Lords Sitting of 20 November 1951

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers
Several Lords—Took the Oath.
The Lord Gisborough—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.
The Lord Kilmarnock—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his brother.

THE ADDRESS: MESSAGE FROM THE KING
2.39 p.m.
THE EARL OF CLARENDON: My Lords, I have the honour to present a Message from The King, signed with his own hand. The Message is as follows:
"I have received with great satisfaction the loyal and dutiful expression of your thanks for the Speech with which I opened the present Session of Parliament."

EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1ª; and to be printed.

PEDESTRIAN CROSSINGS IN ROYAL PARKS
2.41 p.m.
EARL HOWE: 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 whether consideration can be given to the provision of striped pedestrian crossings in the Royal Parks, in the interests of public safety.]
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Munster, I have been asked to reply. The Road Traffic Acts do not apply to roads in the Royal Parks, which are maintained primarily for the rest and recreation of the public and not for the purpose of providing public thoroughfares. It is the duty of the motorists to give way to pedestrians in any part of the Park, and for this reason a 20 mile speed limit has been imposed for many years. Pedestrian crossings, which would imply that the motorist had a prior right of way elsewhere in the park, are not considered
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appropriate, and could not in any case be made effective unless special regulations were made and laid before Parliament.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for his reply, may I point out that his answer is one which might have been appropriate if drafted ten or fifteen years ago? Is the noble Earl aware that the arterial roadways proceeding through the main parks are some of the broadest in London, and does he not realise that children, nurses, and pedestrians in general, often have the greatest difficulty in getting across the road because of the constant stream of traffic? Does the noble Earl not agree that it is a reasonable suggestion that striped crossings should be provided at such places as the Victoria Memorial, and at other places at Hyde Park and elsewhere, and may I ask whether further consideration can be given to the matter?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether we are to take it that, by law, every pedestrian in Royal Parks has priority over every form of vehicular traffic?
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, in reply to the noble Lord. Lord Lucas of Chilworth, that is how I am informed at the moment, but I will certainly look into the matter. In reply to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, I will bring his observations to the notice of my noble friend Lord Munster.

THEFTS FROM NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM
2.43 p.m.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, I beg to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether their attention has been drawn to the recent further theft of an historic Nelson relic from the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich; at what time the theft was discovered, and at what time the police were informed; whether assurances given concerning security arrangements in the Museum, following the theft of the Nelson Chelengh in June, have been implemented in all respects, and whether all the requirements of the Trustees have been met in detail.]
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (VISCOUNT SWINTON): My Lords, the exhibit stolen from the National Maritime Museum on Thursday, November 8, was a memorial ring. Memorial rings were given by the Nelson family to pall-bearers and others who attended Nelson's funeral: other rings were reproduced later in larger numbers, for sale. The stolen ring was of the latter type and had belonged to Sir John Franklin, the explorer. Its intrinsic value was £2 or £3 and it was exhibited, with other Franklin relics, in the Museum's Polar Gallery. The theft is not considered to have any connection with that of the Nelson Chelengh last June. Though the absence of the ring was noticed at 4.30 p.m., the relief warder then on duty in the gallery assumed that, as the case was undamaged and bore no obvious signs of having been forced, the ring had been removed by an officer of the Museum. As a result, the police were not informed until 7.20 p.m.
After the loss of the Nelson Chelengh, the Museum's security arrangements were reviewed, and certain measures have been completed. Others are in hand and some further work which has been agreed upon remains to be started. Though it has not yet been possible to meet in full the wishes of the Trustees, an increase in warding staff has now been authorised, and the night patrols will thus be relieved of responsibility for manning the telephone switchboard.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, may I thank the noble Viscount very much for the answer he has given, which I am sure will reassure many people? But is it not a fact that there was a delay of over an hour in informing the police because the warder, or attendant, on duty did not know how to work the switchboard? In view of the extreme importance of the various exhibits in this great national collection, I earnestly hope that every step possible will be taken adequately to strengthen the staff.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, as regards the delay, I explained in my answer that the warder who was on duty at the time thought the ring had been removed by some proper person. I do not know whether the gentleman had difficulty with the telephone—a difficulty not always confined to warders! I may tell the noble Earl that the duty of telephoning
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at night has now been removed from the warders and is in the hands of a telephonist. I entirely agree with the noble Earl about the importance of guarding this really unique collection—and it is a marvellous collection. There are a number of measures of which I shall be pleased to tell the noble Earl privily but which, for obvious reasons, I cannot afford to publish to those who might be interested from a different standpoint. But I think the measures are fully satisfactory.
EARL HOWE: I thank the noble Viscount very much.

RESTORATION OF NAZI LOOT
2.47 p.m.
EARL MANVERS: 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 whether any (and if so what) steps are being taken in Germany for the restoration of property looted by the Nazis, and our other opponents, from the Jews and other possibly friendly parties.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF READING): My Lords, in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Declaration of January, 1943, on acts of dispossession, looted property found in Germany at the end of the war has, where possible, been returned to the Government of the territory from which it had been removed. Property in Germany of which Jewish and other victims of Nazi persecution had between 1933
and 1945 been unjustly deprived is being recovered through the German courts by its former owners, in pursuance of Allied legislation such as Military Government Law 59 in the British Zone of Germany. External restitution—that is, the restitution to Governments of property looted outside Germany—is virtually complete. Many claims, however, remain to be dealt with by the German courts under the Internal Restitution Laws. A Committee was appointed earlier this year by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, with the approval of the late Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to examine the progress made in this field, and to investigate causes of

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delay in the British Zone of Germany. The O'Sullivan Committee's Report, dated June 30, 1951, and an account of the action taken by His Majesty's Government to implement it, have recently been published by the Stationery Office.
EARL MANVERS: My Lords, in thanking the noble Marquess for his courteous reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that a 25 per cent. flight tax was at one time levied, plus a 33 per cent. fine for the murder of a diplomatic official, one Herr von Rath, by a Polish Jew in Paris, and whether he will not agree that in the American Zone things have been more rapidly dealt with?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, I am afraid that I have no information as to the particular case which the noble Earl mentioned. If the second part of his question applies specifically to the first part, I can give no answer. But, if the second part of his question is meant to be of general application and to suggest that progress in restitution has been quicker in the American Zone than in ours, then I think it is right to say that one of the considerations which led to the appointment of the O'Sullivan Committee was that progress was more rapid in that Zone than in the British Zone. It is hoped that the recommendations of that Committee will now speedily assist in accelerating progress.
EARL MANVERS: I thank the noble Marquess very much.

DEPUTY CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEES
2.49 p.m.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Lord Llewellin, the Lord Chorley and the Lord Kershaw be added to the panel of Lords appointed as Deputy Chairmen of Committees who shall, in the absence of the Chairman of Committees, be entitled to exercise during the present Session all the powers vested in him.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, nemine dissentiente.

PERSONAL BILLS COMMITTEE
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DROGHEDA): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That there be appointed a Personal Bills Committee to which all Petitions for Personal Bills, presented during the present Session, which have been certified as such under the provisions of Standing Order 3 relating to Private Bills, shall stand referred; and that the Lords following, with the Lord Chancellor and the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee:

L. Llewellin,

L. Kershaw,

L. Morton of Henryton.—(The Earl of Drogheda.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD SIMONDS): My Lords, I beg to move that the Motion standing in my name be agreed to.
Moved, That a Committee of six Lords be appointed to join with a Committee of the House of Commons as a Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, Statute Law Revision Bills and Bills presented under the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act, 1949, in the present Session:
That the Lords following be named of the Committee:

L. Fairfax of Cameron,

L. Rathcreedan,

L. Belstead,

L. Schuster,

L. Radcliffe,

L. Campion;

That such Committee have power to agree with the Committee of the House of Commons in the appointment of a Chairman.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: Ordered that a Message be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith and to request them to appoint six Members of the House to be joined with the said Committee.

SUPPLIES AND SERVICES (TRANSITIONAL POWERS)
2.51 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty under section eight of the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act, 1945, praying that the said Act, which would otherwise expire on the tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-one, be continued in force for a further period of one year until the tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-two. The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this Motion, together with the four succeeding Motions standing in my name, have one common subject matter, and I think it will be convenient to your Lordships, following the example set by the noble and learned Viscount who stood in this place last year, that I should deal with them together, at any rate so far as their general consideration is concerned. I will make certain broad observations about them all, and, of course, if any particular question arises upon any Motion your Lordships will be at liberty to raise it, and I will do my best to deal with it.
All these Motions have one common object—namely, that your Lordships should join in an humble Address to His Majesty that the several enactments and regulations which are covered by them should be continued for a period of one year. The fact is that all of them will die on December 10 of this year, and our object in moving these Motions is to ask your Lordships to agree that they shall not expire until December 10, 1952. That will give them all one year more of life unless, in the meantime, they, or some of them, are revoked. I have spent some time—as I hope your Lordships have not—in trying to find my way through the jungle of legislation upon which the several regulations to which I must refer are founded. I do not think I should ask your Lordships to come with me into that jungle: I fear that if I were to try to guide you we might both lose our way. I think it will be sufficient if I remind your Lordships simply of one thing. All the regulations, whether founded upon the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act, 1945, upon the Emergency Laws (Transitional Provisions) Act, 1946, upon the Emergency Laws (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1947, or upon
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some other Act, will perish in one year. All the regulations, taken in the aggregate, constitute a body of legislation which touches us in every aspect of our social and economic life, and it must be clear that if, at one and the same time, all of them suffered a sudden death, there would be chaos, a breakdown in the machinery of government, which would make things quite impossible. Therefore, we come to your Lordships and ask that all alike may be renewed for one year.
In doing so we are conscious of the terms of a passage in the gracious Speech of which I would venture to remind your Lordships, in which it was said that His Majesty's Ministers would review the whole field of controls and regulations with a view to reducing their number and, where possible, embodying such of them as must be kept in permanent legislation requiring annual renewal by Act of Parliament. That is our object; that is what we propose to do. I am quite prepared for it to be said—indeed I have received some warning that it will be said—that in doing so we are in some measure departing from promises made at the Election and, indeed, departing to some extent from the attitude which has been adopted in the past by members of the Conservative Party.
A NOBLE LORD: Hear, hear!
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: How right I was! But, my Lords, I do not think that it can be suggested in this House, where sweet reason always, or almost always, prevails, that His Majesty's Ministers are asking anything unreasonable in asking for one year in which to carry out that review to which I have referred. Who can suppose, that coming into office, as His Majesty's Ministers do, after a long sojourn in the wilderness, and finding problems of the utmost gravity and complexity to deal with, that they could within any shorter measure of time review this whole field and say, "This is a regulation with which we can dispense; this regulation must be held for a further spell"? It is impossible, within such a short time, within any measurable short time, thus to separate the sheep from the goats, and to say, "This we will keep; that we will not keep."
I have explained the policy which we will pursue. I want to make two things clear. In the first place the continuance of these regulations for one year is, of course, subject to this: that at any

