing to cut the main clause out of a Bill without the detailed examination on its merits which your Lordships would wish to give to every Bill before coming to such an important decision. And my final word is this. The object of Clause 4, as I have already said, is to make clear

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what was the intention of Parliament in passing the Act of 1945—namely, that the delegation to the education committee should be an effective delegation. The Government feel that they must adhere to the substance of the clause, but, as recently as yesterday, representatives of the Association of County Councils have had an opportunity of expressing their views to the Secretary of State. Discussions are still proceeding. In these circumstances, I hope that the noble Earl will agree that the clause should stand at any rate pending the result of these discussions.
THE EARL OF ELGIN and KINCARDINE: My Lords, I must say that I am not convinced by the arguments either of the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, or of the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, but I should certainly not wish to do anything which would prevent the negotiations, which I understand are at present taking place between the Secretary of State and the Association of County Councils, Teaching a conclusion. Perhaps your Lordships would allow me to end in the same spirit as that in which I addressed your Lordships a few days ago, saying that I feel quite certain that this matter would be better decided round a table than across the floor of your Lordships' House., I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LAW REFORM (PERSONAL INJURIES) BILL.
3.17 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The Earl of Drogheda in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Common employment.
1.—(1) The common employment of two persons shall not affect the liability to one of them of a third person for anything done or omitted by the other.
(2) Accordingly the Employers' Liability Act, 1880, shall cease to have effect, and is hereby repealed.
Viscount SIMON Viscount SIMON moved to omit subsection (1) and to insert:
"(1) It shall not be a defence to an employer who is sued in respect of personal injuries caused by the negligence of a person employed by him, that that person was at the time the injuries were caused in common employment with the person injured."
The noble and learned Viscount said: I have, as your Lordships see, three Amendments on the Paper, and I am not without hope that the Government may think that they would improve the Bill and accept them. The first Amendment is one of importance though it does not change the effect of the Bill in the very slightest. The first clause, in its first of two subsections, gets rid of what is called the doctrine of common employment, but, as I ventured to say on the Second Reading, it seems to me that the language of the Bill is not quite as clear as it might be. And it is very important that it should be clear, for this is a matter which affects, or may affect, the lives and interests of vast numbers of working people in this country.
As the subsection stands, the language is:
"The common employment of two persons shall not affect the liability to one of them of a third person for anything done or omitted by the other."
I quite agree that, if you sit down and work it out, that means that the doctrine of common employment is abolished, but I think that one of the defects of the drafting is that it does not actually show, on the face of it, that what we are doing is that we are altering the law which concerns the responsibility of an employer to the person whom he employs. "Third person" really means the employer. What I suggest in its place is not original to myself. I quoted Mr. Asquith's language in the Bill of 1893, to the House on the Second Reading, and I think it was generally agreed that that was very much clearer in drafting; but this particular Amendment is really drawn from a later Bill (which never became an Act) introduced into the House of Commons by a very learned friend of mine, Mr. Greaves-Lord (now dead), who became a High Court Judge. Nothing, I think, could be plainer. What I suggest should be substituted is this:
"It shall not be a defence to an employer who is sued in respect of personal injuries caused by the negligence of a person employed by him, that that person was at the time the

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injuries were caused in common employment with the person injured."
Lawyers are often reproached for indulging in elaborate and difficult language. That is not altogether a just reproach, but, at any rate, this is an occasion when I hope lawyers and laymen can combine to make the matter as clear as it can be made. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 5, leave out subsection (1) and insert the said new subsection.—(Viscount Simon.)
The Lord CHANCELLOR (Viscount Jowitt): I am very grateful to the noble Viscount, not only for this Amendment, but for the two Amendments which follow. He indicated in the course of the Second Reading debate that there was room for improvement here, and I realized the force of what he had to say. I therefore got in touch with him, and I got the Parliamentary draftsman to see him. In some senses he will agree that he has been ploughing with my heifer—I need hardly say with my full approval. I hope the draftsman does not mind being referred to as a heifer. In the result the noble Viscount and the "heifer" have together introduced these three Amendments which are manifestly improvements to the Bill. I am very grateful to the noble Viscount for the part he has played and I readily accept this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Viscount SIMON Viscount SIMON moved to add to the clause:
"(3) Any provision contained in a contract of service or apprenticeship, or in an agreement collateral thereto, (including a contract or agreement entered into before the commencement of this Act) shall be void in so far as it would have the effect of excluding or limiting any liability of the employer in respect of personal injuries caused to the person employed or apprenticed by the negligence of persons in common employment with him."
The noble Viscount said: This is the second Amendment which has been framed with the help—which I very gladly acknowledge—of the Lord Chancellor himself and those who are in his stall. This is a new point. It is not in the Bill at all at present and, as I ventured to say on the Second Reading, I think it ought to be. If we lay down a law such as we are laying down, which secures to the workman his rights in certain respects, generally speaking we ought not to leave
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it open for a private bargain to be made between the employer and the workman by which, in return for some benefit—and possibly some substantial benefit like a contribution to an insurance fund—an agreement whereby the workman waives his rights is reached between the parties. Mr. Asquith's Bill contained this provision. He saw this point, and if you read his speech on the matter you will see that he defended it vigorously. I am glad he did, although not everybody at that time agreed with him. You can talk about freedom of contract as much as you like, but, at any rate in cases where the relation between the two parties is extremely unequal, it is not reality of freedom which you always get. So, thanks to this united "agricultural" effort, I beg to move the words which the Lord Chancellor says he will accept. In effect, though in a different sense from the sense in which it is usually used in trade union circles, those words mean "no contracting out."
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 9, at end, insert the said new subsection.—(Viscount Simon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 1. as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2:
Breach of statutory duty.
2.—(1) Where this section applies, a person shall not be liable, in an action for breach of statutory duty, to damages for personal injuries or death, if it is shown that it was not reasonably practicable to avoid or prevent the breach.
Viscount SIMON Viscount SIMON moved, in subsection (1), after "to," where that word first occurs, to insert "pay." The noble Viscount said: This is a very small point which suggests itself when one looks at the clause as it was printed at the time the Bill was introduced. In line 11 on page 1 there is the phrase, which I think is a little elliptical: "A person shall not be liable … to damages." I presume what is meant is "shall not be liable to pay damages." In the desire that that should be made clear, I beg to move this Amendment
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 11, after ("to") insert ("pay").—(Viscount Simon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.

RIVER BOARDS BILL. [H.L.]
3.27 p.m.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
Clause 2:
Definition of river board areas and constitution of river boards.
(2) An order establishing a river board shall provide for the appointment of such number of members not exceeding forty as may be specified in the order, who shall be appointed as follows:

(a) one member shall be appointed by the Ministers;

(b) such number, not being less than three-fifths or more than two-thirds of the remaining members, as may be specified in the order shall be appointed by the councils of the counties and county boroughs whose area, or any part of whose area, is included in the river board area;

(c) the remainder of the members shall be appointed by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and shall consist of—

(ii) persons appointed to represent fishery interests in the river board area.
LORD LLEWELLIN LORD LLEWELLIN moved, in paragraph (b) of subsection (2) to omit "three-fifths" and insert "one-third." The noble Lord said: My Lords, I regret to say that my noble friend Earl De La Warr is ill in bed with influenza. At his request, and with the permission of the House, I beg leave to move the Amendment which stands first on the Order Paper. Clause 2 (2) of the Bill explains how these new boards are to be constituted. One member is to be appointed by the Ministers—in this case, I understand, the Ministers of Agriculture and Fisheries and Health together. Paragraph (b) of the subsection says:
"Such number, not being less than three fifths or more than two-thirds of the remaining members, as may be specified in the order shall be appointed by the councils of the counties and county boroughs whose area, or any part of whose area, is included in the river board area."
The subsection goes on, in paragraph (c):
"The remainder of the members shall be appointed by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and shall consist of (i) persons appointed, after consultation with the drainage boards … and (ii) persons appointed to represent fishery interests in the river board area."
In our earlier discussions on this Bill the Government spokesman who introduced it stated that the Government are
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following the broad principle of representation in accordance with the financial contributions made. Although I was not here through all the stages of the Bill, I remember the noble Earl, Lord Huntingdon, dealing with one Amendment on the ground that it would have meant a departure from that principle. That was when we were discussing the matter during the Committee stage. If I may, I will to-day quote one example, that of the Welland Catchment Board. In the year 1946-47, which is the last year for which we have accounts, the local authorities contributed £6,970 towards the total expenditure of that Board, and the internal drainage board contributed no less than £25,532. If one works out the figures on the proportions laid clown by the Minister in the Bill, one finds that the people who contributed the £25,532 will have a possible maximum of only fifteen members—excluding the chairman—as against the twenty-four representatives of the local authorities. The total, of course, will be forty. The twenty-four members would represent people who had contributed the £6,900 and the fifteen would represent those who had contributed the £25,532. That, quite clearly, departs from the general principle of giving representation in accordance with the financial contribution.
I am told that there is another area, the Ouse area, in which similar circumstances apply. The clause as now drawn is only permissive. The Minister may now appoint "such number, not being less than three-fifths, or more thon two-thirds" from the county authorities. I am seeking to substitute for the term "three-fifths" the term "one-third," so that in that case of the Welland area, and also in the case of the Ouse area, fairness is ensured. After all, the subSection 1s only permissive. The Minister may do it. We on this side of the House, in many cases do not like giving all this latitude to Ministers, particularly perhaps, to present Ministers. In this case, however, we are saying that we are quite willing to give this latitude to the Minister of Agriculture so that dealings may be fair in these exceptional cases.
Fair dealings, so far as I can see, cannot be ensured in these exceptional cases so long as the Minister limits himself in the proportions at present laid down in this Bill. No doubt there were discussions before the Bill was introduced into the

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House, and no doubt certain agreements 'have been reached with local authorities. Those agreements, probably, are on the general case; and normally they will be right, allowing as they do for the biggest proportion of representatives on the majority of these Boards to come from the local authorities. But for the sake of one or two exceptional cases, in order that justice may be done and that justice may seem to be done, I believe the Minister would be well advised to accept this Amendment. If he will do so, people interested in drainage matters, who feel themselves closely concerned in this, will feel that they will get justice and fair representation on these boards. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2 line 14, leave out ("three-fifths") and insert ("one-third").—(Lord Llewellin.)
The JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY of AGRICULTURE and FISHERIES (The Earl of Huntingdon): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has made out an extremely able case for the Amendment which is now before the House. One must confess that, on the face of it, it seems to be eminently reasonable and fair. I am sure many noble Lords on both sides of the House must have asked themselves why it is that the Government have taken the line of steadily resisting this Amendment. There must be, clearly, some very good reason for their objections. I should like to repeat, if I may, one phrase from the debate on this matter when it was in Committee. It was said, "This is a compromise Bill." I stress that. We have had to take a line somewhere between the different interests, bearing in mind that those different interests have their own ways of looking at things and cherish their own points of view. His Majesty's Government have therefore been obliged to consider both sides of the question and have done their best to arrive at a fair and reasonable compromise on the matter before them.
Lord Llewellin has quoted me as having said in the previous debate that the size of the contribution should determine the question of representation. It is true that generally we have observed the principle that only those who are contributing should be allowed to have representation on the boards. I think that that is a
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very fair and reasonable principle. But the position is somewhat different when the boards are actually formed. Then, we do not propose to adhere to the principle that the exact proportion of the contribution should be reflected in the representation on the board. Our idea—and this is something I wish specially to emphasize—is that these boards should rather gather together people with expert knowledge, efficient people who will take a broad view and will look at the problems of a river board area, not from the point of view of any sectional interests but with open minds, having regard to what can best be done in any given set of circumstances. Therefore, we maintain that an increased contribution should not increase the need for specialized knowledge on the board. That is a point which I should like to make very clearly.
It is true that there are these Fen areas to which the noble Lord has referred, particularly the Welland and the Great Ouse areas, where drainage interests will contribute to a very large extent; in fact their contributions will be in excess of any other contributions to the finances of the board. But we are faced with this difficulty. If we were to meet the point raised by the noble Lord and say that in these particular instances we would adopt a different procedure altogether and go back to the principle that the size of the contribution should determine the amount of representation on the board, then we should do away with the principle on which we have drawn up the Bill. With regard to other areas, where drainage authorities and fishery interests contribute practically nothing at all, it would be impossible to argue that we should go back to the original principle, and give them what we think is a fairly large-sized representation on the board. I think your Lordships will agree that we must stick to one thing or the other, either to the principle that according to how much you contribute so you will have a commensurate amount of representation, or to that principle to which the Government have adhered all along—namely, that we should try to get the best possible board we can, that we should devise the best possible combination of expert knowledge in full expectation that the boards will take a broad view in doing their work.
Perhaps the Committee will forgive me if I follow this up a little further. Under

