Lords Sitting of 27 June 1950

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers

  THAMES CONSERVANCY BILL
  2.36 p.m.
  LORD BRABAZON OF TARA LORD BRABAZON OF TARA rose to move, That it be an instruction to the Select Committee to which the Bill may be referred to consider the advisability of including upon the Conservancy Board a representative of associations of persons owning boats for private use on the River Thames. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I do not in any way wish to delay the interesting debate that is to follow—namely, that on the Liberties of the Subject Bill, and I know that it is rather unusual to put down a Motion with regard to a Private Bill. But this Private Bill does refer to the River Thames, once described by the late John Burns as "liquid history"—though when one looks at the sometimes muddy constitution of the river perhaps the phrase does not seem quite so happy as was intended.
  The object of this Private Bill promoted by Thames Conservancy is to increase charges. We have no objection to that; in these days all charges are increasing. It also enables them to increase their charges a second time without going to Parliament. We understand in these days that that is a necessary form of machinery, otherwise we should continually be having Private Bills of this sort. To-day, I am speaking as the representative of private boat owners, who sent a deputation to see whether the Thames Conservancy would be agreeable to having on their Board a representative of private boat owners. They received us very courteously, but said that although the constitution of the Conservancy was recited in the Bill they did not want it in any way disturbed, because if it was disturbed by ourselves other people would also be trying to get representation. That was a very cogent reason. I now understand, however, that the status quo is not to be maintained, and that other people and other interests are asking for a
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  change in representation. That being so, the whole thing being in the melting pot, I am submitting this Motion to ask that the Committee shall consider the particular claim from the point of view of private boat owners. If the land drainage contribution is eliminated, boat owners at present contribute no less than 12 per cent. to the funds, and even if land drainage comes in it is over 5 per cent. Consequently, the boat owners are quite an important body.
  This Motion is not an instrument of a very rigid type. It is very mild, and says:
  "…to consider the advisability of including upon the Conservancy Board a representative of associations of persons owning boats for private use on the River Thames."
  I assure your Lordships that nobody has a greater affection for or would be more helpful to the Thames Conservancy than private owners. This Motion is not moved in any spirit of animosity—far from it; all we want is to see whether we can get the justice that we think is our due. I beg to move.
  Moved, That it be an instruction to the Select Committee to which the Bill may be referred, to consider the advisability of including upon the Conservancy Board a representative of associations of persons owning boats for private use on the River Thames.—(Lord Brabazon of Tara.)
  2.40 p.m.
  LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I think it is particularly fitting that the noble Lord should bring up his Motion at this moment, because next week at Henley-on-Thames there takes place the greatest annual gathering of another fraternity of boating enthusiasts. I think the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, had particularly in mind the owners of mechanically propelled craft, but I refer, of course, to the owners of those craft who spurn his mechanical aids to propulsion and use their own brute force. As a rowing enthusiast myself, I would ask your Lordships to agree that that fraternity, if on account of its numbers alone, which are growing every day, is also entitled to a considerable representation on the Thames Conservancy. I believe I am right in saying that the Amateur Rowing Association, to whom belong the great majority of rowing clubs on the River Thames, are in fact well content with their present relations with the Thames Conservancy, and that they are given

  1037
  every possible assistance in the holding of such events as Henley Regatta and the other lesser regattas on the river. I do not think they would willingly seek for any alteration in these relations, but I should like to suggest that if any consideration is given to actual representation for the owners of private boats on the river, then that representation should include a voice from the rowing fraternity.
  There is only one thing that struck me as slightly strange, in the clause in the Bill referring to such representation. Clause 3 says that one of the members to be appointed by the Minister of Transport shall be appointed after consultation with the associations of persons having recreational interest in the use of the river. I must say that it never occurred to me, when bathing in or boating on the River Thames, that I was doing so under the ægis of the Minister of Transport and of his colleague on the Bench opposite. I should have thought that if those recreations were to be subject to ministerial supervision of any sort, that supervision might more aptly have come from the Minister of Health. However, we are probably in safer hands as we are, so I raise no objection on that score.
  2.43 p.m.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH): My Lords, I am sure your Lordships in all parts of the House have listened with great interest to the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord Brabazon and Lord Polwarth. I feel that the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, has excited in your Lordships a great deal of sympathy for the case he has put forward—that there should be representation upon the Thames Conservancy Board of associations of persons owning boats for private use on the River Thames. On behalf of His Majesty's Government, I support the plea which the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara has made—and I do so for these reasons. First of all, it is a matter of great satisfaction to His Majesty's Government—a satisfaction which, I am sure, will be shared by all your Lordships—that this great national waterway, the Thames, is being increasingly used by the citizens for recreational purposes in their own private craft. The number of private registered boats of all
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  sorts—including not only motor-boats but sailing boats, dinghies and rowing boats generally—is over 8,500. Secondly, since those who ply their trade for commercial purposes upon the Thames—those having barge and transport irterests, boat-building interests and boat-letting interests—are all directly represented upon the Thames Conservancy Board, we think it proper that representation should be given to the private boat owner. Thirdly, although appointments to the Thames Conservancy Board are not necessarily related to revenue, the Board at the present time obtain front the private boat owners a revenue of about £25,000 a year, and, as Lord Brabazon of Tara has intimated, under this Bill that will be increased to £30,000 a year.
  I feel certain that the reasons which I have given to your Lordships are very pertinent. That is why His Majesty's Government support the plea of the noble Lord. In asking your Lordships to approve the Motion I think you will appreciate that there are many practical difficulties in the way of the associations of private boat owners appointing an extra conservator on their own initiative. I would suggest—and I hope that your Lordships will agree—that the best way of implementing the intention of Lord Brabazon is to empower my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport to appoint an additional conservator after consultation with such associations of owners of boats used for private purposes as he may think fit. My right honourable friend already has power under the Bill to appoint three conservators.
  If I may, I would now reply to the point which was made by Lord Polwarth. I can tell him that under Clause 6 of the Bill my right honourable friend appoints three conservators. It is provided that one of these shall be appointed after consultations with persons and associations concerned in the use of the Thames for recreational purposes. I can only consider rowing as including in such purposes because, as the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, has rightly said, that involves the expenditure of (to use the noble Lord's own language) a certain amount of brute force. The persons and associations to be consulted by my right honourable friend in that appointment are five bodies re-

  1039
  presenting fishing interests, two representing rowing interests, and one concerned with the preservation of open spaces. So it will be seen that, while rowing interests are represented, at present boat owners in a private capacity are not. As my right honourable friend has this right of appointment after consultation, precedent will be followed if the Select Committee to whom this Bill will be referred follow the same procedure in the appointment of this extra conservator. I suggest that that is the best way of achieving what is desired.
  I think it right to point out to your Lordships that if this Bill were amended as the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, desires, and in the manner I have proposed, the Bill as drafted would not allow this extra conservator to take up his duties until 1952. I feel certain, however, that the Select Committee will give very careful consideration to the advisability of allowing the extra conservator, if appointed, to take up his duties at an earlier date than 1952. Perhaps I should add that the main object of the Bill, as Lord Brabazon of Tara has said, is to enable the Thames Conservancy Board to obtain more revenue. In this it has the full support of His Majesty's Government. It is, I think, obvious that this important body, with its great responsibilities, should have the revenue which it needs for the conservation of the river. The state of the Board's finances has been very carefully investigated by the various Government Departments concerned, and the need for additional income has been fully demonstrated. There is just one other point. As the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, has indicated, the Bill as drafted did not set out to amend the constitution of the Board, but I think the case made for representation of private boat owners is so strong that I trust your Lordships' House will approve the Motion, and that the Select Committee will give sympathetic consideration to the instruction which it contains.
  LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: My Lords, as a humble member of the Opposition, I find it is not often, when one moves a Motion, that one has it accepted by the Government. I am therefore very agreeably astonished at the sympathetic way in which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has received my suggestion. I agree with
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  the noble Lord, even though I did not think ahead with him as to the difficulties about the date and other matters which might ensue. His suggestion about the appointment of this additional conservator is entirely agreeable to us, and I thank the noble Lord for his kindness in this matter.
  On Question, Motion agreed to and ordered accordingly.

  ARBITRATION BILL [H.L.]
  2.50 p.m.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT JOWITT): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to consolidate the Arbitration Acts, 1889 to 1934; and to move that the Bill be now read a first time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read la;.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Bill read la;; and to be printed.

  LONDON AIRPORT BUILDINGS
  2.51 p.m.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
  [The Question was as follows:
  To ask His Majesty's Government when an announcement may be expected about the arrangements for the proposed open competition for the design of the Terminal Buildings at London Airport.]
  THE MINISTER OF CIVIL AVIATION (LORD PAKENHAM): My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Viscount for giving me an opportunity to make a statement about this matter. When my predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Winster, announced that he proposed to throw open the final design of the Terminal Building at London Airport to public competition, it was the intention to build temporary buildings on the terminal site in the first place and later to replace these by permanent construction. It is now clear that pressure on space in the central area will be too great to allow this transitional plan to be carried out, and I therefore propose that the Terminal Building shall be in permanent construction from the start. The final requirements for the terminal

  1041
  area have become settled only after a considerable period of development, in the course of which it has become clear that the work is not an appropriate subject for open competition. After consultation with Mr. Graham Dawbarn, who was to have been assessor for the competition, and with the appropriate authorities, I now propose to appoint as architect for the permanent building Mr. Frederick Gibberd, who since October, 1948, has been consulting architect for the interim scheme and has already acquired during its planning stage a considerable experience of the problems generated by the complex and functional layout of a great modern international airport. I thought it right to place this matter before the House in view of the earlier statement made to your Lordships.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord for his statement. I can well understand that in a highly technical matter of this kind it is important to secure the best and most experienced technical expert we can, and that it would not be a wholly suitable subject for competition among architects at large. While I appreciate that, it is important that the buildings should be as agreeable in their aspect as possible in addition to being as convenient as possible, and I should like to be sure that due attention is being paid to that side of the matter.
  LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for his remarks, and assure him that great attention is being paid to the point he has mentioned.

  PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (HARTLEPOOL) BILL
  Brought from the Commons; read la; and referred to the Examiners.

  LIBERTIES OF THE SUBJECT BILL [H.L.]
  2.54 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, the Bill which I have the honour to submit for Second Reading consists of twelve operative clauses which deal with twelve different matters, but they are all con-
  1042
  nected because they embody a single principle, the vindication of the liberties of the subject. If anyone were disposed to criticise a Bill so constructed I could offer quite respectable precedents in the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights. During the last thirty or forty years, imperceptibly, almost unconsciously, here a little and there a little, there have been encroachments upon that great and precious heritage. Only yesterday I had the pleasure of listening to an interesting oration by a distinguished American statesman, Mr. John W. Davis, who years ago had been Ambassador in London, and in the course of his speech he greatly moved his audience by referring to those liberties which were the foundation of the American way of life. He said of these—supremacy of elected assemblies, the rule of law, trial by jury, habeas corpus, freedom of the Press—that not a syllable in any of.them but was drawn from the old law and custom of Britain. I do not suggest to-day that we have lost, or are in danger of losing, those liberties, but I do suggest that they have been again and again impaired, that that process is still continuing, and that it needs to be stopped and reversed.
  For this tendency there have been two causes, springing front the two principal events of the first half of the Twentieth Century. One of them has been the two world wars, which brought upon the State many problems of instant urgency, calling to be dealt with without a moment's delay and resulting in the slow procedure of normal legislation having to be brushed aside and almost dictatorial powers conferred, upon the Government of the day. Short Statutes were passed by the assent of Parliament, sometimes through all stages in a single day, conferring immense powers upon the Ministers to make rules and regulations on all manner of subjects which every citizen, under penalties of fine and imprisonment, was obliged to obey. Even now, after the peace, or semi-peace, of the last five years, not all these liberties have been restored, and there is danger that some of these restrictions may be allowed unnecessarily to slip into our permanent system of government.
  The second great event of the present century has been the rapid growth in State action. Laissez faire as a universal principle is no longer supported by any

  1043
  Party in the State, and all have realised that often it may be necessary to have more law in order to secure greater liberty. Much social and economic legislation has been passed, after a time perhaps by general agreement and with general support. And it is realised that measures which were needed must be allowed to work to be effective. Therefore, Bills must be passed without too much delay, and the power conferred must be adequate to prevent evasion by interested parties. We realise that democracy must not only be free government but must also be effective government. Those were wise words said by Alexander Hamilton:
  "In a government framed for durable liberty not less regard must be paid to giving the magistrate a proper degree of authority to make and execute the laws with rigour than to guard against encroachments upon the rights of the community; as too much power leads to despotism, too little leads to anarchy, and both eventually to the ruin of the people."
  Democrats must learn that adequate power to make and enforce the laws must be granted to democratic Governments if they are to be efficient for their purpose. We have to learn by the events of the first half of this Twentieth Century. We have seen democracy fall in many countries—Germany, Italy and Spain, for example. In others—for instance, Greece and sometimes in France—it remains precarious, because quarrels between the democratic Parties mean ineffective government, necessary tasks left undone, and peoples left to suffer.
  Therefore, I am not one of those who believe that we can sweep away at a stroke all the delegated legislation, and expect that Parliament should pay attention to even the minutest details of administration. That would mean the choking of our Legislature and the inefficiency of our Government. It has been the wise practice sometimes to devolve power upon local authorities—who are themselves elected by and responsible to the people, and make great codes of by-laws—and sometimes to authorise the Government to draft Orders-in-Council or to make departmental regulations. The powers must be divided, as has always been recognised by every constitutional theorist, between the legislative, the executive and the judicial; and the distribution of those
  1044
  powers may need reconsideration and adjustment from time to time.
  The consequence of these two great changes, first the impact upon the world of war conditions, and secondly the largely extended activities of the State, has been an increase in the number of those encroachments to which attention was drawn nearly twenty years ago by the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Hewart, in his book The New Despotism. Following upon the publication of that book, the Lord Chancellor of that day, Lord Sankey, appointed a Committee on Ministers' Powers, who reported in 1932. The Chairman of that Committee was first Lord Donoughmore, and afterwards Sir Leslie Scott, whose recent death we greatly deplore. It is the publication of these Reports, and the general current of public opinion, which is becoming sensitive and alarmed at these encroachments, that have led to the introduction of this Bill.
  Three years ago a similar Bill, with some differences, was introduced in this House by my noble friend Lord Reading. When introducing that Bill he used these words:
  "I claim no personal credit for this Bill. I introducing it to your Lordships, I am acting merely as the mouthpiece of the liberal Party, by whom it has been conceived, prepared and sponsored."
  Lord Reading having, unhappily, left us, I do not think that I should plead guilty to having kidnapped his infant Bill, but rather that he should face a charge of desertion. Nor do I desire to claim any monopoly for the Liberal Party in devotion to liberty, or in anxiety to enact the principles of this Bill. Mr. Churchill said at a great meeting a few weeks ago that he was "much encouraged by the Bill embodying individual rights which the Liberal Party had sponsored and had introduced in the House of Lords." It might at first sight appear that this was one of those blandishments of which we have been the gratified but coy and wary objects since the General Election. But that is clearly not the case, because this Bill was introduced in 1947, before the Election, and was at that time supported by noble Lords on the Opposition Front Bench, and by their votes and those of their followers in the Division Lobby. As to the position of the Government, the Lord Chancellor, in speaking on that Bill, said that of course he approved the

  1045
  general principles as unexceptionable, though I believe that he took exception to all the clauses one by one.
  The Lord Chancellor himself has done much to promote this movement towards the restoration of the liberties of the subject, for it was he who was responsible in 1947 for the Crown Proceedings Act, that great Statute of fifty sections which fully vindicates the rights of the subject in litigation against the Crown. That and other Statutes will make his tenure of office as Lord Chancellor noteworthy in the history of English law. I hope that he will add to his renown by taking the present Bill under his patronage and by co-operating in shaping it, redeeming it from the faults which no doubt it possesses and in curbing any undue ambitions which he may find in it, so smoothing its way to the Statute Book.
  For my own part, being anxious to gain general assent to this Bill and to ease its passage, I have omitted two clauses included in the former Bill which evidently gave rise to keen controversy in debate. One was the then Clause 12 which dealt with the highly controversial subject of the closed shop. Those opposed to that clause may well have been justified in voting against the Second Reading of the Bill, as it was a matter of such great importance and high controversy. As my noble and learned friend Lord Simon said:
  "That clause stands rather apart from the rest of the Bill."
  Indeed, it must be admitted that the matter of the closed shop should be dealt with (if at all) as part of trade union legislation, or in a separate Bill. Clause 10 in the previous Bill, dealing with the Assistance Board, has also been omitted from the present Bill. The late Lord Rushcliffe spoke in the debate on the former Bill, and took strong exception to that clause. Other members of your Lordships' House also showed that they disapproved of it. Therefore, in order that this Bill may be made as non-controversial as possible, that matter has been left out. On the other hand, we have inserted two new clauses in this Bill, Clauses 10 and 11, which have arisen out of experience gained since 1947.
  I trust that if the Bill passes Second Reading and goes to Committee we may enjoy the co-operation of all members of your Lordships' House, and particularly
  1046
  of my noble and learned friends Lord Reading and Lord Simon, in redrafting any clause which may be found imperfect. A highly technical Bill of this character is most difficult to draft, and ought properly to be prepared by the Government draftsman. I need hardly say that if the Lord Chancellor would co-operate by putting the Government draftsman at our disposal, as is sometimes done in regard to Bills that are intended to be non-controversial and have general assent, no one would welcome that more than we should. Such a spirit of accommodation would certainly be shown by the promoters of the Bill, and particularly by myself—it might even extend to absolute subservience if only we could get the Bill through as a measure passed by the whole House as a result of its cornbined wisdom.
  It is my duty to give a brief explanation of the clauses. It will be brief, because, after an experience of generations, we have learned, both in this House and in the other House, that we cannot expect to do everything at once. We divide our procedure into stages: certain thins are proper for the Second Reading, and others are properly relegated to the Committee or the Report stages. To-day I shall not attempt to present a full argument in favour of each clause, but will give merely the gist of it and the main reasons for promoting it, although I shall feel obliged in a number of cases to say a few words in reply to the observations of the Lord Chancellor in the previous debate, since there was no opportunity for reply on that occasion. However, I shall do my best not to plunge into a mass of technical detail.
  Clause 1, which is perhaps the most important clause of the Bill, deals with the control of Parliament over delegated legislation. As your Lordships are aware, when regulations or other statutory instruments are laid before your Lordships' House, they can be either rejected or approved. There is no intermediate course; they can never be amended. It is the same in the other House. Therefore your Lordships may frequently be placed in a great dilemma, especially at a time of national emergency, when all of a hurry great powers have to be conferred upon the Administration of the day. Among those powers there might be one to which strong objec-

