Lords Sitting of 9 July 1953

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

  TEES VALLEY WATER BILL
  2.35 p.m.
  Read 3ª, with the Amendments; further Amendments made; Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, I should like to take this opportunity of informing the House that there will be a meeting of the House to-morrow morning at 11 o'clock for formal business only. We expect to receive the Rating and Valuation Bill and the New Towns Bill from another place. It has been arranged, through the usual channels, that these Bills shall be debated on Second Reading in your Lordships' House next Tuesday afternoon. I should also like to remind the House that there will be a Sitting for Public Business on Monday next at 2.30 p.m., when the Committee stage of the Rhodesia and Nyasaland Bill will be taken. There will be no meeting of the House for Public Business on Wednesday, July 15, when Her Majesty is holding a Review of the Royal Air Force. On Thursday, we shall meet at 2.30 p.m. to transact the business on the Order Paper. As my noble friend the Leader of the House has already informed your Lordships, the Sitting that day, when there is a Royal Garden Party, will, in accordance with our usual custom on such occasions, be adjourned at about 3.45 p.m. The Sitting will be resumed about 6 o'clock if the business on the Paper has not been concluded by 3.45. Finally, I have to inform your Lordships that my noble friend Lord Munster will make a statement this afternoon at about 3.30 o'clock on the Public Service in the Gold Coast.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, as I had asked a question privately about this matter may I thank the noble Earl for his full statement? And may I ask
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  whether it would be possible to have such a statement about the Business of the House made as a regular practice after Prayers on Thursday, Or whatever is the last Sitting day of the, week? I believe it would be a great convenience to private Members of the House, like myself, who try to attend industriously to their business.
  EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, in reply to the noble Viscount, I may say that I will certainly bring his remarks to the notice of the noble Marquess, the Leader of the House.

  BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  Read 3ª (according; to Order), and passed.
  BRADFORD CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL
  Read 3ª (according to Order), and passed.
  LAND DRAINAGE (SURREY COUNTY COUNCIL (RIVE DITCH IMPROVEMENT)) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL
  Read 3ª (according to Order), and passed.
  WALSALL CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL
  Read 3ª (according; to Order), and passed.

  ENEMY PROPERTY BILL [H.L.]
  2.41 p.m.
  Amendments reported (according to Order).
  Clause 2:
  Provisions as to making of certain payments and withholding of payments
  2.—(1) Where at a time within the period mentioned in the foregoing section—

  (a) a payment was made by or on behalf of any person to a competent authority, or

  (b) a payment was withheld (whether by way of refusal or of omission to make the payment) by or on behalf of any person, or

  (c) a payment was made by a competent authority to or for benefit of a person as being the person Who, but for the Act of 1939 or any order made thereunder, would have been entitled thereto,

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  then, if the payment was made or withheld in the circumstances specified in paragraph (a), (b) or (c) of subsection (1) of the foregoing section, it shall be deemed to have been authorised by the Act of 1939 notwithstanding that apart from this section it was not so authorised, and, in the case of a payment made as mentioned in paragraph (a) of this subsection, the making thereof shall be deemed to have operated, so far as the amount thereof extended, as a release of the person by or on whose behalf it was made.

  (2) Where, in the case of a payment made as mentioned in paragraph (a) or (c) of the last foregoing subsection, the payment (apart from that subsection) was not authorised by or under the Act of 1939,—

  (a) if the payment was a payment to a competent authority as mentioned in the said paragraph (a), nothing in that subsection shall be construed as preventing that authority from paying the amount thereof, or any part of that amount, to or for the benefit of any person to or for whose benefit the amount or part could lawfully have been paid apart from this section;

  (b) if the payment was a payment by a competent authority as mentioned in the said paragraph (c), nothing in that subsection shall prevent that authority from exercising any right of recovery in respect of the payment, being a right exercisable apart from this section.?