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the Land Drainage Act you will remember that the local authorities' proportion on catchment boards is not less than two thirds of the board, whereas under this Bill it is not more than two-thirds and not less than three-fifths. At the same time we have added all sorts of functions to the duties which the river boards will perform. These duties concern local authorities very much, but the local authority representation has been reduced. We are giving the boards functions quite outside drainage, such as, for instance, measuring the flow of rivers, gauging rainfall, possibly navigation, preventing river pollution and so on. Taking into account the effect of these matters on industry and water undertakings, these functions will inevitably be the concern of the local authority representatives.
Finally, I would like to stress a point, which I think is very pertinent to the argument. If this Amendment were passed into law, would it achieve the object for which it was intended? Your Lordships would all admit that drainage works., or drainage functions, all need finance to carry them out. Even if, as was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, we altered our numbers, changed the Bill and in these particular areas gave the majority on the boards to the drainage interests, those interests could plan all sorts of work to, be done in the interests of drainage, but they would not necessarily have any more money to carry it oat, because the revenue of the boards comes from three sources. We have the fishery revenues, which presumably would stay the same. Then there are the drainage rates. I think that in that respect the drainage members would be in a very invidious position, for if they were in a large majority they would be the final arbiters as to the amount of the drainage rates. In fact in the case of catchment boards we have had in the past many appeals against the high level of these rates. Precepts furnish the other source of revenue.
My last point is that the power to veto a precept in excess of 4d. in the pound will remain with the local authority members whatever the proportion of representation on the board, and it may be that even with this Amendment as part of the Bill, if the boards split up into opposing interests you would not get the necessary funds to carry out any enlarged programme envisaged by the
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drainage members. For that purpose, taking into consideration the whole spirit of the Bill and the nature of the problem we are trying to meet, I hope the noble Lord will not press this Amendment.
Viscount SWINTON: My Lords, I venture to add one word to what I said last time in supporting this Amendment when it was originally introduced and when the Government promised to give it further consideration. I heard everything that was said last time, and I have listened most carefully to the Under-Secretary in justifying this clause as it now stands. I am bound to say that nearly all the arguments which he advanced seemed to me to be arguments for latitude and not arguments for keeping this within a sealed pattern. It seems to me quite irrelevant to say that the county councils must rot be less than three-fifths because, like Mr. Molotov, they have a power of veto. If they have a power of veto, they can exercise that veto whether their numbers are three-fifths, four-fifths or one-fifth. That seems to me to be a wholly irrelevant argument.
What has the noble Earl said? He said: "I want to get the best board I possibly can. I want to look round for the people who will be the best experts." I would have thought that that was a reason for enlarging the number of people whom the Minister can appoint, as against the number the county councils or other councils have to appoint. He really unintentionally misrepresented the noble Lord, Lord" Llewellin. Lord Llewellin was not saying that, in the Welland case, because the drainage board contributes 70 per cent. or 80 per cent. that they must have so much representation—not at all. He left it completely to the Minister as to how many of those people he should appoint, or indeed as to whether he should appoint any of them at all.
Therefore, it is not a choice between the sealed pattern which the Minister proposes—and which indeed is the only sealed pattern we have here—and some other specifically defined thing which the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, proposes; it is between a Vide discretion vested in the Minister and a limitation on the Minister's discretion forcing him in every single case to give to the local authorities not less than three-fifths. I really should have thought that the best way of getting the right kind of experts was to give this

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wider latitude to the Minister. How can it hurt him? He need not appoint, whether you take the one-third which my noble friend suggested, or whether, if the House would accept it, you take a compromise and say half and half. It does not force him, but gives him that wider discretion. He told us last time that he does not know how he is going to appoint these boards. Certainly they ought to be different boards in different cases. There is an infinite variety not only in the way the revenue is raised, but in the duties to be discharged. Certainly if I were the responsible Minister, I should want the widest latitude I could have to get the best possible board.
There is another reason which I ventured to put to the Government last time. When orders are made by these boards they are to come here. First of all they are to be published and then everybody is to have a chance of objecting to them. You are much more likely to get objections if you have a stereotyped board. If you have wide discretion to make the board what you think is best for its purpose, you are much more likely to get agreement in the making of the orders. After all, it is agreed orders and agreed plans that you want, if possible. You are also, with great respect, much more likely not to have exception taken to these orders when they are brought to this House or another place—I think an affirmative Resolution is required in all these cases—but they would be the subject of debate in both Houses. You are much more likely to get agreement if you have this wide latitude.
I beg the Government—I was going to say not to be pigheaded—not to be "sealed patterned" about this. We had a debate the other day upon national administration and national boards. I was then appealing to them to avoid stereotyped sealed-pattern plans. It was said that I was pressing at an open door and the Lord Chancellor said that he could not agree more. This again is a national board or indeed is a series of very varied national boards, and I ask the Government to accept the principle that they accepted only a week or two ago and allow themselves the latitude which I am perfectly certain they are going to find they need.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, it is difficult to reply in face of the great eloquence of the noble Viscount who has just sat down. He has a great power of oratory and argument. Nevertheless I should like to point out one or two things. He probably misunderstood me, or I did not express myself clearly enough on one point. While I questioned whether this Amendment would have the effect that was intended—owing to the fact that the precepts above 4d. might not be increased—it is perfectly true that in any case the authorities would have the final veto on that point. They are however most likely to achieve agreement on the board with the other interests where they have kept what they think is their fair proportion of representation and fair rate level. They are much more likely to disagree with an increase in the precept when they are in a minority and think that the drainage interests are forcing things through on their own behalf.
I think, however, that the real issue is the extent of the latitude which should be vested in the Minister, and it is rather surprising to hear it expressed so eloquently on the other side of the House. After all, although it is unlikely at the moment, this Government may change. Ministers come and go, and we cannot always be quite certain how a Minister will use this latitude. I hope that all your Lordships will agree that if this scheme is to work we must have the confidence of the local authorities; they are to be the motive force behind it. It is only by giving them the assurance that they are to have adequate representation on the river boards that we shall retain their interest. We assure noble Lords opposite that local authorities and other interests will have a fair representation on the boards, and I appeal to the noble Lord to withdraw his Amendment.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, the arguments adduced by the noble Earl do not seem to me to have very great validity. The number of members of a board will be a maximum of forty. One member is to be appointed by the Minister, leaving, of course, thirty-nine. It will be in the Minister's discretion to appoint up to a maximum of twenty-six and all this Amendment asks is that he shall not necessarily appoint more than thirteen. What we suggest is that while the Minister can appoint twenty-six members, in order to allow of an exceptional case he shall be in

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a position to appoint only thirteen from the local authorities. I do not think there is great validity in the argument that local authorities will be upset because they want to be certain of having not fewer than twenty-three representatives. It will be only occasionally that the Minister will vary the number, according to his discretion.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, I have listened with great interest to this discussion. As I understand it, the case for the Amendment rests on two, or possibly three, cases where at present drainage interests are predominant. In those cases, in any event, the Minister would be entitled to appoint up to two-fifths if the subsection remained as it is. We all know quite, well that in areas such as the Welland and the Ouse areas the county councils have among their members a large number intimately associated or acquainted with drainage," and it is almost inconceivable that in such cases the county councils will not appoint members interested in drainage. They would be additional to the two-fifths to which the drainage and fishery interests would be entitled, so that the preponderance the noble Lord wishes to avoid—that is quite reasonable—would in fact not exist. I cannot imagine it existing in any case. I also understand that this clause has been drawn up as a result of many consultations, which we know precede the fabrication of Bills, between the Departments of the Government and the authorities concerned. It is a result of an understanding, a tacit agreement, between them and because it is such my noble friend feels that he cannot depart from it. The suggestion half made by the noble Viscount—
VISCOUNT SWINTON: I make it firmly.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: The noble Viscount made it fully—all the better. As to the suggestion about the half-way house, I can make no promise at the moment. The agreement of which I have spoken is part of an obligation honourably entered into and as, in fact, the danger which the noble Lord apprehended will not arise, I hope he will not press his Amendment.
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, we are obliged to the noble Viscount the Leader of the House for intervening on this point. In regard to what both he and the noble
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Earl, Lord Huntingdon, said, as the Bill is at present drawn even if an authority are bearing a very large proportion of the expenditure of the drainage board they cannot have more than two-fifths of the members on the board. We think that is quite unreasonable. I know that it occurs only in two or three cases. But I think it is right so to pass legislation that there is No 1njustice, if we can avoid it, even in one or two cases. By putting in this permissive to the Minister we should avoid it. I fully appreciate the point made about the members of the county councils who understand about drainage but, on the other hand, I know that on quite a number of local authorities, when they are setting up committees, a large number of members apply to be put on the more important committees, such as finance and others in which they are interested. Then, at the end, they exclaim, "Gracious me, who is going on the drainage committee?" And one very likely finds, as my noble friend behind me says, the dregs of the county councils on the drainage committees.
At any rate, I am obliged to the noble Viscount for saying that the Government will consider whether, between the three Parties of the House, we cannot com promise on one-half, instead of the Government's two-fifths and my one-third. That would enable a substantial measure of justice to be done. I think it would be best, therefore, if I put on the Order Paper an Amendment for Third Reading to substitute one-half. I will withdraw the present Amendment, in the hope that everything will be met on Third Reading. Even if it is not, probably no great harm will be done by inserting on the Order Paper the Amendment which I have indicated. I believe that it is the general view of this House that it would be the right thing. Although we must respect these agreements with the county councils, we should not in any way abrogate to the local authorities our powers as a House of Parliament as to what should and what should not be in a Bill. The Bill, I would remind your Lordships, originated with this House and it is not as if we were doing anything to a Bid from another place. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: May I intervene for one moment? I know the noble Lord would wish the position

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to be clear. I said—and, of course, I will abide by it—that we will explore the possibility of having one-half with all good will. The noble Lord appreciates that I am not giving any undertaking, as I have no authority to do that.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I hope I did not misinterpret the noble Viscount. I am quite clear myself.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD SHEPHERD LORD SHEPHERD moved, in paragraph (b) of subsection (2) after "appointed" to insert "whether from their own members or not." The noble Lord said: My Lords, the words of the Amendment standing in my name have been taken from Section 3 of the Land Drainage Act, 1930. The purpose of the Amendment is to permit all county councils and borough councils, when appointing representatives to river boards, to go outside their own membership if they so desire. I venture to think that this is not contrary to democratic principles. It is no more than an attempt to give to the local authorities a little extended power. The problem, as we see it, is this. A local authority may not find within its own membership the type of experience that would be valuable to the river boards. If there are local authorities of that kind, it would, of course, be a good thing if in their case they could go outside to appoint their representatives. In subsection (2) no guidance is given to local authorities at all. They are given powers of appointment, but it is not said there that those appointments must be confined to the membership of the authority. The catchment boards, who have had great experience of this matter, would like their powers brought into this Bill so that the new river boards could act in this way. Under subsection (6) of the clause which is under discussion guidance is given to the local authorities as to the type of persons they should appoint, but beyond that there is nothing in the Bill which gives the necessary authority. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 16, after ("appointed") insert ("whether from their own members or not").—(Lord Shepherd.)
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, as I have previously said, we want
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these river boards to include all specialist knowledge and wisdom, and if the boards wish to bring in members who are not members of local authorities we shall be only too pleased to agree. Therefore, we are happy to accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.5 p.m.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON moved to add to subsection (2):
"after consultation with any association or person appearing to the Minister to represent a substantial fishery interest in that area."
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this Amendment is put down to meet a point made by the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire. I hope he will be satisfied that the Amendment meets his point. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 30, at end insert the said words.—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for having put down this Amendment, which fully meets my point.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, my noble friend made some slight alteration to the Amendment which was on the Order Paper on the Committee stage in the name of the noble Duke, and he accepted that as a choice between three different Amendments, one in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, the other put down by myself, and the third which we now have before us, with a very slight alteration. I expressed gratitude—as did other noble Lords—to my noble friend for this concession to meet the objection put forward by the various angling associations in the country that they have no direct right of access to or consultation with the Ministry. But I had not then had the opportunity of consulting the spokesmen of the anglers in the country. While they are appreciative of the efforts of my noble friend to meet their point of view, they are not quite satisfied. This Amendment does not altogether meet their objection.
They still say that the Bill gives rather an arbitrary power, and while, of course, they have the greatest faith in my noble friend and in every other member of the present wonderful Government, as all good men have, Ministers come and Ministers go, as the noble Earl, Lord Huntingdon, himself said on an earlier Amendment.