  1047
  tion is taken, and properly taken. For example, there might be included the power to establish industrial conscription, and for the allocation of labour over the whole country, in all trades and occupations. In those circumstances, this House and the other House would be slow to reject the whole body of regulations, because to do so might imperil the State. On the other hand they would be slow to pass that particular regulation. Consequently, it has been felt by many Parliamentarians for a long time past that there ought to be a power to amend, and that we should not merely have to submit to a dilemma, both horns of which might be dangerous, either to accept or to reject.
  The Lord Chancellor objected to this course, saying that the clause was unnecessarily wide and that it brought in certain classes of regulations which need not have been brought in. Consequently, in this Bill, in order to narrow the limits of discussion, we have not made the clause applicable to "any Act," covering a great number of instances in the past history of this country, but only to the Supplies and Services Acts, 1945 and 1947. There, especially in the latter measure, enormous powers were conferred upon the Government. They can make any regulations

  "(a) for promoting productivity of industry, commerce and agriculture;

  (b) for fostering and directing exports and reducing imports, or imports of any classes, from all or any countries, and for redressing the balance of trade;

  (c) generally"—

  your Lordships will mark these words—
  "for ensuring that the whole resources of the community are available for use, and are used in a manner best calculated to serve the interests of the community."
  It is impossible to imagine a wider range of powers than those that have been thereby conferred.
  The proposal which is embodied in this Bill is already the law of the land in regard to one particular Statute—namely, the Government of India Act. 1935, Section 475, which declares that when a draft order has been laid before Parliament an Address may be presented to His Majesty by both Houses of Parliament—these are the words:
  "praying that the Order may be made either in the form of the draft, or with such amendments as both Houses of Parliament may have agreed to."
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  That being now the law of the land—although I believe there has never been occasion to act upon that particular provision—the proposal in this Bill cannot be brushed aside as being merely impracticable or quite unnecessary. The Lord Chancellor said that the real difficulty was how this right to be given to both Houses of Parliament concurrently, could be made to work, supposing that one House took one course and the other House took the other course. He indicated that the wit of man had found it impossible to overcome that difficulty. But we overcome it every day in the case of Bills, and whenever one House introduces an amendment to which the other House disagrees, there may be conferences between the two. One or other then gives way, or a compromise is agreed to, and in the last resort each House has to make up its own mind whether by insisting it will lose the whole Bill or by giving way it will enable the Bill to pass into law. Precisely the same procedure should be adopted if it is desired to discover a method for putting into operation this proposed provision.
  As to this suggestion being unreasonable and impracticable, I would draw the Lord Chancellor's attention to a statement made in the other House in 1934 by Mr. Attlee, the present Prime Minister, when he was Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. He said on this very matter:
  "I think the system has grown and has got steadily worse; one recognises, in the complicated legislation of the present time, that there must be a means of making Orders applying detailed regulations, but they should come in a form in which the House can amend them."
  He went on to say:
  "This House should have the opportunity, either on the floor of the House or through Committees, of thoroughly examining regulations in draft and amending them."
  If the Lord Chancellor again roundly condemns the whole suggestion he will be saying that his present Leader—and then a very responsible one in a very responsible position in the other House—was making a recommendation which was unreasonable or impracticable.
  Clause 2 deals with powers to make regulations under a new Act—powers which are embodied in several Statutes—including power to adapt requirements of previous Statutes on the same subject to fit in with the new Act. That has usually been done by Parliament, with full

  1049
  agreement on all sides, mainly for the adjustment of administrative details. Some new voluminous Statute, very complicated, is brought in to amend a large number of previous Statutes, and then regulations are authorised to fit the procedure of the one into the procedure of the others. But the point is that sometimes these Statutes exclude the jurisdiction of the courts on the issue whether a regulation is itself lawful—not whether a regulation is desirable or not, but whether the regulation does in fact conform to the provisions of the Statute. That is the only point which is dealt with in this clause of the Bill.
  The Committee on Ministers' Powers, to which I have referred, said that this practice should be abandoned in all but the most exceptional cases, and then a period of challenge of at least three months and preferably six months should be allowed; that is to say, that within that period the validity, the legality, of the regulation might be challenged in a court of law as being ultra vires. That is a clear recommendation of that Committee, which was appointed to examine precisely into these subjects and consisted of seventeen members of a very representative and authoritative character—Members of both Houses, civil servants, members of the legal profession, including respected members of the Labour Party, Miss Ellen Wilkinson, Professor Harold Laski and Mr. Robert Richards—and all its recommendations were unanimous. I submit that when a Committee of that kind makes unanimous recommendations, Parliament should regard the burden of proof as lying on those who would reject them, and not on those who would accept them. When a representative Committee is appointed and it makes recommendations, you have to give reasons why you should not accept them and not reasons why you should. Since,prima facie, that regulation is reasonable I submit to the Lord Chancellor that when he demurs from it he should give convincing reasons why he should do so.
  Clause 3 deals with Statutes which allow Ministers to alter the provisions to the Statute itself and modify other Statutes as well. That is a very strong power to give to a Minister—that he is authorised to say that what hitherto has been the law of the land, enacted by Parliament, is to be altered without the
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  specific assent of Parliament to such amendment, and that he can alter even the new provisions of Statute itself. Here again, the Committee to which I have referred roundly condemned that practice. It said that (a) it should never be used except for the sole purpose of bringing an Act into operation; and (b) that it should be subject to a time limit of one year from the passing of the Act. That recommendation has not been acted on and eighteen years have elapsed since then. Of course it would be absurd now to pass an Act laying down that this should apply for one year after the passage of each of the Acts to which it applies. Therefore we insert this clause in this Bill to say such powers should lapse one year after the passage of the present Bill.
  Clause 4, again, embodies a recommendation of the Committee. Many Statutes authorise Ministers to appoint tribunals, and sometimes these tribunals are called upon to decide points of law, as well as matters lying within the discretion of the Minister, without any appeal to the High Court. This clause proposes that an appeal to the High Court should be authorised in all such cases. That is another recommendation of the Committee. The Lord Chancellor gave no reason against the proposal except that it would give a great deal of trouble and that it had been done once by Parliament in connection with ex-Service men, necessitating the review of a large number of cases already decided amongst ex-Service men. But it was quite right that those cases should have been reopened; and certain test cases having been brought and decided against the Minister, great numbers of disabled soldiers secured pensions. There may be many other such cases—not of ex-Service men but of injured workmen who have suffered disability through their employment and who have been wrongly deprived of their pensions through misinterpretation or maladministration of the law. It is surely desirable that that injustice should be remedied.
  Clause 5 deals with a widespread grievance. Many Statutes have provided that local public inquiries should be held in certain matters, and those inquiries are usually presided over by a lawyer of high status or by some senior official of the Department concerned. Evidence may be taken and counsel heard; there

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  are, perhaps, several days of inquiry and a report is drawn up by whoever presides over it. But such reports need not be published and the recommendations need not be acted upon. The parties concerned, who have taken all this trouble to present their case, may never know whether the judgment has been given in their favour or against them; or, if the decision is not acted upon, what the reasons have been. It is, again, a recommendation of this authoritative committee that such reports should be published, and that when the Minister dissents from the recommendation of an inquiry he should give reasons for his decision. The Lord Chancellor, in taking exception to this clause also, said that it did not precisely conform to the recommendation of the Committee but depended in some degree on the definition of "quasi-judicial." Surely that is a matter of drafting: the question is whether the principle is right.
  Clause 6 deals with food control regulations and the right of inspectors of the Department concerned to enter premises in search of goods which are not being handled in accordance with the regulations. Judging from the cuttings I have received from the Press, their observations on this part of the Bill are more numerous than on any other. The Bill is regarded as an "anti-snoopers" Bill—to quote the headlines I have seen. These observations refer to the general power of entering without specific authority which is possessed by these inspectors, who are extremely numerous. This is resented by the population at large. We ask that the same kind of authority should be needed in this case as that which is required by the police when they are making searches. The Englishman's house is still immune from arbitrary entry by the police; they have to go to a magistrate and get a search warrant. These officials are under no such obligation and no equivalent obligation to produce an authority from a high official of their Department. The Lord Chancellor said in this connection that he did not know whether an affidavit would be required. The police do not have to present an affidavit and, similarly, it is not suggested that an affidavit should be required in these instances; but what is necessary for the police, who are enforcing the regulations of criminal law, should
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  surely be necessary also for the lesser right of entry in connection with a search for possible infractions of the food Acts.
  Clause 7 deals with a different kind of point. Your Lordships may remember that during the fuel crisis of two or three years ago, restrictions on the use of power were enforced. Many industries were affected, including the printing presses. No regulation was made, but the Government ordered as part of their proceedings that certain periodicals, which they regarded as unessential, should stop publication altogether. This included certain weeklies, for example the religious weeklies. This was not done by any regulation, though it could have been done under regulation had the Government so desired. But the Press obeyed the instructions of the Government without inquiring into their legality, and the stopping of the publication of these papers was greatly resented. When the Supplies and Services (Amendment) Bill was introduced not long afterwards no provision appeared in it in regard to this matter, and one of my right honourable friends in the other place moved an Amendment to make any such action illegal. That was debated by Parliament and the principle was embodied in the Bill; but it does not apply to the original Act. This clause, which we suggest is a very reasonable one, would cause it to be so applied.
  Clause 8 deals with breaches of marketing schemes. It is too technical a matter to go into in detail but the purpose of the clause is clearly set out and its terms made clear in the accompanying memorandum. The Agricultural Act of 1949 retains powers to inflict penalties which are in future to be exercised by a discliplinary committee. That is certainly an improvement. The present Acts give wide powers to non-judicial bodies to impose penalties; but we suggest that there is no reason why the ordinary magistrates' courts should not find a person guilty of an offence—if he is in fact guilty—and should not themselves apply penalties, as they are empowered to do in all the other multifarious regulations which affect (or, as some would say, afflict) our lives. That is the kind of matter which could probably be threshed out in Committee.
  Clause 9 deals with the disabilities of litigants when they are proceeding against public authorities. Anyone who brings

  1053
  a suit against a public authority, or certain public authorities, is subjected to a number of disabilities from which he would be free if the other party were a private individual. This has been dealt with by another Committee, the Committee on Limitation of Actions, presided over by Lord Justice Tucker. Their Report was published in 1949, since your Lordships' last debate on this subject. Here again, that Committee were unanimous that there is no justification for the discrimination now made, and that it ought to be altered. Some question arises as to what should be the period in which certain proceedings have to be taken. That is not a matter for this Bill, but a general matter which should be decided elsewhere. This Bill, however, can lay down the principle and not leave the matter over, perhaps for twenty years, as has been the case with the recommendations of the Donoughmore Committee.
  Clause 10 is new. It deals with the very difficult question of a proper Parliamentary control over nationalised industries. There must be sufficient control to prevent industries from being irresponsible and abuse arising. On the other hand, one does not want so much control as to interfere in the day-to-day administration of those industries. When an industry has been nationalised, that having been deliberately done by Parliament and it being the law of the land, the industry ought to be given an even chance to make its administration efficient and successful; it should not be subjected to all kinds of red-tape regulations from which private enterprise is free. To hold the balance even between those two considerations is a matter of difficulty. The course that we propose here is that which has been already adopted by Parliament in one of the earlier nationalised or socialised industries—the Port of London Act, 1908, which gives power for people who consider that they have been treated unjustly by the employing body to invoke assistance from higher authority. We suggest that that might be done quite generally in the nationalised industries.
  Clause 11 is also new and is the result of an incident which has taken place comparatively recently, when a very important business firm of retail traders made a regulation that no one who was either a Communist or a Fascist should be admitted to their employment. We may strongly disapprove of Communists or Fascists, but we may also disapprove of
  1054
  such Communist or Fascist principles as that of making people's employment dependent upon their conformity to the predominant opinions of the country. If it is contrary to public policy that such a condition should be imposed, the making of the condition ought to be prohibited by Parliament, just as in the making of wills or bequests a person who has been excluded from a bequest, or upon whom certain conditions have been imposed, may apply to the courts that it should be held invalid as being against public policy. In the case of employment, that course could not be followed without special statutory provision, and in this Bill we make that provision.
  Exceptions have to be made, and exceptions are made in the Bill. If, for example, the Catholic community have some institution and desire that Catholics should be employed in it, that would be quite proper and would be covered by this Bill. Similarly, the headquarters of the Socialist Party might be at liberty to exclude any person who would otherwise have secured employment, on the ground that he was a vehement and active opponent of their Party. Those special cases have to be met. I understand that some objection will be taken to the actual wording of this clause, on the ground that it does not sufficiently permit the religious organisations to employ in their own institutions persons of their own faiths. I need hardly say that we should be very ready to accept any reasonable Amendment in that respect.
  Clause 12—and your Lordships will no doubt be relieved to hear that this is the last clause that I shall mention—deals with habeas corpus. The point was fully debated by both Houses at the time when the Visiting Forces Act was introduced. It says that visiting forces in this country, whether from the Dominions or from other countries, established here for strategic reasons shall be exempt from the law of the land and subject to their own military law, and that there shall be no right to sue for a writ of habeas corpus. Again, I do not wish to enter into the pros and cons of this particular argument, but I do urge that it is a matter that is prima facie well worthy of the consideration of your Lordships' House. That is all the more so since the view expressed in this clause of the Bill was ardently supported in another place

  1055
  by Sir Stafford Cripps when the matter first came before Parliament in 1933. He said that it was a matter of the most profound importance and he moved an Amendment in the very terms of this clause of this Bill. I had forgotten the circumstances myself, but on looking up the debate I found that I had the pleasure of seconding that Amendment, in a very eloquent and convincing speech! Moreover, Lord Buckmaster and many other high legal authorities have held the same view. I would venture to urge the Lord Chancellor that he should not dismiss this proposal out of hand, but should give it further consideration and, above all, should not deny the Bill as a whole admission to a Committee. I may mention that this particular suspension of habeas corpus applies now to the Polish Resettlement Corps which has been established in this country.
  Those are the clauses of the Bill and I have endeavoured to deal with them in as concise a manner as was compatible with comprehensibility. The main question now before your Lordships, I submit, is not the propriety, and still less the wording, of any one of these twelve clauses, but whether this Bill should go to a Committee for further examination or whether your Lordships should now throw it out as being a bad or an unncessary Bill, there not being even a prima facie case for the consideration of all these matters. As I said in my opening observations, I earnestly hope that this Bill will receive a tolerant and sympathetic consideration from the whole of this House and, indeed, from Parliament as a whole. We would not venture for a moment to prescribe or even to suggest a procedure for another place in any of their own affairs. We have drafted these clauses with a view to our own procedure, and as a basis for discussion in another place, in their own way, in so far as they feel disposed to examine this matter. Therefore, I hope that both Houses and all Parties, lawyers as well as laymen, will by general assent agree to pass this Bill. I feel sure that, if they do so, such action will be most welcome to the public opinion of the nation at large. It is in that spirit that I beg to move the Second Reading.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a;.—(Viscount Samuel.)
  3.39 p.m.
  LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, I am glad to be able to give my support to the general principle underlying this Bill. I should like to say how grateful the whole House must be to the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, for the full explanation which he has given us of this measure. It was accompanied by certain blandishments and I must say, whatever the attitude of the Liberal Party, that I thought I detected that the Lord Chancellor was looking a little coy and wary when the blandishments were made to him.
  On Second Reading we should be discussing, and, if necessary, voting upon, the general principle underlying a Bill. It is only right for me to say that there are certain clauses in this Bill—I will not mention more than one of them—which I, at any rate at the present moment, could not support. I will refer only to Clause 12, which says in effect that habeas corpus proceedings can be taken in respect of Dominion troops or persons of that sort when stationed in this country. The reason why I am against that clause is very simple—namely, that it seems to me that one cannot lightly break an agreement come to at an imperial Conference. The Governments of the Dominions must certainly be consulted first. It is true that in present circumstances no one sitting on this side of the House has the right or opportunity of consulting the Governments of the Dominions. This clause has raised an important point, and it was raised as far back as May, 1947, when the Bill was previously before the House. It would be interesting to know from some Government spokesmen whether the Government have in the meantime made any inquiries of the Dominions upon this matter.
  The last time this Bill was before us we had a brilliant introductory speech from the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, whom I am glad to see sitting among us now. I do not think it will be found that he has deserted the Bill. I would not call his recent action desertion of the Liberal Party, but rather a wise exercise by the noble Marquess of that liberty and freedom of expression which is the whole object of the Bill before your Lordships' House at the present time. I have referred to the point about