  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved to omit Clause 2. The noble Lord said: My Lords, those of your Lordships who had the courage to sit through the Committee stage of this Bill will be fully aware of its great technical complexity. So mystified were the Opposition and those who advise us on the legal side of your Lordships' business as to the meaning of some of the clauses in the Bill that I felt it my duty to put down forty-eight Amendments, the majority of which, as I frankly admitted at the time, were probing Amendments, designed to get some statement from the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, in charge of the Bill, as to what the Bill was all about. The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, agreed with me about the complexity of the measure, and he also agreed that the only way in which we could get explanations on various points as to which we were genuinely concerned, was to put down a series of Amendments to delete passages or clauses which we did not understand. That brought forth from the noble Lord very helpful replies, which we have studied with great care, and your Lordships must, I am sure, be relieved to see only a very few Amendments on the Marshalled List for this Report stage, and only one of those Amendments is for the
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  purpose of obtaining from the Government further explanation.
  The reason why there are no more Amendments of that nature is because of the courtesy and industry of the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft. On behalf of the Opposition, I should like to thank him for his courtesy and the great amount of work he has done between Committee and Report stages to help the Opposition to understand the Bill and to meet us on every possible point. It is most refreshing, and I feel bound to say is in marked contrast to the experiences which Her Majesty's Opposition have had in your Lordships' House on occasions during the past Session. That makes it all the more acceptable. But while the noble Lord has satisfied me regarding the points we raised, unfortunately that satisfaction rests between the noble Lord and myself. The only way I could get that entered in the official record of the House, so that those of the general public who are interested in this matter could also have the explanation, would be by putting down about fifteen Amendments on Report stage and arguing the matter all over again, as the noble Lord and I have argued it for the last three weeks, personally and by correspondence; but I know the objections your Lordships have to turning Report stage into Committee stage.
  I should like to suggest to the noble Lord, and I hope he will convey it to the appropriate quarter, that it would be helpful to the House and to those interested outside in these highly technical legal matters, if a fuller Explanatory Memorandum were issued with a Bill of this sort, so that at least we could start off by knowing something about it. I must confess that my legal advisers have at times said to me, "We just do not understand what it is all about." All points except one, which arises in this first Amendment, have been satisfactorily dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft. I will not say he has satisfied me completely on many of these difficult matters, but I feel that the balance of argument was in his favour; and that is why I refrain from wearying your Lordships with a series of Amendments to get the noble Lord to explain it all to the House with the meticulous detail with which he has explained it to me.
  The reason for putting down this Amendment as an Amendment to delete