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There may be changes, as he himself foreshadowed. Any change where he himself is concerned I am sure will be promotion. But we may get another Minister who is not so sympathetic as the present Minister or the noble Parliamentary Secretary in this House, and, therefore, at the request of various angling associations of some importance in the country, I have put clown the two Amendments to the Third Schedule which are printed on page 5 of the Marshalled List. These do not conflict with the Amendment now before the House, and I hope that my noble friend will see his way to accept either one or the other. Either will satisfy the angling interests. When we reach those Amendments I will explain the reasons for them moire fully.
The reason why this particular Amendment does not altogether satisfy the angling interests—though they admit it goes some way towards meeting them—is that the choice of who shall be consulted lies entirely with the Minister, and the term "substantial fishery interests" is vague. My noble friend knows, and many other noble Lords know, that there are great stretches of water in this country which are useless for the purpose of producing food—and it is from the food point of view that I am now speaking—because of their having been poisoned and polluted in the past. But as a result of this Bill these great stretches of water may be purified. There are canals, large drains, and many streams in the country, that used to be prolific of fish, which could again be stocked. Because fishing interests may be negligible in a certain part at the moment, that does not mean to say that in future years they may not become highly important.
My noble friend has a lively recollection of the debate we had last week on agriculture and the food situation of this country, and he would be the last to deny that the fresh water fisheries of this country have been sadly neglected from the point of view of the larder of the nation. Any stretch of pure water can be stocked with coarse fish, as is done on the Continent of Europe, and was done here in bygone days. In Elizabethan times our fresh water bore large quantities of fresh water fish. I am talking of coarse fish, which are the most valuable of fish foods if only the British housewife is taught how to cook and dress them. Therefore, to say that these boards, which
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may be set up for a generation or so, shall be constituted as regards the fishery interests only after consultation with those whom the Minister is advised he should consult, may be unfair to important parts of the country with potential fishing interests. Therefore, while welcoming this concession, I hope, that my noble friend will see his way not to bar the other two Amendments, or one of them, which I have put down.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON moved, after subsection (6), to insert:
"(7) Where a river board is established for an area which consists of or includes the River Ouse (Yorks) Catchment Area or the River Trent Catchment Area, the order establishing the board shall provide for the appointment of a member by the National Coal Board, and that member shall be additional to the members appointed under subsection (2) of this section and shall be disregarded for the purposes of that subsection."
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this Amendment is submitted in order to allow the National Coal Board to appoint a member of the Board in excess of the usual number of forty. The reason for this is that in the old days the coal interests of certain areas in the Trent and Ouse districts were responsible, in case of subsidence and other matters, for restoring drainage and for any damage which might have been caused As a result, large sums of money were sometimes involved and it was thought right that these coal interests should have the power of appointing two members to the; catchment board. Now that the National Coal Board has taken over, we still think it would be right in these special cases to allow a member to be appointed by the National Coal Board to watch the matter in these specific areas. The Amendment fulfils that purpose. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 24, at end insert the said subsection.—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, on the face of it this Amendment looked rather a bad one, because the noble Earl has throughout been telling us that he was going to have on this board "only those who had contributed substantially and directly to the board." Those were the words the noble Earl used. The National Coal Board is not a direct contributor to the Catchment Board of the Ouse any

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more than are some of the big woollen industries which equally are situated in that area. It seems that in this case the Government are departing from their principle in order to rely on past precedent; and although that is always a pleasant thing to see in a Socialist Government, I feel I ought to mark the occasion by saying that we are noting it. We have no great objection to this extra person being on the board. I do not think he will do much good or much harm. But here, of course, we are departing from what was the original conception of this Bill, which gives me all the more hope that when the noble Earl comes to consider other matters the Government will themselves take the line then that they are taking on this occasion.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7:
Thames and Lee catchment areas and London.
(5) Where a new river board area is defined so as to consist of or include the whole or any part of the areas originally excluded from section one of this Act, or a river board area is altered by the inclusion therein of any part of the said areas, section four of this Act shall have effect subject to such modifications as may be specified by order of the Ministers, and the order may in particular provide—
(b) for the making of such modifications or adaptations of, or exceptions from, or the repeal of such provisions of, any local Act or statutory order as the Ministers consider necessary or expedient in consequence of that transfer.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON moved, in subsection (5), to insert as a new paragraph:
"(b) for requiring any such authority to make payments to the river board in respect of expenses incurred by the board in exercising any functions transferred to them from the authority by the order."
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this Amendment concerns the Port of London Authority and was put down to meet the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. Briefly, the Amendment gives power to the Ministers to decide what contribution should be made by the Port of London Authority towards the expenses of functions which have been transferred to the river board. Actually, we do not intend to take over the Port of
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London Authority, so that the situation will probably not arise; but the power lies in the Bill. I should like to draw attention to the fact that the Minister has the power to decide in case of dispute, and that there is a right of Parliamentary procedure. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 17, after ("pollution") insert the said paragraph.—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
LORD ROCHESTER: My Lords, I suppose I ought to thank the noble Earl for this Amendment. As noble Lords are aware, on behalf of the Port of London Authority I took the greatest exception to the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd; and I feel that the words that are now appearing on the Marshalled List are, at any rate, less harmful than those to which I took exception on the Committee stage. I note that the Port of London Authority is not specifically mentioned, and for that I am grateful. It is here in more general terms; and for the concession, such as it is, I desire to thank the noble Earl.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, this Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 21, leave out ("that transfer") and insert ("any transfer of functions made by the order").—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 8:
Transfer of navigation functions.
(3) An order made under this section shall be made in accordance with Part I of the First Schedule to this Act, and Part II of that Schedule shall apply for the purpose of making such orders subject to special Parliamentary procedure in the circumstances specified in that Part, and Part III of that Schedule shall apply with respect to the validity of such orders.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON moved in subsection (3), after "under" to insert "the preceding provisions of." The noble Earl said: My Lords, this is to meet the original Amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, withdrew on the subject of navigation authorities. I should like to point out that we have actually gone further than his Amendment proposed. The Minister of Transport is allowed to appoint a member to the board in excess of the number of

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forty, not only where navigation interests have been taken over, but also where they are being exercised. I hope that in view of these considerations the noble Lord will accept this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 43, after ("under") insert ("the preceding provisions of").—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, this was the Amendment to which I was referring earlier, and again it is acceptable. I thank the noble Earl for it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON moved to add to the clause:
"(4) Where functions are exercisable or are to become exercisable by a river board, being functions which have been or are to be transferred to the board by an order made under the preceding provisions of this section or have been so transferred to another river board and subsequently become or are to become exercisable by the first-mentioned board, and it appears to the Ministers that those functions, together with any other functions of the river board relating to navigation, are of sufficient importance to justify the appointment of an additional member of the board to represent the interests affected by the exercise of those functions, they may at any time by order provide for the appointment by the Minister of Transport of such a member, who shall be additional to the members appointed under subsection (2) of section two of this Act and shall be disregarded for the purposes of that subsection; and if at any time it appears to the Ministers that the functions which justified the appointment of such a member have ceased to be of sufficient importance to justify his continued membership, they may revoke the order and thereupon the member so appointed shall vacate his office.
The powers conferred by this subsection may be exercised by an order made under the preceding provisions of this section, or by an order made under section three of this Act establishing or varying the constitution of a river board, or by a separate order."
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this follows on the first Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 48, at end insert the said subsection.—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to. Clause 9:
Conservation of water resources and provision of information.
(7) A river board may give directions requiring any person who in their opinion is
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abstracting water from any river, stream or inland water in the river board area, otherwise than for his own domestic purposes, or is discharging effluents into any such river, stream or inland water, to give such information as to the abstraction or discharge, at such times and in such form, as may be specified in the directions:
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON moved, after subsection (1) to insert:
"(2) Any river board may submit to the Minister of Health a scheme for the measurement and recording of the rainfall in the river board area or any part thereof or of the fow or volume of any river, stream or inland water in the area, and for the installation and maintenance for those purposes of gauges or other apparatus and works connected therewith, and the Minister may approve any such scheme with or without modification, and on such approval the river board shall carry out the scheme."
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this Amendment enables the river board to prepare and submit a scheme for the measurement and recording of rainfall, whereas before they could only be directed to do so by the Minister. I do not think there will be any objection to this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 4, at end, insert the said subsection.—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, we have no objection whatever to this proposed new subsection.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, this is consequential. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 12, leave out ("directions, and to furnish") and insert ("directions;
(b) to furnish").—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, this is also consequential. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 13, leave out ("thereby obtained") and insert ("obtained in pursuance of the directions of any scheme approved under the last preceding subsection").—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, during the last stage of the Bill,

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there was some discussion on the interpretation of the term "domestic use." In this Amendment, we have omitted that term, as we think it is possibly too restrictive. Instead, we have made use of the term "substantial use," which means that normal domestic use, and watering of cattle, cooling of milk and so on would not be affected. Only users of a substantial amount of water would have to make these returns. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 10, leave out from ("area") to ("or") in line 11 and insert ("in quantities which are substantial in relation to the flow or volume of the river, stream or inland water").—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, the next Amendment allows the Thames and Lee Conservancy Board the same right as under the Land Drainage Act of precepting up to twopence in the pound. It has been represented that it should be fourpence in the pound as is allowed to river boards; but I suggest that as the expenses of gauging rivers are relatively small, the sum of money should adequately cover any such expenses. If the boards concerned think that that is not so, there will be nothing to prevent them applying to come within the general river boards jurisdiction, in which case they would share the obligations as well as the rights. I hope that in these circumstances noble Lords will accept this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 40, at end insert ("and the provisions of the Land Drainage Act, 1930, so far as they relate to the said Conservators and Catchment Board, shall apply for the purposes of this Section as they apply for the purposes of the said Act").—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.21 p.m.
Clause 15:
Power to take samples of effluents.
15.—(1) A river board shall have a right, at all reasonable hours, to obtain and take away samples of any effluent which is passing from any land into any river, stream or inland water in the river board area.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON moved, in subsection (1), to delete "at all reasonable hours." The noble Earl said: My
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Lords, this Amendment is to meet a point raised by the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, to leave out the words "at all reasonable hours." I hope it will satisfy the noble Duke and noble Lords. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 29, leave out ("at all reasonable hours").—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, this Amendment does meet fully the point that was made on the Committee stage. I think it will facilitate the taking of samples and the prevention of river pollution by some industrial undertaking. We thank the noble Earl for meeting that point.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, this next Amendment—in subsection (1)—is to meet a very minor point. It enables samples to be taken from a vessel, this is to say, a ship or houseboat which might possibly discharge an effluent into a river. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 31, after ("land") insert ("or vessel").—(The Earl of Huntingdon).
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I suggest that this is a very welcome improvement. The damage done by oil from motor vessels is sometimes very serious. I suggest, however, for consideration that the usual nautical phraseology is "ship or vessel." "Vessel" can have several meanings. A boiler, for example, is a vessel. I would suggest that, perhaps on Third Reading, the noble Earl would consider putting down "ship or vessel." Then there is no doubt about the meaning.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, this Amendment is to meet a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. It puts in the word "watercourse" to make the matter clear beyond any possible doubt. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 31, after ("stream") insert ("watercourse")—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, I remember supporting the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, on this Amendment. Although, for some reason, the noble Lord cannot be present to-day to thank

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the noble Earl, as I took part I should like to thank him.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, now we come to an Amendment which is consequential. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—.
Page 13, line 37, after ("land") insert ("or vessel").—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, this Amendment also is consequential. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 41, after ("land") insert ("or vessel").—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, this Amendment is also largely consequential. It defines the word "watercourse." I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 44, at end insert—
"(3) In this section the expression "watercourse" means any channel through which water flows:
Provided that it does not include any sewer maintained by a local authority or the council of a metropolitan borough, without prejudice, however, to the taking of samples under this section of any effluent passing from any such sewer into a river, stream, watercourse or inland water."—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, I suppose it is necessary to define "watercourse." We do not define "stream" and we certainly do not define "vessel," which seems to be, as the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has said, a more important thing perhaps to define if you mean "ship," because a vessel can mean a china jug or an earthenware pot. I do not suppose anybody has any objection if the Government think that "watercourse" should be defined, but I should have thought that it was taking an unnecessary precaution. I should have thought that: everybody knew that a watercourse was a channel through which water coursed or flowed. It is one of the most obvious words in the English language. If the Government, however, think it best to define it, we do not offer any objection.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.28 p.m.
Clause 16:
Powers of entry and inspection.
(8) If any person who in compliance with the provisions of this section or of a warrant issued thereunder is admitted into a factory or workplace discloses to any person any information obtained by him in the factory or workplace with regard to any manufacturing process or trade secret, he shall, unless such disclosure was made in the performance of his duty, be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON moved, in subsection (8), to omit all words from the beginning down to and including "secret" and to insert:
"If—

(a) any person who in compliance with the provisions of this section or of a warrant issued thereunder is admitted into a factory or work place discloses, otherwise than in the performance of his duty, to any person any information obtained by him in the factory or workplace with regard to any manufacturing process or trade secret; or

(b) any member or officer of a river board to whom, by reason of his official position, any information obtained as aforesaid is disclosed, discloses, otherwise than in the performance of his duty, that information to any person."

THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, this Amendment is to meet one which was put down by the noble Marquess, Lord Townshend. It makes it an offence for an officer of the board to disclose information; find it also makes it an offence for a member of a river board to disclose information which is given to him. I hope that this Amendment will meet the noble Marquess's point.
Amendment moved—
Page 15, line 19, leave out from the beginning to ("he") in line 23 and insert the said new words.—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
The Marquess TOWNSHEND: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl for saying that this Amendment does fully meet all the points.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 18 [Procedure for making by-lawss]:
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, on this clause there is an Amendment on rather a minor point. It provides that notice of a by-law must also

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be inserted in the London Gazette as well as in the local newspapers. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 15, line 40, after ("in") insert ("the London Gazette and").—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 20 [Power to promote and oppose legislation]:
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, this is just a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 37, after ("or") insert ("without any such consent").—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.30 p.m.
First Schedule [Procedure for making orders and provisions as to the validity of orders]:
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, this Amendment is designed to meet a point made by the noble Duke of Devonshire. It goes slightly further than what he proposed in his Amendment—namely, that national associations may also have to be consulted. I hope it will satisfy him, and therefore I beg leave to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 29, line 8, after ("shall") insert ("after consultation with such of the associations and persons concerned as the Ministers consider it appropriate to consult at that stage, prepare a draft order and shall")—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Second Schedule [Provisions as to river boards, their members, committees, proceedings, etc.]:
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, this is largely consequential. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 31, line 38, after ("Fisheries") insert ("The Minister of Transport").—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON moved to insert after paragraph 9:
"10. In the case of a river board for an area which consists of or includes the River Ouse (Yorks) Catchment Area or the River Trent Catchment Area—
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(a) the appointment of a new member to fill a vacancy arising in consequence of the place of a member appointed by the National Coal Board becoming vacant before the end of his term of office shall be made by the National Coal Board; and

(b) any member appointed by the National Coal Board may authorise another person to attend in his stead at meetings of the river board or any committee thereof and to exercise on his behalf all or any of his rights as a member of the board or committee, and any such authority shall be in writing and may be given in respect of a particular meeting or in respect of all meetings until the authority expires or is revoked."

The noble Earl said: My Lords, this is also largely consequential. It allows the National Coal Board to nominate another member should the original member cease to be a member of the board.
Amendment moved—
Page 32, line 24, at end insert the said paragraph.—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STRABOLGI LORD STRABOLGI moved to add to paragraph 10:
"(6) A river board shall if requested to do so by persons or associations having a substantial fishery interest in its area submit within a reasonable time after receiving such a request to the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries for his approval a scheme prescribing the manner in which persons representing the fishery interests within the area may be consulted with regard to fishery matters by the river board or any committee thereof exercising functions relating to those matters:
Any scheme so submitted shall be approved by the said Minister with or without modification and thereupon shall have effect as if it were a provision of the Order establishing the river board."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is the first of the two Amendments to which I referred just now. I hope my noble friend will consider them very seriously before saying that he cannot accept them. They are put down at the request of the National Association of Fishery Boards, which is the statutory body administering the Salmon and Fresh Water Fisheries Act of 1923, and the National Federation of Anglers, which is a voluntary organization having a good deal of influence on and accomplishing a great deal of good work with regard to fresh water fishing. They are not altogether satisfied with the amended Amendment of the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, accepted by my noble friend. They want to be sure that they really will be consulted and that a scheme showing how they are going to be

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consulted will be drawn up for the approval of the Ministers concerned. Which of the Amendments is considered most suitable or less objectionable to my noble friend does not really matter, because either would meet their particular point. As my noble friend knows quite well, the angling interests are very anxious indeed to help forward this Bill and its effects when it becomes an Act of Parliament, and they really want to be certain that they will have a voice in the appointments to these boards. I hope my noble friend will agree that their request is not unreasonable, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 32, line 45, at end insert the said paragraph.—(Lord Strabolgi.)
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, I have a certain regret in resisting this Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, because both my right honourable friend the Minister and myself have great sympathy with the fishery interests and want to see them enjoying adequate representation and being properly looked after. In fact, as the noble Lord mentioned earlier in regard to another Amendment, the importance of food to this country is a matter which concerns the fishery interests. The actual point of this Amendment is rather different from that which the noble Duke moved. As I understand it, the intention of the Amendment is to appoint by Statute an advisory committee which will be chosen by the fishery interests to advise the board not only in regard to the nomination or composition of the board but also on the day-to-day working of the board, presumably in regard to fishery interests. It is true that we have advisory committees in this country on various subjects, but they are national advisory committees which embrace the whole country. This Amendment would actually set up advisory committees to every river board in the country—
LORD STRABOLGI: Will the noble Earl forgive me? I want to shorten matters. In fact these are consultative committees and not advisory committees. If these boards are set up they can be consulted by the river boards, but they will not have the right to interfere all the time.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: I may be wrong, but can the noble Lord point
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out the difference between those two types of committees?
LORD STRABOLGI: The river board may go to these people if they have a point upon which they think they ought to consult them. But in regard to the other sort of committee it is not the intention at ail that they should have the right of supervising the board, so to speak. That is the difference.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: I am afraid I do not see that there is a very big difference. I see the noble Lords point but, after all, it is by no means obbgatory on whomsoever the authority may be, that they should take the advice of the advisory committee. The committee advises and no doubt can be consulted, but the board may not take any notice of the committee's findings. All that is laid down in the Amendment is the method and means of how they shall be consulted, and I do think this would be a tremendous innovation or departure from usual practice. So far as I know—and perhaps noble Lords may contradict me on this—no local authority has either such a consultative board or advisory committee. It would be a new departure in the affairs of this country.
But, quite apart from the constitutional aspect of the matter, I think that it would be unwise from the point of view of the fishery interests. I appreciate the noble Lord's feelings, and it is understandable that fishery interests may think they are going to be somewhat neglected or not given the adequate attention and importance which they certainly deserve. I do, however, suggest to the noble Lord that, if they go in to these boards whole-heartedly and take active part in them, they will gain an enormous advantage. For the first time they will really have a direct say in control regarding such matters of pollution as affect them; and I think on that basis, working broadly through the board, they may achieve their points rather better than by insisting on having separate sections which have to be consulted. Quite apart from that, the fisheries are now distinguished from a lot of other interests in that they have the right of actually being represented on the board itself, which is very important.
Further, in practically every locality where fishery is of any importance at all,

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I presume there will be a fishery committee. The boards have the right of appointing such a committee and of co-opting up to one-third of the committee members who are not members of the board. These may be representative of angling societies or of different angling interests. So that, first, they have direct representation on the board; secondly, they can have their own fishery committee; and, finally, if they think they are being neglected or not receiving adequate or fair treatment, they have a remedy under Clause 21 which I presume they will use, and use effectively. On those grounds, and with the assurance that my right honourable friend and my-self have great sympathy with the Amendment, I hope the noble Lord may be induced to withdraw it.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I do not want to press this Amendment, though I do not altogether accept the argument of my noble friend. For example, whatever happens on these river boards, whether the Amendment of one-half is accepted or not, a most substantial interest and voting strength will remain with the local authorities, and in some parts of the country, notably in the West of England, it is the borough councils who are the worst offenders where river pollution is concerned. The River Wye has been almost ruined once or twice by pollution from towns, under borough councils, situated along its banks. It may be that it is not the fault of these councils, but that is by the way. All anglers are still a little nervous lest they may be overborne by the more powerful local authorities under this Bill. However, I have made my case as well as I can. My noble friend has not accepted it, and we must just agree to differ. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.42 p.m.
Third Schedule [Application of Enactments in Relation to River Board Areas]:
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, this is a consequential Amendment, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 35, line 15, at end insert:
("Provided that Section four of the Doncaster Area Drainage Act, 1933, as amended by Article four of the Coal Industry Nationali-
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sation (Doncaster Drainage) Order, 1947, shall not apply to any river board.").—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD LLEWELLINmoved to add to paragraph 14:
"So much of Section six of the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act, 1876, as requires that proceedings shall not be taken against any person under Part III of that Act without the consent of the Minister of Health shall cease to have effect."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment on behalf of my noble friend Earl De La Warr. It seems to me, having only just had my attention called to it to-day, that this Rivers Pollution Prevention Act, 1876, is in need of quite a considerable amount of revision, and it is one section of that Act which I seek by this Amendment to revise. At the present moment, or at any rate at the time when this Act was passed, a great number of provisions seem to have been put into it to protect industrial users, collieries and people of that sort, who by its provisions were largely given a right to have free access of their effluent into the rivers of our countryside. I hope that very soon we shall be able considerably to amend this old Act and thereby to ensure that the refuse from our factories and from our collieries is properly disposed of.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hall, no doubt realizes what beautiful streams used to run down the valleys of South Wales, and what nasty dirty things they have now become as the result of a lot of effluent from coal mines being allowed to flow into them. And the same sort of thing has happened in many other parts of the country. I would point out that not only have the people concerned the defence that is put up to them under Section 4 of the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act, that "if they show to the satisfaction of the court having cognizance of the case that they are using the best practicable and reasonably available means to render harmless the poisonous, noxious or polluting fluid, so falling or flowing or carried into the stream," they shall not be deemed to have committed an offence, but before anyone can start proceedings, (a sanitary authority can start proceedings under the Act of 1876, and by the Third Schedule of this Bill, that authority will now be taken by these boards), they have to go, under the Act of 1876, to the Local

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Government Board. Now they will have to go to the Ministry of Health. The Ministry inquire whether there is a case likely to be upheld by the Court before the matter can go to the Court at all. Then the Court, quite properly I think, proceeds to appoint assessors to advise it on matters of practical procedure. The whole procedure is so cumbrous that I am told that in the nine years preceding the last war only twenty-five applications were made to the Ministry for permission to institute proceedings; and of these only fourteen were granted.
As a result of this cumbrous legal procedure, our waterways, rivers and streams are polluted to a far greater extent than they ought to be, and to a far greater extent than most of us like to see. I am now suggesting by this Amendment that we delete that extra step in the proceedings whereby the boards that we are now setting up will have to go to the Ministry of Health for permission to start proceedings to prevent further pollution of any of our streams or rivers. It is a short and simple Amendment. It does not, I agree, do all that is needed. If the noble Earl tells me there is a fairly early prospect of the Minister doing something about the whole of these provisions as to river pollution, and that he therefore does not want to deal with the matter step by step at this time, it may be a very good reason why we should not carry this Amendment. On the other hand, if nothing is to be done within a reasonable time, then I shall press now that this extra step of getting consent—which I submit is quite unnecessary—shall be removed. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 36, line 24, at end insert? the said words.—(Lord, Llewellin.)
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, we had a long discussion on this point with reference to Clause 4 when the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, moved an Amendment of a similar character to that now moved by Lord Llewellin. That Amendment, it is true, was in a different form. This one is being moved in the Annexe, but that does not really make any difference. I would remind the noble Earl that when he replied to the debate on Clause 4 he said that he could not accept the Amendment although he had great sympathy with the underlying idea. The Amendment, he said, was against the general principles of the Bill.
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He further said that under the Bill the Government were trying to set up river boards and to transfer existing powers as they are; not to give new powers. That could have been, or might have been, a very strong argument, but I think the noble Earl will agree that in the Amendment which he himself moved he has given additional powers to the Thames Conservancy Board.
All we ask is that now that these additional powers have been given to the Thames Conservancy Board, powers which at present exist, and which the Thames Conservancy Board has, shall be transferred to river boards. This is exactly parallel with what he has already done himself. Therefore, I do not think that the noble Earl can rely further on that argument of principle. We feel strongly about this question of pollution. The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has said that if steps are likely to be taken in the near future he will not press the Amendment. We know there is a sub-committee considering this, and we know that they have been considering it for a longish time. The noble Earl, I feel sure, cannot tell us when that sub-committee are going to report and when legislation can be introduced after that Report has been received. Meanwhile, this pollution is continuing. I do not know what view the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, takes, but I think every angling association will agree with this with respect to any river where pollution is continuing. I earnestly submit that an Amendment of this kind might be accepted, because it would give some additional power to the river boards to check pollution. I beg to support the Amendment.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, this reaches the very heart of the Bill, as was said during the debate in the Committee stage. I have a lively recollection of the debates in the Committee stage. I have not looked up the report of the proceedings, but I looked anxiously through the Marshalled List of Amendments this morning to see if my noble friend had been able to meet us on this. Clearly, he has not, but I did think he held out some hopes. With regard to the committee or sub-committee which the noble Earl, Lord Perth, described, may I ask my noble friend exactly what is this committee—when it was appointed and whether he has any information about it