  1057
  Clause 12, mainly to ask whether the Government, since this Bill was originally introduced into this House in 1947, have looked into the various points which it raises. Three years ago the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack said of the similar Bill that as a manifesto he could support it but as a Bill he could not, and it was not wise to put a manifesto into a Bill. That seems to me to bring us straight up against one of the most difficult things in life—it is, no doubt, an expression often used by marry of your Lordships in the Prayer of General Thanksgiving—namely, that those things to which we Rive service with our lips we should practise in our lives. I would suggest to the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack that it is no good giving merely lip service to freedom and saying you will support it in a manifesto, if there is to be no action to see that our freedoms are restored to us. Bearing in mind the wisdom of that course, I hope that the noble and learned Viscount will be able to give the Bill more active support this afternoon.
  I do not wish to go into great detail in regard to the various clauses of this measure; that has already been done by the noble Viscount who introduced the Bill. May T. however, say a word about Clause I? I do not see that it is beyond the wit of man to establish some procedure whereby each House may suggest amendments to Orders-in-Council without there being any great degree of Parliamentary obstruction. Not very long ago we had a case of a regulation put forward under the Town and Country Planning Act. I believe that that regulation would not come under Clause I of the Bill as at present drawn, but there was considerable agitation in regard to it in both Houses, and I moved a Prayer in this House to negative it. It is true, also, that the Minister withdrew it because of the representations made to him in both Houses, and, I believe, privately by local authorities. The position, however, is that the only way in which we could deal with that regulation was to pray against the whole Order. It was quite an extensive Order and we wanted an alteration in regard to only one particular point. Similar instances can be quoted, but I give that one because it is
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  very much in my mind, as I moved the Prayer in your Lordships' House.
  As I say, it does not seem to me to be beyond the wit of man to arrange some procedure whereby these genuine points could be raised and an amendment made by either House of Parliament, the Order being passed back to the other Howe to see whether they agreed with the amendment or not. Knowing your Lordships' House, as I have now for five years, I do not think there need be any fear of frivolous points or Obstruction of other kind being taken on those Orders. Of course, it is wrong for me to criticise another place, but I was once there, and I know that sometime; when one wanted to prevent other measures being brought in, one could put down a large number of Amendments to measures to which one had not a great dear: of objection. But I think that difficulty could be overcome. It would' e for the House of Commons to work out in what way it could be overcome, so that only really substantial points in Orders-in-Council would have to be dealt with as at present.
  I wish now to pass to Clause 4. I think that in regard to points of law there should always be an appeal to the courts from any of these judicial or quasi-judicial tribunals. We have now a number of these tribunals. Speaking on December 15, 1948, in another place, the Attorney-General said that he thought there were about a hundred of them. It certainly seems to me that where the tribunals, which are by no means ail stalled with experienced lawyers, go wrong on a point of law, they ought to be subject to correction, as indeed judges of the lower courts are by Judicial Members of this House, by members of the Court of Appeal or by members of the Court of Criminal Appeal. Lord Justice Denning put this problem quite clearly, I think, in the Hamlyn Lecture for 1949 when he said:
  "In many of the cases which come before the tribunals you will find that the Government Department or the local authority concerned has already come to a conclusion on it adverse to the individual. A soldier will have had his claim for a pension rejected by the Minster of Pensions, an injured workman will have had his claim for industrial benefit rejected by the Insurance Officer, the Agricultural Executive Committee will have formed the view that the farmer is not farming his land properly, the Medical Executive Council will have thought the doctor should not be con-

  1059
  tinued in the Health Services, and so forth. The man is therefore appealing against the official view.'
  Consequently the need is for a tribunal of absolute impartiality and independence. Lord Justice Denning goes on to say:
  "How then is this independence to be achieved? The answer is, by giving a right of appeal on a point of law to a superior Court which is itself known to be independent. The law then which the tribunals will apply will be the law laid down by the superior Court and not by the Government."
  I am strongly of opinion that something ought to be done on the lines of Clause 4. I must say that, like the noble Viscount, I was not greatly impressed by the arguments adduced against this clause on the last occasion by the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack. Surely, if so many cases had arisen requiring to be dealt with because of the decision of the High Court Judge which the Lord Chancellor quoted, then clearly the persons concerned were not getting their rights. It is surely better to have a considerable number of appeals under this procedure, rather than to permit a whole number of cases in which men do not get that treatment and that justice which Parliament laid down merely because there is no right of appeal. I am told that one of the fields in which this is more necessary at the moment than in any other is that which comes under the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act. There are a large number of tribunals up and down the country which are giving a bewildering diversity of decisions. As one solicitor who knows quite a lot about that class of work said to me only the other day: "You do not want all these tribunals acting on different principles." It is right that there should be a co-ordinating authority, and the right co-ordinating authority to administer what Parliament has laid down should surely be, as it has always been, the High Court of Justice in this country.
  Now I should like to say a word about Clause 5, which deals with public local inquiries. I am convinced that something needs to be done to make them less of a farce than they often are at the present time. Why do I say that they are rather a farce? One remembers the case that arose in connection with the town, the name of which the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack has, I believe, attached to his title—Stevenage. Your Lordships may
  1060
  remember that the then Minister of Town and Country Planning made some extremely outspoken remarks—and I do not know that he was to be blamed, if he thought it right to make them. He said that he was determined to go on with the scheme before ever the public inquiry had been set up, and he was the man to take the decision upon the report which his inspector made. The House of Lords has decided that it is quite unnecessary for the Minister to show any impartiality under the Town and Country Planning Act, because he is not occupying a judicial or quasi-judicial position.
  What is more, in this case what the House of Lords decided—that is under the present law, of course—was that the persons trying to get the thing done (I use a neutral expression purposely, because it may cover a multitude of matters) to which objection is taken need never make out their case at all. One finds cases similar to that in which the Army authorities tried to take over a hit of Dorset. There was a public local inquiry, but the Army authorities never had to go into the witness-box, so there was no opportunity of asking them why they could not go to some derelict part of the country, or of putting any questions of a similar nature to them. Surely the right way to conduct an inquiry, when it is held, is to have all parties present and to allow each to question the other's case. When that is done you get a broad basis on which the inspector can make his report.
  Another thing I should like to say about these inquiries is that in my view there should be a panel of inspectors appointed by the Lord Chancellor, instead of having inspectors from the different Departments concerned. I recall that in the days when I practised at the Bar I was given a brief, on behalf of the Middlesex County Council, when the Western Avenue was being constructed. The objections that were being made to it, generally speaking, were to the effect that we were taking too much ground, that we were making the road too broad and that it was not going in the right direction. We appeared before a Ministry of Transport inspector. I asked my instructing solicitor what attitude the Ministry of Transport were taking to this matter. He said: "It is a large arterial road out of London, and they are paying

  1061
  a large proportion of the costs." I have forgotten the exact proportion, but I think he said about 90 per cent. I said: "They will know all about the plans will they not?" He replied: "They have approved the plans; in fact the plans are practically their plans, rather than ours." I. said to the solicitor: "I should think this is going to be one of the most easily earned fees I shall ever take in my life." However, there it was. I was as kind and tactful as I could be to all the objectors, and perhaps I earned my fee in that way. But at any rate there was not the slightest doubt, from the moment the inquiry started, that this road was going through just at it had been planned by the Ministry of Transport in conjunction with the Middlesex County Council.
  That really should not be. In cases like that I think an outside inspector would have taken the same view as the Ministry's inspector, and there is no doubt of the view that the Ministry of Transport's inspector would take. It is important that in all these cases the Minister should publish the inspector's report, and in every case where there has been a public inquiry the Minister ought to give the reasons for his decision. He has to do so under the Ribbon Development Act, and if he has to do so under that Act, I do not see why he should not have to do it under any other Act under which local inquiries are held.
  Clause 6 deals with the power of officers of entry without a warrant from a justice of the peace, as is normal in the bulk of cases. I believe there are still 18,000 people who have these powers of entry without warrant. It is incredible to think that these inspectors of the Ministry of Food, who form the main portion of this number—
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The number o Ministry of Food inspectors is 750, out of a total staff of 18,800.
  LORD LLEWELLIN: I am obliged to the noble and learned Viscount. I accept his figure of 750 inspectors of the Ministry of Food, but almost all these 18,000 officers I Live mentioned act in some way under the Supplies and Services Act—the noble and learned Viscount will correct me again am wrong. The astounding thing is that now, in times of peace, it should still be thought necessary to equip inspectors with these powers, when an ordinary policeman en-
  1062
  forcing the law does not have them. I was led to deal with the Ministry of Food inspectors because on the last occasion the noble aid learned Viscount said that a black market might run riot without such power that when an inspector was looking for black market food it might be roomed by the time he obtained a search warrant. The really prevalent offence in this country to-day is that of receiving stolen goods. There are more housebreakings, burglaries and robberies to-day than at any other time. Yet it is not thought to give the police power to follow up stolen property without a search warrant. I see no reason whatever why we should give this unlimited power of entry to some 18,000 officers, from whatever Department they may come.
  I should like to say a word on Clause 8. I do not think we should go so far as to say that any case under the Agricultural Marketing Act should necessarily be taken before the courts of summary jurisdiction. If people think they ought not to be fined behind closed doors, as it were, and should be dealt with in public, I think the way to get round that would be give the offender the right to say that he would sooner be treated by a court of summary jurisdiction than be dealt with by the disciplinary committee of the organisation concerned. There is good precedent for this. I do not know whether at any time any of your Lordships has failed to lake out his motor vehicle licence. It has not actually happened to me, but I know that in some counties when a motorist runs over the date he receives a letter from the county council saying that a road licence has not been taken out and the mitigated penalty will be so many Pounds. If he there and then pays the mitigated penalty, proceedings will not be taken. A wise motorist will pay the mitigated penalty straight away, but if it is desired to contest the matter he can take it to the courts. Let us deal with these agricultural penalties in the same way.
  On a Bill like this, one could go on talking at great length on every clause, but I am not going to deal with them arty further. In conclusion, I would go back to the principle underlying the Bill. Over the course of the past twenty years or so, as a result of the effects of two world wars in which we have been engaged, we have tended to whittle away the liberties of the

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  subject. It is about time we took a look round to see how many we can restore and what restrictions are still essential for the purposes of the State. Those that are not essential ought to be abolished. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel referred to the speech that Mr. John Davis, a great friend of this country, delivered at the Pilgrims' dinner yesterday. I should like to make another reference to his speech. Mr. Davis said that
  "Our chief invisible export is liberty."
  We hope that it will continue to be so, but we cannot build up a good export trade unless we have a good sale for a commodity in our own country. I beg your Lordships to look at this Bill in that light, and to keep our liberty as wide as possible. By all means let us examine the Bill clause by clause, and see which clauses are necessary and which ought to be modified, but I hope that this measure will receive a unanimous Second Reading from your Lordships this afternoon.

  THE POSITION IN KOREA
  4.10 p.m.
  THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT ADDISON): My Lords, with the permission of the House I should like to intervene to read a short statement about Korea which the Prime Minister made in the other place a few minutes ago. He said:
  "I have very little to add to the Press reports on the fighting in Korea. The scale and intensity of the attack leaves no doubt that this is a full-scale invasion. Although the attack was launched all along the 38° Parallel, the first and main objective is clearly Seoul. The situation in and around Seoul is confused. There are reports that Northern Korean forces are pressing southwards to the east and west of Seoul, making full use of their superior mobility and greater weight of armour and artillery.
  The latest information about the small United Kingdom community is that all of them, and all the other Commonwealth women and children living in Seoul, who wished to leave, moved to Inchon (the port for Seoul) on June 26 for evacuation by sea.
  The Security Council is meeting again this afternoon.
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  With permission of the House, I will interrupt the debate later to-day if any further developments of importance occur."
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, I am sure your Lordships are grateful to the noble Viscount the Leader of the House for making that statement. I should like to ask him two questions, one particular and one general. I do not know whether he is able to say what is the approximate number of British and Commonwealth subjects in South Korea. My other question the noble Viscount has rather anticipated by his last sentence. I feel sure that if there is other information to give to the House, either to-day or on any other day when we are sitting, he will not hesitate to give it.
  VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, as to the last observation of the noble Viscount, I can assure him that if there is any further information to be communicated to the House I will take the earliest opportunity of putting it before your Lordships. With regard to the noble Viscount's first question, I am informed that the total number of British nationals, including members of other Commonwealth countries, in Southern Korea is approximately eighty.

  LIBERTIES OF THE SUBJECT BILL [H.L.]
  4.18 p.m.
  Debate on Second Reading continued.
  THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, as you have already been reminded, on a previous occasion I had a somewhat ample opportunity of discoursing to your Lordships on the main theme of the Bill. I should certainly not aim any accusation of "baby-snatching" at the noble Viscount who has presented the Bill to-day. I have a recollection that there has recently been devised by one department the phrase, "the deprived child." I am, for my part, glad that this Bill has not fallen into that category, but that if its original foster-parent has shown himself somewhat irresponsible the Bill has at least found an adoptive father of impeccable reliability to give it a further chance in life.
  I feel that in many ways this revised version of the Bill is better than the authorised version which I was privileged to introduce three years ago: it seems

  1065
  better constructed, better drafted and to form a more coherent, harmonious whole. Perhaps in 1947 I was a little guileless, because I certainly thought that a Bill of this kind and with this purpose was likely to commend itself to the unanimous approval of your Lordships' House. After all, its purpose was to preserve from further encroachment certain liberties, and to restore others which appeared to have been almost, if not entirely, suppressed. One would have expected any such object to be generally commended. In the event, although both Opposition Parties supported the Bill, the Government, while proclaiming their passionate addiction to liberty in the abstract, shied violently at the sight of it in any concrete form.
  The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack delivered a most brilliant technical—I almost said pyrotechnical—onslaught upon it on that occasion. He met his difficulties by the effective if not entirely logical procedure of denouncing the Bill as being a manifesto, and not a Bill at all, and then going on through the clauses of the Bill one by one, raising what one rather regarded as Committee-stage points upon most of them. I admit that he was in superb form. Never, I think, had his eye been clearer or his hand guider: one after the other he shot down clauses, sometimes two or three in the air at the same time—and never a wounded clause; each one of them stone dead. So it appeared at the time and for the moment. But, unfortunately for him and others who shared his view, all but two turned out to be runners; and those two were shot down, not by him, but by others on either side of him. Now, after these clauses have enjoyed a period of rest and refreshment, the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, is in a position to put them over the guns again. I do not know at this stage to what extent the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack proposes on this occasion to emulate the exploits of Miss Annie Oakley and her gun.
  But one thing I do feel—namely, that the interval of time which has elapsed between my introduction of this Bill three years ago and to-day has not made the Bill less necessary now than it was then. I have particularly in mind, I admit, a statement made by the Lord President of the Council which I have always regarded as most ominous, in
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  regard to the use to be made in the future of the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act. It has been quoted to your Lordships before, but I make no apology of any kind for reminding you of the exact text. It was made in the course of a speech at the Labour Party Conference at Blackpool just over a year ago, when the Lord President said:
  "The Executive and Government have no intention that the Supplies and Services Act of 1945 shall come to an end. It is an essential basis for the organisation of economic planning and control and therefore we shall place a revised and permanent version of that Act on the Statute Book if we are returned to power."
  That seems to me to follow upon an earlier and not less alarming statement made by Sir Stafford Cripps in the rather more rollicking mood that used to characterise him in the 'thirties, when he said:
  "The Government's first step will be to call Parliament together at the earliest moment and place before it an Emergency Powers Bill to be passed through all its stages on the first day."
  That was perhaps a rather extreme view, even at that time, but I cite those two passages merely to impress upon your Lordships on all sides of the House how necessary it is—and the more necessary the more extensive use is made of them—that Parliament should reassert and retain effective control over the use of delegated legislation. There are people who have somewhat unusual views as to what liberty means. I select only one sample, a member of the Back Bench of the present Government in the last Parliament, who stated one view with great precision and force:
  "This is a free country, in the sense that individuals are permitted to exercise all the liberty we can afford to allow them in these times."
  That does not happen to be my view of what is a free country I believe that a free country is one in which those who are deeply concerned with liberty watch from day to day and note every encroachment upon liberty, and publicly and repeatedly express their resentment at that encroachment. In my view a free country is one in which administrative convenience is not made the sole or sovereign test.
  When this Bill was before your Lordships' House before, it survived a Second Reading but was then smothered for lack

  1067
  of further time. No time for liberty! There are many people in this country today who have no time for liberty. I very much trust that this time if, as I hope, this Bill obtains a Second Reading, it will not come to the same premature and unhappy end as was meted out to its predecessor. I hope, though perhaps without a very glowing confidence, that His Majesty's Government may enable the hopes of the noble Viscount who introduced this Bill to be realised and accept the Second Reading to-day. If they do not, let them take the responsibility of opposing this measure; but let us take the responsibility of saying: So far as in our hands lies we shall gladly and hopefully set it upon its road.
  4.24 p.m.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the noble Marquess who has just spoken has said that on the last occasion when we dealt with this matter I expressed a passionate affection for liberty in the abstract and a shrinking from it, almost with horror, when I came within sight of it. The fallacy of his argument from my point of view rests in those last words. If I thought that this Bill was going to increase the sum total of liberty I should support it. But, as I believe this Bill will not only not increase but will decrease the sum total of liberty, I am opposed to it. I regard it as setting forth a string of spurious remedies to deal with a very real problem.
  I make not the slightest complaint that this subject should be examined. It seems to me that the situation of the world to-day—I may add the very serious situation of the world to-day—is one which makes it essential that this subject should be examined from time to time. On the one hand we have seen the Fascist régime and on the other hand the Communist régime, both alike in this—that they have not the slightest regard for the liberty of the subject. They treat their subjects as mere ants in an anthill, and it behoves all of us who have been nurtured and brought up in traditions of liberty to see that those ancient privileges are not snatched away from us. Recently we had a most interesting discussion on a Motion by the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood. I confess that I thought his diagnosis was wrong; I did not believe that the Cabinet was the danger. I think
  1068
  that if he had concentrated his case and unmasked his very formidable batteries on the machine and not the Cabinet, he would have presented a more powerful case than he did. But I quite agree, as I have said many times, that there is a danger to-day of the individual being crushed, and it is a danger against which we have to guard.
  What are the true remedies that we must follow? First of all, I believe we must have a vigilant, a resolute and a strong Parliament. It must be armed with the necessary powers. It must not degenerate into the position of a mere "talking shop" where nothing can be done. It must have power to act, and to act quickly in appropriate cases. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, said much the same thing and, indeed, with the general exordium with which he started his speech I find myself wholly in agreement. One of the tests which we should apply to any of these various proposals is this: Will it tend to increase the power of Parliament or will it tend to clutter up Parliament with such a mass of detail that Parliament will not be able to attend to its important functions? Secondly, I believe that we must maintain a strong and independent judiciary of sufficient numbers to be able to deal promptly with cases brought before the courts and, of course, absolutely independent of any control at all. I thank God that I believe we have that to-day, and I think we shall always have it. As a corollary to that, we must make the law more readily available to the people, and that means several things. It means the elimination of delay, the reduction of the expense of litigation and, if necessary, providing help from public funds. It means also a simplification of the law.
  Now I do not doubt for a moment that the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, has devoted much time and much of his great ability to this subject of liberty. I claim with the support of my colleagues in this Government to have made a notable contribution. Indeed I make the claim that there has never been a Government which has made a greater contribution to liberty than this Government has made during the last five years. We introduced—the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, was good enough to refer to it—the Bill providing for civil proceedings against the Crown; and you can now sue the.