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moment any one of them may be revoked by Order in Council upon the advice of His Majesty's Ministers, and your Lordships may be very sure that, as soon as it is possible to deal with the matter in that way, the appropriate Orders in Council will be made. Let me remind your Lordships of this point, which emphasises the difficulties under which His Majesty's Ministers must labour. Many of these regulations demand the consideration not of one Minister or one Department only: they demand the consideration of two, three, four or even more Departments which are concerned—as, for instance, those numerous regulations which deal with price control. Your Lordships will easily understand that the revocation of such an order as that demands consultation perhaps between the Ministry of Food, the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Supply and the Ministry of Health. All these things will take time, but they will be approached with the earnest desire, so often expressed from the Government side of the House, to remove as many restraints and restrictions as can possibly be removed. After all, I know how vigorously your Lordships on the Government Benches object to many of these regulations. But I will say to your Lordships, at least this: that we are, after all, in the position of the unwilling householder upon whose doorstep an unwelcome baby has been left, and who can do nothing else than care for it until he has determined how reasonably to dispose of it. One supposes that in the hearts of those of your Lordships who sit upon the Opposition Benches there still lingers that affection which fiction at least ascribes to the parent who leaves her child upon an alien doorstep, who casts one last lingering glance at it, and wishes it well.
Although I think I have said almost all that need be said in support of this Motion, yet, since this is, as I believe, a very grave and serious subject, I would, with your Lordships' indulgence, which I know I shall often require in this House, add a few general observations. This form of legislation by regulation is a matter which has been the subject for some time now of considered, cogent and, I think, often legitimate criticism. But I would venture to say to those noble Lords who condemn it root and branch that the time has now passed when it is possible
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to carry on the government of this country without some form of what is called delegated or subordinate legislation, of which this is typical. If your Lordships will forgive a personal reminiscence in this connection, I may say that it is now just twenty years since a Committee, known generally as the Donoughmore Committee or the Committee on Ministers' Powers, issued their Report. I can speak personally about this matter, for I was myself a member of that Committee on which there sat distinguished men of every and no political faith. I remember well the late Lord Bridgeman, father of the noble Lord who now sits in this House, Miss Ellen Wilkinson, Professor Laski, Lord Justice Scott, Professor Sir William Holdsworth—that great and venerable name in the Law—Sir John Anderson and many others. That very strong Committee came to the unanimous conclusion, and so reported, that legislation in this form was the only means by which the machinery of government of this country could now be carried on. So it is hopeless to think that we can get on without it.
But in that Report, we were most careful to point out (I venture to speak of it in that way because I was myself one of the small sub-committee of three which drafted the Report, so I am returning to a subject with which I had at one time an odious familiarity) that such legislation as this must be controlled by the proper safeguards, such as affirmative and negative Resolutions, laying before the House and that most important Committee which works in another place to deal with regulations of this kind. Therefore, while this type of legislation cannot be dispensed with, it must be subject to the proper safeguards. It is apposite to that to remember what the noble Viscount on my left, Lord Samuel, if he will forgive my quoting him, said in this place last year—and, if he will allow me to say so, there is no more experienced Parliamentarian and no one wiser in the theory and practice of government. He reminded us that:
"It is the nature of Government Departments to be prompt to enact but very slow to repeal."
I do not know if the noble Viscount remembers using those words. What he said is, in the experience of all of us, very true. Therefore, this kind of legislation, of which we have had such a

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spate, must always be subject to vigilant safeguards.
The second general observation which, with your Lordships' permission, I would make about this kind of regulation is this: ordinarily, one expects to find a regulation dealing with a particular subject matter made under the appropriate Act. If you want to find a regulation about explosives, you would look to find it under an Explosives Act, and so on. The difficulty—the vice, I would say—of this kind of legislation by regulation is that they are all cast hotch-potch under the general head of Emergency Regulations. I think there is here a grave problem to which I venture to call the attention of your Lordships. It is a doctrine of our law that ignorance of it excuses no man. With this multitude of regulations, many of them carrying a severe penalty for a breach, who is to know whether he has committed a breach of any one of them? That is a serious matter. Let me put it in concrete form. Supposing that one of your Lordships wished to ascertain the law, shall we say, in regard to midwives—I can think of a more likely topic for your Lordships' evening study, but suppose that was the law which one of you wished to ascertain—where would you expect to find it? Would you expect to find it in a regulation under the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act? Surely not. Yet you would find it there, nevertheless. I am not suggesting that I can find a remedy for this difficulty, except that by every means in our power we should sweep away those regulations which are no longer needed, putting them in their proper place in a proper Act of Parliament. That is one of the things we hope to do in the course of this year or, it may be, in the course of another year.
Having made those two general observations upon matters of form, may I be allowed, before I close, to make one further observation on a question of substance? For myself, I must confess to a grave and growing apprehension at the way in which this multitude of regulations has invaded our life. They are called "emergency measures." They were imposed to meet an emergency—the emergency of savage war. They have been reimposed since 1945 to meet grim necessities of peace. But is life always to be an emergency? Are we to go on for ever in an emergency in which this
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multitude of restrictions—the volume of which is astonishing to anyone who looks at them—is to continue in existence? Are we to submit to them for the rest of our lives, touching, as they do, every citizen in every walk of life and in every aspect of it? I beg your Lordships to think back. Suppose that in 1935 you had been suddenly confronted with the mass of regulations which now exists: I venture to think that your Lordships would have been aghast. Yet there is a generation growing up—for it is now twelve years since most of the regulations were imposed—which has never known what most of your Lordships have known—liberty and freedom of choice in so many matters in which it now is restrained and restricted. So I venture, as a last general observation, to say this: Let us all unite by every means in our power to get rid of these terrible restraints as soon as we can.
May I conclude by using the words of a very wise man who lived a long time ago? This was a precept of Confucius:
"Govern the people by regulations, and keep order amongst them by chastisements, and they will lose all self-respect and flee from you."
I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty under section eight of the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act, 1945, praying that the said Act, which would otherwise expire on the tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-one, be continued in force for a further period of one year until the tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-two.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
3.11 p.m.
VISCOUNT JOWITT: My Lords, I rise to-day with recollections of the past. I remember well many occasions, from 1945 onwards, on which I had to introduce in some form or another these various measures. I confess that I wish the wise words which the noble and learned Lord has just uttered had been uttered on those occasions. I have looked up these debates but I am not going to trouble your Lordships with a mass of quotations. I was subjected, as nearly as one can be subjected in this House, to violent abuse for daring to bring in these regulations, and the noble and learned

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Viscount, Lord Simon, in particular (I am sorry to sec that he is not here with us to-day; I hope it does not mean that he is unwell), always used to refer to a book written in comparatively youthful enthusiasm by my right honourable friends Mr. Attlee and Sir Stafford Cripps. Every time these debates came up, the book was there. I began almost to know the quotations by heart. And if the noble and learned Viscount left it out, the noble Marquess the Leader of the House used to bring the book into play. The continuance of these regulations was said to be a monstrous act of Socialism, and all the rest of it.
We know it is a fact that we must have this system of government by regulations. By all means go through the regulations carefully: prune where you can prune, and cut out where you can cut out; but speaking for myself, I believe that the Government must have the power to make regulations, and that that power will have to continue for a very long time indeed. Here I think we come to a fundamental reason. I am surprised that your Lordships accept the position, as you obviously do, which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has enunciated. If, as some of your Lordships think, our present trouble is due simply to the wicked Socialists and their Socialism, all you have to do to put things right is to go back to a system of laissez faire: do away with all these controls, and let us have complete competitive freedom, with everybody pursuing his own ideas and his own plans, and everything will soon be right.
In his last speech on this topic the noble Marquess the Leader of the House referred to the rise in price in Axminster carpets, afgalaine and glacé kid shoes. My noble friend Lord Addison asked him whether he blamed that rise on the Socialist Government. "Entirely," said the noble Marquess—it had nothing to do with the rearmament programme or the entry of the United States into the purchasing markets of the world; it had nothing to do with these things; it was entirely the wicked Socialists. If the Government really believe that, then there is no need for regulations at all. Sweep them all away. On the other hand, if the short time which the Government have now had in office has induced a more realistic point of view, if they begin to
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realise that the problem is much more fundamental than that, that it is a problem of 50,000,000 people in this country finding it very difficult to obtain their food and raw materials by means of exports—if that is the position, they must realise that they are in a world where it is necessary to plan. To my mind, it is just as foolish to-day not to plan as it would be to send an army into the field and have the soldiers get into whatever position they liked instead of deciding how the army should move.
I concede at once that it is necessary to continue these Acts—all of them—and I do not think it unreasonable to say that the Government should have time to consider and see which of these regulations they want to get rid of or to amend. But, after all, when they constituted the Opposition, they were not in ignorance of these matters. Take, for example, the matter of identity cards. When we had a debate on that matter this House went to a Division, and noble Lords determined that the whole system of identity cards should be got rid of. I rather sympathised with the attitude of the noble Lords opposite. It seemed to me a nice piece of Victorian Radicalism, which I always liked; but I understood at the same time that, unless we had identity cards, we should have difficulty about keeping up to date the National Register, and that unless the National Register were kept up to date there would be considerable difficulty in regard to compulsory military service and the like. Those arguments were advanced by my noble friend Lord Shepherd. But no! the Opposition in those days, the Government Front Bench to-day, voted against us and nailed their colours to the mast: identity cards were to go.
What is the position to-day? The noble and learned Lord comes forward (I say this merely as an illustration) and asks: "Let us have time to consider." But did noble Lords not consider when they upheld that position. Were they so utterly irresponsible as not to consider the consequences then? If that was the position then, what is the position to-day? I am glad to think that noble Lords have seen the light of reason, and now appreciate that these regulations need careful consideration. And I hope that they will receive careful consideration. In the meantime it seems to me that "Set the people free" must wait. I suppose that