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that he can give to your Lordships? When is it expected to report? I should have thought it would be safer to have this Amendment in the Bill. During the Committee stage—my noble friend I am sure will agree with me here—the arguments were so strongly in favour of this amendment to the Act of 1876 that if there had been a Division at that time—of course my noble friend would have had my support against my conscience and better feelings—without a doubt this Amendment would have been carried.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: That undertaking somewhat discounts the value of the noble Lord's speeches.
LORD STRABOLGI: Do not be so sure. The noble Viscount jumps to conclusions. I am referring to my noble friend the Earl of Huntingdon; but he is not the only Minister in the Government.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: I thought the undertaking was general and not particular.
LORD STRABOLGI: I do ask my noble friend to see whether he cannot do something about this on the Third Reading. The noble Earl, Lord Perth, said that people who are concerned with the purity of our rivers know quite well that this provision hampers prosecutions where known and proven cases of pollution occur. It causes added delay and added expense, and it gives an opportunity for the evil to continue while the Ministry, quite properly, are carefully considering the application. I do add my appeal to that of noble Lords opposite to do away with this out-of-date provision.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, again I have the unenviable task of arguing on a subject with which I have great sympathy, because I think all of us must agree that pollution is a great problem which must be tackled, and tackled energetically, as soon as it can reasonably be done. I feel there is no difference of opinion between any of us on this subject. I should like to point out to noble Lords that this Government have a programme and are intending to do something about this matter. In fact, it is the first time since 1876 that legislation is in view; and this Bill is the first step to that future legislation.
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I should like first to answer two remarks. One was made by the noble Earl, Lord Perth, when he asked me whether the boards could have the powers of the Thames Conservancy Board. It is quite true that the Thames Conservancy have particular powers which would be of use, but one must remember that the Thames is rather exceptional, by reason of the fact that there is no really heavy industry upon it, as there is, for instance, on rivers like the Tyne. The problem there is a very different one and is of tremendous importance compared with the relatively simple problem which faces the Thames. These are days, of course, when the export drive and other considerations affect industry generally. Shortage of materials and difficulties come into the picture with rivers like the Tyne whereas they do not with the Thames. That is not really the basis upon which I am going to make my argument, but it answers the different points which have been raised.
I would like to answer the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, in the Committee stage and now. It was that, before the war, out of twenty-eight applications only fourteen consents to prosecute were given by the Minister. There is another part of that story. In the other cases the consents would have been largely superfluous, because action was taken by the Minister which made prosecution unnecessary. I am not using that in itself as an argument, but should like merely to point out that there is a subsidiary point which so far has not been mentioned. In the first place when the Milne Committee reported they said that the problem of combating pollution—referring to pollution generally—was not so much lack of power as the lack of a responsible board to carry out any action. They said that new powers were better deferred until the new boards had accustomed themselves to working under the existing laws. I think that goes too far, but that was the recommendation of the Milne Committee. The real point is this. If this Amendment were put in the Bill it would have no serious effect for some years, because it would have effect only when the river boards had actually come into operation on the appointed day. It is not an immediate cure for pollution to-morrow or the next day.
The Government are not looking for an Amendment which can be inserted to

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check pollution; they are instead considering the whole issue of major legislation which must inevitably come if we are to deal with the problem. The real case against inserting this Amendment here—and I hope the noble Lord is with me in this—is that the whole matter is now being considered by the sub-committee of the Central Water Committee. They are taking evidence, and are compiling a Report. I cannot say when they will deliver it, although we hope it will be fairly soon. I suggest that it would be unwise and inexpedient if noble Lords were to press the Government to anticipate major legislation to deal with this problem, while a Report is at present being considered to advise them as to what legislation will be needed.
However, I can give this hope to the House. If it should happen that this Report, when it comes, recommends new legislation on a considerable scale, His Majesty's Government may well be able to find time for a new Bill before the boards are finally working. I hope that I have made the two points perfectly clear. First of all, we are completely in sympathy with the desire to stop pollution, and, secondly, we shall have to resist this Amendment, because we cannot anticipate major legislation in this Bill while a Committee are considering the whole subject.
LORD STRABOLGI: Before the noble Earl leaves this matter, can he tell us whether he expects the Report of this subcommittee to be published? Is it usual to publish these Reports?
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: I would like to have notice of that, but I think that is so. I can state that it would be published.
LORD LLEWELLIN: May I congratulate the Under-Secretary upon his tic-tac methods with the box? At the same time, I am not completely satisfied with the answer that he has given—not on that particular point but on his general reply. I do not think this is major legislation, and that is where I would part company with the noble Earl. We would alter this old Act of 1876 in one particular, cutting out merely the necessity to seek this extra consent of the Minister,
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which takes further time. I was not impressed, if I may say so, with the assurance which the noble Earl gave—it was an extremely carefully worded assurance—that when the sub-committee of the Central Water Committee has reported and the Central Committee has reported to the Ministry, the Government may well be able to find time to bring in a Bill before the boards are set up. "It may well be able to find time" is not much of an assurance that we are going to get the Bill before the boards are set up. On the other hand I think there is a real intention on the part of the Government to bring in legislation on this matter at some time, and I would urge that it be done as quickly as possible. The report of the sub-committee should be expedited so that action may be taken and we may get this ancient legislation brought up to date at the earliest possible moment. Although I did not call it major legislation, I can well see the argument that you do not want to legislate at all on this matter until you do it as a complete whole. I did not call it major legislation and I myself would rather have described it as not wishing to tinker with something that eventually would need major legislation I quite see the force of that argument and I accept it. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, as the noble Lord intends to withdraw his Amendment, I do not want to press him to do anything else, but the noble Earl, if I may say so, has actually shifted his argument from the one he used in Committee stage. Then he relied on the question of principle; now he relies on the fact that we are going to deal with this question at an early date. As. I understand his assurance, it is that the Government hope to bring in legislation to deal with pollution before the appointed day when the boards are constituted. If that is so, it is a very satisfactory assurance, and I would, therefore, not ask the noble Lord to press his Amendment. But will the noble Earl do one thing—will he do anything he can to expedite the report of this sub-committee, so that action may be taken?
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: Personally, I shall be very pleased to do that.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

PENSIONS (GOVERNORS OF DOMINIONS, &c.) BILL.
5.3 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (VISCOUNT HALL): My Lords, this Bill was welcomed by all Parties in another place, and when it becomes law it will be of great assistance to present and future Secretaries of State of the Colonies. While it deals with only a limited number of cases, it will relieve the Secretary of State for the Colonies of much anxiety when it falls to him to decide whether in the public interest the tenure of a Governor can be prolonged and when, at the same time, he is conscious that retirement before the age of sixty occasionally results in a loss of pension which is unfair to those who have given long and faithful service to His Majesty under very trying and difficult conditions. The Bill will also properly adjust the conditions of retirement of Governors who have reached retiring age and have given many years of valuable service, so that when the time comes for them to retire it is hoped they will be adequately provided for.
The present system under which pensions are granted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to Colonial and other Governors is laid down in the Act of 1911 as amended by the Acts of 1929 and 1936. Briefly, those Acts provide that to qualify for a Governor's pension a Governor must, except in certain circumstances, serve until he has reached the age of sixty, and that he must have served as a Governor for ten years or more unless he has previously served in the permanent Civil Service of the State. In the latter case three years' service as Governor would suffice to qualify him for pension provided that his combined service as a pensionable and permanent civil servant was not less than ten years. The amount of pension granted is determined by the class of governorship and the period of service. Colonial Governorships are divided into four classes, about twenty being in Classes I and II, and fourteen in Classes III and IV. The annual rate of pension is at present fixed at £6, £5, £4, and £3 respectively for each month of service in Classes I, II, III and IV. I referred to retirement in special circum-
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stances before the age of sixty. Such a case would arise where further appropriate employment is not available. When retirement takes place in such circumstances, the pension allowed based on length of service is reduced by one two-hundred-and-fortieth part for each complete month between the date of pension and the attainment by the Governor in question of the age of sixty. There is an over-riding limit of £2,000 per annum to the amount of pension or pensions from all sources which a Governor may receive.
The Bill, for the Second Reading of which I am asking this afternoon, proposes to amend these conditions. It changes the retirement age from sixty to fifty-five; it increases the pension rates; it removes the provision for a reduction of pension on premature retirement and increases the maximum limit of pension.
May I turn first to the question of retirement age? Most Colonial Governors are appointed from the Colonial Service. Indeed, of the thirty-four Colonial Governors now serving, twenty-nine were in fact appointed in this way. The normal retiring age in the Colonial service is fifty-five, and is based on long experience of the effects of tropical service. The duties of a Governor to-day are undoubtedly strenuous, much more so than they were a few years ago, and it would be wrong to require a Governor to serve to a greater age than we require his subordinates to do. More than ever today do we need young and active men in these positions. The reduction in retiring age which this Bill seeks to effect is, however, not mandatory, and the Bill will not prevent a Governor from continuing in service after fifty-five if it is in accordance with his own wishes and in the public interest that he should do so. But he will no longer have to serve to the age of sixty to qualify for a Governor's pension. This is the main proposal of Clause 1 of the Bill.
As regards the rate of pension, the present rates were fixed in 1929. Increases in the general level of salaries in the Colonial Civil Service have since taken place, and as Colonial civil servants receive a pension based upon salary, and not on flat rates as in the case of Governors, the rates of pension earned by the Governors have ceased to be in scale with those of civil servants junior

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to them. I can quote the example of a Governor shortly to retire after thirty-four years' tropical service, whose total pensions as a Colonial official and Governor will be less than the pension which his chief secretary, who is also shortly to retire, will receive. Another Governor, about to retire after a very long service, the last six years of which he has spent as Governor, would have received exactly the same pension as that to which he is now entitled if he had been appointed Colonial Secretary instead of Governor.
This Bill proposes to increase the monthly rates by £1 in each class, so that the amounts will in future be £7, £6, £5, and £4 for each month of service in Classes I, II, III and IV respectively. These increases will bring the pension rate for Colonial Governors into line with the new level of salaries in the Colonies. The Bill also, by Clause 3, increases the maximum amount a Governor may receive by way of pension or pensions from £2,000 to £2,300 per annum. Another point to which I have referred is the reduction imposed in the case of Governors who retire before the qualifying age. This reduction, in a case of retirement five years before the qualifying age, amounts to no less that 25 per cent. of the pension earned by service as a Governor. The provision is an unusual one, and there is no longer justification for retaining it, or for requiring pensioner governors, who now suffer a reduction on this account, to continue to do so. Clause 4 seeks to remove the provision, and to provide for the restoration of reductions which have been made in pensions still in payment. There are, in fact, four such pensions. The immediate extra cost of the Bill will be very small, while the ultimate extra expenditure will not exceed some £7,000 to £8,000 per annum. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(Viscount Hall).
5.13 p.m.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, I am glad to see the noble Viscount the First Lord of the Admiralty back in his place, and I hope he is fully restored to health again. I should like to wish this Bill a rapid and successful passage. The noble Viscount has explained it very clearly to the House. The sum involved in very small, but the need for the Bill is really great. It is a desirable Bill, and a fair Bill. As the noble Viscount
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explained, in the first place it reduces the normal retiring age from sixty to fifty-five. I think that is quite right. I like Governors to be appointed young. When I was Colonial Secretary I introduced the practice of not giving old men about to retire a small governorship as a sort of consolation prize. It seemed to be rather unfair on the smaller Colonies. Very often a small Colony in not very good circumstances is just the place that needs a really good, keen young man as Governor, and it is an excellent way of trying a man out—giving him, so to speak, a brigade.
I had the honour of recommending quite a number of men in their early forties—I was not so very old myself at the time—and they have all done extremely well—bar me. If there is a special case where the Secretary of State wants to keep on a Governor who is doing well, and who is in the prime of life at fifty-five, he should be allowed to do so. It is a pretty awful thought for some of us to think that fifty-five is the age at which we must be got rid of. I see in the House a number of anxious faces. Still, the atmosphere of the tropics is a little more trying than the atmosphere of this Chamber. In special cases it will be possible to keep on the man who ought to stay on; and with others, it cannot be expected that they will go unless they get a fair pension.
It is a good thing, too, that the avenue of promotion in this great service should be open to talent, and open at a reasonable age. The First Lord of the Admiralty, when he was the Secretary of State, will have heard of what was called "the long scale." There were a large number of people on that scale, and it took a very long time to climb the ladder; indeed, the long, long scale became the long, long trail, and there did not seem any end to it. Now there will be the chance of promotion. I hope the Secretary of State will not hesitate to appoint the best men, irrespective of seniority. It is in order on this Bill to say that. I am sure it is a mistake to suppose that you create jealousies and prejudices by appointing the best men, irrespective of age. You may disgruntle certain people whom it is quite right to pass over, but it will give a tremendous stimulus to all others in the service.

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Then there is the increase in the pensions scale. Really it is not fair to call it an increase, because all it does is to bring the Governor's pension into line with what for some years now has automatically been the rate of pension for civil servants below the rank of Governor. For some reason or another, the pension of the unfortunate Governor has not gone up with those of the others. It would obviously be very unfair if we were to continue a system such as the noble Viscount has outlined to us and to ask men serving in the post of Governor (though many of them are ornamental, they are also very hardworking; it is the hardest job) to continue with the prospect of no larger a pension than that of their chiefs of staff. I have actually known cases where it would have paid a Governor to refuse the more important post, for which he was highly qualified, in order to remain in the subordinate post. That obviously is very wrong. It says a great deal for the public spirit of the Service that, though that state of affairs did exist, men have been willing to go on being Governors at a loss. That is not a handicap or a deterrent which we ought to continue.
I am glad, too, that the noble Viscount has made the increase a flat rate increase of £1. When the Bill was originally introduced there was, I think, a distinction between Class I and Class II Governors, and Class III and Class IV Governors. The original proposal, I think, was that a man would get 1os. if in the third or fourth class, and £1 if in the first or second class. This would have been a mistake because the difficulties and diversities are more likely to occur with inadequate pensions in the smaller governorships, the classes III and IV. I think it is quite right to make it clear. This Bill is a sound Bill and I am very glad it has been introduced. This is a proper thing for us to do for men who have deserved well of the State, and I wish the Bill a very expeditious passage.
On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived.