  1069
  Crown just as you can sue any other defendant in any court of the land. We have provided—it is coming into force I hope this year, at any rate in part—legal aid; and we have put the legal aid scheme not under Government control but under the control of the Law Society, which is completely divorced from the Government. We are putting at their disposal considerable sums of public money in order that the man in the street can go to them and be assisted in bringing a case if he thinks he has sustained a grievance.
  So far as the simplification of the law is concerned, I have already made a real contribution by these Bills for Consolidation some four of which are included in to-day's Order Paper. That is not due to any merit of my own; my colleagues have allowed me to set up a special branch divorced altogether from current day-to-day legislation, devoting itself entirely to consolidation in order that the law may be simplified. May I say one other thing to make good my claim that this Government has made an immense contribution? There will shortly be brought out a new edition of Statutes of the Realm. No attempt at this had been made since 1927. This new edition of the Statutes will reduce to thirty-seven volumes the previous fifty-two volumes. The Statutes will be revised completely up to the end of 1948. These things may seem to you rather remote from the problem which we are considering today, but I believe they lie at the very heart of it. I believe there is no more important task to be carried out at this moment than that we should advance and secure and, if need be, increase the liberty of the subject.
  There is one other thing I should like to say, and it concerns the Donoughmore Report, which I have read and re-read. I believe it is wholly fallacious to regard the Donoughmore Report as if the Committee were recommending that a Bill should be passed on these general lines. I think they were concerned to indicate certain danger signals, to map the way, and to point out what Parliament should have been considering in passing Statutes; and with the great majority of the Report from that point of view, I agree. What I complain about is that the noble Viscount and the Liberal Party who press this Bill are doctrinaire in their approach,
  1070
  and that instead of considering these various questions on their merits they come with a preconceived idea which very often is completely removed from any reality.
  Now let us take the first clause. I do not see how I can explain my reasons for being opposed to the Second Reading of this Bill without considering it clause by clause. The difficulty for any speaker is that on any one of these clauses we could have a whole day's debate. I must indicate what I think of several of these clauses. I agree with what the noble Viscount said about the first clause: I think it is a most important one which raises the question whether or not, with this delegated legislation, we should be able to modify as well as to reject; and, be it observed, that is diametrically opposed to the recommendation of the Donoughmore Committee. They said expressly and in terms that there should not be this power to modify. The noble Viscount on this occasion has limited it to the Supplies and Services Act. I am sorry if I led him to do that by anything I said on the last occasion. I confess I have not refreshed my mind as to what I did then say. But on looking at the matter with a fresh mind, on this occasion I came to the conclusion that it is quite illogical to confine it to those Acts. If the principle is right that Parliament should be able to modify as well as to reject, then obviously it ought to extend to all occasions.
  Will your Lordships just consider what is involved in that? Suppose there is to be some Statutory Order made under an Act of Parliament which comes before either House. There must be a Committee stage. I do not believe that anybody who has had experience doubts that if you have a Committee stage you must also have a Report stage. Suggestions have been made; some are accepted and others not accepted and there must be a later stage than the Committee stage at which you can consider the Amendments together. If you are going to have a Committee stage and a Report stage, is it not wise for you to have also a Second Reading stage when you deal with the general principles of the matter? If we are going to say that, then this Parliament or any other Parliament is going to get absolutely cluttered up with a mass of detailed business which it really can-

  1071
  not undertake. I am far from suggesting that there has been any obstruction in this House; and it is not for me to indicate whether there has been any obstruction in another place. But if you introduce this as a scheme, you are going to create an obstructionist's paradise.
  Consider for a moment, my Lords, the amount of delegated legislation. In 1913, when we had a most respectable Government (both Lord Samuel and the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, would, at any rate, unite on that point)—
  VISCOUNT SIMON: And I think the present Lord Chancellor would have approved of it.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think it was one of the best Governments we have ever had. In the year 1913, there were 1,406 of these regulations made by that Government. Then, coming to 1938—I am deliberately taking years before the Wars, when we had a Government which included Lord Simon (and a very admirable Government it was—I need not express my opinion en that one) there were 1,660. In the last year there were 2,468. I agree that if we were to devote ourselves to it we should no doubt find some way of resolving to some extent the problem of the differences between the two Houses. I have no doubt that the scheme of having modifications is a possible scheme, but I believe there is a much better method which was, in fact, adopted. It was pointed out that what was wanted with regard to these measures was a closer scrutiny than anything we had had. Accordingly, in 1944, there was set up a Scrutinising Committee of the House of Commons, which now scrutinises every Statutory Instrument which is laid; and if they think there is any reason they draw the special attention of the House to it. The Committee consists of ten Members, drawn from the different Parties. In the year 1948–49 they considered 1,300 of these Orders and drew the attention of the House of Commons to five of them: three of them because the Committee thought the use being made of them was unusual or unexpected, one because there was considered to be unjustifiable delay in sending notification to the Speaker, and one for elucidation. In fact, these five Orders have passed through quite happily.
  1072
  We, too, have a special Committee of our own. It consists of a large number of Peers of whom the Opposition Peers are in a substantial majority. It considers all those Statutory Instruments which require an affirmative Resolution. For myself, on the spur of the moment and without consulting my Leader and the Officers of the House, I should not in the least mind, if it were possible, extending its powers to consider all regulations. It considers to-day whether the provisions raise important questions of policy or principle, how far they are founded on precedent and whether the special attention of the House should be drawn to them. We are not allowed by our Rules to put down one of these regulations for approval of the House unless and until that special Committee has reported upon it.
  I believe that is a much more effective way than the other of dealing with the matter. I think the power to refuse consent is a very real power. I do not see why your Lordships—we have never attempted to take this power away from this House—should not exercise that power if you think that some regulations offend in this, that or the other respect. If you do refuse, the regulation will be withdrawn and most probably will have to be reintroduced minus the peccant paragraph. It seems to me that the procedure that is open to your Lordships now is far better than letting loose the floodgates by providing that you can move to amend these regulations. I point out again that the Donoughmore Committee, who did not merely make an abstract consideration of this question, expressly said it would be a mistake to make any such alteration. I hope I have made it plain. I object to this scheme in limine because I believe that, so far from making the House effective, it would do as much as could be done by one stroke to make this House ineffective. We should find ourselves cluttered up with a mass of detail and not have time to give to the consideration of those broad principles which ought to be considered.
  I pass now—I am going to say this as briefly as I can; I am sorry to inflict all this upon your Lordships again—to consider Clause 2. That deals with the validity of certain Orders. Up to the year 1930, there was a practice sometimes

  1073
  of stating that an Order could not be questioned by any legal proceeding at all; but since the year 1930—and bear in mind that the year 1930 was the year of a Labour Government—that provision has never been used. All that you do is to say sometimes that the Order, if it is to be questioned, must be questioned within a limited period of time. The Donoughmore Committee thought that the period of time ought to be three months. I think it is much better for Parliament in each particular case to consider, first, whether there is any need for a time limit at all, and secondly, if so, what the time limit should be.
  Let me give your Lordships an illustration. Suppose some question arose about land for the Festival of Britain which is opening next year. Obviously a prompt, quick decision would be required. Then it would be for Parliament to consider whether the regulation in question was to be opposed within six weeks or three months or longer, if you like. One should not start off by a rigid rule which is to apply to all cases. One should bear in mind those two principles: first of all, that we should never refuse to allow a challenge at all—no Party has ever done that since 1930; secondly, we should consider in each particular case what is the appropriate time limit. I am perfectly prepared to agree that, unless there is some strong case to the contrary, three months would be an appropriate time. Recently we have had in this House, either this year or certainly last year, several Bills dealing with this matter. There was the case of the special trunk roads, where we provided for six weeks as the appropriate time of challenge. Then there was the distribution of compensation under the Coal Industry Act, where we provided for six weeks. Then there was the case of the authorisation procedure for the compulsory purchase of land, where we provided for six weeks. It is quite true that the Donoughmore Committee say that generally it should be three months, but you will see the note at the bottom of page 65 referring to the Housing Act, 1930, which, they say, exactly meets their requirements. In fact, the Housing Act. 1930, prescribed the period of six weeks. Therefore I object to this clause because it is casting into a rigid statutory mould that which Parliament ought to
  1074
  consider in each case having regard to the facts of that case.
  I come to Clause 3, which deals with the abolition of all existing powers to alter an Act of Parliament by delegated legislation. It is a great pity that those who advised the noble Viscount on this Bill did not tell him of the distinction between the Henry VIII clause—a distinction which is often lost sight of—and a very different type of clause with which I will deal in a moment. The Henry VIII clause properly so called is where an Act itself provides in detail the machinery and the steps which are to be taken—and then there is a provision saying: "If for any other reason a difficulty arises, then A, B or C may alter the provisions of the Act." There is only one case in which this is now the law of the land—that is, under the Local Government Act, 1894, where, dealing with meetings of the parish council, the Act sets out full details as to the various steps to be taken; and then there is a section providing that the county council may authorise a departure from those steps. That is the only Henry VIII clause, properly so called, which survives.
  But one often finds an Act of Parliament which contains power to alter Acts by Order-in-Council. It is absolutely essential that it should be so. May I give your Lordships some illustrations? Take the India Act of 1949, when India declared herself to be a Republic; or the Newfoundland Act of 1950, when Newfoundland ceased to be a self-governing Dominion and became part of Canada. It is provided in those two Acts that there shall be power to modify previous Acts, and there were a vast number of Acts that had to be looked at in which Newfoundland was referred to as a Dominion and in which India was referred to as being under the King. They had to be altered. Take another instance, the Ministers of the Crown (Transfer of Functions) Act. Suppose you are transferring a certain power from the President of the Board of Trade to the Minister of Transport. You have to go through a whole host of Acts which say that the approval of the President of the Board of Trade is necessary and you have everywhere to strike that out and write in "Minister of Transport." Nearly every year there are about twenty of these regu-

  1075
  lations that come to be made. There has never been the slightest objection to any of them. No one has ever suggested that anybody has been wronged, aggrieved or hurt in any way, and it would be most unfortunate if Parliament were called upon to do that particular piece of work by passing Bilk each time. To my mind, it would give us and another place much wholly unnecessary work which could be done otherwise.
  Let me give another illustration—one Could go on almost for ever. Take the Poisons List. There is a list of dangerous drugs or poisons which the Home Secretary may amend and alter from time to time, and of course it does not have to be considered by this House. When some new drug is evolved which is found to be dangerous, or some old drug is found to be not so bad as had been thought, quite frequently the list is modified. Is it really to be suggested, in the name of the liberty of the subject, that this must be done by a Bill on each occasion? It seems to me that there we should get such a rigidity of structure that the thing would be quite impossible. Let Parliament scrutinise and watch all these things. Let them see that we are not taking undue advantage of the powers. But do not put us in the straitjacket of making Parliament pass Bills for all these things. I warn the noble Lord below the gangway and the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, that, if either of their Parties were in power, whatever they may do with this Bill—they may vote for the Second Reading now—I am absolutely confident that they would never pass Clauses 1, 2 or 3 of this Bill at all. I believe that those clauses would be far from helpful but rather a very great hindrance.
  Now we come to Clause 4, which deals with the universal right of recourse to the High Court on a point of law. Here, again, I am a great believer in people bringing these points of law to the courts. This year I have had great trouble with regard to appeals from the General Medical Council. There had been no appeal, but ultimately I managed to get all the parties concerned and the Scottish authorities (which is no mean feat) to agree to an appeal to the Privy Council, since that is not an English Court any more than it is a Scottish. Court. Incidentally, it is, of course, not the High Court. The
  1076
  clause, as drafted, does not help solve the difficulty at all. Wherever a Minister is dealing with a judicial or quasi-judicial function, no doubt it is right as a broad general rule that there should be an appeal to the courts. I am sorry if on the previous occasion I did not make my objection plain. I do think there is truth in the old adage that it is in the interest of the public that there should be an end of litigation. When a man has had his case heard and disposed of and has not appealed, I think it is unfortunate that the demand should arise thereafter that that case should be reopened and reheard. It does not happen in the law courts. If a man brings a case at law and loses it and it is not appealed, then that is that; and if thereafter some litigant in exactly the same sort of case takes that case to the higher courts and wins, the man who has previously lost does not litigate all over again, nor would it be in the public interest that he should do so.
  The trouble about the pensions appeals was, first of all, that there was a divergence of opinion in England and Scotland, which is most unfortunate and can only be resolved by the House of Lords, a Court common to both countries; and secondly, we have now twice had some new decision given and the whole thing has been opened up all over again. If that is done there will be no end to litigation, which is an undesirable thing. My Lords, as any competent lawyer will know at once, the trouble is that this clause has obviously not been drafted by a lawyer, because points of law emerge which cannot be identified and isolated, and it cannot be done as it is done in this clause. I am anxious not to spend undue time, but I want just to add that when I was Minister of National Insurance and I launched the Industrial Injuries scheme there was one point (which as a lawyer I regarded with some regret) on which I found the workers and the employers absolutely united: they wanted a tribunal staffed, as it is, by three competent lawyers—indeed, two of them are former county court judges. They wanted to cut out the appeal to the courts because they thought that an appeal from one court to another, going up to the highest courts, added to the delay and to the uncertainty, and they wanted the informal atmosphere of a tribunal. That we gave them. Lord Beveridge was here. He has a great

  1077
  knowledge of this matter, and my recollection is that he supported me on that occasion. We have deliberately provided in that case that there shall he no appeal to the courts. But, of course, there is an appeal to this tribunal, which, as I have said, consists of three very competent lawyers, two of them former judges.
  I pass to consider briefly Clause 5, which says that the report of a public inquiry should be published. I criticised it on the last occasion because I said that the Donoughmore Report had made it quite plain that its recommendation applied only to judicial and not to administrative determinations. If any noble Lord would like to look at pages 105, 106 and 107 of the Donoughmore Report he will find that the Committee's recommendation is limited to judicial, not administrative determinations. They point out that there are border-line cases, partly judicial and partly administrative, which are left to the discretion of the Minister. Here, again, I object to putting this into the rigid mould of a Statute. I think it is a very sound principle that wherever you have a report dealing with a judicial matter, it should be made public. I can recollect one case in my experience where I decided not to make the report public, I think for very good reasons; but in the vast majority of cases I should always make the report public. That is the very wise principle that the Donoughmore Committee laid down. By all means let us have regard to that general principle, but do let us remember that the Committee are not seeking to lay down absolute principles. They made it quite plain that all these recommendations were to apply, save in exceptional circumstances.
  Now, m Lords, a word or two about the men who are authorised to go into and inspect premises. There was an error on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, if he will forgive my saying so. He seems to think that most of the powers of entry arise under the Supplies and Services Act. The noble Lord will find the totals in the OFFICIAL REPORT of another place of May 23, 1950, column 1858. The total is 18,342, of which only 3,685 are enabled to go into private houses. So far as the Food Ministry are concerned, the noble Lord will find the figure given in this return as 1,112, but these inspectors are authorised to inspect only food establishments; they have no
  1078
  power whatever to go into private houses. The number has since been reduced to between 700 and 750, and I hope that it will be reduced still further. I believe the right principle here is this: that so long as you have a rationing system there must be an organisation to see that that system is enforced, otherwise the rationing system becomes a great evil, because you are simply encouraging a complete disregard for the law. The right way in which to deal with this matter is, as soon as you possibly cart, to abolish the rationing system. When you abolish rationing all these inspectors and people will go with it.
  When I think of this list, I think of the Inland Revenue—2,657 officials who are entitled to go into your private houses. After all, this Bill is being introduced under Liberal auspices. There are 1,409 people in the Revenue Branch who have these powers, 1,124 in the rating branch and 134 revenue officers going round watching sheets and P.A.Y.E. records; and there are 1,800 customs and excise officers. And this scheme was largely introduced by that great Liberal measure, Sir William Harcourt's Act of 1894. Encroachment on the liberty of the subject, of which we have heard so much, was at any rate started by the Act of 1894. Does anyone really suggest that all these powers should be taken away, that the Home Office should not be allowed to inspect children's homes, that the powers of inspection of farms by the agricultural authorities and the power in this connection in respect of civil aviation and the Tithe Redemption Commission should be taken away?
  Let Parliament scrutinise these things, and look at them carefully if you will. But this general principle of selecting out of these masses particular services coming under Supplies and Services seems to me, if I may say so with the greatest respect, to show that the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, is here straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. He strains at the 750 who are allowed to go to inspect food establishments but accepts the proportion of the 18,000—there are some 3,800 of them—who are entitled to visit private houses.
  VISCOUNT SIMON: Would the noble and learned Viscount forgive me for interrupting him? I am sure he would he the last to wish to make a mistake in this