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at the present moment the Government are busy restoring confidence in the City. They do not seem to have had very great success so far. Let us hope that when the Government have achieved their results, they will find time to "set the people free." If I may give a word of advice to them I would say: Do not be led astray by the foolish observations that were made on this topic in the past. Preserve to yourselves proper and adequate powers for the immense task which confronts you—because an immense task it is—and do not jettison the power you will require simply because you lack courage to say that your previous remarks were exceedingly foolish, as indeed they were. Those are the observations that I desire to make on the main topic. As your Lordships see, I am entirely at one that we should agree to all these Motions, and I think the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has taken a convenient course in discussing them all together.
The noble and learned Lord went on to tell us what he proposed to do. He proposed to collect all these Orders, bits and pieces, and to join them into a series of Acts, or possibly into one Act, so that we might have a more convenient method of dealing with them. The noble and learned Lord will forgive me if I am wrong.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I said nothing of the kind. I said that it would be quite hopeless to expect to be able to collect all the debris into one Act.
VISCOUNT JOWITT: I feel that it would he difficult to pass a series of Acts of Parliament. This involves some sixty or seventy different topics, and I hope that they will be grouped in some way. What meant was that I do not think there is any merit in having some of the regulations in the form of Defence Regulations, others under the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act, still others under the Emergency Laws (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, and so on. I would rather have one Statute containing all those things, so that, at any rate, we should know where to look for our law. That was my ambition. We mentioned in the gracious Speech of 1950 that we might regularise the position and get rid of some of these strange divisions in that
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way. But that prospect excited the most violent opposition, and we never went further.
I should like to add these considerations. Since I believe that this system of government by regulation in a limited sphere is necessary and must survive, I think it behoves all of us to consider carefully the safeguards which we can adopt. I have never been against consideration of the question whether the House might not have power to amend these regulations, instead of rejecting them. That is a matter well worthy of consideration, although there are obvious difficulties about it. For instance, anybody who has conducted as many Bills in either Chamber as I have, knows quite well the value of having first a Committee stage and then a Report stage, so that there can be time to consider between those two stages what can be done with regard to Amendments. If we had simply a proposal to amend these Orders, we should have a Committee stage without a Report stage. In this House we have a Committee stage, a Report stage and a Third Reading, and we can, and frequently do, move Amendments on Third Reading. I am not satisfied that we should get a satisfactory result if we tried to short circuit that procedure and put all those stages into one.
The question merits consideration and, for my part. I should gladly take any action I could to consider whether we could increase Parliamentary control in that way. I feel that one difficulty (for the moment, I am thinking aloud, as it were, and this would not arise in your Lordships' House) is that in another place it could give rise to tremendous opportunity for obstruction. If Members were allowed to move all sorts of Amendments on any Order, it is difficult to see how any Orders would ever be passed through. I am speaking, perhaps, with some faint tinge of Whitehall still left about me, and I dare say that argument will appeal more to noble Lords opposite to-day than it would have done a month or two ago. But it is a matter worth considering, when we do come to consider (as I hope we shall) what we are to do about this question, since we must have this method of legislation, I believe, for many years to come. I do not think we can go back to the laissez faire of the Victorian age.

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The other thing I want to say is this. Two or three weeks ago I saw a case reported in the newspaper in which the Lord Chief Justice was dealing with a mistake made by a magistrate about one of these Orders, and the paper set out what the order was. I am bound to say that it did strike me as the most unparalleled jargon I had ever read. The Lord Chief Justice said: "Is it to be wondered that a bench of magistrates goes wrong about an Order drafted like this?" I do not desire to attack anybody here, and least of all the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. This is something which I failed to do, and I hope that he will succeed where I failed. I believe that we should do a great deal of good if we succeeded in getting these instruments drafted in language which the ordinary people could understand.
We have now, in addition to the Order which is formulated, an explanatory note underneath it saying in plain English what it is all about. That strikes me as most unsatisfactory. If you can explain by means of a note in plain English so that all can understand it, why must you have that jargon which none of us can understand? I ask the question: Is it really necessary? I have the most profound regard for the Parliamentary draftsmen, who work in circumstances of great difficulty, with very little time to spare, and do their work exceedingly well, and I do not want to seem to be criticising them. I am merely raising a query: is the language used by lawyers necessarily so difficult and obscure that we must have that language used by lawyers, and then some kind of explanatory statement so that the ordinary man in the street can understand what it is all about? If the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will devote his great talents to the consideration of this question, and use his influence to see the Orders themselves are drafted in simple language, so that we do not need to have the explanatory memorandum, then I feel he will have done a most valuable piece of work for which noble Lords on all sides will be grateful.
I have felt it necessary to make those observations. I hope that the noble and learned Lord, in going through these Orders and regulations, will succeed in getting rid of those that are not needed.
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The last time I did this I got rid of 78 out of 150, which is rather more than half; and I have no doubt that, in the circumstances of to-day, the noble and learned Lord can prune them and get rid of a good many more. If he can, good luck to him! But I would venture to say, as I have said before: Do not prune too far and find that you have lost the power to do things which in the present difficult set of circumstances must be done, or may have to be done, if you are to succeed in restoring stability and prosperity at home. For the rest, I should advise my noble friends on this side of the House to assent to this and the succeeding Motions on the Paper.
3.28 p.m.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, on behalf of noble Lords on these Benches I would express concurrence with the course proposed by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, in the Motions that appear before the House. We welcome most cordially the general survey which he has been good enough to make of the whole situation regarding these regulations, and applaud enthusiastically the spirit which has inspired those observations. We welcome his assurance that the Government propose to introduce, either this year or next year, legislation to codify this part of what is the law of the land, though not precisely the statutory law of the land. Whether that codification should be effected in one Statute or in several is a point on which apparently there are differing views between the present Lord Chancellor and his predecessor—a controversy into which I should be most chary of entering. At first sight, however, it would appear to me that it would be to the convenience of the courts and of coming generations if the codification were not based upon the historic origin of these various regulations which emanated in one Statute in time of war but, rather, were distributed among the subject matters to which they relate.
VISCOUNT JOWITT: If I may say so. I do not dissent from that at all.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: Then there would not appear to be the same difference of opinion that was apparent when we first heard those two speeches. Of great importance in this connection is the degree and the meaning of the control by Parliament over the enactment of these

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legislations, and their review and revocation. Two years ago I introduced in your Lordships' House a Bill entitled the Liberties of the Subject Bill, which contained about a dozen clauses dealing with the different subjects, of which perhaps the most important was that providing for the increase of power of both Houses of Parliament during the enactment of these regulations. Unfortunately, those proposals did not at all meet with the approval of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Jowitt, and of the then Government. Indeed, the Government opposed one by one all the separate provisions of that Bill, and although your Lordships' House, by a large majority, passed it on Second Reading I did not proceed with it because the Government had stated that they would give it no facilities in another place and, therefore, it would not have been right to put your Lordships to the trouble of spending time in Committee and Report on a highly technical Bill which, from the very beginning, was doomed to a speedy end. Therefore, the matter has not since been before your Lordships' House. I earnestly hope, however, that when the present Government are reviewing the whole subject, they will not only deal with the regulations we have but will also consider the procedure to be adopted with regard to regulations still to come.
The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Jowitt, has said that there must be regulations, and in introducing my Bill two years ago I emphasised that point. We have now passed away from the nineteenth century laissez faire State and, in the interests of the public itself, have greatly enlarged the powers of the State over the public. If there were no power of making regulations, and if everything had to be done by deliberate enactment in every detail, passing through all the stages of Parliamentary legislation in both Houses, the congestion of Parliament would become quite intolerable. Therefore, as the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Jowitt, has said, there must be regulations unless the Government are to abandon planning altogether. But it does not follow that, because you should not abandon planning, therefore you should not have proper Parliamentary control. That is where I find myself in disagreement with the noble Lords on the Benches to my left. They seem to think that if the
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principle of planning is once accepted, it is not necessary to trouble too much to ensure a scrupulous care in the enactments.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No, no.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: Yes, indeed. I bring that criticism against the noble Lords of the Labour Party quite deliberately, and I think it is justified. Indeed, many of the intellectual leaders of the Socialist movement have publicly stated, more than once, that it is essential that a Government resolved to carry out a full policy of Socialist legislation must have much larger powers of securing its passage through Parliament than exist now, and certainly much larger than would exist if amendments were made to increase the power of Parliament. They have asked for general Statutes laying down certain principles of nationalisation and leaving all the implementation of those Statutes to regulations.
VISCOUNT JOWITT: Without Parliamentary control?
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: Without any subsequent Parliamentary control—
VISCOUNT JOWITT: When?
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: Certainly they have resisted the greater Parliamentary control which was involved in the Liberties of the Subject Bill. I always thought that the reason why they opposed that Bill as a whole was much more because of that provision than for any other reason. Therefore, I think that those of us who are not Socialists but who do accept the general policy of planning and the Welfare State may say, on the one hand, that that is our policy and, on the other, that in all this kind of legislation we believe in the fullest possible Parliamentary control throughout. I trust that that may be effected by some future Resolution by the present Government. This debate to-day has, perhaps unexpectedly, carried this subject a good deal further forward. The speech made to-day by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Jowitt, has certainly been much more helpful than anything which has been said before, and the promise that the Government in power will consider this matter and take effective legislation is one which we should welcome.
3.35 p.m.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, the Conservative Party dislike rules, regulations and controls in principle, and I think they have always done so. It is almost ironic that at the moment a Conservative Government have to come to Parliament because, in the present state of our affairs, it is impossible in a day to do away with all these things. For that reason, I feel that we should say a word from the Back Benches, because we sympathise with our leaders very greatly in this matter. They dislike the task they have to perform, and yet we feel that they have to do it.
One of the reasons why we all dislike these
regulations so much has been referred to by the Lord Chancellor, and that is the fact that we never know when we are breaking the law. We suspect that every day of our lives we are probably breaking the law; and, having been brought up as law-abiding citizens, we do not like that position at all. We find that burden somewhat intolerable, in fact. That lends particular point to the Lord Chancellor's suggestion that some method should be found of so modifying these rules and regulations that the general public may have some idea as to what is, and what is not, the law. However, we realise that these things cannot be swept away at once. We hope, and we believe, that during the Recess Ministers are going to devote their energies to seeing what they can dispense with. It is not a thing which can be done in a hurry because, as we all know, once the Executive get a power they relinquish it with extraordinary reluctance. It is like the crocodile and the bulldog: Give them a regulation and they will never give it up. It needs a strong—minded Minister to overrule his official advisers and give up a power which might one day come in handy.
There is one particular regulation which I suggest should be looked at very carefully, and that is the power of the Post Office to demand an identity card for identification purposes. It has always seemed to me that that definitely weakened the security in the Post Office. It is just as easy to steal an identity card as it is to steal a Post Office bank book, and if you present the two documents at once the conscience of the official behind the counter is salved for all time, whereas in the old days he had to look you in the eye and, if he thought you were a rogue,
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call upon you to identify yourself in some way which you might not expect. The unexpected check is far more efficacious than the known check. I know that it is in that spirit that Ministers will examine those regulations and repeal them like corn falling before the scythe.
3.38 p.m.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, this is a delightful debate, completely inverted. The Socialist Party had arranged that these regulations should terminate in December. The Conservative Party are proposing that they should continue for one year, and yet all the speeches from the Woolsack and the noble Lord opposite are the same speeches which were made when the Socialist Party were in power. It only shows that a good deal of what went on in the last Parliament was Parliamentary performance. I do not complain about that, but I was really moved by the speech of the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, for example, about identity cards. I am of old Radical faith, and I am amazed to hear that the Government are proposing to continue the power to retain identity cards. I have forgotten whether the noble Marquess the Leader of the House spoke on this matter, but I imagine that the Under-Secretary might be present to reply to some of those moving passages which stirred our hearts. As to the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Jowitt concerning amendment, I would not venture to differ from him; but I am eager to hear what the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, has to say on this subject. The other place has the same power to amend statutory regulations as this House. Suppose they amend in one sense and we in another; we should then get a disagreement between the two Houses, and we should also be in the position of legislating without the Parliament Act. These statutory rules, because they were de minimis have always been exempt from the Parliament Act, and it was always in the power of this House, Parliament Act or not, to "chop off their heads."
What about the form of these things? I am very proud to be a member of this House, and am intensely interested in its procedure. We are supposed to have the same number of days for considering these regulations as the House of Commons have. In fact we do not. We