PUBLIC WORKS LOANS BILL.
5.21 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD AMMON: My Lords, this Bill can be said to fall into the category of hardy annuals. It is non-controversial, simple and very necessary. The background of it is this. Your Lordships will remember that the last Public Works Loans Bill, which was passed in November, 1946, made two main provisions. First, it empowered the National Debt Commissioners to make advances to the Public Works Loans Board for local loans up to a maximum of £250,000,000, until the passing of the next Act. At the beginning of this month advances of £219,000,000 had been made, leaving £31,000,000 in hand. Secondly, the current Act provided that the Public Works Loans Board could also incur commitments to lend, in such a way, however, that commitments, when added to the actual cash advances, did not at any time exceed £500,000,000. So far commitments plus advances total £445,000,000, leaving a balance of £55,000,000.
It will be seen from these figures that it is essential that the Public Works Loans Boards should receive further lending powers without delay, if local authorities are not to be kept waiting for the money they need and the housing programme is not to be held up. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Ammon.)
On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived.

MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS AND PHARMACISTS BILL. [H.L.]
5.23 p.m.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of Commons Amendments.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(Lord Henderson.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS.
[The references are to Bill No. 12.]
Clause 3, page 3 line 11 after ("who,") insert ("after the first day of September, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine")
Clause 3, page 3 line 12, after ("capacity") insert ("outside the United Kingdom")
Clause 3, page 3 line 14, leave out ("outside the United Kingdom")
Clause 3, page 1, line 14, at end, insert ("or in any voluntary organization operating in connexion with any such forces, or have served in a medical capacity outside the United Kingdom for the care of British subjects or British protected persons in a place in His Majesty's dominions, a British protectorate or a country or territory under His Majesty's protection or suzerainty or in which His Majesty had for the time being jurisdiction during the carrying on of wax operations in that place or its occupation by the enemy or the continuance of circumstances arising therefrom.")
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, the Amendments on the Order Paper are very simple and straightforward and are agreed Amendments that come from another place. With your Lordships' permission I will deal with the first four Amendments together. They are a series of connected Amendments to Clause 3, and are designed to extend the provisions of Clause 1 to alien doctors who served with the Red Cross, Friends' Ambulance Unit, or other voluntary bodies associated with our Forces during the war; and also to doctors who served in a civilian medical capacity looking after prisoners of war, internees and the civilian population generally in British territories overseas which were the scene of war operations or were occupied by the enemy. Noble Lords will appreciate that such service may well be equally meritorious with that of doctors who actually served in the Forces and should be similarly recognized. The scope of the provision has been carefully limited and has brought forward no objections from the medical profession, who have been kept informed at all stages of what: is now proposed. I hope and believe therefore that your Lordships will be in agreement with these Amendments as making a provision which should be included in the Bill. I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments.
Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Henderson).
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Commons Amendment.
Clause 8, page 6, line 29, at end insert:
("(2) Where a direction for registration under this Section 1s given, the Council may include therein a direction that the right to registration pursuant thereto shall be subject to payment by the person as to whom the direction is given of such fee as may be therein specified not being greater than the fee for the time being determined by the Council for the registration of persons as Commonwealth
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practitioners or as foreign practitioners, as the case may be, under Section eleven or twelve of the Medical Act, 1886.")
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, this remaining Amendment provides for the payment of registration fees to the General Medical Council in respect of distinguished visitors and post-graduate students who are temporarily registered under Clause 8. Earlier in the Bill, in Clause 6, it is laid down that the payment of fees shall be obligatory where registrations are made under Clauses 2, 3 and 4, but there is not the same case for an invariable rule where temporary registrations under Clause 8 are concerned. It would, for instance, dearly be invidious to expect distinguished visitors who are here primarily for our benefit and not their own, to pay a fee on temporary registration. Post-graduate students, however, are in a different position as they are here for their own advantage, and, further, the General Medical Council will be entailed in some work, in keeping record of their movements. It is therefore proposed to give the General Medical Council power to charge a fee not exceeding the normal fee, which is at present £5, for registrations under Clause 8, but to leave them free to reduce or waive it if they think fit. I beg to move that this Amendment be agreed to.
Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Henderson.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

WATER BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order); an Amendment (Privilege) made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

ROAD MAINTENANCE.
5.28 p.m.
Earl HOWErose to draw the attention of His Majesty's Government to the reduction of expenditure on road maintenance and the vital necessity of adequate upkeep in view of the increase in commercial traffic and the extreme difficulty in obtaining spare parts; and to move for Papers.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this Motion was put down originally about the beginning of this month, but it was withdrawn because of the congested state

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of the Order Paper. I could not indeed tell when I put it down that the Order Paper was going to be quite so congested as in fact it has been. The Motion concerns the new Government White Paper on capital investment and is concentrated on just one small item in that Paper which will be found on page 20, paragraph 68, where it is indicated that the Government have decided to cut down the labour force employed on the roads—that is on road maintenance—by 20,000 men. It is also indicated in preceding paragraphs of that Paper that the Government have decided for the time being to postpone the proposals for new road works so far as they are concerned; and I should like to say that I am in entire agreement with that course, as I am sure we all are. At the same time I think one must remember that the fact that we are going to postpone so much in the way of new road works will in the end mean probably a greater number of people, perhaps thousands of people, losing their lives, and thousands more being injured on the roads of the country. If anybody thinks that that is a wild assertion, let him read the reports of the Alness Committee or the Interim and Final Reports of the Committee on Road Safety which have been published.
At the same time, the view I take, which I am quite sure is the view taken by everybody, is that road and rail are simply the arteries of this country, and upon road and rail we depend absolutely for our daily lives. There is not a single pound, not a single ton, of any commodity that we can think of that does not have to be moved along either road or rail at some time in the course of its existence. I think we can fairly say that the roads of the country, in common with the railways, are a capital asset. My point of view is that you cannot gamble with a capital asset and you should not take any action which is likely to compromise the value of that asset in years to come. If I can show that there is a danger of either of those things, I think that I shall have done what I set out to do.
This Motion has not been put down in any spirit of Party controversy; I should like to make that perfectly clear. I would like to be able to support every item in the Government White Paper, entitled Capital Investment in 1948. This Motion
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has been put down simply and solely because of the very grave anxiety which I and many other people feel having regard to views which have been expressed by those who are far more competent to judge than I am. I shall be able to tell the House what those views are. These are the facts with regard to the labour force employed on road maintenance. Before the war there were 110,000 employed on the roads. The number employed to-day is 92,000. The Government propose a reduction of 20,000 men on that figure, leaving us with 72,000. All this is at a time when, as we all know, the railways are overburdened as perhaps they have never been before, and when quite clearly they are showing signs of strain in many directions. Repairs to trucks and repairs to locomotives and rolling stock generally provide examples. Of course, we see to-day something which I do not think I can ever remember seeing before—volunteers being called for in order to assist the railway staff to keep the rolling stock moving over week-ends. The railways, we must not forget, have to compete with nationalization next year. I do not know whether the Government know (I do not know) whether that is likely to produce a complicating circumstance for them or not. I do not suppose that the change-over from the old system to the new system of nationalization will make it any the easier for railways to cope with their tasks at the present time.
As we all know, the roads are suffering from arrears of maintenance which have arisen mostly out of the war. This produces a most serious problem. Not only that, but at the present time there are proposals to divert some of the mineral traffic from the railways to the roads. I believe I am right in saying that arrangements have already been made to transfer the movement of 25,000 tons of coal from the railways to the roads in the North Country, due to difficulties on the railways. That will show how pressing this problem is. On May 6, 1946, the Minister of Transport announced Government policy. He announced a ten years' programme. He said that the first stage would cover the next two years; the second stage would cover years three to five; and the third stage would cover years six to ten. He also said:
"In the first stage, attention must be given to the overtaking of the large arrears of road maintenance accumulated during the war,

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and to the repair of the serious damage sustained in certain areas from tank training and similar military activities."
I think that everybody accepted that statement of Government policy as being a reasonable and a far-sighted one, because it laid down a programme for the future on which everybody could count.
The Minister reinforced this decision and recapitulated it in a speech that he made at a luncheon given by the British Road Federation which took place to celebrate the opening of a road exhibition in London. In the course of that speech, he made this remark:
"In this matter of road construction it is easy to be a penny wise and pound foolish. We have had examples of this in the past."
A little later on he said:
"We do not intend to repeat the mistakes of the past."
I do not think the Government ever do. The road authorities then thought that they knew where they were. Then, of course, we came to the winter of 1946-47. We had a period When no road repairs were possible, no road work was possible at all, and, consequent upon last winter, we had colossal damage clone to the roads through snow, frost, the subsequent thaw and then flooding. All that, of course, has enormously increased the difficulty of the problem that we are up against.
On April 30 of this year, I raised the question in your Lordships' House of the reduction of capital expenditure on the roads. The noble Lord, Lord Inman, who then replied for the Ministry of Transport, said that many county councils
"have been informed, after examination of their maintenance estimates for classified roads in the current financial year, that grants will not be available towards the full amount … "
The Government at that time had not given the answer which they did give in Parliament upon this particular subject. The noble Lord, Lord Inman, also went on to tell us that:
"It has not yet been possible to form an estimate of the cost of the abnormal damage to the reads from frost and floods. The preparation of such an estimate is in hand."
But he could not say when it would be produced. In other words, the Government had made up their mind to reduce the amount of maintenance on roads before they really knew what the damage to the roads was actually going to be as a result of the winter.
Then, on May 5, the Government, in answer to a question in another place, produced a table showing the amount of reduction of grants in the case of Class I, Class II and Class III roads. The counties which have suffered most by the Government's decision in that respect are Lincolnshire, Northumberland, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire and Herefordshire, and some of the southern counties. I should like to emphasize that those particular counties which I have mentioned are, of course, the industrial areas of the North and of the Midlands, and the roads of those areas are presumably roads which are extremely important in connexion with the industrial life of that part of the country and, in turn, with the export drive. Then we come to the Class III roads, and no doubt every member of your Lordships' House knows perfectly well that the Class III roads are the ones predominantly engaged in agriculture. The counties most hit there are Northumberland, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Cumberland, Lancashire, Westmorland, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Shropshire and Herefordshire, and some of the southern counties like Kent, and also Flint, Merioneth; and Montgomery in Wales. It does seem to me that at a time when you are going to step up agricultural production as never before, it is an extraordinary thing that you should reduce; the grant to the agricultural roads. I should like to ask His Majesty's Government whether these reductions have proceeded according to any particular plan having relation to the situation of the country as a whole. If they have, it is not apparent.
On top of all that came the issue of this White Paper entitled Capital Investment, proposing a 22 per cent. reduction of the labour force employed on the roads. In relation to all the teeming millions of this country 20,000 men may sound a very small matter, but those men, by reason of the work which they do, are really key men, and if you take them away you are going to run an utterly unjustifiable risk. This is what the White Paper says about it:
"At present the local authorities have about 90,000 men engaged on road works, of whom some 51,000 are employed by the county councils—mainly on rural roads. In view of the need for additional labour for agriculture, rural housing and other essential work, the Government has decided …"
to reduce them.
With regard to the additional labour for agriculture and rural housing, if county councils have to discharge men when they are more than short-handed, as they are now, they are obviously not going to start by discharging very young men, their most useful and active men. They will obviously discharge the older men who, in many cases, would be eligible for pension and would be likely to go for a pension and take it rather than at their time of life to break new ground and go into agriculture. As for rural housing, how can a road worker be the right sort of fellow to go into rural housing? Or does it mean that the Government want to get him out of the way so that they can "pinch" his house? I do not know, but it does sound to me a most extraordinary proposition. I understand that there is already unemployment in the building trade and, if that is so, how can you possibly contemplate putting road men on work in connexion with rural housing? Taking this question of the maintenance of Our roads and of reducing the road force by 20,000 men, supposing the Government had put forward a proposal to reduce the men employed on the maintenance of the permanent way on the railways by 20,000; surely that would have struck everybody as being a most ill-advised and dangerous decision. Yet both rail and road are absolutely vital to the well-being of the country.
Returning to this subject of the older men, I would remind your Lordships that on November 6 last the National Farmers' Union and other agricultural bodies had a conference with the Ministry of Labour representative, and this is what they said. The National Farmers' Union made it plain to the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Labour that they required able-bodied men and, therefore, if the housing authorities were thinking of releasing the worst of their employees, these would hardly be suitable for entering the agricultural industry. It seems to me to be obvious that if you are going to reduce the labour force on the roads you cannot expect them to go into agriculture and you cannot expect them to go into rural housing. Then what other essential purposes can they possibly perform?
The Minister of Transport was questioned in another place on November 18,
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and the Parliamentary Secretary to that Ministry, in reply, stated:
"My right honourable friend is aware that the decision to reduce the number of men employed on road maintenance has caused concern, but the reduction is an essential part of the temporary postponement of schemes of capital investment. A close watch will be kept on road conditions."
That answer says that a close watch is to be kept on road conditions. Was a close watch kept on the Cavendish Bridge on road A6 on the borders of Leicestershire, at a place called Shardlow? Because that bridge collapsed due to lack of maintenance of the piers of the bridge. That is the sort of thing that is going to happen if you reduce the maintenance staff on the highway. You will not get your bridges properly inspected, and you will not get your roads properly attended to. It does seem to me that this reduction is a most dangerous experiment.
This is another quotation which I am afraid I must give. The Minister said in reply to a question in another place:
"The reduction of 20,000 men will be from the highway authorities' own employees, but I am not in a position to say how this will affect individual authorities."
I thought this Government of all Governments proceeded on a plan, but I cannot see that there has been any plan in this at all. It seems that the Government are, to put it mildly, taking a wild gamble with a capital asset and risking the possible collapse of the whole of the road system of the country. And they are doing this at a time when you have got the road transport drive on, when you are doing everything you can to step up the production of food and the movement of coal, when the railways are overstrained, and when tyres are short and there are no new vehicles available. I should like to ask His Majesty's Government whether they have considered what they are going to do if a number of lorries or vehicles used on the road break down and require increased repairs, and that sort of thing, owing to the state of the highway. How is that going to affect the cost of transport as a whole? It is bound to increase the cost of transport.
Again, take the question of man-power. If lorries, heavy vehicles, and the like, start breaking down more than they have done in the past, it will mean that more men will have to be employed in repairing them, otherwise there will be an incredible