  1079
  connection. I think that perhaps he is doing so, though on the other hand it may be that it is I who am making the mistake. He appealed to the House to consider whether they would really wish to prevent the Home Office inspecting children's homes. Am I wrong in saying that I think they do not do that under the Supplies and Services Act, or under any Order-in-Council or regulations made thereunder?
  THT LORD CHANCELLOR: Of course not,
  VISCOUNT SIMON: Then what on earth is the point of referring to that in criticism of Clause 6?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I pointed out, first of all, that I think the reference to the Supplies and Services Act is absolutely illogical. I said that the noble Viscount was straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. He is prepared to accept the right of inspection by all the inspectors of the Revenue Branch in private houses, but boggles at the 750 inspectors who can enter food establishments under the Supplies and Services Act—and I am now pointing out how utterly illogical the whole position is. I hope that I have carried the noble Viscount with me in that observation.
  Clause 7 I pass by very rapidly. Of course we have not the slightest desire to suppress or suspend any newspaper. As the noble Viscount is aware, I accepted an amendment in the Supplies and Services (Extended Powers) Act of 1947 to provide for this. Clause 8 I am going to leave to my noble friend Lord Hall. We have parcelled out this work between us and this will be the first of the clauses with which he will have to deal.
  With regard to Clause 9, I ask again: What is the encroachment? I am sorry to remind your Lordships of this matter. The Public Authorities Protection Act was passed in the year 1893—I think Mr. Gladstone was Prime Minister at the time —and the Act laid down the period of limitation for local authorities at six months. That survived until 1939. Then the Government, just before the war, extended the period of six months to one year. That one year was copied in the Crown Proceedings Act, and we extended it to three years for the great public services. I, myself, caring something about
  1080
  liberty, was so impressed by this that I appointed a small but very powerful Committee to advise me what we ought to do. That body has generally been known as Lord Justice Tucker's Committee. They made recommendations to this effect: that the statutory period of limitation should be six years for private and public persons for both contract and tort, save that in what they called "personal injury cases" it should be two years.
  I confess that I have devoted a great deal of time and care to this matter and I have discussed it with many of my learned friends. I express no final opinion now. I agree with the proposition, as at present advised, that the period of time should be the same whatever the status of the defendant may be. But I am not satisfied, if I may say so with the greatest respect; that that Committee, for whom I have the most profound regard, have come to a completely satisfactory conclusion. I am inclined to think, myself, that a better conclusion might well be that it should be six years for everyone in contract and three years for everyone in tort. I am not satisfied that the proposal that they have made to apply to the court for an extension in time is right. This is a matter to which, as I say, I have given consideration, and sooner or later this Government or its sccessors will have to deal with it. Clauses 10, 11 and 12 are going to be taken by the noble Viscount, Lord Hall.
  I hope I shall not be criticised if I have tried to make runners fly again. In fact I do not know how to do that. I have tried to indicate briefly but quite sincerely why I believe this Bill is not one which would assist the cause which, believe me, my Lords, we all have at heart. It is, if I may say so, not quite right to introduce a Bill with the title "Liberty of the Subject" and to append to it a number of clauses which have not been very carefully worked out or thought out, and then when anyone opposes those clauses to say: "You are not in favour of the liberty of the subject." I suppose that every doctor who tries desperately hard to advance by one inch the sum total of human knowledge about his trade must be slightly annoyed sometimes when he finds quacks advertising all sorts of remedies which are going to cure every ailment under the sun. It behoves us all to look to see whether these remedies are

  1081
  real and useful remedies or whether they are spurious remedies. I must say that, in my most respectful submission, the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, has, for once in his life, been led astray and has failed to distinguish the true from the false.
  5.10 p.m.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, and the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack have both described the progress of this Bill in sporting metaphors. It is now possible to see the result of the last drive. The noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack has, unfortunately, shot every bird clean out of the sky and he has severely peppered most of the beaters. Speaking as one of the younger and more inexperienced beaters, I am not well able to see where the birds have fallen or how many are still runners. That does not prevent my regretting that the noble and learned Viscount who was sitting on the Woolsack has adopted the strong line that he has adopted with the Bill. I agree that many of these clauses are open to objection. I myself take exception to one or two of them, particularly Clause 11, and I think they might well be amended. But that is what we are here for, and, if I may say so with the greatest respect, we do that job very well.
  I believe that this Bill is a great improvement on the previous Bill which the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, introduced, because it drops two of the most controversial clauses. I have, however, never known a Bill so "savaged" as this one has begin by the Lord Chancellor—with perhaps the possible exception of the Bill which I attempted to introduce last year. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack said—I could not get his words quite accurately, but he suggested in effect—that in the last five years this Government had taken vast strides forward in furthering the liberties of the subject, and he quoted several examples which none of us will for one moment deny. We are grateful to him for all the things he is doing in this respect. He is doing a fine job and layman and lawyer alike on boll sides welcome it. But I am sure that, whilst the noble and learned Viscount is progressing with Statute Law revision and all the other things he men-
  1082
  tioned, it might be a good idea for him to look to the left arid see what one or two of his colleagues are up to. He will find that as he attempts to give us a taste of liberty some of his colleagues are doing exactly the opposite. I thought also that the Government might succumb to a political temptation and agree with this Bill.
  There was a comment in the American Press recently that one factor which swayed votes in the last General Election more than most English observers realised was fear of the threat of dictatorship which some quite reasonable people, maybe wrongly, read into the Government's policy of the last five years and their programme for the next five. That fear may have discouraged them from voting for the Government. Perhaps the American view was right, because we now find the leaders of political thought in the Socialist Party attempting to break down that fear, or trying to assuage it. Mr. Morrison is assiduously wooing the middle classes. I am never quite certain who they are. I suppose in this case they are the people who think in terms of overwork rather than of overtime. In any case that fear was widespread and any of us who went to political meetings during the Election must have heard, time and time again, the repetition of the apothegm: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," by speakers who I am sure would never have been able to give correctly the context of that very wise remark.
  It seems to me that between the two Parties there is a differing conception of liberty. We on this side regard liberty as a fundamental right. I do not in any way allude to noble Lords opposite, but too many of their supporters think in the same terms as the honourable Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme who, I gather, from the tenour of the quotation of the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, must have been the Member to whom he referred. They think of liberty as permissive. If Mr. Mack himself is not a sufficiently senior or responsible member of the Party, perhaps I may quote the Minister of Town and Country Planning who the other day used an expression which electorally he may live to regret. He described some concessions as "experiments in freedom." That may have been thought to be a slip of a notoriously slippery tongue, but he went on to repeat

  1083
  it, so we must confidently expect that to be the view that he and his senior colleagues hold.
  That is why I feel that the time for action has come, and the time for talking has ceased. We have had books, broadcasts, propaganda, essays and theoretical disputes. Now the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, has taken a concrete step which, however criticised it may be, registers a protest against this constant attack upon the liberties of the subject. Both Parties on this side, Liberal and Conservative alike, have admittedly an equal share in the responsibility for the development of delegated legislation. Certainly noble Lords opposite cannot possibly be saddled with the sole blame for that. What we accuse them of doing is of taking undue advantage of the conditions which two wars and the vast increase in the complexity of legislation have brought about. The real thing wrong with this Bill is that it ought never to have been necessary to introduce it at all. I readily agree that there are better ways in which this problem might be met. I should like to see, for instance, Ministers not asking to have put into Bills which their Departments father any of these powers against which we protest. More could be done administratively to remedy these evils. I admit that it is difficult to legislate about this sort of thing away from the separate Statutes with which the clauses of this Bill are concerned, but it seems the only way we can tackle it at the present moment. We are grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, because he has not gone too far. He has not attempted to undertake too much in this Bill. That, I know from my own experience as an amateur legislator, is fatal. Many a man who has fallen in love with a dimple has made the mistake of trying to marry the whole girl. That has not been done by the noble Viscount, and this Bill, however much it may be objected to in detail, is worthy of your Lordships' support. We can amend it when the time comes.
  The time is not far off, I feel, when we shall want a wider restatement of all the liberties of the subject. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, mentioned the Bill of Rights and Habeas Corpus. Not much of our Constitution is written, but if it is to be slowly whittled away, the time may shortly come for a completely
  1084
  new Bill of Rights to be drafted. I warn your Lordships. I am sorry to tell you that I have already tried my hand at drafting it. There is only one alternative it this Bill is not acceptable, and time apparently runs against us in another place. We have time to discuss cattle-grids, midwives, white fish, digging up of streets and diseases of animals, but no time to discuss the liberties of the subject. Very well, we must accept that. The only other remedy that remains is a change of Administration, and that is not a bad remedy either.
  5.18 p.m.
  LORD ELLENBOROUGH: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, began by describing himself as one of the youngest and most inexperienced members of your Lordships' House. However that may be, I think I am certainly the youngest and definitely the most inexperienced member to take part in this debate. Other noble Lords have dwelt in considerable detail on the clauses of the Bill. I intend to make a few general observations on this vital issue of liberty which we are discussing this afternoon, an issue which I think is too often and too long kept dormant in the hazy background of our affairs. I intervene to say a few words on this issue simply because I believe that the vast and overwhelming economic and political problems which confront the country to-day will never be overcome until once again the individual is restored, far more than is the case at the present moment, to his rightful status and may once again aspire to the just reward of his energy and skill.
  I fully realise that we must be fair. The tendency to subordinate the individual to the State has not come about during the last few years. During several generations now, and more and more as the generations have gone by, we have been subjected to more and more controls and regulations, and to increasing delegation of legislation. Few will argue that much of this has been necessary if such a highly complex civilisation as ours is to survive. But I think it must be admitted that there must be some basis of agreement between the individual and the State. As the American Declaration of Independence puts it, Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

  1085
  There are a great many rights, such as defence, protection of property, and so on, which are voluntarily surrendered by the individual to the State. Nevertheless, as has been pointed out, there is a limit. I feel that we should depart at once from the whole character of the British contribution to civilisation if we failed to assert definitely that the individual comes before the community and the community before the State. If we reverse or confuse that order, then we betray not only ourselves but the whole cause of human rights. I would say that, certainly in the last decade or so, the potential threats to freedom have really become unequalled. It was the late Earl Baldwin who once said, in reference to the British people: "They hardly notice freedom; it is the very air they breathe."
  It is perhaps small wonder that the constant encroachments upon our individual liberty have failed to provoke the truly British outcry which they might well have provoked from this once so-called "cradle of freedom." I am afraid that the war has so dulled our senses that it has blinded us to the melancholy existence of these thousands of controls since the war, and to the various increases that have taken place in ministerial power over our lives. There is altogether too much of a tendency to force individuals into becoming accustomed to manœuvre their way through cobwebs of controls, and to care less for personal initiative and responsibility. Our national traditions and our very way of life are becoming increasingly menaced by the administrative power held by a handful of men, and those who value liberty should be constantly on guard. Well was it said that "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." We should never forget that. It is rather significant that, in this progressive and enlightened age, ancient principles so often have to he re-stated. We have the four freedoms—the freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of speech and freedom of religion—all constant reminders that liberty is a right not to be taken for granted. Somerset Maugham once said:
  "Any country which thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will very soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will have lost its ease and comfort as well."
  1086
  I welcome this Bill as one which is long overdue. It is a modest start in trying to tackle a few of the glaring examples of excessive administrative power. It may be said that it is a some-what unconnected string of proposals. Nevertheless, they all have one common link—namely, that they aim at curbing the potential abuse of power over the individual. I would draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that this Bill has much in common with a proposal made in 1947 at the annual conference of the Conservative Party, which endorsed a proposal calling for a Charter of Liberties. This Bill does not go nearly as far as that, though it is a step towards it. I feel that the challenging times of this materialistic and modern age call strongly and loudly for a new 1950 Charter of Liberties which can take its place amongst the other written documents, another monument to freedom in our unwritten Constitution.
  Noble Lords opposite may point out that in recent months there has been a considerable relaxation in various controls. Certainly since the beginning of this year there has beet a great improvement in our economic situation. I should say that the fresh and invigorating winds of returning freedoms have largely been the cause of that. But I feel that the average person feels little gratitude or thankfulness towards the Government for what one might well call this "policy of appeasement" or, as one member of the Government so irritatingly calls it, these "experiments in freedom." Far from that, all I can find amongst the average person is a continued impatience for the whole process to be speeded up. After watching five years of the policies of the Labour Government, it will take a long time to convince me that: the leopard has changed its spots. Certainly by not accepting this Bill the Government have come out in their true colours. I must say that I could never understand how the Government could reconcile a Bill of this kind, limited in scope though it is, with their declared intent on to make permanent the Supplies and Services Act—an Act with such unprecedented power that no Government before the war would have dreamed of introducing it. If ever that Act is made permanent—and I hope it will not be—I feel that it might well be called a Charter of Bondage.

  1087
  I have no doubt that noble Lords opposite agree with the principles behind this Bill, but I have grave doubts of their colleagues in the other place. I find it scarcely reassuring when the present Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, Mr. Gordon-Walker, says that the aim of the Socialist Party is to achieve permanent power by democratic means. How can one talk of "permanent power" and "democracy" in the same breath? Such statements as these make me, and I am sure millions of others, very doubtful about the true intentions of the Government, not only as to this Bill, but to the whole issue of freedom. I hope that this Bill will fare well and have a speedy passage through Parliament, though I have doubts whether it will. At any rate, one useful purpose will have been achieved—and all our thanks should go to the noble Viscount who introduced the Bill—in that the Bill places to the forefront the too long dormant issue of freedom. It draws the attention of us all to the ever-growing tendency for all power to be invested in the State, and for our lives to be more and more controlled by remote and inept bureaucrats, a process which, if completed, can result only in a harsh totalitarianism which nobody wishes to see. If the inevitability of this can be brought home to the minds of our freedom-loving people—and certainly this Bill is a step in the right direction—I feel that there is little danger of that ever occurring.
  5.28 p.m.
  VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, at this hour, and after this full debate, I do not desire to make a speech of the ordinary kind or of uncommon length. However, I should like in a few sentences to state what is the effect of the debate upon myself, and I hope upon a good many others. The effect of the debate as a whole on me is to make me feel that we ought to have a Committee stage in which we examine these clauses carefully, one by one. There is obviously a great deal to be said in their favour, and some things have been very forcibly said against some of them. I should have thought, the subject being what it is that is not a reason for rejecting this Bill on Second Reading, but is one for saying that we should like to have the contents of the Bill carefully and systematically examined
  1088
  with the help of members of the House on all sides.
  My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor made a brilliant speech, not repeating altogether what he said before, but adopting a rather different line in some respects. He has indeed a logical ground on which he would seek to reject the Bill here and now, and he stated it in his first sentence. If what he then said was correct, I should agree with him at once that we should have nothing more to do with the Bill. His view is that this Bill will not increase the sum total of liberty at all, but on the contrary will actually decrease the liberty of the individual. That is what he stated in terms in his very first sentence. I ask myself only: Is that really true? Is that really the effect of this Bill?
  One of the provisions of this Bill is that it provides for the individual recourse to a court of law where he conceives himself to be injured by a wrong decision—a right which at present he does not enjoy at all. Whatever may be said of the practical merits of that proposal, it is not decreasing but increasing the liberty of the individual. Another provision of this Bill is that there must be an appeal from a Ministerial decision or from the order or regulation whose validity is challenged in point of law in cases where it does not now exist. I do not understand the sense of saying that a provision of that sort will not increase the sum total of individual liberties but will in fact decrease it. Another provision of this Bill—and I do not think the Lord Chancellor very much objected to this—is that an individual's extent of claim against a public authority should not be less than the extent of his claim, in point of time and other things, against an individual. In what conceivable sense can it be said: "There is a provision which does not increase the liberty of the citizen but decreases it"? With all respect to my noble and learned friend, I am wholly unable to follow the meaning of the language which he used in that respect.
  There is another provision upon which I ventured to interrupt him. One of the clauses of this Bill would reduce the number of cases in which an official has the right to enter a house without a magistrate's warrant. Whether that be wise or unwise, can it be disputed that that, in

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  fact, is giving an additional protection to the individual liberty of the man who lives there? When I interposed to ask the Lord Chancellor why it was relevant to appeal rhetorically to the House and ask whether their Lordships really desired to abolish the right of the Home Office to send its inspectors to examine children's homes, I received an answer which, with very great respect, does not appear to me to have any logical basis whatever. Of course, my noble and learned friend at once admitted that there was nothing in Clause 6—the clause in question—which affected that in the least—the Home Office could go on doing that after this Bill became law as they do now. But the Lord Chancellor said: "No. I used that illustration to show you how foolish it is to pick and choose." If you are not going to pick and choose in the cases where officials are to have a right to enter your house without a magistrate's warrant, what sort of State are we going to live in? We are going to live under Hitler. Hitler is the truly original supporter of the proposition that you must never limit the right of one class of official to enter the house of an individual because to do so would really be picking and choosing between one class of case and another.
  The whole point is that there must be some cases in which individual liberty and individual rights are modified and set aside in the general interests of the community. But there is a distinct limit to the cases in which that is the right thing to do. If we look at this thing for one moment historically, without going into the detail, I think that the case for discussing the clauses of this Bill in Committee is very strong indeed. What has happened, as we all realise, is this. During the war there was of necessity an immense extension of autocratic power authorised by Parliament and exercised by Ministers under regulations such as would never have been tolerated in times of peace. It is very regrettable that since then, instead of there having been a rapid return to the old system under which we used to live, there has in many cases been a very great delay.
  The noble and learned Viscount said that the number of statutory instruments had greatly increased. They have indeed. In this very year up to date—and we are only half-way through the year—the num-
  1090
  ber of such instruments is 1,050. I venture to say that there are not two members of this House, or the other House, who could give an account of one-hundredth part of them. I do not deny that there must be regulations in proper cases, but surely we are blind to the situation in which we live if we do not realise that in these years after the war there has been, for good reason or for bad, a very grave invasion of what used to be regarded as the ordinary rights of the individual. You may be able to justify that according to your political philosophy, but to say that a Bill of this sort will not decrease such interference but will increase it seems to me to be very difficult to follow.
  Therefore, without in the least saying that I agree with every clause in the Bill —in point of fact, I do not—the effect upon me is to feel that it is high time we did have, clause by clause, a discussion of the principles of this Bill in order that we may, without rhetoric, quite calmly, taking one thing at a time, see whether or not the war-time extensions of interference in individual liberty are not continuing too extensively and too far. I am far from saying that there is nothing in this Bill with which I, on my present information, would disagree, but I am quite certain that it would be wholly contrary to my notions of liberty, at any rate, to treat our present situation as though it were one deserving of nothing but praise; of treating the situation in which the ordinary citizen finds himself every day of the week, restrained in all sorts of ways by regulations, as the normal situation of his time. Surely, the general judgment of the House, while complimenting the Lord Chancellor on his ingenuity and the boldness of his argument, will recognise that we are in a grave danger of seeing what is called the Welfare State developed at the expense of a sacrifice of liberty which some of us, at any rate, are not prepared to see. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, in the course of his very eloquent oration, complained of the doctrinaire approach. There are one or two doctrines of which I am not in the least ashamed. I have a horrid prejudice in favour of liberty.
  5.38 p.m.
  LORD WINSTER: My Lords, many differences of opinion have appeared during The discussion of this Bill, but about two things I am sure all your Lord-