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adjourn for longer periods at the weekend, and the period for consideration is very much shorn. Secondly, what about the laying of these regulations? I have been making some inquiries about what is meant by "laying," but I have not been able to find an answer. I know what is meant by the laying of a regulation when Parliament is sitting, but how is the laying done when Parliament is not sitting? Is something put through a letter box or under a door? Some of these regulations become operative before they are laid. I believe that all that is necessary to cover them in such instances is to write a letter—I do not know to whom, but I suppose it to be the Lord Chancellor—explaining that it is necessary to have these regulations into operation prior to the time when they are laid before Parliament for discussion and approval. Only the other day a regulation was made bringing a penalty to bear on the Bank of Iran in connection with the quarrel about oil. This regulation had been laid and made effective, but it had never been seen in this place. An explanation of some kind was made, to the effect that the regulation had become operative because it was expedient that it should.
This is a subject well worth discussion. Of course it is reasonable to give the Government time to consider it. If anything can be done to increase Parliamentary control in these days of the planned State it will be welcomed by all reasonable people.
3.44 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I believe that in the 1930's the Conservative and Unionist Peers made a very strong protest against the laying on the Table of the House of regulations which were not procurable by us, so that we could see what they were. We received a promise that the practice would cease. I hope that it has ceased—I have not acquainted myself with the present state of the matter. I range myself behind the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, on this subject because I believe it to be a very important one. The noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor referred in his speech to new-born babies and quoted from the Chinese. I would remind noble Lords opposite that after Chinese babies have had their bound feet loosed it takes them some little time before they are able to walk. I hope that indulgence will be
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shown to the Government who find themselves at the moment in the same position.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: My Lords, I think it is undesirable that some of the remarks of the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, should go on the record without any contradiction. Unfortunately, I was myself responsible, as a Minister, for the drafting of a number of Orders made under these Statutes, and I know well what a burden of responsibility is placed upon a Minister. We all desire the utmost Parliamentary control compatible with getting the job done, but I think it is quite untrue to say that the Labour Party are reluctant to see effective Parliamentary control. Quite the contrary is the case.
VISCOUTNT MERSEY: My Lords, some of you may remember that about twenty years ago the late Lord Sankey set up a Committee to examine the whole question of these regulations. I am afraid that it was not a very good Committee—I was a member of it. However, the Committee achieved something, and I think it is unfortunate that it was allowed to die. A great deal of work was put into the matter by Lord Sankey himself, and I have no doubt that the minutes of the Committee's deliberations are available.
3.47 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I entirely agree with what has been said—that this debate, which appeared likely to be of a purely formal character, has turned out to be an extremely interesting and valuable one. It has brought forth expressions of opinion from noble Lords in all parts of the House, and I think it is well worthy of being read by a wider audience. Like other noble Lords, I had not intended to speak and I will be very brief. But one or two things said by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Jowitt, deserve some reply from me. He poked a good deal of fun at us on this side. That, of course, is perfectly legitimate, and I have no complaint to make. But I feel that he himself fell into the error of overstating his case. It is a well-known forensic device and he gave way to the temptation. He gave the impression that the Conservative Party, prior to coming into power. had pledged themselves to a policy of abolishing immediately all controls. That was the general trend of his

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argument. I do not know where he got that from. No doubt he read it somewhere. Certainly he did not get it from anything said on our Benches during the last two Parliaments. Take my own case. I have never said that all controls should be abolished in a moment. On the contrary, I seem to remember making a comparison, in one of my speeches, between tariffs and controls, and saying that, in the early years of this century, we in this country fell into the error of dividing ourselves into two camps, one thinking that all tariffs were good and the other that all tariffs were bad—whereas we now know that they are simply an administrative device which is good in some cases and bad in others.
I suggest that the same is true with regard to controls, and I believe that I shall carry the House with me in saying that. I entirely agree with what was said by the Lord Chancellor, in his extremely profound and interesting speech: that some restrictions are absolutely vital in the modern world. But I maintain that, looked at from the point of view of a Parliamentary democracy, they are not a good thing in themselves, because they tend, however one may wish to avoid it, to take power from Parliament and put it into the hands of the Executive. It is perfectly true that these regulations are laid on the Table, but that does not take the place of a proper Bill, which has to go through both Houses and be debated through all its stages. They must, therefore, be regarded as an inevitable evil. To my mind, the best thing one can do in the circumstances is, first of all, to do what I think the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, himself suggested—strengthen Parliamentary control as much as we possibly can; and, secondly, reduce the scope and number of these regulations as much as is practicably possible.
What is our position to-day as a new Government? As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simonds, has said, we have come from a wilderness into a jungle—a not entirely happy situation. However active we may be with our efforts, we cannot expect to cut a way entirely through that jungle in a very few weeks. All we can do is reduce the area of the jungle progressively and make it not a desert but at least a place possible to move in. That is the only way in which we and the whole country can advance
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safely. That is the purpose of the measures which have been introduced this afternoon by the noble and
learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. Take, for instance, the Supplies and Services Act. That was introduced in 1945. It was to run for five years. Now the period has been reduced to one year, and at the end of one year it will have to be reconsidered. I hope that, at the end of one year and perhaps before, some of the rules and regulations that come within the scope of that Act will have been eliminated—that indeed a large number of them will have been eliminated. But, at any rate, the Act itself has to be reviewed by Parliament again at the end of the year and, from the Parliamentary and constitutional point of view, I think that is a sound procedure.
The effect of the measure that we are discussing to-day is to give us a breathing space to see what we can do in the first year of our tenure of power. In that connection, I hope that the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Jowitt, will not be too despondent about identity cards. He seemed quite sad about this subject, and I should like to say a word of encouragement to him. Identity cards may yet go—I wish to encourage him and raise his spirits as much as I can. But what is equally true—and he, with all his experience, will know it—is that you cannot remove a device like the identity card without putting something in its place.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Ah!
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: It may not be an identity card: it can be something much less—merely an administrative device of one kind or another. That is a matter which has to be examined. Unfortunately, we were not in a position to examine these things before, because the noble Lords opposite were in occupation of the Government offices. But the fact remains that they will be examined and I, with other noble Lords, hope very much that identity cards can be abolished at an early date.
VISCOUNT JOWITT: I think that one of the difficulties is this. If we are to have a National Register and the individual has to remember his number, the only possible chance of remembering his number, in the case of the ordinary person, is to have an identity card. Mine

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is "DJ/WN/24 58." I could never possibly remember that if I did not have an identity card.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I admire the noble and learned Viscount very much for telling us his identity! I may say that I, too, always carry my card, but very few people in this country do in fact carry their identity cards. Noble Lords opposite have had to defend the identity card for two years, so I am not surprised that they carry theirs; but there are a great many people who do not.
Now, one word about a very important point raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, with regard to Amendments to regulations. I think he is quite right. It is a very difficult question. The only way I see by which, possibly, we could find a way through it would be to lay regulations in draft and allow them to be debated, so that suggestions could be made in this House. Then they could be taken back to their offices by the Ministers, and one would hope that, when the final regulations came before Parliament, they would be agreed. I am not suggesting that that is what the new Government are already deciding to do. I am merely thinking aloud about possible ways out of the present difficulty.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: That is a very interesting suggestion. But does the noble Marquess suggest that, if the regulations were laid in draft, each House should have the opportunity to tender Amendments to the draft?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: No. I am speaking purely for myself in what I say. My idea is that there should be a free and frank debate upon the draft. I was not suggesting that Amendments would be proposed, but that suggestions should be made.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: And that could be done in both Houses. As I say, it is a purely personal suggestion, but I believe that it is a possible way out of the difficulty.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: A good idea.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I have kept the House quite long enough. In spite of a little light chaff that has gone on across the House, it
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seems clear that everybody is delighted with the measures that have been proposed by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. I hope that they will be rapidly and uncontroversially passed through this House.
3.57 p.m.
LORD AMWELL: My Lords, I apologise for following the Lord Privy Seal, but he did not notice that I rose before he began his speech. I am not one of those persons who judge values according to the clock or the calendar so I do not mind being called a Victorian Radical. Whether or not I ant a Radical, I am certainly more than one-third Victorian at my age. In this debate words are being used which I regard as quite important. For all the levity and brevity of the speeches that have been made (or some of them), words have been used that raise important issues, and I think some of them are misused. For instance, we were told that we cannot go back to laissez faire. I agree. The trouble about laissez faire was not its insistence or emphasis upon the note of personal liberty; the trouble was that it was a principle of leaving things alone with a great deal on top that was not libertarianism at all—the power of exploitation, the power of monopoly and all the privileges that went with the Whig dynasty of the past. Laissez, faire included those. It was not just a question of leaving human beings to live their lives as independent and self-responsible men and women. But I do not propose to defend laissez faire.
I suggest that, when we talk about regulations—I am not competent to go into their details because I have not had time to study a large number of them—as a means of carrying out planning, and when we say that we must have government by regulation if we are to plan, I think we need to know what it is we are planning—at any rate, first of all. What are we planning? The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Jowitt, indicated that one of the reasons why we need to continue this kind of emergency legislation into the future is that we have a population of 50,000,000 people, unable to feed themselves and dependent upon imports and exports. That was his main reason for saying that he thinks this kind of legislation is inevitable. But that, surely, raises a very fundamental question—that of how near we ought to