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delay, in which case transport will gradually slow down and stop. Have they considered the question of tyres? After all, we import tyres. We must import tyres because we cannot grow rubber and that sort of thing here. You have got to import your tyres from abroad, and it is quite certain that if the roads seriously deteriorate you will have to import more tyres.
Then take the question of Class III roads. Have the Government really considered the question of the Class III roads? You are trying to mechanize agriculture. To-day most of the agricultural roads are of water-bound macadam. Have the Government really considered what the effect will be on roads of this class if they are not well kept up? As a matter of fact, the maintenance of Class III roads has gone down very seriously indeed, and their foundations are not at all what they were. At the same time these roads are being used by heavy lorries, in connexion with agriculture, to an extent which has never before been known, for efforts are being made to organize agriculture to the highest pitch of efficiency in every possible way. Have the Government considered the fact that the county authorities are already down to about 50 per cent. of their pre-war road personnel? Further reduction of that personnel will not be a mere reduction of 22½ per cent.; on the pre-war figures it will be a reduction of about 70 per cent.
I have indicated some of the difficulties, and now I wish to ask your Lordships to bear with me while I quote to you a few statements made by road authorities, highway surveyors and the like in various parts of the country. I have pages and pages of such statements here. I would like to read just a few of them, so that you will be able to appreciate what the problem really is. Here is one quotation:
"I speak for my own authority only when I say that rising wages and prices have themselves reduced the amount of money available for road repairs since the war, and it has only been by the exercise of the utmost economy that it has been possible to make any inroads on the arrears of essential maintenance brought about by the war, and to reduce the staff employed at this juncture would be little short of disastrous."
A second statement says:—
"The number of openings made in the highways by the utility services, gas, water and electricity, is considerably higher than before the war, and is absorbing an undue
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proportion of the present limited labour force, and the reinstatement of each one of: hese openings is a matter of public safety. This increased activity on the part of these services is no doubt due to their attempt to make good the neglect of the war years and must be carried out."
In a third statement we find this:
"The effect of the 1946-1947 cuts works out briefly as follows:—
Trunk Roads—a reduction of 60 per tent. to 70 per cent. on surfacing work.
Class I Roads—elimination of surfacing work.
Class II Roads—elimination of all surfacing work and some tar spraying.
Class III Roads—elimination of all surfacing work and probably all tar spraying work."
If you do not tar spray the roads water is bound to penetrate into them. Obviously, a road which is not so treated will cease to be waterproof, and is likely to deteriorate in an appalling way. I have masses of other statements which I could give you. They express the opinions held by county authorities and road authorities all over the country. They are all in the same strain, and they all indicate that the greatest possible anxiety is felt. Moreover, they all reflect the feeling that a very grave mistake has been made. I share the views expressed, as must anyone who has read them. I wish to know what the Government have in mind. Supposing we have another winter like the last one, what will the Government do with regard to the roads of the country? It will not be fewer men who will be needed for this task but more. And when men are wanted for other work, why seek to take key men like those employed on the roads?
Look at our Civil Service to-day. It comprises more people than the whole of the Fighting Services combined. About one-tenth of the whole adult male population of the country is to be found in the Civil Service. Surely, if cuts are to be made, there should be an effort to see if some of them cannot be in the Civil Service. We are running an appalling risk with this proposal in regard to the roads. I hope the Government will think again. Was it not Napoleon who said, speaking of the Directory which preceded him: "This Government foresaw nothing, and only discovered difficulties when they were brought to a standstill by them." Do not let us have it said that this Government are conducting our

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national affairs at such a time as the present with anything like that lack of foresight. I hope most earnestly that this Government will give further consideration to a decision which I look upon as being both dangerous and recklessly extravagant. I beg to move for Papers.
5.55 p.m.
LORD SANDHURST: My Lords, in rising to support the Motion of my noble friend Earl Howe, I would make it clear that I follow his line absolutely in not speaking of the cuts in major improvements and on new roads. It is clear that those have to be made. I do not know whether something went wrong with my education; I think it must have done. But here we are reading about cuts in road maintenance in a document headed Capital Investment. How can maintenance be what is commonly known as a "capital investment?" Surely road maintenance is most essential to the present preservation of our capital investments; and maintaining roads is a very different thing from making a capital investment. What we have to do is to preserve an investment which I believe has been estimated to run into something like £2,000,000,000. That is now in danger. We are risking a great deal of that £2,000,000,000 by allowing the roads to go literally to pot—because it will be to potholes that they will go first; afterwards it will be something worse.
No one in his senses, I hope, would for a moment suggest economizing in the maintenance of the permanent way of a railway. But here the Government are suggesting economizing in the permanent way of our road traffic, which is an equally vital service. Bad maintenance of the roads would be just as dangerous as bad maintenance of the railways, unfortunately, has already been proved. We have seen the effect of bad maintenance in an increase in railway accidents within the last two years. Bad maintenance on the roads can be even more serious than that. As the noble Lord, Lord Walkden, knows well, on the railways we have more or less the same drivers on the same routes all the time. It is an easy matter, when a strange driver is put on a route, to warn him of a bad section. Every driver is, in fact, notified when there is a dangerous section of road over which he has to take his train. But
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that cannot be done in the case of road drivers. A lorry may he going from Glasgow to South Wales, but the people who send that lorry cannot possibly know of every dangerous stretch of road. It may well he that the driver will find himself quite unexpectedly on a dangerous section, and an accident may occur before he has fully appreciated the approach of danger.
LORD WALKDEN: The noble Lord has mentioned my name. I would suggest that in a case such as that to which he has just referred—that of a strange driver on a strange road—the driver ought to be doubly careful.
LORD SANDHURST: He may be doubly careful, and yet remain unaware of the existence of the danger. That is my point. Another factor which, I think, needs to be taken into consideration, is the accident ratio between road and rail. If your Lordships look at the record of the last five years for which figures are available, 1939-1944, you will see that on the railways only 142 people were killed, whilst on the roads no fewer than 45,000 people lost their lives. Can we afford to allow the roads to become more dangerous than they are at the present time? I beg the Government to take serious account of this. There is one class of road-user in particular for which the roads will be very much more dangerous, and it is a class which, owing to the abolition of the basic petrol ration, has suddenly been enormously increased. That class is the cyclist.
The country roads to-day—the Class II and the Class III roads as I believe they are now known—are getting into an extremely dangerous condition, as my noble friend has already said. They are getting heavy potholes at the side. During bad weather cyclists do not want to ride through the water and the potholes, and they suddenly swerve out without giving any warning to the lorry or car travelling behind them. Already this year I have seen three or four cases of the nearest thing to an accident that I want to see, simply through cyclists doing that. We shall find more of that. These country roads are being what I believe is known as "spewed out." They never had much foundation, and owing to the weight of the traffic on them such foundation as there is is being

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pushed outside; and the tops of the roads are going down to where the foundations ought to be. If road maintenance is now allowed to lapse, the cost of restoring those roads later will be out of all proportion to the monetary saving, and lives will be lost in the meantime.
Finally, may I quote from Paragraph 72 of the White Paper which refers to Government buildings and the Office of Works staff? It says:
"The largest claim on the Ministry of Works' own labour force is for maintenance of Government property, which is kept to the essential minimum."
It is proposed to reduce the Government labour force by 1,000 out of 18,000, a fraction over 5 per cent. The Ministry of Works, themselves are proposing to reduce the number for the maintenance of Government buildings which have been maintained, so far as the essentials were concerned, all the time. Even to suggest that the roads have had the essential minimum of attention in the last eight years is a ghastly over-statement. To reduce the attention they are now having is a still more ghastly mistake. To my mind, it will be a tragic error which will cost this country millions of pounds and I do not care to say how many lives.
6.4 p.m.
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, I should like to add my support to this Motion which has been moved by the noble Earl, Lord Howe. In doing so, I should like to emphasize that we on this side of the House, fully support His Majesty's Government in their efforts to reduce capital expenditure; but, none the less, it is of some importance that we should distinguish between capital expenditure and maintenance. New road construction, bridges, tunnels and other capital expenditure must, of course, wait for better times, but I suggest that maintenance of roads should be in a different category and should receive the fullest possible consideration. It is possible to over-do this consideration with unnecessary expenditure, and some of your Lordships who sit on county councils are perhaps aware of the appointment recently, at a salary of £900 a year, of a Ministry of Transport official to supervise the artistic settings and planting of trees alongside our trunk roads. Yet in the past all this work was efficiently carried out by the Roads Beautifying Association, with a Government
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grant of only £200 per annum. Surely this sort of expenditure could be omitted during these difficult days.
The recent White Paper, Capital Investment in 1948, clearly sets out the proposed reduction in capital investment for the coming year, but surely the maintenance and upkeep of our roads should not be included in this Paper—for several reasons. In the first place, as was mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, the preservation of life is of the utmost importance; and if our roads are allowed to get into a bad state of repair the safety margin will be greatly diminished and undoubtedly the percentage of road accidents will increase.
Many of your Lordships will be aware that at the present time there is a link between the live-day week, the delay in the turn-round of railway wagons and the increased amount of goods that the reads may be called upon to carry. Not only is there a wagon shortage, but there is a marked delay in wagon discharge, aggravated by the operation of the five-day week. I do not propose to enter into a discussion as to the merits or otherwise of the five-day week, but I would suggest that the question is relevant when it is considered against the background of transport in general and the difficulties which the railways are having at the present time, which may lead to increased use of road haulage. The railway companies are endeavouring to do now in five days what they used to do in six or seven days. I understand that in the Birmingham area alone over 1,000 firms are operating on a five-day week. The staffs, therefore, are not available on Saturdays for receiving and despatching goods, and hundreds of railway wagons are thereby held up. This shortage of wagons has not come upon us suddenly or unexpectedly, and I suggest that if steps had been taken in time this shortage could have been foreseen and avoided.
It may well be asked: What has this to do with road maintenance? It means, of course, that owing to the shortage of railway wagons more goods have to be diverted to the roads, and therefore it is all the more essential that the roads should be kept in good condition. I would like to give your Lordships a few figures about this wagon shortage. In 1939 the number of railway wagons under repair or out of action was, roughly, 39,000; in 1944, it was nearly 89,000; in 1945,