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  ships are agreed. The first is that debates of this nature, upon such a subject as this, are essential to the working of our democratic Parliamentary system. The second thing upon which I am sure all your Lordships are agreed is admiration for the speech with which the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, introduced the Bill. If the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack will not think it impertinent of me to say so, I should like to say how deeply impressed I was by his speech. While I thought in one or two places I detected a slight fallacy, I must say that he entirely convinced me upon some other points. I would certainly agree with him that there has been a great extension of liberty and freedom for the individual in consequence of the social legislation which has been introduced in recent years. I fully agree also with the steps which the noble and learned Viscount has taken to reform the law and to strengthen the Judiciary—steps towards preserving and ensuring the liberty of the individual.
  However, I felt two other things about the noble and learned Viscount's speech. I felt that in many respects it was more a demonstration of the fact that this Bill requires considerable amendment than that the object of the Bill is wrong in itself. I felt that, in spite of what the noble and learned Viscount said, our liberties do seem to be shrinking; there does seem to he encroachment upon them—very likely inevitable. I was reminded of something which Mr. Bevin once said. He said that he looked forward to the day when a man would he able to go to Victoria Station and buy a ticket and travel anywhere he wanted in the world. Mr. Bevin saw a picture of a brave new world. Some little time after that, I read an account by Sir Norman Angell of his experiences when he was a young man. He was filled with a desire to visit the United States and to try his luck there. He says that he left this country without having to procure one single paper—no exit visa or anything of that sort; he was able to go without any such documents. He travelled across the Atlantic for £3 steerage, when the first-class fare was between £10 and £12. When he stepped off the boat on arrival in America he did not have to produce a single paper of any kind whatsoever; and thereafter for several
  1092
  years he travelled the length and breadth of the United States, earning his living at one job after another and never having to produce a single paper of any sort. So that when Mr. Bevin was contemplating a "brave new world" he was really thinking about the brave old world.
  I apologise for detaining your Lordships at this hour but I should like, if I may, to devote myself to one aspect of this matter which is particularly in my mind. We are now committed to the policies of the Welfare State and of a planned economy. I support, as I always have supported, those policies, but I find that there are many people who fear very much that the policies contain within themselves the seeds of authoritarianism. Even if the Government set out to pursue such policies without any intention whatever of encroaching on liberty beyond the least possible extent, I feel they are in danger of finding themselves upon a slippery slope. The Welfare State must be based upon a planned economy—and how can you plan your economy 100 per cent. unless you have control over everything? We have already seen one weakness develop in the planned economy policy in the inability to control wages. That has presented considerable difficulties to those concerned, Moreover, although 80 per cent. of our industry is still in the hands of free enterprise, yet almost daily one notices expressions of irritation that the Government have not yet complete control, and that there are some portions of the national economy which still escape. I think this irritation is very natural. On the other hand, some people may find it inexcusable. I will not argue that now, but at least it is natural. If you have a plan which you believe to be a good plan, which you think will advance the welfare and happiness and prosperity of the people, it must be very irritating indeed to find that someone is able to hold you up.
  I hope your Lordships will not think the illustration I am about to give too trivial. I have every day to pass the Army and Navy Stores, which some years ago embarked upon a great rebuilding scheme—and to-day there is that fine facade of theirs in Victoria Street. But at one corner of the building there is a shop—Fuller's sweet shop. I do not know the whole story, but I am perfectly convinced that when the Army and Navy

  1093
  Stores were embarking on that extension they must have made some proposal to Fuller's for securing, that shop. But Fuller's evidently did not wish to be swallowed up in this way, and they were able to resist. I have often thought about that as I have passed the Army and Navy Stores. But, my Lords, Governments have no mercy on the Naboths of this world. If the Government had been concerned and had been building some great air terminus or something of the kind, one may be sure that Fuller's sweetshop would not be standing there where it is today: it would have gone into the general plan. In these ways it does seem to me that we stand in danger of a drift towards authoritarianism when we are committed to these right and proper policies of the planned economy and the Welfare State. We have to be constantly on our guard: Parliament must he constantly on its guard, to see that any drift at all towards authoritarianism is dealt with at once.
  The matter goes deeper than that. I fear there are those who look upon authoritarianism as an end in itself—not as a means to an end, which is quite legitimate. I confess, my Lords, that the doctrine that "the gentleman in Whitehall knows best" gets "under my skin," if I may use that colloquialism. It was the "gentleman in Whitehall" who made the unfortunate miscalculation about the ground-nuts scheme. It was a lady in Whitehall who told us that the period of gestation for a cow is eleven months. It was the "gentleman in Whitehall" who said, "You must throw your surplus milk away down the drain—you must not make it into cream." And when a certain old lady of eighty-six wanted to send some honey to her son in hospital abroad it was only when she had completed six forms that she was told that she could not do it.
  I am not sure who is responsible for putting out posters. I remember that there was gentleman in Whitehall who some time back put out posters very lavishly. I recall one in particular, which ran:
  "Some use big tools, some use small,
  But a little more production, would be good for us all."
  And that, if you please, was displayed in Bond Street—that is where I saw it. I observe now an outbreak of posters
  1094
  which actually tell us the correct way to hail a bus. I do not think this is very good employment for those gentlemen in Whitehall. I think they might be better employed in many other activities. I am reminded of the mother who said to the nurse "Go and see what Master Willie is doing and all him not to." I think, too, of the nurse who was always saying "I know best what is good for you, Master Albert." I feel that these are reminiscent of the sort of things that an: being said and done by those "gentlemen in Whitehall." It is all one of a piece with the phrases which have been quoted to-day about "experiments in freedom." "Experiments in freedom" in the country of Pym and of Hampden—a country in which even a Lord Chancellor once died for conscience' sake! Well, my Lords, this is not the country, and the English are not the people, to talk to about "experiments in freedom".
  I have ventured to put forward these few remarks because I feel most sincerely that in these polices of a planned economy and a Welfare State these dancers lurk. They may well be brought about with the best of intentions, and for the best of motives; but the danger does lurk of starting a trend towards authoritarianism. I find everything that I feel on, that point summed up in an article that recently read in the Church Times which, with your Lordships' permission, I will read:
  "Faced with economic crisis,"
  a start might he made by
  "tampering with the rights and liberties"
  of our people,
  "in the hope or on the pretext of saving their economic lives. How easy and fatal it will be to make an argument on chose lines."
  The article goes on:
  "Hard circumstances play havoc with good intentions. The situation may present itself as a choice of circumstances. Liberty must be curtailed or the achievements of the past few years must be jeopardised."
  It concludes:
  "A people loses liberty by a process of erosion, rather than by a single act."
  In connection with that article, I venture to remind your Lordships of words used by the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, when he dealt with the growing power of the Executive. He said:

  1095
  "We have a Constitution here in Britain which, if extremists gained office, would enable them to carry through any policy they wished."
  It seems to me that, although a Welfare State may be right, you cannot box up nearly 50,000,000 people in an island of this size without having to regulate their lives for them to a considerable extent; the Welfare State is in many ways completely incompatible with full individual liberty. If we achieve liberty in this modern complicated world, we must accept the corollary that bad luck or failure may land us in poverty and misfortune. But if we achieve social security, we must accept an ever-increasing regimentation, because such security must be based upon a planned economy which cannot go hand in hand with the right of the individual to do exactly what he likes. Therefore, I feel that the question which we have to consider and examine is this: How far can we pursue the policies of planned economy and of a Welfare State without encroaching too far and unbearably upon individual liberty? In those policies I feel lies the possible danger which the frogs found in Æsop's fable:
  "It is so very easy indeed to change King Log for King Stork."
  5.53 p.m.
  LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY: My Lords, in his remarks I thought that the noble and learned Viscount who sits upon the Woolsack was a little less than fair to the noble Viscount the Leader of the Liberal Party, who I think was at particular pains to say that he recognised that the Bill might he improved in detail, and that he would be only too ready to co-operate with the Lord Chancellor if he felt inclined to lend him his own eminent legal ability together with the abilities of the Parliamentary draftsmen. So I cannot think that the noble and learned Viscount was being wholly just in calling the noble Viscount a doctrinaire, although, as my noble and learned friend, Lord Simon, has said, in the pursuit of liberty he is not ashamed to hold prejudiced and even doctrinaire views. If we are going to accuse the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, of being doctrinaire, we must at the same time accuse Lord Acton, who said quite specifically:
  1096
  "Liberty is no: a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end."
  During the course of this debate, it seems to have emerged that, although many noble Lords on this side of the House and possibly some on the other side do not agree with every clause in this Bill, it is a Bill which is worth committing to the Committee stage. It is easy, or apparently easy, to criticise each clause and show that as drafted it would not achieve the end which it has in view. But surely that consideration is the duty of the House sitting in Committee. I do not agree at all with the view once expressed by a former Minister in the Government, Miss Ellen Wilkinson, who in an Annex to the Donoughmore Committee's Report said that in her view:
  "Parliament can only deal really effectively with the principles and the general plan of proposed legislation. The details should be left to the experts."
  She added that
  "it would be better if the Committee stage of a Bill, as we now understand it, did not come before Parliament at all."
  We have seen—and it has been long known since the time of John Stuart Mill a hundred years ago—that we cannot draw any general theory of where liberty begins and tyranny ends. It lies in the question of expediency and detail. It lies so much in detail and it is vital, as the Lord Chancellor himself recognised, apparently differing from his late colleague, that Parliament should be intimately concerned with the details of legislation.
  How far we should go and how far Statutory Instruments and regulations should remove from Parliament the consideration of detail is in itself a matter of expediency. Certainly a freedom-loving people always lean towards Parliamentary control rather than towards Ministerial control. The Lord Chancellor told us that the independence of the judiciary was a certain prop and stay of a free people. It is, and we agree with him; but he must forgive us if we feel slight misgivings when some of his colleagues give utterance to such sentiments as these. The Minister of Health, speaking in Committee stage in another place, said:
  "That is what the courts are being asked to decide under this Amendment, and I say that if we give to the doctor his right of appeal

  1097
  to the High Court against his dismissal because he has been a bad servant to the public, how can we withhold it from any member of the public?"—
  and so on. Then he says:
  "This would be real judicial sabotage of socialised services…"
  I do not know whether he considered his words or whether he received the support of his colleagues in the Government, but such sentiments as that give us the gravest cause for misgivings, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Winster, had in mind when he gave expression to his views and misgivings about the course of our national politics and. where we are going. It is not enough for the noble and learned Viscount to say that he has during this present Parliament introduced a Bill which increases the liberty of the subject. As the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, said, it is his duty to reconcile his action with the sentiments and actions of his Government and his colleagues. If we weigh in one balance the Act in which he so justly takes pride against the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act, I do not think that the historian of the future will find that the balance is weighed down on the side of liberty.
  The noble Lord, Lord Winster, told us that we were in grave danger in the Welfare State of losing our liberty in the pursuit of security. I am sure that his remarks are just and will be read with the greatest interest. In our view, it is also because the Government have needlessly pursued the political aim of nationalisation that we have so many more regulations than are really necessary for the running of a modern State. The noble Viscount the Leader of the House told us the other day that an industry, whether it is coal, gas or electricity, cannot be nationalised without a comprehensive mass of regulations, Orders and all the rest of it. That is exactly our political objection to nationalisation. As the accumulation of Statutory Orders and regulations grows, it is necessary for Parliament to see how liberty is faring, and that is why we on these Benches congratulate the noble Viscount that, by introducing a Bill offering specific remedies to what he believes to be legislative and administrative evils, he has focussed attention upon this very important question. We believe that he has every right to see this Bill considered in Committee We believe that from time to time we must
  1098
  consider as widely as possible how liberty and order are to be reconciled. We believe that that cannot be done by general sentiment, but by looking at legislation and administration in detail.
  I myself do not take so depressed a view as the noble Lord, Lord Winster, about the future of freedom, if we really mean to have it. We feel that there are influences at work which do not really love freedom; but in a world in which, if it manages its affairs aright and maintains peace, the productive forces should increase the welfare and wealth of the world, there ought to be increasing and not diminishing liberty to every man woman and child. But we must plan for it. We must regard this matter in detail, and we must not throw away an opportunity such as this. Therefore, I advocate that we give this Bill a Second Reading.
  6.3 p.m.
  VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, I am very glad to see this Bill before us to-day because I believe it gives an opportunity to me and to many who I believe are of my opinion to state where we stand in this matter. I personally entirely agree with Lord Samuel's main contentions as to the necessity for increasing liberty in all possible ways, and, what is more, I also agree with his general method of attempting to do it through Parliament. There is only one snag in the matter and that is one which I think the Lord Chancellor has already very well pointed out—namely, the fact that if it is done by the methods advocated in this Bill it will produce the complete collapse of Parliament through gross overwork.
  Although along Lord Samuel's general lines it lies later on in the process, I believe that the real remedy must start with a reform of Parliament. I have seen my father's old speech notes. My father, of course, sat with Lord Samuel on the Liberal Benches. In one of those speech notes my father stated that he thought that a Second Chamber was useful only for reassuring old women. I personally differ very strongly from that view. I follow Bernard Shaw in the matter. Bernard Shaw was once asked whether he was in favour of a Second Chamber, and he said: "Yes, certainly; we shall want four or five before we are through." That is the real truth.

  1099
  We must have four or five, or possibly more, different departments of Parliament which can deal with these matters. The separate Committees which now sit on the matter of the Statutory Rules and Orders are what one might call the eggs from which such later Houses may hatch. If we have something like that, then I think we may be able to tackle the problem along the lines suggested by Lord Samuel. Until then, I believe that such a method is hopeless, because it will cause such confusion as to bring this Parliament to disaster. Let us remember that dictatorship abroad has generally been caused by one of two things: either by foreign invasion or by the internal collapse of the Parliaments of the countries concerned. That, I believe, is something upon which we must ruminate when we consider laying extra burdens on this already overburdened Parliament.
  As to these statutory Rules and Orders and the rest, what disturbs me most is the matter of inspectors. We do not want to have more of our lives inspected than is necessary. I personally divide inspectors into two kinds—those who inspect factories and such places, and those who have a right to enter our homes. I think the idea of having somebody inspect the kitchens of various hotels and such establishments is a very good one. When I am eating out, many times I have a quiet shudder when I think of what may be going on down in the kitchen. Perhaps it is lucky for me that I cannot go down and inspect it myself. Therefore, I am glad to think that there is somebody who can. I believe those inspectors are vital to the existence of this country, and I believe that they represent an actual increase in our liberty.
  But there arc inspectors whom we really must try to get rid of—namely, those who can enter our homes. Here I should like to congratulate the Government on the great decrease in recent years in the number of such inspectors. I think that a debate of this kind should not conclude without somebody mentioning the fact that we have got rid of the majority of the inspectors who can inspect men's homes. We have got rid of the Poor Law inspectors and we have got rid of the Means Test inspectors. They really were inspectors of a dictatorial kind. If the Govern-
  1100
  ment can find any method of getting rid of that kind of inspector (and possibly the best way is to get rid as fast as possible of rationing and such other controls as make them necessary), then I think they should take the chance. If there is any way of transferring those who inspect men's homes to the alternative work of inspecting factories or food depots or any such place, then we should try and change the law to make that possible. But I believe that any sweeping legislation of a general type such as is now contemplated would he quite impossible and, whilst Parliament is formed as it is now, would lead to Parliamentary disaster.
  6.9 p.m.
  LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I do not propose to take up much of your Lordships' time at this late hour, but I should like to address a few remarks to your Lordships upon this exceptionally important subject. It must have been fairly clear that many noble Lords who support the Government are more than a little worried about the whole situation, particularly in respect of administrative law and many of the other matters covered by this Bill. Your Lordships will have realised that from speeches which have been delivered from this side of the House this afternoon, and that anxiety is but a reflection of a very widespread anxiety in the Party to which I have the honour to belong—perhaps more particularly among those members of the Party who are practising members of the legal profession. I have, indeed, myself been asked to convey to His Majesty's Government the anxiety of the Society of Labour Lawyers in respect of this matter, and to ask the Government whether they cannot see their way to going at any rate some distance in support of the principles of this Bill.
  I entirely agree with what the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack said in his speech to the effect that the present Government have done more to spread liberty widely through the great masses of the people in this country than any previous Government have ever done. The noble and learned Viscount himself has been one of the greatest Lord Chancellors we have ever had, and I feel that I have bad a little reflected glory by reason of the fact that I have been privileged to assist him in some of

  1101
  the very important liberty-promoting measures which he has carried through your Lordships' House. As he has said, some of the work upon which he is engaged at the present time is of the greatest importance from that point of view. But I cannot see that that fact prevents his accepting at any rate some of the proposals made by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel.
  The whole of this problem of administrative law has been left exactly where it was when the Donoughmore Committee reported about the matter well back in the 1930's. Not only have the recommendations of that Committee not been fulfilled, hut, so far as I am able to see, no very real effort had been made by any Party, until this Bill was brought before your Lordships' House, to get the proposals of the Don oughmore Committee implemented. I find it very difficult to believe that proposals which have had the backing of my late colleague Professor Laski, the late Miss Ellen Wilkinson, and Mr. Richards, are really not proposals which are valuable from the point of view of the liberties of the subject in this country. This is not a matter which is so difficult that it cannot be effectively dealt with in legislation. This country is one of the few countries with modern civilised legal systems in which provision is not made for appeal from administrative decisions on legal points of great importance. In the United States of America, within only the last few years, a most important Act of Congress has been passed through which, I suggest, is in many ways a model of its kind. It provides valuable recourse from the decisions of administrative tribunals in the United States to what is in effect an administrative court of appeal. The precise way in which such appeals should be provided for is a matter for discussion.
  It might well be that this Bill could be withdrawn and a new Bill introduced after consultations had taken place. I am sure that the great masses of the people of this country are feeling very anxious at the present time, holding the view that something is needed in respect particularly of administrative law and the decisions of Ministers of State, given in almost every Department of State at the present time, which in all sorts of ways affect the rights and liberties of the ordinary men and women in this country and from which
  1102
  they have no sort of appeal whatever. It is only right that there should be an appeal and that that appeal should be brought in a neutrally constituted court. There may be reasons against these cases going to the ordinary Court of King's Bench. It may be that the judges there have not sufficiently wide experience of administrative arrangements to be able to deal with such matters effectively. But I cannot see why some sort of administrative court such as exists in other countries should not be set up. The President of such a court, I suggest, might be a judge of the High Court, who would be assisted, possibly, by eminent retired civil servants or others who had detailed knowledge of the administrative arrangements of the country. I suggest that there are a number of clauses in this Bill which the Government could very well accept, and if they will do so they will accept them with the support of the great mass of men and women of this country. I hope, therefore, that they will look at the matter again to see whether something can be done.
  6.18 p.m.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (VISCOUNT HALL): My Lords, I want to join with other noble Lords who have expressed their gratitude to the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, for initiating such a very interesting and important debate. Nobody is more anxious than His Majesty's Government to ensure that the ancient rights and liberties of the subject are safeguarded. We therefore welcome the motives which have prompted the presentation of this Bill, and I can assure the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, that nobody will be more zealous than ourselves in jealously safeguarding the long-established liberties of this land. The debate has been essentially a legal debate, and I should have wished that the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, had waited a while and had delivered his speech at the end of the debate, instead of intervening about hall' way through, for I regard his able and indeed devastating speech against the Bill as about the last word which it was necessary to say against it. His legal arguments were such that I thought it would be impossible for a layman to follow them or to deal with the points as fully as he dealt with them. In the course of the short time which I propose