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be able to get to feeding ourselves, rather than depending upon capitalistic competition in a world where such competition must eventually lead to economic disaster. To call the idea of planning capitalism "Socialism" appals me. It is nothing of the kind. Streamlining capitalism, which is what is being done, may be inevitable: we have got to live; we have got to have to-morrow morning's breakfast, and to-morrow's dinner. We have the circumstances outlined by Lord Jowitt. But do not let this be called out of its name. It is not Socialism at all. No one in the early days of Socialism imagined that Socialism was to be run by means of interminable interferences with personal liberty, or by means of regulating a competitive system. I rise in order to emphasise that point.
Let us understand what it is we are doing. So far as we can, we are organising, an effective system of commercial competition on high-powered industrial lines. That was never envisaged by the Socialists of the Victorian Radical era. We stood for abundant personal liberty. It may be true to say that, in order to establish a system of economic justice, it is necessary to have planning, but surely not planning by Parliamentary legislation upon this particular kind of model. Surely it must be a planning which includes at least doing away with laws as well as making them—doing away with laws that protect privileged circumstances, and making laws in order to make it possible for people to live in comfort and decency and in conditions of progress within a Socialist system. I cannot develop that theme in a debate of this character, but I wanted to strike that note because it is about time that some of us got back to first principles, and we are not considering first principles at all to-day; we are considering only these immediate things, the things that were talked about on the political platforms at Election time, with the idea of how far we could get the people to vote for this Party or for that. We are neglecting the fundamental things that, after all, will sooner or later be forced upon us.
If we just leave 20 per cent. of nationalised capitalism, on the one hand, with, on the other, 80 per cent. of high-powered, planned industrial economy based upon
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the most effective streamlined capitalistic principles, then we must come to a time when greater production by all countries, the smaller with the larger, with our own Dominions and Colonies all going in for secondary industrial production, will mean an overflowing; and, as a result, all the calamity of over-production intensified by an atomic age will be upon us. There is nothing in all these things which we are to-day calling Socialism which offers any basis at all for handling a position of that kind. If there is anything in this Socialism of which we have been talking so much, and in which I have had such faith all my life, then that Socialism goes side by side with the greatest possible amount of human liberty and personal freedom.
It is true, of course, that it is impossible to do away with regulations of this character merely by waving a magic wand or passing a magic Resolution. I think that the speeches which have been made by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Samuel and Lord Stansgate express the common-sense point of view, a view which has also been expressed by the Lord Privy Seal. That is what I feel about the whole matter. These regulations go against the grain. They are not good things in themselves, and we cannot excuse them upon the ground that we are implementing a wonderful new, planned society. Lord Jowitt pointed out that you must have innumerable regulations in order to make war. If you make war you must dispense with personal freedom. I should hate to have to admit that in order to establish Socialism we must also dispense with personal freedom. If that statement were true, then, although I do not believe in war now, I should become the pacifist of pacifists, and certainly I should no longer call myself a Socialist.
4.5 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, before we pass from what Lord Stansgate has already agreed is a most interesting debate, I wonder whether I may raise one question which the noble Viscount. Lord Samuel, raised and which was challenged by the noble Lord, Lord Wilmot? Lord Samuel in his speech made the point that in his view the Socialist Party were not so anxious for Parliamentary control as noble Lords below the gangway and noble Lords on this side of the House. Lord Wilmot rose in

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his place to repudiate that statement, in order that such a monstrous allegation should not be allowed to remain unchallenged upon the record. My Lords, equally for the sake of its being recorded in Hansard, I should like to remind your Lordships that perhaps the pure views expressed by Lord. Wilmot have not always been those expressed by the leaders of the Socialist Party, and neither have opposite views been repudiated by the Socialist Party. Sir Stafford Cripps wrote Problems of a Socialist Government. That is cheered by noble Lords opposite, as no doubt will be the sentiments expressed in that book about which I am going to remind your Lordships in one moment.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: What is the date of the book?
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: The date is immaterial; it is the beliefs which are in the heart of the person concerned that count. Those reach beyond dates. Sir Stafford Cripps 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. This Bill will be wide enough in its terms to allow all that will be immediately necessary to be done by Ministerial Orders. These Orders must he incapable of challenge in the courts."
Sir Stafford Cripps followed that up in the following year with another book, called Where Stands Socialism?—as it were, as an improvement. In it he said this:
"The devising of the detailed administrative methods for the working out of the plan are not matters with which the House of Commons need concern itself."
So far as I know, the responsible leaders of the Socialist Party have never made any authoritative denial or implementation of that statement. What was in their hearts then remains in their hearts to-day.
4.9 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, before I put the Question, may I do something that I ought to have done before—namely, offer an apology on behalf of the draftsman of the White Paper, the Continuance of Emergency Legislation. He has pointed out that in this Paper, which should be in all respects accurate, there has been one omission. I do not think your Lordships
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will think it a very serious omission, but in fact at the bottom of page 3, beneath Regulation 62B there should be Number 66, which regulation refers to the delegation of the functions of the Ministry. I thought I ought to mention that in case there should be any misunderstanding.
I would add that I do not want to be misunderstood in one thing that I said. Something that fell from the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Jowitt, and also from the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, makes me think that perhaps I have been misunderstood. Nobody can contemplate that the whole body of these regulations can be put into legislation. What I intended to say was that in so far as we are not able to get rid of them, I hope (although I do not promise this) we may be able to find a place for them in appropriate legislation.
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to His Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

EMERGENCY LAWS (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS)
Tint LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved. That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty under section seven of the Emergency Laws (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1947, praying that the Defence Regulations specified in the Schedule hereto, which would otherwise expire on the tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-one, be continued in force for a further period of one year until the tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-two.

[SCHEDULE

  DEFENCE (GENERAL) REGULATIONS, 1939
  Regulation two BA (Control of explosives).
  Regulation sixteen (Stopping up or diversion of highways for purposes of open-cast coal and generating stations).
  Regulation twenty AB (Amendments of National Registration Act, 1939).
  Regulation thirty-three (Exemption of certain women from Acts relating to midwives).
  Regulation forty-two CA (Unlawful gaming parties).
  Regulation forty-five A (Issue of identity cards to seamen).
  Regulation fifty (Power to do work on land).
  Regulation fifty-two (Use of land for purposes of His Majesty's forces).
  Regulation fifty-five C (Restrictions on registration of new clubs).
  Regulation sixty C (Amendment of s. 4 of Sale of Food (Weights and Measures) Act, 1926).
  Regulation sixty CC (Power of officers of Post Office to require production of identity cards).
  Regulation seventy-six (Handling and conveyance of ammunition, &c., in ports).
  Regulation eighty-two (False documents and false statements).
  Regulation eighty-three (Obstruction).
  Regulation eighty-four (Restrictions on disclosing information).
  Regulation eighty-five (Entry upon, and inspection of land).
  Regulation eighty-seven (Permits, licences, &c.).
  Regulation eighty-eight (Fees for permits, licences, &c.).
  Regulation eighty-nine (Use of force in entering premises).
  Regulations ninety to ninety-three and ninety-five to one hundred and five (which contain general, administrative, legal and supplementary provisions).
  The Third Schedule (Manner of instituting proceedings).

OTHER DEFENCE REGULATIONS
Regulations seventeen E and twenty of the Defence (Administration of Justice) Regulations, 1940.
Parts I, II and III, Regulations twenty-five A, twenty-six, twenty-eight A, twenty-nine and thirty, and Schedules I, II and VI of the Defence (Agriculture and Fisheries) Regulations, 1939.
Parts I and II and Schedule I of the Defence (Agriculture and Fisheries) (Northern Ireland) Regulations, 1940.
Regulations one, two, three and six of the Defence (Armed Forces) Regulations, 1939.
Regulation one and paragraphs (4) to (10) of Regulation five of the Defence (Burial, Inquests and Registration of Deaths) Regulations, 1942.
Regulations one and three of the Defence (Industrial Assurance) Regulations, 1943.
Regulations one and two of the Defence (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Regulations, 1940.
Regulations one and two and paragraphs (3), (4) and (5) of Regulation three of the Defence (Patents, Trade Marks, etc.) Regulations, 1941.
The whole of the Defence (Sale of Food) Regulations, 1943.
The whole of the Defence (Trading with the Enemy) Regulations, 1940.
The whole of the Defence (War Risks Insurance) Regulations, 1940, the Defence (War Risks Insurance) (No. 2) Regulations. 1940, the
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Defence (War Risks Insurance) (No. 4) Regulations, 1940, and the Defence (War Risks Insurance) Regulations, 1945.
The whole of the Defence (Women's Forces) Regulations, 1941.]—(Tire Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to His Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

EMERGENCY LAWS (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS)
4.10 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that the Motion which stands in my name be agreed to.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty under section seven of the Emergency Laws (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1947, praying that the enactments specified in the Schedule hereto, which would otherwise expire on the tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-one, be continued in force for a further period of one year until the tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-two.