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124,000; and in the month of November the figures had risen to approximately 200,000. This is a startling figure, and it is doubtful if deliveries of coal can be maintained throughout the winter without using the more costly method of road transport. In fact I believe it is expected that over 2,000,000 tons of deep-mined coal are to be moved by road during the next six months. There is little doubt that the roads will have to bear a much heavier traffic, and therefore they will require very much more attention than they are receiving now. During last winter, I believe, over 500,000 tons of open-cast coal were moved by road. As your Lordships are aware, the development of this open-cast coal began only in the year 1942. The roads in the vicinity of these operations were certainly not constructed for such heavy work and they wil require a great deal of maintenance.
Again, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, and also by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, if agriculture is to function at its maximum efficiency good roads are essential. In recent years there has been a great increase in mechanization of farms and this is bound to cause heavier loading on the roads. Many main roads have had very little maintenance in over eight years and to-day they are worn out and on their last legs. I would suggest that the decision of His Majesty's Government to attempt to divert some 20,000 men from the roads to other work, which will lower the already low standard of road maintenance, is not only unwise but a short-sighted policy, especially during our export drive and the necessity at all costs of avoiding a bottleneck in transport. We fully realize the importance of employing as many able bodied men as possible in agriculture and other vitally important industries, but many of those who work on the roads are past middle age and are unlikely to be of much service 'in other work. I would suggest that local authorities might be asked to weed out their younger men, so far as possible, but that they should not be asked to reduce their road maintenance staff to a pre-determined figure which may be below the minimum considered necessary by them to keep the highways in a proper state of repair. Even the Romans, during their periods of inflation and their Empire difficulties, kept
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our roads in good order, and I urge His Majesty's Government to reconsider their decision and not to deplete the labour force on the roads to a pre-determined figure which is bound to have a disastrous effect on the road transport of the country and retard our recovery.
6.12 p.m.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR BURMA (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, I am extremely grateful, and I am sure my gratitude is shared by the noble Lords on these Benches, to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and to the other noble Lords who have spoken, for having made possible a full discussion of a subject of considerable public importance. I am also grateful to them for accepting the lead given by Lord Howe when he said he did not intend himself to approach this problem in a Party spirit. I think everyone will agree that the maintenance of our system of road communications is far too serious a responsibility to be regarded as a Party question. I can assure the noble Lords who have spoken that I will ask my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport to consider most carefully what they have said and, in particular, the references they have made to the opinions of outside bodies well qualified to express opinions about the roads. I am quite certain that the Minister will benefit from the study of the views which they have expressed in such moderate terms, backed by so much experience of the problems of road users and highway authorities.
I fully appreciate the genuine alarm which some noble Lords who have spoken have expressed about the future of the roads, and more particularly about the effect of a low standard of road maintenance on road safety and the efficiency of transport. I hope that in the course of what I have to say I may be able to reassure them that the risk we are taking is not so serious as they may believe. If I fail to do so—I hope I shall not, but I may—time alone can show whether the Government's view or the view of the noble Lords is more closely in accord with the facts of the situation. I would reply to two points raised by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, before dealing with the broader issues. I am glad to be able to tell him that the ten-year road programme announced in May, 1946, has not been abandoned. It has only been postponed,

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like much other constructive work that has had to be put aside temporarily until we can use our resources for purposes of that kind. The noble Earl referred to the frost and flood damage done in the latter part of last winter. I understand that funds were made available to repair this damage.
I am sure that we all share the noble Earl's regret, and the regret expressed by all his supporters, that without having succeeded in making good the war-time arrears of road maintenance, we now find ourselves obliged to envisage the lowering of the present admittedly unsatisfactory standard instead of being able to look forward, as everyone had hoped, to raising the standard steadily and progressively to the pre-war level. This is part of the price we shall have to pay in order to fill the gap in our balance of overseas payments and to avert conditions that would otherwise lead to a more serious economic crisis than anything we have hitherto experienced. I think noble Lords appreciated the force of this general argument, although they may not have agreed about its specific application.
The noble Earl will have seen that in the White Paper on Capital Investment we point out that it has been necessary to reduce our adverse trade balance, at a moment when the American and Canadian Loans are becoming rapidly exhausted, by making a substantial reduction in capital investment at home. The object of this reduction is to release as much as possible of the man-power and materials now being used or about to be used for capital projects, for use in the industries serving the export drive, or for dollar-saving production at home. In view of the vital need to re-equip and modernize our basic industries—which everyone will admit—there are limits to the reductions which we can safely make in the investment programme for productive capital works. Although substantial cuts are to be made in many different types of capital investment, and all but the most essential and urgent projects have been postponed, these cuts alone will not be enough to balance our trade.
We cannot cut down capital investment in the plant and machines which basic industry requires to the point of risking serious damage to our prospect of economic recovery. Therefore, having
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come to the limit of our reduction in capital investment, some reduction has to be made on maintenance expenditure; and that, of course, is where noble Lords complain we are cutting too deeply. I am sure that your Lordships will have appreciated that we are making the largest cut in our programme for the roads in the construction of new roads—that is to say, in the capital investment on the improvement of the road system. And we have made it quite clear it will be possible to start or to complete only those road projects which are directly related to the most urgent of our immediate needs. Road schemes that make direct and substantial contributions to exports, or to the saving of imports, will continue to go forward; and we cannot postpone such projects as are needed for the maintenance of our essential communications. It is hoped to carry out a number of small schemes which will bring a big return in terms of road safety, and roads essential to give access to new buildings must also be kept in hand.
Let me give one or two specific cases, some of them not mentioned in the White Paper. For example, of the major schemes of road improvement in hand or in contemplation it is hoped to proceed with the diversion at Nevill's Cross in Durham, the I.C.I. diversion at Teeside and the cyclist and pedestrian tunnels for the new crossing of the Tyne at Jarrow. But such large-scale schemes as the new Severn Bridge, the Lower Thames tunnel between Dartford and Purfleet, the main traffic tunnel at Jarrow, the Great West Road extension, the Ashford By-Pass and many other schemes of the same kind, will have to be postponed until better times. But in spite of these drastic cuts in new road schemes—your Lordships will agree that they are drastic, but they are as far as we can go—we shall be obliged to make a considerable reduction in road maintenance. We realize the force of the arguments against doing this and I think they have been set out with considerable power by the noble Lords who have spoken. In our view, however, these arguments are outweighed by the more general economic considerations with which our economic recovery as a nation is bound up.
The state of the roads is comparatively good in this country—I am sure any noble Lord who has been abroad since

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the war will freely admit this—as compared with those of most other countries, and even during the war, when expenditure on road maintenance was substantially reduced, the reduction fell most heavily on new construction and improvements. Maintenance expenditure during the war hardly fell below 70 per cent. of the level it had reached in 1939. Moreover, most of the abnormal wear and tear caused by heavy war-time traffic has now been made good. Since the war the volume of road maintenance has been considerably increased, and money has been made available this year for the repair of damage caused by frost and floods last winter. It cannot be denied—and we should be the last to deny it—that the crust of some roads is wearing thin, but a close watch will be kept on the condition of such roads, and where roads that carry traffic essential to industry or agriculture show excessive wear, repairs will be carried out before deterioration has gone too far. Such repairs will not be affected by this reduction of expenditure on road maintenance.
The damage done to production by arrears to road maintenance is sometimes over-estimated. During periods when it has been necessary to reduce maintenance work, special care has been taken by the highway authorities to see that the roads were patched up to prevent cumulative and progressive deterioration, which, of course, in the long run would have resulted in breaking up the fabric and foundations of the roads. So long as this policy is followed, we believe that road maintenance can be reduced for a time without any adverse effect on production, and without increasing very considerably the eventual cost of raising the level of maintenance. It is not possible now to assess exactly what the minimum expenditure will be that such a policy will require, but we shall do our best to ensure that road maintenance nowhere runs down to the point where progressive deterioration begins.
I think it is clear from what I have said that if road maintenance were not allowed to slide for a time, far more harmful reductions would have to be made in other kinds of expenditure, involving labour and materials that might be diverted to increasing exports or saving imports. Moreover, reductions in road maintenance
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do not entail the danger to the public which might easily arise from curtailment of other maintenance work. For example, if railway maintenance were allowed to run down, there would be immediate danger to life and to vital communications. This reduction in road maintenance will release some valuable materials. It is intended also to make available about 20,000 road men for other work. It should be remembered that of some 90,000 of the men employed by highway authorities on road maintenance, about 51,000 are employed by county councils in rural areas. Many of these men have had agricultural experience and, therefore, will know quite a lot about the land, and they should be in a position to make a useful contribution to food production by taking up work on farms, or by work on rural housing. It will be possible for many of them to take up occupations of this kind without moving to other districts or leaving their homes.
We freely admit that it is not going to be possible to maintain all roads, by any means, in their present state of repair. It is true, as the noble Earl, Lord Howe, pointed out, that wear and tear on vehicles using these roads will be harder. But the effect on transport will not be so serious as might at first sight appear. It should not be forgotten that buses and lorries in service in this country are similar in type to those exported for use on far worse roads abroad, where they are acknowledged to give good service and to have excellent lasting qualities. Again, the deterioration in the condition of the roads will not be nearly so damaging to vehicles, or so productive of a demand for spare parts, as the increasing age of the vehicles themselves, which have still to be retained in service on account of the difficulty of replacing them by new ones. The supply of spare parts is a very real problem, particularly for older vehicles and types which have now gone out of production. The Ministries of Transport and Supply are aware of this difficulty and are doing their best to meet it.
The success of the new proposals for road maintenance on a reduced scale will depend on the willing co-operation of the highway authorities. We are aiming at a total saving in maintenance expenditure of a little more than £10,000,000 per annum. This will be a valuable contribution towards the £180,000,000 per

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annum by which the whole investment programme, capital and maintenance, is to be reduced. With the friendly co-operation of the highway authorities in a task which may be unpalatable to them, but which is undoubtedly one of the utmost public importance, I have no reason to believe that cither the roads or the traffic which uses them will suffer grievous harm in the interim period during which we are obliged to make this essential saving; and I am certain that, if they see this particular problem in a true perspective, and relate it to our economic difficulties as a whole, they will be just as anxious as anyone else to help us over this difficult period until better times enable us to spend more on our roads.
6.28 p.m.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, I can only thank the noble Earl very much for the carefully prepared speech which he has just delivered, a speech which I cannot help thinking must have been prepared long before he heard the arguments which were put forward by other noble Lords who have spoken on this Motion. The noble Earl did mention one or two points about which I should like to ask him questions. As to the frost damage, it is not so much a question of money as of the labour force. The roads have never had a chance to recover during the war, and they got caught last winter. Now it is not a question of money but of the reduction in the labour force. If you reduce the labour force from its present ultra low level, there is not a hope of getting the roads back into anything like proper condition; in fact, the deterioration is going to increase. I should like to ask the noble Earl whether the road authorities were consulted before it was decided to reduce the labour force by 20,000 men.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I am speaking on behalf of my right honourable friend, the Minister of Transport. Clearly, without reference to the Department, I cannot give a specific reply to a question put to me on the spur of the moment. I will gladly refer it back to the Minister.
EARL HOWE: I am grateful to the noble Earl for the assurance which he has given, because it really is an important point. The noble Earl said that the roads of this country were good as compared with foreign roads. During the last two
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years, I happen to have motored over practically the whole of Western Europe, except Germany, right down to Italy, and I am afraid I cannot altogether agree with the view which he expressed as a generalization. Some roads over here are better than the roads over there, and some roads over there are better than those over here. It depends upon which country you go to. I cannot altogether agree with the noble Earl on that point. The noble Earl in his reply seemed to decry all the arguments which have been put forward. It seemed to me that his speech was prepared before he had heard those arguments. I hope, from the point of view of seeing what is best to be done at a very difficult time, that the Minister will examine some of the points which have been brought forward.
The noble Earl could not have made the speech he has just made if he had been able to read through the report which I have in my hand. I shall not be able to read the whole of it—I only wish I could—but if I did I am sure that all noble Lords would realize how desperately serious the problem really is in certain areas, and particularly in the industrial areas of the North. That is where the bulk of the trouble will come first.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I can assure the noble Earl that I have read the resolution of the British Road Federation, if that is the document to which he refers. I have not read the whole of the statements accompanying it, I admit, because I received the report only this morning, but I have read the parts which were intended to back up the case.
EARL HOWE: If the noble Earl would like to have it I will hand it to him.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I have it here.
EARL HOWE: Having regard to what has been said, I cannot of course press the matter any further. But I can assure the noble Earl that we on this side of the House will watch how things go on—not with the idea of causing any obstruction or difficulty, but with great anxiety, because we feel that a mistake has been made. I lope the Minister will not close his eyes to possibilities, and that if it is found that what we have said is likely to come to pass, and that we are

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likely to have a collapse of the highway systems, he will take prompt and urgent action in the matter. Close watching is not enough. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (IMPROVEMENTS) BILL.
Reported from the Select Committee with amendments.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932.
Orders made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department extending Section 1 of the Act to the

County Borough of Rochdale;

County Borough of West Hartlepool;

Borough of Henley-on-Thames;

Borough of Ludlow;

Urban District of Clacton;

Urban District of Oadby:

Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution, and ordered to lie on the Table.

MANCHESTER GAS ORDER, 1947.
Report from the Special Orders Committee, That no Petitions have been
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presented praying to be heard against the Special Orders, and that there is nothing in these Orders to which they think it necessary to call the attention of the House: Read and ordered to lie on the Table.

ROCK BAY (CORNWALL) COAST PROTECTION ORDER, 1947.
Report from the Special Orders Committee, That no Petitions have been presented praying to be heard against the Special Orders, and that there is nothing in these Orders to which they think it necessary to call the attention of the House: read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
CLERGY PENSIONS MEASURE, 1948.
Text of the Measure: Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and to be printed.

ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE.
One-hundredth Report, being the Report by the Ecclesiastical Committee upon the Clergy Pensions Measure, 1948: Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and to be printed.
House adjourned at twenty-six minutes before seven o'clock.