  1103
  to detain your Lordships I shall not attempt to emulate that able and eloquent speech.
  I was interested to note the emphasis placed in the earlier speeches upon the individual liberty of the subject in this country. I fully agree with the importance of it, but I should have wished that some reference had been made before the speech delivered by the noble Lord, Lord Winster, to the economic and industrial liberties and rights of the people in this country. Some of us who have lived a long time recall the state of affairs which existed a good many years ago, and while "the good old days" might have been regarded as a sort of Eldorado in the matter of personal liberty for a number of people, it may be said of the great masses of the population of the country that the economic and industrial conditions in which they lived were worse than at present, and they did not enjoy even the measure of political liberty which they enjoy at the present time.
  My memories go back to 1947 when the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, introduced the previous Bill. The House was impressed by the powerful speech of our late colleague Lord Dukeston, whose passing we all deplore. He dealt fully with that aspect of the situation. He and I. and many who were with him during the latter part of last century and the first half of this, became somewhat cynical at this prating of liberty after the treatment we received at the hands of the Liberals in the early days. I agree with what was then said by my noble friend. Lord Dukeston. The period between 1906 and 1914 was a period in which we had more strikes and victimisation of the industrial population than at any other period in our history. The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, refers to the miners' Minimum Wages Act of 1912, but the minimum wage the miners asked for was a moderate and totally inadequate wage for the people employed in the most important and dangerous industry of this country—no more than 2s. 6d. per day, plus a percentage. Our memories go back to the dockers' strike, when the dockers went on strike for the "dockers' tanner" and were kept out on strike because those who prated about political liberty at that time gave no consideration whatever to the standards of life of the people.
  1104
  I was somewhat alarmed by the statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Winster, about the Welfare State and the social services. We have been building up the Welfare. State over a long period, ever since 1870, when the Government gave the people the right to receive education—just a grounding in the three "Rs". But that was enough to enable some of us to do what was necessary to build up what Parliament had denied to the people, an adequate standard of living. We built up outside Parliament the strongest industrial movement in the world, and whilst we were not deterred from building also a political movement, the working people in those early days pinned the whole of their hopes upon industrial action. The result is that to-day we have, working side by side, a powerful trade union movement and the most powerful political movement in the country. Both would sacrifice a considerable amount for the complete restoration of the liberties of the subject—but not at the expense of our economic and our social liberty. That is where I cross swords with the noble Lord, Lord Winster. We can have adequate safeguards for the liberty of the individual if they coincide with safeguarding the standards of the people. There is this difference between the present day and thirty or forty years ago, that to-day it is the great mass of the people who enjoy both economic and political liberty.
  The noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor said that I would refer to some of the clauses with which he did not deal. I will first of all deal with Clause 8, which proposes to deprive the marketing boards of their statutory powers and duty, now exercised by a special disciplinary committee of the board under the chairmanship of a lawyer. I question whether this clause is necessary. It would be interesting if the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, would tell the House where the representations have come from which prompted him to include a clause of this kind in the Bill. Have they come from the agricultural producers or from the consumers? I was surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, suggest that he was going to support this clause.
  LORD LLEWELLIN: The noble Viscount is wrong. I suggested that the right way of dealing with this was that

  1105
  a man should have the choice of going to the courts instead of paying the fine of the disciplinary committee.
  VISCOUNT HALL: That is so—I apologise to the noble Lord. A similar clause was moved as an amendment against the Agricultural Marketing Act which passed through another place in April of last year and then passed through your Lordships' House without any amendment at all. The interesting thing is that when it was voted on in another place, this clause received only two votes, apart from those of the Tellers, one being a Liberal and the ether an Independent. Not a single Conservative Member voted for the clause. That is in itself an indication that there is no purpose in this clause. If there was, then the right place for introducing legislation of this kind was in the Agricultural Marketing Act.
  We take strong objection to two clauses in the Bill, Clauses 10 and 11. Although the noble Viscount said that Clause 10 of the 1947 Bill had been dropped. Clause 10 in the present Bill takes its place, for the Unemployment Assistance Board, as well as the industries which have been nationalised, is brought within the scope of the clause. I think that this clause is.misconceived and it seems unlikely that the noble Viscount realizes its full implications. In the first place, the socialised industries are commercial undertakings, and it was the deliberate intention of Parliament that they should be free from detailed Ministerial or Parliamentary interference in their day-to-day operations and that Parliamentary supervision should be limited to the broadest questions of policy. This clause offends against that principle and, if it is desired to attack it, it would be more honestly and fairly done by an attempt to amend the nationalisation measures themselves than this rather loose method of inserting a clause in a Bill concerned with the liberty of the individual.
  It is impossible to accept the implication of the clause that the public authorities listed in the Schedule to this Bill are more inclined to be unfairly oppressive than are private enterprises. Quite the contrary. The Government have no reason to think that the existing safeguards of the individual are insufficient. They are certainly more substantial than
  1106
  in the case of private industry. In many cases the aggrieved individual has a remedy in the courts. Where this is so it is better that the courts should deal with the matter, and it would be undesirable that the Minister should intervene in a case which was before the courts or might come before them. In other cases the aggrieved individual has at least the same, and indeed greater, opportunities for obtaining redress than he has from private industry.
  Those supporting this clause entirely ignore. the machinery which the Statutes have set up for dealing with the grievances of the two largest bodies of people affected by the operations of the social. ised industries—namely, the consumers and the workpeople. Consumers' consultative machinery was set up in each industry for the precise purpose of enabling the grievances of consumers to be thoroughly ventilated and, if necessary, brought before the Minister who is empowered to give direction to the hoards. Similarly, the grievances of the work people are at present most successfully dealt with through conciliation machinery. Is it wise to imperil the success of these arrangements, which have never worked better than they are working at the present time, by enabling the aggrieved individual to short-circuit: them? It is most undesirable that the Minister should deal with the details of staff relations and personnel manageinent. Indeed, the trade unions concerned, and the nationalised boards themselves would resent interference by the Minister in matters which they have already discussed and agreed through the usual machinery of collective negotiation. It will be another interference with the work of the trade union movement in this country if the Bill is carried through in its present form. Indeed, the Minister himself would find it difficult, and possibly disastrous to the stability and efficient running of the industry, to interfere in these matters. It is right, of course, that the liberties of the individual should be protected, 'put it would be wrong to allow and certainly to encourage any individual to make collective bargaining unworkable. In short, the adoption of this clause would drastically upset the economy which the socialised industries need for their everyday commercial activities. while it would be more likely to weaken than to add to the safeguards

  1107
  against oppressive behaviour on their part.
  As to Clause 11, why such a clause has been included is indeed a puzzle to me. I suppose it takes the place of Clause 11 of the 1947 Bill, which has been dropped. This clause has for its purpose the prevention of political and religious victimisation by an employer. Those of us who have had to deal with large numbers of cases of victimisation know that it is almost impossible in private employment to fix any cause for victimisation. You can legislate, if you like, and say that this legislation prevents victimisation, but we have seen every device adopted for the purpose of victimising a man for his religious, political or, indeed, his trade union activities. We feel that this clause, again, is an interference with an organisation which during the last twenty or thirty years has been able, through its relationship with the employers, to deal with this matter infinitely better than any legislation could possibly deal with it. Indeed, the trade unions would deprecate the singling out of any political Party or any religious denomination for mention in a Bill of this kind, as here they have cegislative protection against what was one of the worst evils—namely, the victimisation of the individual by industry. The trade union movement would take strong exception to that clause, because, as they rightly say, again it is an interference with duties which have been carried out much more successfully than they could he carried out under any legislative instrument of this kind.
  Finally, I come to Clause 12, the object of which is to allow a writ of habeas corpus to be issued in the case of a member of a Commonwealth country's Forces stationed in this country.
  VISCOUNT SAMUEL: Or others.
  VISCOUNT HALL: Yes, or others. The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, asked whether any approach had been made to the Commonwealth countries in relation to any change which might be required in connection with this legislation. No approach was made to the Commonwealth countries or, indeed, to any of our Allied countries during, the last war; indeed, there was hardly any need for an approach to be made by us. The position is as it was. Here is legislation which was entered into as a result of a complete
  1108
  understanding between the Commonwealth countries and our own Government and our Allies during the last war, and that legislation has worked very satisfactorily for the seventeen years for which it has been upon the Statute Book. Why, in a Bill of this kind, further legislation should be asked for upon legislation which is agreed between ourselves and other nations, is beyond our comprehension. There is nothing more that I can say. The noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, has dealt with what are regarded as the legal aspects of the Bill, and I have attempted, very inadequately, to follow him and deal with the clauses which were left to me. From what he and so many noble Lords have said about certain clauses of this Bill, I hope noble Lords will agree that there is no purpose at all for this measure and will vote against the Second Reading.
  6.40 p.m.
  VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, I confess that I am profoundly disappointed at the attitude taken by the Government. We invited their co-operation. We wished the whole House to work together in order to deal with a few exceptional matters which have aroused a good deal of public opinion in recent years. They have returned a fiat negative, and apparently are going to press the House to a Division and vote against this Bill. The reasons given seem to me quite inadequate, consisting almost entirely of Committee points which could properly be dealt with at the next stage of the Bill. With regard to the first part of the speech of the noble Viscount who has just spoken, it seemed to me to have a certain familiar ring about it—grievances of the miners thirty or forty years ago, and the injustices which they suffered. I forget whether he mentioned the Means Test this time—he may have done so. But noble Lords know the familiar feeling when one seems to have heard exactly the same thing before and to have been in a place already. I seem to remember hearing the same speech on two or three previous occasions on entirely different matters. However, at the end he came to the Bill and dealt with one or two of the particular clauses.
  The noble Viscount urged that the Welfare State requires all these restrictions on liberty. Well, the two ought not to be antagonistic to one another. You cannot have a true Welfare State

  1109
  which treats personal liberty as unimportant. That is the Welfare State in Russia, where people have to submit to slavery in order to have what is called economic freedom. The business of this Government, and particularly a Labour Government, I think, should be to relieve the Welfare State which they have helped to build up from the accusation that it unnecessarily restricts liberty. I was much struck by the courageous speech of the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, who, speaking on behalf of an organisation of lawyers belonging to the Labour Party, said that they were deeply concerned at the manner in which the judicial procedure was neglected in certain cases and the encroachments that had in fact been made upon personal liberty. He urged the Government to take these facts into account and to think yet again before they gave a complete negative to all proposals such as those embodied in the Bill.
  With respect to the noble Viscount's last point, in urging that political and religious tests should not be imposed by private employers as a condition of employment, I fail to follow his argument entirely, because he said that we were interfering—tha t was his word—with the activities of trade unions in protecting their members against victimisation. In what smallest particular would this clause, if it were passed into law, affect in any way the admirable efforts that are made by the trade unions to protect their members from victimisation? It adds a fresh safeguard to personal liberty in the case where private individuals try to make as a condition of employment some particular political or religious faith, or the absence of some particular religious or political profession or belief.
  With regard to habeas corpus, the noble Viscount said that the legislation has worked perfectly satisfactorily for seventeen years. How can you tell that it has worked satisfactorily if you deny to an aggrieved person the right to sue for habeas corpus? How do you know whether or not things have occurred on which a writ of habeas corpus ought to have been issued?
  VISCOUNT HALL: Because His Majesty's Government have had no complaint at all from the British Commonwealth. If there had been any complaint against it, then, of course, His Majesty's
  1110
  Government, with other Governments, would have heard of those complaints.
  VISCOUNT SAMUEL: The noble Viscount again refers only to Commonwealth affairs, but there are other foreign forces—certainly the Polish forces. How do you know that people have not been subjected to injustice there for their political beliefs or other beliefs? I do not say that they have been; I have no knowledge whatever of the subject. I am making no insinuation of any sort or kind. All I say is that we cannot tell—because no writs have been sued for, having been prohibited by law—that there have not been occasions upon which writs ought to have been, and probably would have been, sued for if there had been permission to do so. An opinion strongly urged by Sir Stafford Cripps—this was when he was not in the present Government—was that this was a matter of pro-found importance, a matter of principle; that certainly no ham could be done by allowing writs of habeas corpus to be sued for, and that much harm might be done by the refusal. However, I do not propose to chew the cud of the debate and to go over again till the matters that were dealt with in my previous speech, for the length of which I must apologise to the House. I trust that noble Lords who have heard the debate and have followed these matters will support the Bill in the Division, since one is being forced upon us, and will urge that this measure is worthy of consideration, point by point, in a Committee of your Lord, ships' House.

  THE POSITION IN KOREA
  6.47 p.m.
  VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, before the noble Viscount on the Woolsack puts the Question to the House, I am sure your Lordships would wish me to report to you, whist the House is assembled, a very important statement which the Prime Minister has just made in the House of Commons. It is rather long and I will do my best to piece the cables together. It is as follows:
  "I am grateful to the House for allowing me to interrupt business in order to make the following statement.
  This morning His Majesty's Government were informed by the United

  1111
  States Government of the terms of a statement which the United States Government intended to make later in the day on the situation in Korea. This statement has in fact just been released for publication in the U.S.A. It reads as follows:
  'In Korea the Government forces, which were armed to prevent border raids and to preserve internal security, were attacked by invading forces from North Korea.
  The Security Council of the United Nations called upon the invading troops to cease hostilities and to withdraw to the 38th parallel.
  This they have not done, but on the contrary have pressed the attack.
  The Security Council called upon all members of the United Nations to render every assistance to the United Nations in the execution of this resolution.
  In these circumstances I have ordered United States air and sea forces to give the Korean Government troops cover and support.
  The attack upon Korea makes it plain beyond all doubt that Communism has passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use armed invasion and war.
  It has defied the orders of the Security Council of the United Nations, issued to preserve international peace and security. In these circumstances the occupation of Formosa by Communist forces would be a direct threat to the security of the Pacific area and to United States forces performing their lawful and necessary functions in that area.
  Accordingly I have ordered the Seventh Fleet to prevent any attack on Formosa. As a corollary of this action I am calling upon the Chinese Government on Formosa to cease all air and sea operations against the mainland,
  The Seventh Fleet will see that this is done.
  The determination of the future status of Formosa must await the restoration of security in the Pacific, a peace settlement with Japan, or consideration by the United Nations.
  I have also directed that United States forces in the Philippines be strengthened and that military assistance to the Philippine Government be accelerated.
  I have similarly directed acceleration in the furnishing of military assistance to the forces of France and the associated States in Indo-China and the dispatch of a military mission to provide close working relations with those forces.
  1112
  I know that all members of the United Nations will consider carefully the consequences of this latest aggression in Korea in defiance of the Charter of the United Nations. A return to the rule of force in international affairs will have far-reaching effects. The United States will continue to uphold the rule of law. I have instructed Ambassador Austin. as the representative of the United States to the Security Council, to report these steps to the Council.'"
  Then Mr. Attlee went on:
  "I should add that the United Kingdom representative on the Security Council has been authorised to support at to-day's meeting of the Security Council a resolution which I understand is being introduced by the United States' representative and which recommends that the members of the United Nations furnish such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack.
  The situation is of the utmost gravity, but I am certain there will be no disagreement, after our bitter experiences of the last thirty-five years, that the salvation. of all is dependent upon prompt and effective measures to arrest aggression wherever it may occur, using for this purpose the international machinery which the peace-loving nations have set up for this very purpose.
  The fact is that the authorities in Northern Korea have invaded the territory of the Government of the Republic of Korea. This is naked aggression, and it must be checked. We can only hope that all concerned will recognise this simple fact. If they do there is hope for the future.
  In view of the situation, Sir Gladwyn Jebb is flying out immediately to New York to take up his post as permanent representative of the United Kingdom on the United Nations."
  6.54 p.m.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Viscount the Leader for having made that statement to us at the earliest possible moment. I will only say this: in a moment we are going into the Division Lobby on a purely domestic question; but on the grave matters on which he has spoken to us now we are all one.
  VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friends on these Benches, I would endorse what has just been said by the noble Viscount who is acting Leader of the Opposition. In the present very serious situation I feel sure that the whole nation will rally as one behind the Government of the day.
  Resolved in the affirmative: Bill read 2a;accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

  FOREIGN COMPENSATION BILL
  7.3 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, at this hour you will not want a second long speech from me, but I must say something to explain the purposes of this Bill. We hope to receive some£4,500,000 from the Government of Yugoslavia and some £8,000,000 from the Government of Czechoslovakia, spread over a number of years, in respect of the losses which have been suffered by British concerns

  LIBERTIES OF THE SUBJECT BILL
  Debate on Second Reading resumed.
  On Question, Whether the Bill shall be now read 2a;?
  Their Lordships divided: —Contents, 66; Not-Contents, 24.

  CONTENTS

  Reading, M.

  Marchwood, V.

  Llewellin, L.

  Samuel, V.

  Lloyd, L

  Bathurst, E.

  Simon, V.

  Luke, L.

  Birkenhead, E.

  Swinton, V.

  Mancroft, L.

  Halifax, E.

  Mendip L. (V. Clifden) [Teller.]

  Iddesleigh, E.

  Altrincham, L.

  Merthyr, L.

  Lindsay, E.

  Baden-Powell, L.

  Milverton, L.

  Onslow, E.

  Balfour of Inchrye, L.

  Moyne, L.

  Perth, E.

  Carrington, L. [Teller.]

  O'Hagan. L.

  Portsmouth, E.