[SCHEDULE
Subsection (1) of section three of the Emergency Laws (Transitional Provisions) Act, 1946 (which, as amended by section four of the Emergency Laws (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1947, extends certain provisions of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous War Provisions) Act, 1940, relating to wheat and land drainage).
Section six of the said Act of 1946 (which extends the Sugar Industry Act, 1942).
Section nine of the said Act of 1946 (which extends certain emergency enactments relating to legal powers).]—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to His Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

PATENTS (EXTENSION OF PERIOD OF EMERGENCY) ORDER, 1951
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that the Motion standing in my name be agreed to.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty under subsection (3) of section forty-nine of the Patents Act, 1949, praying that the Patents (Extension of Period of Emergency) Order. 1951, be made in the form of the draft laid before Parliament on 6th November.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to His Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

REGISTERED DESIGNS (EXTEN- SION OF PERIOD OF EMERGENCY) ORDER, 1951
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that the Motion standing in my name be agreed to.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty under subparagraph (3) of paragraph 4 of the First Schedule to the Registered Designs Act, 1949, praying that the Registered Designs (Extension of Period of Emergency) Order, 1951, be made in the form of the draft laid before Parliament on 6th November.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to, His Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

SELF-GOVERNMENT FOR SCOTLAND
4.12 p.m.
LORD CALVERLEY LORD CALVERLEY rose to move to resolve, That it is expedient that His Majesty's Government should introduce at an early date a measure granting self-government on domestic affairs to the Kingdom of Scotland. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Resolution to which I have the honour to ask this House to give attention has a certain connection, I suggest to your Lordships, with the very important debate to which we have been listening for the last hour and a half or more, because, if this Parliament will consider a modest measure of devolution for the Kingdom of Scotland, I believe that that will be most helpful in saving the congestion which afflicts our Parliament down here at St. Stephen's. Your Lordships may ask why I, of all persons, should introduce this Resolution. It is not a new one. I gave notice of my intention to raise this matter about three months ago. It was then put down to be raised for debate on October 16, but, as your Lordships will remember, we have had a General Election. I mention that point because there is no partisan element in the bringing forward of this matter today. Originally, I wanted to give a little prod to the Labour Government, which has now given place to a Conservative Government.
I cannot lay claim to any great knowledge of Scotland, and I certainly have not taken the trouble to go into the tomes of history in order to try to make it appear
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that I know a very great deal about very little. But, of recent years, mixing with and trying to obtain the opinions of, shall I say, young Scotland, in some of the schools in that country, I have come to the conclusion that those young people have a good case for claiming that their fathers and, ultimately, they themselves should manage their affairs in Edinburgh, or some similar place, through a Parliament of their own, charged with the function of legislating in domestic matters. I had the great privilege of being one of His Majesty's Royal Commissioners appointed to inquire into the administration of justice in courts of summary jurisdiction, and our Commission decided that, instead of asking witnesses to come down from Scotland to London, we would go to Scotland and try to get the opinion of a cross-section of the people there who were interested in the administration of justice. One effect of that course upon myself was that I came to realise that there was in Scotland a rising tide of nationalism which could be dangerous if it did not have a safety valve—or perhaps I should say that it would be dangerous if the sentiment were suppressed in a way that savoured of hardship.
I became converted to this idea that it is imperative that we should have a Scottish Parliament by no less a person than the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose. I am sorry that he is not able, owing to indisposition, to be in the House this afternoon. When the noble Duke became leader of a movement that he called the "Covenanters," I came to the conclusion that if such a level-headed man was ready to assume the leadership of such a movement there was no reason in the world why I should not be a humble disciple. There is another reason, however, why I have brought this matter before your Lordships this afternoon. I was looking through the original document of the Act of Union last week, and I noticed that most of the signatories, on the English side, were members of this House, whilst nearly twenty of the signatories, I believe, were Scottish Peers. It appeared to me that the House of Lords must have had a lot to do with that Act of Union. Therefore, I thought that your Lordships might well reconsider what was done in 1707 to see whether you could not agree upon some measure of devolution in the administration of domestic affairs in that great Kingdom of Scotland.
In a children's encyclopaedia, which I looked at yesterday, I noticed that it was stated that one of the important reasons for the Act of Union was that the English were great lovers of law and order. and they desired that the Scots should have that same feeling of respect for law and order as exists in this country of ours. Anyone who has sat in another place knows how, when there is what is known as a Scottish day, most of the English Members feel they have a good excuse to go to the pictures, or to pursue some other lively avocation which they find convenient, leaving the day to the Scots. When I was a Member of the other place, I noticed that the Scots set a great example in the matter of the brevity of their speeches. They arranged the programme beforehand, in order to fit in a long list of speakers, and they voluntarily applied to themselves the ten-minute rule. Whilst there, was not a gun, if any Scotsman went over ten minutes, he was certainly looked on with disfavour by his colleagues. Another act of appeasement by the Imperial Parliament was the setting up of the Scottish Grand Committee. I submit to your Lordships that this is a matter of common sense. In order that we might have more time for Imperial affairs, we should give to the Kingdom of Scotland the right to legislate for their own domestic affairs. I had in the back of my mind a very good reason why a Yorkshireman should be one of the first to bring this question before your Lordships but, though it is a relevant story, I will not detain your Lordships. Should any noble Lord desire to hear it, I will tell him in the smoke room.
The Secretary of State for Scotland is a sort of Pooh Bah. He spends most of his time down here in London, which, of course, he should do, as he is a member of the Imperial Parliament. But it would be impossible for this Pooh Bah, even though he were a genius, to apply himself to all the differing matters which come up for the well-being of the Kingdom of Scotland. I see a smile on the face of the noble Lord before me, who is an ex-Secretary of State for Scotland—I believe that it is a reminiscent smile: I hope that he will rise and give us the benefit of his experience while in office. I believe that a step forward has been taken by the Prime Minister in suggesting to Parliament that, in addition to a Secretary of
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State and two Under-Secretaries, there should be a Minister of State for Scotland. I understand that we shall not have the privilege of looking on his countenance in this House too often. He will be at St. Andrew's House, where he will let not only the civil servants but the people of Scotland feel that there is somebody with a grip upon Scottish affairs. I welcome the new Minister, not only as a Minister of State but as an old friend, whom I have known for more than fifteen years. Perhaps he will allow me to say that I wish him well in his new office and that I hope he will have good health to do what he wants to do. I have often wondered why Mr. Tom Johnston left Parliament and took up his permanent abode in Scotland. He was a great Secretary of State. He and his collaborator, Sir John Erskine, between them, shed light even in the Highlands of Scotland by the development schemes they were able to bring into being. That is some excuse for the fact that he no longer enriches the debates in another place.
I suggest that the Imperial Parliament should delegate some of its duties to a Scottish Parliament, perhaps on the Ulster model—but there I do not wish to dog-matise, or to particularise in any way. I think the Nationalist movement in Scotland, whose reports I have received, are wrong in wanting a new Royal Commission to look into the question of a Scottish Parliament. I think we should grant that without a Royal Commission and, instead of the Commission, should set up an informal working party to go into detailed questions. I am well aware that the noble Lord, Lord Catto, and his Committee are considering the financial aspects of the relationship between England and Scotland, but we need not wait for a report from the Catto Committee. If we can agree upon the principle of a Scottish Parliament, we can surmount the other difficulties, which I feel are not so important as that of establishing the principle.
There are greater reasons, spiritual and psychological reasons, for giving Scotland a Parliament of its own. In the past, the Scottish people have made greater contributions to the world of culture and learning, of theology and the arts, in proportion to their population, than any other nationality, including the English. These are what I might call the invisible

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exports of Scotland. Because of the contributions that Scotsmen have made to the world, and which have placed the Kingdom of England particularly in their debt, I believe that it is our duty to recommend that Parliament shall be re-established in the Kingdom of Scotland. I will not touch on the military achievements of the Scottish people, except to say that during the war, when I was a welfare officer, I had a Scottish division training in my area, a division which went abroad for D-Day and that final victory over the enemy which brought an end to the war. These officers and men, and their gallant general, made me feel that I was greatly in their debt, and it saddens me to think that so many of them, friends of my own, no longer survive. I conclude by bringing this matter sympathetically before your Lordships. The Scots, with their great love of freedom, with their high standard of education, with their reputation, both as fighters and as men of peace, demand that we should give them a measure of devolution of government to conduct their own affairs as they like. These men, especially the soldiers, have kept faith, but they have not received the fulfilment of promises. I ask this House to see that their descendants receive the fulfilment of those promises, which is their due. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That it is expedient that His Majesty's Government should introduce at an early date a measure granting self-government on domestic affairs to the Kingdom of Scotland.—(Lord Calverley.)
4.30 p.m.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I feel that my old friend Lord Calverley has shown great courage in raising such a matter as this, he being a Yorkshireman. I suppose what he wants to tell us and help us about is, in the language of the Yorkshireman: "What's to do?" Well, he did not tell us, "What's to do," other than to tell us to have a Scottish Parliament.
LORD CALVERLEY: And "Have a go, Joe."
LORD TEVIOT: Be that as it may. Being a complete Scotsman—every drop of blood in my veins is Scottish—I feel that I should say a few words on this matter, and more particularly as some twenty years ago in a by-election I had to compete for votes with a Scottish
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Nationalist. Naturally, I had to "mug up" this question, so to speak, and I came to the undoubted conclusion that we were far better off carrying on slowly but surely towards getting the major portion of our affairs into our own hands. Without doubt, this has been going on ever since. The noble Lord has said that he has heard certain young people who seem keen to have a Scottish Parliament, I take it, in Edinburgh. As an indication of the extent of that feeling in the country, I would mention that I took part in the last Election in many constituencies in Scotland, and only twice was this question raised. On each occasion the questioner seemed quite satisfied with what I told him.
This is a delicate matter and, I feel, is one that must be decided by Scotsmen themselves. As I have said, I am convinced that we are better off as we are. Economically, there is no question about it. I am not going to tell your Lordships the economic situation when I went into this matter many years ago, but I have no doubt that it is the same now, if not rather more in favour of us Scots. Our affairs are gradually coming more and more into St. Andrew's House. I am the Chairman of the National Joint Council of Scotland, which is the equivalent of the Burnham Committee in England, and I have a great deal to do with St. Andrew's House and the officials there. I find that hardly a year passes without some new question of legislation in regard to Scotland coming more into our hands. The noble Lord will know that in the other place time and time again there come before the House Bills in which certain clauses do not apply to Scotland. Every consideration is given to the peculiar situation in which Scotland might find itself if the Bill were carried through in terms which would apply quite well to England, but not to Scotland. We then have Scottish Bills which refer to Scotland only. All that seems to me to be going slowly but surely in the direction which we all desire.
The noble Lord mentioned the Catto Committee. The Catto Committee have not issued their Report. With great respect to the noble Lord, even for that reason I believe that this debate is premature. He knows that the Catto Committee are going into the economic and

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commercial situation in regard to Scotland, and we must wait and see what their Report says. The noble Lord also mentioned the question of a Royal Commission. That is something that may be necessary at some time, but it would be most inadvisable to set up a Royal Commission before the publication of the Catto Report. The noble Lord, Lord Calverley, seems very keen about Scottish affairs. I do not know whether it is possible, but if the noble Lord so desired we might have him naturalised a Scot, and he might then add another syllable to his name and call himself McCalverley. We are grateful to the noble Lord for his kindly interest in our affairs, although I cannot help feeling that he is rather premature in putting down his Motion, and that these matters should be left to Scotsmen to deal with in due course when we have studied the Catto Report. I thank the noble Lord for the kindly things he has said about our race, and I am sure that all Scots will be flattered that he has taken such a great interest in our affairs.
4.37 p.m.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, my noble friend the Duke of Montrose was to have taken part in the debate at this stage, but to his regret he is prevented from attending your Lordships' House to-day owing to a slight indisposition. I do not wish to allow the occasion to pass without any voice being heard from these Benches, although I confess that it does not appear to me that this is a really suitable occasion for a debate on a matter of such great importance as that which is the subject of this Motion. The question of a Scottish Legislature, I am sure your Lordships will all agree, should be fully discussed, after due notice, with the formal participation of the leading members of your Lordships' House and after due consideration and deliberation by the several Parties in the State. We cannot say to-day, with a very sparse attendance of your Lordships, that this is such an occasion.
We who sit on these Benches represent the only Party which has ever taken a keenly sympathetic interest in the proposal for a Scottish Legislature, and the only one which has given prominence to this subject in its Election addresses. It was our intention to bring this matter
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formally before your Lordships by a Notice of Motion during the last Parliament. However, certain aspects of the question having been remitted to the Committee referred to by the noble Lord who has just spoken, the Catto Committee, who have been thoroughly examining the financial and general economic relations between Scotland and England and the United Kingdom as a whole, we thought that your Lordships would prefer to await the Report of that Committee before having a formal debate on the subject. For that reason we have not put down that Motion, but we hope to do so as soon as the Report has appeared. Perhaps the noble Lord who replies for the Government will be able to tell us when that is likely to be, for the Committee has been sitting now for a very long time and their findings are beginning to be awaited with some impatience. Without entering into that question at large, let me say that we cannot regard the appointment of a Minister of State for Scottish Affairs as inevitably a substitute for the creation of a Scottish Legislature. At the same time, we cordially welcome the noble Earl who will reply to this debate and who is the first incumbent of that office. He has had long experience in another place, and we welcome his participation in the proceedings of your Lordships' House. We give him a cordial welcome on the occasion of his first appearance not only as a Minister, but also as a member of your Lordships' House.
4.41 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Calverley, that I welcome any Motion on the subject of Scotland by an English Peer. If English Peers would devote themselves to a study of Scotland and Scots affairs with the same interest as Scottish Peers—a notable example is my noble friend Lord Teviot, who has just sat down—to English affairs, then and only then will the full fruit of the Act of Union of 1707 be felt in Scotland. For that reason I should like to say that, although I am not in the least anxious to bring him up to Scotland and naturalise him, I am very glad to find an English Peer taking an interest in our affairs. I am told that there are some 3,500,000 signatures on the Covenant. As the last Census gave the population of Scotland as some 5,000,000, that means

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that a good many children have signed that document as well as other people. I am more enforced to that view because I gather that none of the hard-headed business men who run the affairs of the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow and the industries of those cities have appended their signatures. Therefore, it seems to me that the signatures on that document are in the unhappy position of proving a little too much. At a dinner not very long ago I was sitting next to a rather prominent man who is a very able and successful farmer and who takes a large part in public affairs. I asked: "Have you signed the Covenant?" He said: "Oh, yes." I said: "You do not want home rule?", and he replied: "Of course not." I rather imagine that you can judge of the movement by those two points that I have mentioned to your Lordships.
There is one thing about the movement which is rather conspicuous, and that is that it is principally a movement which is founded on sentiment. I rather differ from my noble friend Lord Teviot about the way in which Scots affairs are managed. I can recall Bills introduced into Parliament for the sole benefit of Scotland, and my analysis of those Bills has shown that they seem devised by our authorities without much interest in peculiarly Scottish conditions, apparently in order to make the net tax return from Scotland rather larger than it would otherwise be. I will not give your Lordships instances of those Bills. We have also the unfortunate fate very often to be included in separate Bills on the lines of English Bills. We are in a very difficult position. We cannot discuss the matter on the English Bill because it is not a Bill for Scotland, and when it comes to Scotland we are told that the whole thing has been decided by the Bill which has gone through for England. I could give your Lordships instances. There was the lamentable application of the Transport Act to peculiarly Scottish conditions. There was the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) (Scotland) Act passed at the end of last Session. I expressed my opinion to your Lordships on that Bill. I will give your Lordships an even more recent instance. My honourable friend Mr. Fraser, the Under-secretary for Scotland, has reduced the assembly of the burghs of Scotland almost to sullen rebellion by his insistence on trying to
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apply to the burghs of Scotland the regulations with regard to fowls and rabbits which are in force in England. Happily, that has failed. I give your Lordships those points to show that Scottish affairs do not get adequate consideration in Parliament, and to show that they should get more sympathetic consideration and especially more time. Your Lordships will remember that at the end of last Session we read a Bill for the second time on a Tuesday, and we passed it through Committee and all the remaining stages on the Thursday of the same week.
The Home Rule Party in Scotland is rather conspicuous in that they never take up genuine grievances. They are always concerned with sentimental matters. I rather imagine that if the Party were to take up those solid matters they would have to get an altogether much more solid structure. Under this Government we have a great advantage; we have a Minister who really can speak for Scotland, and speak with some authority. He has two great advantages, one of which is the name he bears. When I first found that I might be of use to people in Glasgow, I discovered that the greatest possible advantage to any man in Glasgow was to be known as a friend of the Earl of Home. The members of the Trades House, the members of the Merchants House, the members of the Corporation and every sort and kind of man in Glasgow seemed to know and to be a friend of the Earl of Home. The same was true of Dumfries to Berwick. Many years ago I had the honour of speaking at a meeting composed mainly of farm servants, at which the noble Earl was in the Chair. It was perfectly clear to me the kind of possessive affection which was felt towards him from everybody in that Assembly. Moreover, his intense interest in boys and the Boys' Brigade has kept him in touch with the rising generation of Scotland, and only the other day up in the North of Scotland I heard of a new example of his goodness of heart. He will be very much missed, but his son who bears his name will deal with Scottish affairs with an authority which very few others could emulate, and in addition to that we have in your Lordships' House somebody answering for Scotland who really knows Scotland.
Since he is not here to-day, and I can do so, therefore, without making him blush, I can say perfectly frankly that at

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every turn of Parliamentary affairs the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, has endeared himself to me by his complete candour and honesty and a hundred other good qualities which noble Lords who sit opposite and who are his friends will not require me to specify. The fact is, however, that on many occasions in this House, in reply to questions about Scotland, the answer which the noble Lord had to give was: "My instructions do not extend to that point"; "I am unable to say anything about that point," or, "That is a point about which I do not know." That has been the case in Scottish affairs during the whole time that I have had the honour of being a member of your Lordships' House, and it will be a great and welcome change if we who have questions to ask on matters of Scottish policy are answered by somebody who really knows Scotland and Scottish affairs.
Therefore, I would ask the noble Lord who has moved this Motion to withdraw it. It is certainly premature. He himself has confessed that he is not very well acquainted with Scottish affairs—I hope that he may become more so. To an outsider, Scotland looks a smooth surface. Inside Scotland we have our own differences, but they are not the same as differences in England, for one reason which I think is not a bad thing to remember in your Lordships' House. It is that nearly everybody in Scotland, whatever actual name he carries, is affiliated to some great family or another, and owing to that feeling that we have of mutual and common relationship (I am rather proud of the way in which the right honourable gentleman, Mr. Fraser, my namesake, made himself liked all over Scotland in the discharge of his duties as Under-Secretary of State), we carry our differences less far and less fiercely than people South of the Border. I hope that the noble Lord will study Scottish affairs with sympathy and perhaps come back to them again, but at the moment I would ask him to withdraw the Motion, for it is certainly premature. He himself has given the other reason.
4.52 p.m.
LORD SEMPILL: My Lords I should like to join with those who have already spoken in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Calverley, for submitting this Motion with regard to Scottish affairs. As the
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noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, has said, various Parties have from time to time made declarations with regard to Scottish affairs, but I feel that the action taken by His Majesty's Government in appointing a very distinguished Scot in your Lordships' House as Minister of State for Scottish Affairs indicates a practical approach to those matters on which we Scots feel very keenly. I fully agree with Lord Samuel that this appointment must not be considered in substitution of a devolution of power to Scotsmen in Scotland to manage their own affairs, but rather in order that such matters may be planned in your Lordships' House with someone who can speak with real authority. I again thank the noble Lord, Lord Calverley, for bringing this matter before your Lordships, and I feel sure that this Motion is an expression of gratitude by a Yorkshireman to Scotland for the many things that Scotland, over the centuries, has done for Yorkshire.
4.54 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR: My Lords, before the noble Earl who is to reply begins his speech, I desire to say that I believe that we Scots, not only in your Lordships' House but in the whole of Scotland, are greatly encouraged by the fact that His Majesty's Government have for the first time appointed a Minister of State for Scotland. It is a guarantee that Scotland will get fair attention by His Majesty's Government, and I think that that fact alone is sufficient answer to this Motion. Not only is Scotland to be represented directly in this House, but Scottish affairs are to be properly managed from St. Andrew's House, Edinburgh, where the Minister of State for Scotland is to have his office. I feel, as has been said already, that the choice by the Government of the noble Earl, Lord Home, is about the best guarantee that Scots could possibly have.
4.55 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, I begin by expressing my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, for the very kindly reference which he made to my father; I am fully aware that he will be a very difficult man to follow in public life. I am grateful also to noble Lords who have given me such a kindly welcome this afternoon. I am

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grateful, too, to the noble Lord, Lord Calverley, for giving me this opportunity to explain to your Lordships—for explanation is surely due—why I make my first speech in this House from a position at once so precocious, unmaidenly and exposed. I shall have more to say about the office of the Minister of State. As the noble Marquess has suggested, my duties, as I see the future, will lie largely in Scotland; and therefore my appearances in this House will be necessarily somewhat intermittent. Nevertheless, if there is anything in the hereditary principle, then one who sits in this House under the title of Lord Douglas should, on his sallies from his Scottish fastness, be able to return from England perhaps not entirely empty-handed.
The terms of this Resolution, as one would expect from a Yorkshireman, are blunt and direct. In his interpretation of the Resolution, the noble Lord, Lord Calverley, was moderate and exploratory. If I may return to the cricket metaphors which were so bandied about in your Lordships' House last week, I have played against a good many Yorkshire bowlers but I do not know one who paid so little attention to the penetrating of my defences as did the noble Lord this afternoon. He and other noble Lords have raised matters which are giving my countrymen genuine concern. From our coal mines, our shipyards, our engineering, our agriculture, and from many other industries, Scotland makes a notable and decisive contribution to the United Kingdom economy. But that is not all. As noble Lords have said, the high-level and high-powered services which countless individual Scotsmen have given in all walks of life are widely recognised. They run all through the activities of Church and State, of commerce, business, banking, insurance, politics, and the Civil Service—not only here at home but throughout the Colonies and throughout the Commonwealth. Jokes about all the heads of departments being Scots are good jokes because they are based on truth. If I can interpret the feeling in Scotland it is this: if Scotsmen the world over are capable of bearing such heavy responsibilities, then there is a case for a sensible degree of control by Scotsmen over Scottish affairs. But the question is, how fast and how far should we go?
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I do not wish to represent the policy now put forward as a Party policy; I hope that such changes as may have to be made may be a matter of agreement between the Parties. They are too important to be thrown into the auction market of Party politics. The Conservative Party have given considerable thought to these matters over the last few years, and we are confident that we can put forward policies that can reconcile Scottish needs with United Kingdom welfare. The first policy is a strengthening of Ministerial representation in Parliament. As your Lordships are aware, up to now there have been two Undersecretaries of State, one of whom deals with housing, health, fire, police and Civil Defence and the other with agriculture, forestry and fisheries. A Bill will shortly be introduced for the appointment of a third Under-Secretary of State, who will be allotted such duties as may seem appropriate. By this subdivision of duties, it is hoped that these important matters will have the detailed attention which is their due, because all of them have a particular Scottish aspect and a particular Scottish flavour.
I come now to the new office of Minister of State. I am going to make one claim on the credit side at once, and that is that I must surely embody one of the quickest fulfilments of an Election pledge in British political history. My office has been charged
by the Secretary of State with certain particular responsibilities for the welfare of the Highlands and Islands, for the orderly development of Scottish industry and for close relations with the local authorities. The fact that I shall be largely resident in Scotland, in daily touch with industry and in daily contact with the local authorities, will enable me or any other Minister of State to keep his finger on the pulse of the social and economic life of Scotland. As deputy to the Secretary of State, it is already clear to me, in the short time that I have been in office, that I can do much to help to expedite the business of government and efficient administration by being on the spot.
Although successive Secretaries of State for Scotland, of all Parties, have been willing men and have had broad shoulders, there is an immense amount of work for a Secretary of State to do, and the Minister of State should be able to