  Cawley, L.

  Ormonde, L. (M. Ormonde.)

  St. Aldwyn. E.

  Cherwell, L.

  Polwarth. L.

  Selkirk, E.

  Clwyd, L.

  Remnant. L.

  Shaftesbury. E.

  Clydesmuir, L.

  Rochdale, L.

  Courthope, L.

  St. Just, L.

  Bridgeman, V.

  De L'Isle and Dudley, L.

  Saltoun, L.

  Caldecote, V.

  Denman, L.

  Sandhurst, L.

  Camrose, V.

  Derwent, L.

  Sempill, L.

  Cecil of Chelwood, V.

  Ellenborough, L.

  Stamp, L.

  Elibank, V.

  Fairfax of Cameron, L.

  Stanmore, L.

  Falmouth, V.

  Gifford, L.

  Teynham, L.

  Furness, V.

  Hampton, L.

  Tweedsmuir, L.

  Harcourt, V.

  Hawke, L.

  Wardington, L.

  Long, V.

  Layton, L.

  woolton, L.

  NOT-CONTENTS

  Jowitt, V.(L. Chancellor.)

  Archibald, L.

  Lawson, L.

  Bingham, L. (E. Lucan) [Teller.]

  Lucas of Chilworth, L.

  Addison, V. (L. Privy Seal.)

  Burden. L. [Teller.]

  Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, L..

  Calverley, L.

  Marley, L.

  Huntingdon, E.

  Crook, L.

  Mountevans, L.

  Darwen, L.

  Pakenham, L.

  Alexander of Hillsborough, V.

  Faringdon, L.

  Quibell, L.

  Hall, V.

  Haden-Guest, L.

  Shepherd. L.

  St. Davids, V.

  Kershaw, L.

  Uvedale of North End, L.

  through nationalisation and other similar activities. The amounts received would be only enough to pay a dividend —but I hope a fairly substantial dividend in the case of Yugoslavia, where I estimate it at something like 50 per cent. In the case of Czechoslovakia, I estimate it at something like 33⅓per cent. There are various methods by which this could have been done. Sometimes there is a mixed claims Commission to ascertain the various sums. Sometimes the "lump sum" method is adopted, and that has been done in this case. We have agreed these lump sums. In former days, it would have been the responsibility of the Foreign Office to divide up the sums so received amongst the various claimants, For that purpose, in practice the Foreign Secretary would appoint some kind of

  1115
  legal committee, though the responsibility was his; yet he would, of course, act on the advice of that committee.
  Let me explain this for a moment, When a Department or a Minister is dispensing the money amongst the various claimants, in those circumstances he is not a trustee dispensing money or holding money for a cestui que trust. There is the celebrated case that was decided in the House of Lords after the First World War. It is rather like a Sovereign dispensing justice to his subjects: he cannot be called into question or brought before the courts on appeal. This is quite plainly a case in which no one would ever seriously suggest that there should be an appeal, and it shows how unwise it is to have that general rule. We are going to set up a judicial tribunal which will he presided over by one or two very distinguished lawyers.
  I hope that it will include accountants and business men, and they will have to decide, and decide finally, how this money shall be divided up. There is all the more reason for doing it in this way, rather than leaving it to the Foreign Office, because in the case of Yugoslavia, for instance, there will be claims by Commonwealth citizens and naturally enough they would or might be more content with the decision of a tribunal than with that of a particular departmental Minister here.
  We are setting up a permanent Commission. I hope—I am not authorised to say more than this—that ultimately we shall get payments from a number of other countries, and if we do we think it will be convenient for the Commission to deal with these claims. Further, it may be that some of the other countries, if we are going to try to fix lump sum agreements, may demand that we shall give them some idea of what the amount is going to he. We may therefore want to have some system of registering claims, to try to ascertain what the amount is before we pay the claim. Previously that was done by some Government Department, either the Foreign Office or, in more recent years, the Administrator of Enemy Property.
  All I want to say about this agreement is this. It will, of course, be a Commission before which anybody who so desires can appear, and if he wants to argue his
  1116
  case in person or by Counsel he will be fully entitled so to do. Since we propose to do this by Order-in-Council, we set out two drafts of the Order-in-Council showing the sort of thing which we contemplate. They are not like the Laws of the Medes and Persians; they are not fixed. We shall have some amendments to make and I have no doubt that your Lordships will have some amendments which you would like to put forward. But the drafts give some idea. They arc set out in a Memorandum, Command Paper 7942, which those of your Lordships who are interested in the matter will have read. I should just add that paragraph 6 of that Memorandum is no longer applicable. That was the paragraph which dealt with the various enforcoments—provisions about perjury and the like. We think the existing general law is sufficient.
  If we bring it into being, I hope that this Commission will be in operation next August. So far, we know of something like 1,800 claims to be considered. Of course the Commission's main function will be judicial, but there will have to be a secretariat which will deal with claims and the like, and the idea is that there should be some legal officer who is going to play the part of the advocatus diaboli who will find out which claims shall not be admitted. The hearing will be before the three Commissioners and I think they will have to sit in two divisions. That, my Lords, is the substance of the Bill. The expenses of the Commission will have to be met by a small reduction in the case of each claim; but it will be very small. In that sense the Commission will be self-supporting. I think this Bill is pretty generally agreed, and in spite of the fact that it offends against the Samuel principle I have no hesitation in commending it to your Lordships and in moving that it be now read a second time.
  Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a;.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  7.11 p.m.
  VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, we are all very grateful indeed to the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack for his full explanation of this Bill, and we think that everybody in the House is glad to see it before Parliament. Those who know anything about the story of these Continental claims will realise that this Bill is really a link in

  1117
  two long chains of negotiations between this country and Czechoslovakia and similar negotiations between this country and Yugoslavia, and after two or three years' negotiating in one form or another we have now reached the point where, as the Lord Chancellor has explained, agreements have been arrived at with each of these two countries for a certain sum to be set aside to deal with compensation. Agreements have also been reached with the two countries that those sums which will he set aside shall be global sums, and that the cake shall be cut here by the tribunal which the Lord Chancellor has described, and not by tribunals overseas.
  Here I must declare an interest, because I am a member of one of the British Committees who have been negotiating with Czechoslovakia and, I may say, negotiating very happily with Government Departments in some of these matters. I should like to pay tribute to the way in which the representatives of certain of the Committees with which I have been connected have been received and helped by the various Government Departments. Those who are in any way concerned with these claims view with great relief the idea that the share in regard to each claim compared with the global total is to be decided in England and according to English legal procedure. Everybody will be very content with that. I think that we can agree with the Lord Chancellor to leave the matter in the hands of the tribunal and in this case not to ask for appeal.
  Having said that, I think I have said all that I need say about the Bill itself. But as your Lordships know, with the Bill came out a White Paper, and in the White Paper there was issued a draft Order-in-Council. That draft Order-in-Council is a fairly technical document and, as the Lord Chancellor told us just now, the last word has not been said. It is still a draft and it is not thought entirely satisfactory in every respect. Negotiations are going on, however, and I have no doubt that by the time the Order-in-Council comes to be laid most of the remaining matters will have been ironed out. Perhaps I may be excused, even at this late hour, for mentioning three points on which I understand further discussion on the draft Order-in-
  1118
  Council is necessary. In the first place, so far as the Czechoslovakian position is concerned there is a little doubt whether certain claims for actual cash debts will be eligible. They are definitely eligible in the Yugoslav Agreement. If they are not eligible, we want to take care that those debts do not fall, so to speak, between two stools—that they are not blackballed (if I may use that term) in regard to the monetary agreement of 1945, and equally blackballed by this Bill.
  Similarly, there are certain matters connected with trusteeship claims. There are certain firms in this country who are acting as trustees for people, some of them not resident here but possibly in the Dominions. Those claims need to be taken care of. There is a third class of claim—namely, claims made by a company registered in this country whose ownership of a Czechoslovakian assets conies through the ownership of a subsidiary. Let me take the case, I think: not entirely imaginary, of a British company which owns a subsidiary registered in Switzerland, and the Czechoslovakian asset is actually owned. by the Swiss Company. There was an agreement, I think, made a couple of years ago, between Switzerland and Czechoslovakia in which that kind of asset was excluded. Here, again, we must take care that those cases do not fall between two stools. I say that, not because I am in any way alarmed at the possibility—because negotiations are going on and, to my knowledge, they are very happy and constructive negotiations, between the owners of the assets and the Government Departments. I want merely to mention those points as indicating the sort of complications with which we must deal if the machinery of the Claims Commission is to work to the greatest satisfaction of everybody. When the Commission starts to wont there may be further adjustments to the machinery, and I suggest that in that case it would be right to feel our way as we go. As the Lord Chancellor told us, if this procedure works well in the case of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia we hope it will be used in the future should it be possible to make agreements with other countries now behind the Iron Curtain, because nationalisation has taken place in almost every one of those countries. It is a dose of nationalisation which would almost cause noble Lords opposite indigestion,

  1119
  because nothing like that has happened here yet.
  I will leave that matter and just make these two main points. As I say, this Bill is a chain in a course of events. But it has a very clear background—namely, that neither this Bill nor anything like it will achieve its object (which is that British concerns shall be compensated for what has been taken from them), unless two things happen. The first is that the Board of Trade see to it that sufficient trade is promoted between Britain and Yugoslavia and Britain and Czechoslovakia to make it possible for these compensation payments to come through at the rate which has been envisaged in the agreements; because if there is no trade going through, these payments will dry up and nothing will happen. Secondly, and in parallel with that, steady diplomatic pressure will have to be exercised if these agreements are to stand up to events. It has been necessary to give a good deal of diplomatic attention to this matter in the past, and it would be a great tragedy if all the work and good will which is represented by this Bill were to be lost through failure to maintain the objective which His Majesty's Government have so far set themselves. My Lords, we support the Bill and we will do all we can to bring it speedily into law.
  7.20 p.m.
  LORD SEMPILL: My Lords, I gladly join with the noble Viscount who has just sat down in congratulating the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack on the explanation which he has given your Lordships of this matter. I should also like to take this opportunity of congratulating His Majesty's Government on the fact that, despite the fears of many, and despite a mass of obstacles, they have been able to conclude these Compensation Agreements with the Governments of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. I, too, like the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, have an interest to declare. Like him I have been working for some time on a committee to try to assist these people who have lost their all. As your Lordships well know, the Committee, on which my noble friend Lord Bridgeman sits, and of which Mr. Hansard is Chairman, was set up a number of years ago. and is known as
  1120
  the Beevor Committee. It bears this name as a tribute to the excellent work done by Mr. Jack Beevor, its secretary, who is a partner in the firm of Slaughter and May. Shortly after its establishment, another Committee to deal with other claimants, one might say the smaller claimants, was set up. Of this Committee I am privileged to be the chairman. The Committee is called "The Czechoslovak Claims Committee, 1948." On it we are fortunate to have as our secretary Mr. K. Schwartz, who is of Czechoslovak birth but has for many years been a naturalised British subject.
  I should like to draw the attention of your Lordships to the following points arising out of the present wording of the Foreign Compensation Bill, 1950, and the draft orders accompanying it. The matter has been referred to by the noble Viscount who has just sat down, and I will confine myself exclusively to the provisions relating to Czechoslovakia. Under the Anglo-Czechoslovak Compensation Agreement of September 28, 1949. His Majesty's Government have given a general discharge to the Czechoslovak Government in respect of nearly all British claims. In defining the claims to which such discharge relates, as a result of protracted negotiations with the Czechoslovak Government—who all the time had at the back of their minds, as your Lordships will be aware, the necessity of having to make similar Agreements with other countries and wanted to avoid prejudicing themselves—rather artificial terms were used.
  It was generally expected that all claims which were thus discharged under the terms of Clause 3 of the Anglo-Czechoslovak Compensation Agreement, would qualify for compensation under the Foreign Compensation Bill. However, the Bill suggests a different method of definition, and there is a grave danger lest a number of claims to which the discharge relates may, nevertheless, not be admissible under the Bill. The Compensation Agreement refers to:
  "various Czechoslovak methods of nationalisation, expropriation, dispossession or other restrictive measures."
  whereas the Bill refers only to such Czechoslovak laws and decrees as are enumerated in a Schedule attached to the Bill. For example, the second Czecho-

  1121
  Slovak Agricultural Reform Act is not included. In view of the fact that since 1945 the Czechoslovak Government have been issuing a great number of laws, orders, decrees and regulations affecting the rights of these British owners, it is almost impossible to draw up a complete list of all relevant measures, and the Commission may find themselves confronted with cases which could not qualify under the Bill for the reason that the act of dispossession was based on a measure inadvertently omitted from the Schedule.
  Moreover, the interpretative minute to the Compensation Agreement contains a clause to the effect that, in cases where British-owned property has been first confiscated and subsequently nationalised, the elate of promulgation of the nationalisation law shall be deemed to be the date of the relevant measure. This clause has not been incorporated in the draft Order-in-Council, and this may result in a number of cases covered by the Compensation Agreement under the said definition clause, and thus comprised in the general discharge, not being entitled to compensation under the Compensation Bill. I feel sure that such is not intended. It would, therefore, seem advisable to acid to the draft Order-in-Council a general clause to the effect that the Commission are to admit any claim in respect of which the British Government have given a discharge to the Czechoslovak Government under the Compensation Agreement, even if such claim is not covered expressly by any of the other provisions of the Order-in-Council. British claimants know only too well, from experience, Mat the Czechoslovak authorities are very reluctant indeed to give information about expropriated property, although according to the Anglo-Czechoslovak Compensation Agreement of September last the Czechoslovak Government promised to assist in securing all documents, proofs, et cetera, which would be required here. It is. therefore, suggested that the Claims Commission should take into consideration the difficulties in collecting documents and accounts or any other kind of proofs.
  I should also like to suggest that it would be most desirable, and in accordance with practice, that an advisory committee should be set up. This committee would, of course, be at the call of the Claim; Commission to assist and advise the Commission in all cases in which
  1122
  claimants were unable, through circurnstances beyond their control, to submit documentary proof. An advisory committee consisting of independent experts with personal knowledge of Czechoslovak affairs could give valuable assistance in many respects, and ensure a fair and just valuation on the evidence available. A number of such experts are available; and I would strongly recommend that the aforementioned proposals are taken into account when the final text of the Order-in-Council is prepared.
  I should like to support what the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgman, has said. My committee have had excellent relations with the authorities concerned; they have been exceedingly helpful, and have met us on all possible occasions. If it should be the wish of the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack that a meeting should be convened between our representatives and the officials concerned in order that there may be full explanation of these points, we are entirely at their disposal. I beg leave to support the welcome which has been given to the Bill.
  7.26 p.m.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, all I need add is a word of thanks to your Lordships for the support which you have given to this Bill. I will see that the points which have been mentioned by both the noble Lords who have spoken are considered. If I can be of any help in calling a meeting I will certainly do so.
  On Question, Bill read 2a;, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

  HOUSING (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
  7.27 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Morrison, I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill which is a Bill to consolidate, without amendment, the Housing (Scotland) Acts, 1925 to 1949.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a;. —(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Bill read 2a;; and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

  ARMY RESERVE BILL [H.L.]
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill, which is a Bill to consolidate certain enactments relating to the Army Reserve, be now read a second time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a;.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, I would not take up the time of your Lordships' House were it not that I have often asked the noble and learned Viscount who sits On the Woolsack when this Bill was coming along. I should like to take this opportunity of saying how much we appreciate the appearance of this Bill, the form of which shows how many Acts have to be consolidated. If I may, with the leave of the House, I will add that the same remark applies to the next Bill on the Order Paper.
  On Question, Bill read2a;; and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

  AIR FORCE RESERVE BILL [H.L.]
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill, which is a Bill to consolidate certain enactments and Orders in Council relating to the Air Force Reserve.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a;.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Bill read 2a; and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

  DISTRIBUTION OF INDUSTRY BILL
  7.30 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, on its Second Reading this Bill was received with unanimity in your Lordships' House. If I may be allowed to say so with respect, I thought that the speeches which were made on that occasion upheld the best traditions of
  1124
  your Lordships' House. I am very grateful to noble Lords for what they said, and my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade wishes to be associated with that remark. On the Committee stage, no noble Lord thought it necessary to move. an Amendment. It only remains for me in moving the Third Reading to thank noble Lords on all sides of the House for the part which they played in a most instructive and interesting debate. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a Third time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a;.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)
  LORD CLYDESMUIR: My Lords, it is true that on the Second Reading of the Bill some warnings were given about the use of the powers which this Bill will confer, but there was a general appreciation that they were necessary. If the Government are always so successful in finding non-controversial measures in the present curious position of Parliament, they will be fortunate indeed. I would commend the Bill.
  On Question, Bill read 3a;, and passed.

  MERCHANT SHIPPING BILL
  7.31 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, upon the Second Reading of this Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, raised some doubt about the assurances given to the industry, both employers and employees, that proper consultation would be given before the regulations which the Minister has power to make under the Bill were actually made. I should like to repeat the assurance definitely and in terms about which there can be no equivocation. There will be full consultation with both employers and employees before these regulations are made, and similar consultations will take place before a decision is taken on the extent to which an existing fishing boat coming in for structural alterations or repairs must comply with the standards laid down in the new regulations. I think that assurance will be acceptable to the noble Lord opposite. We intend fully to carry it out. With that assurance, I

  1125
  hone your Lordships will give this Bill a Third Reading. I beg to move.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a;.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)
  LORD CLYDESMUIR: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend, I should like to thank the noble Lord for these assurances, which are on lines which I think my noble friend would approve.
  On Question, Bill read 3a;, and passed.

  ROYAL PATRIOTIC FUND CORPORATION BILL
  7.33 p.m.
  Read 3a;(according to Order), and passed.

  GATESHEAD AND DISTRICT TRAMWAYS BILL [H.L.]
  Returned from the Commons agreed to.
  WAKEFIELD EXTENSION BILL [H.L.]
  Commons Amendments considered and agreed to.
  PORT OF LONDON BILL.
  Reported, with Amendments.
  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL
  Reported, without amendment.
  LAND DRAINAGE (SURREY COUNTY COUNCIL (HOGSMILL RIVER IMPROVEMENT) (AMENDMENT)) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL
  Reported, with an Amendment and re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House.