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take a load of detailed work off his shoulders. It is vital to Scotsmen that the Secretary of State should be free and have full time to take his part at the highest level of Cabinet discussion and decision. Such questions as foreign policy and rearmament, international trade and finance, are important to the individual, wherever he lives in the British Isles. In this field, I have already found that there is plenty of work to do, and I regard the problem of the Highlands and Islands as one of the most pressing national problems to which I must give immediate attention. Depopulation and the deterioration in agricultural output which has already taken place, and which, in the absence of the continued remedial measures, may still occur, bring a serious lack of balance into the economy of Scotland.
The problem is stubborn and, to make things more difficult, as your Lordships are well aware, the economic background as regards capital investment is harsh. I am meeting the Highland Panel in the very near future. They have already been charged with the duty of keeping under review the progress made and the published programme of Highland development. I hope to discuss with them what has been done and, more particularly, how best what has still to be done can be put into effect. We have had an immense amount of advice and information, and now we have to consider what action can appropriately be taken. Therefore, I hope your Lordships will perhaps agree that, at any rate at the outset of this term of my office, my intentions are good, although with your Lordships' wide experience of life you will, no doubt, have heard those words before on the lips of many a maiden.
VISCOUNT JOWITT: There is one question that I should like to ask the noble Earl. Lincoln used to say that one bad general was better than two good ones. The only anxiety I have about this set-up is this: where does the responsibility lie for taking decisions? I should be very grateful if, in the course of his speech, the noble Earl could make that clear. Am I right in supposing that the responsibility remains that of the Secretary of State for Scotland? I do not quite see for the moment how the noble Earl will be free to take decisions which, I
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think would be very important, in view of the fact that he is on the spot and is negotiating with these people.
THE EARL OF HOME: The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Jowitt, is right—the ultimate responsibility rests with the Secretary of State. I think we shall have to work out this scheme as we go along. It is too early to give a definite answer. The Secretary of State will give me as wide a discretion as he can, particularly on administrative matters, to make decisions on the spot in Edinburgh. I have already taken some decisions which are helping to expedite business. As we go along, we shall have to work it out and see how it goes. I hope and believe it will work well.
The Conservative Party have long felt that there has been an over-centralisation in the business of government. In the nationalised industries, units of administration have become so large that they have in many cases failed to make that personal contact between executive, management and workmen, which is essential if we are to get good relations and full efficiency out of the business. In the last six years or so, experience in England has been bad enough, but with regard to Scotland, as regards both the nationalised industries and the local authorities, with distance adding to and aggravating delay, there has been something which amounts almost to active discontent. Therefore, we intend, so far as the nationalised industries are concerned, to take such measures as will establish in Scotland the most appropriate machinery to serve the Scottish needs.
LORD CALVERLEY: May I say—
THE EARL OF HOME: Will the noble Lord please allow me to finish this part of my speech?
LORD CALVERLEY: Does the noble Earl refer to coal?
THE EARL OF HOME: If the noble Lord had allowed me to finish, I was about to refer to that matter. We are going to try to establish in Scotland the most appropriate machinery to serve the Scottish needs. These are complex matters, and obviously they must all be worked out with the Ministers mainly responsible for the running of those industries. In every case there will be discussions with the Minister responsible for

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the coal industry, for the gas industry, for the electricity industry and for transport. Further, so far as the local authorities are concerned we hope to unwind much red tape, and particularly we want to secure for local authorities the widest discretion in the running of their own affairs.
Your Lordships will have observed that nothing that I have said so far, nothing which the Government propose, attempts to alter at present the pattern of trade and finance as it now exists between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. The noble Lord, Lord Calverley, and the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, I think, would both support the notion of a Scottish Parliament. I will say a word about that subject in a minute, but nothing at present that we propose alters the pattern of trade and finance between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. That is deliberate, because we do not believe that anyone can come to a true judgment on this matter, as the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, and others have said, unless he has the full facts; and the full facts are not available. Sentiment is all very well. Sentiment is a virtue, and without sentiment no country has a soul. But in such matters which affect work and wages, housing and the whole range of the social services and social benefits, agricultural prices and food subsidies, the structure of organised labour, and taxation, sentiment must be tempered and tested by the facts. I do not believe that any thoughtful Scotsman would contest it, and I do not believe that anyone who put his signature to the Covenant would thank any Minister of any Government who acted precipitately on sentiment and endangered lowering the standard of living of our people in Scotland.
I suggest to the House that there is an overwhelming case for establishing the facts, and that is why we propose to set up a Royal Commission which will establish the facts, so that everybody can judge of their significance. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, has reminded me that the Catto Committee are sitting, and he asks when they will report. I was going to reply: "In the late spring," but the noble Viscount will appreciate that in this climate that is a somewhat elastic expression. I have since made some inquiries, and I am told that they hope to report in March, and after that the Secre-
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tary of State will be in a position to decide the terms of reference that he will give to the Royal Commission. I hope That has answered the noble Viscount's question.
My Lords, any question of constitutional change is one which I do not intend to discuss to-day, I think with your Lordships' general approval. It seems to me that that is a question to which everybody must give much more thought, and I repeat what I said before—namely, that any question of constitutional change could not be referred to a Royal Commission; it must be a matter for the Government to decide. Nothing could be more unnatural or more disastrous for Scotland than that Scotsmen should try to take a narrow parochial view, and try to confine their particular talents within their own margins, particularly in these days when power, both economic and military, is in large systems. It would seem to me that the prosperity, and indeed the survival, of both England and Scotland depends on close and trusting union. I sometimes feel that the great newspapers based on London, and the British Broadcasting Corporation, could help us a great deal more than they do to see ourselves as an organic whole. A more regular, perhaps a better, presentation of news from Scotland or Wales in the English newspaper would help. It is possible, too, I think, from my observation, that an expansion of the general news bulletins to include more of the important items of regional news, might help people to think in terms of our whole Island. It seems to me sometimes that we tend now to think in terms which are excessively regional. I only throw out those thoughts. I welcome this debate, if only because it has given me an opportunity to deploy the Government policies as far as they have gone, and to assure your Lordships that the Royal Commission will be appointed to establish the facts before any further decisions are taken. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Calverley, will be content with my explanation and, perhaps, will now withdraw his Resolution.
5.15 p.m.
LORD CALVERLEY: My Lords, I will not keep you long, but I want to express my personal appreciation at the maiden speech of the noble Earl. I was permitted to co-operate with his illustri-

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ous father in a boys' movement, when he asked me to be one of his vice-presidents; and having known the noble Earl now for sixteen years it has been a personal pleasure to listen to him this afternoon. I want your Lordships to feel that I was not trying to "cut the nice Scotsman," as was indirectly suggested, I believe, by Lord Saltoun. Nor, because I did not go into a long disquisition on the warring clans of the past, was I talking from insufficient knowledge. I have spent nineteen years in Parliament and have conscientiously listened to Scottish debates, and I remember the late Speaker, Mr. Speaker FitzRoy, saying to me, "If you join in this debate, my lad, you will be scragged." But I found prior to 1939 that the Scots had a dreadful record in housing, that they had a dreadful record in the depopulation in the Highlands of Scotland, and I wanted to help. I think either Lord Saltoun or Lord Teviot, asked why a Yorkshireman should interfere? I am going to tell you the story now. No doubt you have heard it. When James VI of Scotland became James I of England he tried to introduce as many Scottish customs as possible into Whitehall, including the custom that his courtiers should be shod with brogues. He sent a message up to Holyrood, "Send 10,000 brogues down to Whitehall." They got the message wrongly and they read it as "10,000 rogues." They got 10,000 rogues and when those people came to Yorkshire they found it to be such a delectable region that they stayed there. That is why Yorkshiremen have such great qualities. That is perfectly irrelevant, but there is no Speaker to call me to order.
I differ from Lord Samuel, who says that this thing is a matter about which the leaders should meet secretly, in order to decide the future of Scotland. I would rather leave it as Lord Saltoun has suggested, to the 3,500,000 ordinary folks who have signed the Covenant. I am afraid my voice will not reach Scotland, but if that were possible I should tell those 3,500,000 not to let these leaders get away with it, but to go on prodding until they get their Parliament. I introduced this Motion after a lot of thinking. The Motion has been on and off the Order Paper for three months. I have had the privilege of listening to my colleagues. I do not altogether agree with
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Lord Samuel that this is just a Front Bench affair. I am "fed up" with Front Bench men making long speeches. But one thing I like about this House—again I am out of order—is that we Back Benchers can have our say when we are not crowded out, as we were in the debate on the Loyal Address, when nearly every one of the speeches came from the Front Bench. Having listened to the noble Earl, I have no intention whatever of carrying my Motion to a Division. I hope he will get on with his Royal Commission, though I think we can do without one. I hope I live to see the day when there is a Parliament either in Perthshire or in Edinburgh, and I hope I shall be able to go up there and do a little bit of cheering, not with the Front Bench men but at any rate with the 3,500,000 Covenanters. With your permission, my Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
On Question, Motion, by leave, withdrawn.