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  the whole clause is that I do not want to risk a rebuke for moving the deletion of what I might have thought to be the relevant subsection, but which is not. I thought that by seeking to delete the whole clause I should be on safe ground. Clause 2 deals with money which has found its way into the hands of the Custodian under the Enemy Property Act. Clause 3 deals with property which has found its way into the hands of the Custodian under the Trading with the Enemy Act, 1939. There have been cases where property and money have found their way into the hands of the Custodian from people who were thought to be enemies, but who upon investigation turned out to be friends. Under Clause 3 the person who has had his property wrongfully appropriated has legal measures open to him to obtain the return of that property, but, as the noble Lord has explained to me, property and money are dealt with differently, and if an alleged enemy has had his money transferred to the Custodian and the Custodian realises that it was wrongfully pissed on to somebody else, the Custodian can obtain the money back, but the unfortunate person who has been robbed by this process has no redress at all. It seems to me, in natural justice, wrong that a man should be wrongfully deprived of his money and have no redress, whereas if he is wrongfully deprived of his chattels he has redress. That is the simple point upon which I should like some further elucidation.
  I feel certain that the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, will recite to me a long legal argument, or a short legal argument, whichever he feels disposed to make. But I do not feel inclined at the present moment to accept a legal argument in this matter. I think it is common sense and natural justice that money should be treated in this particular case on the same level as that of property. Later on we shall come to an Amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, which bemuses me still more in relation to this point. That particular Amendment deals with interest accruing on money that has been wrongfully held but has been returned, and also interest accruing on property that has been acquired and sold. The noble Lord seems to recognise the equity of both cases in that Amendment, whereas here in Clause 2, in my view, he treats money differently from property. I
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  say that they should be treated in exactly the same way, and the person who has been wrongfully deprived of his money should be compensated in exactly the same way as the Government propose to compensate the individual who has been wrongfully deprived of his property.
  I hope that that explanation is clear to your Lordships. I move to delete this clause, in order to give the noble Lord an opportunity of further explanation. If he is satisfied with the correctness of the argument I have advanced, I hope that he, with that diligence which he has so well shown up to date, may think of an Amendment to put down on the next stage. We, at least, shall have the advantage of listening to his explanation, and if we find ourselves still in disagreement with him we can take the opportunity of putting down a further Amendment in due course. Obviously, I do not propose to press this Amendment; I have put it down merely in order to raise the point. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Leave out Clause 2.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)
  2.52 p.m.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I should like to begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for his kind references to my modest attempts help him steer his way through this Bill. It is a complicated Bill, and it is for that reason that the Government arranged a much longer interval of time between the various stages of the Bill than is normal, in order to allow those who had not the full benefit of professional advice to spend more time than usual upon its elucidation. But I do not think it is quite as complicated as the noble Lord makes out. Admittedly, I went into some considerable length of explanation on Second Reading, but I did point out that, although the principles of the Bill were straightforward and comparatively simple, it, was not a measure which lent itself to very clear and precise definition in its working There are many Bills such as that, and there are many Bills which do not lend themselves, even under the most expert draftsman's hand, to crystal-clear explanation. This, I am afraid, is one of them.
  So far from being a badly drafted Bill, it is in my opinion one of the best-drafted Bills I have ever seen. If the noble Lord is going to reproach us, I would ask him

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  to look at some of the Bills which were laid before us when he sat on this side of the House. I would commend to him for light bedside reading, if he wants it, Section 7 of the Leasehold Property Act, 1951, or Section 61 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947. Both of those are very well drafted sections but are extraordinarily difficult for the layman to understand. I will certainly convey to the proper quarter the request of the noble Lord that in future, with Bills such as this, we should have a fuller explanatory note. But I must, if I possibly can, defend the draftsman against any accusation of over-complex draftsmanship.
  LORD SILKIN: That is an interesting suggestion, and I welcome it. But it is not the length, so much as clarity in the Memorandum that we are concerned about. I recognise the importance of technical language and the necessity for it in a Bill. But in an explanation could we not have non-technical language, so that we can get an idea immediately as to what it is all about?
  LORD MANCROFT: I will certainly consider that. I have not read recently the Memorandum to this Bill, and the copy of the Bill I have in my hand does not contain it. However, I will look at it again. So far as I remember, it was not very complicated. I will certainly bear the point in mind and see whether, in future, the Memorandum attached to a Bill of this nature cannot be made as simple as possible.
  To turn to the point of the Amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has put before us this afternoon, I quite appreciate what worries him, and I know that it worries the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, as they mentioned it together on the Committee stage—namely, this difference between the rights of a non-enemy whose money had been paid to the Custodian and those of a non-enemy whose property wrongly came into the Custodian's hands. I will try and give the explanation asked for; it will not be legal and it will not be long. As the noble Lord rightly said, the main reason for the difference is the difference between the legal position in the case of dealings with money and in the case of dealings with property. For example, if a bank wrongly pays the Custodian money held for the account of Herr Schmidt who, in spite of his name, was
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  never an enemy, he might have had a remedy against the bank but not against the Custodian. On the other hand, if the bank were holding, say, jewellery in the name of Herr Schmidt, and had transferred it wrongly to the Custodian, Herr Schmidt could recover the jewellery from the Custodian. Clause 3 (4) (a) recognises this position and preserves these existing rights.
  This is the whole point of the matter, and I hope that in a sentence I can satisfy the noble Lord on it. Whilst I admit that the difference between the two does look to the layman a little odd at first sight, this is the explanation. It has always been the practice of the Board of Trade to direct the Custodian to release moneys wrongly paid to him. I can give the noble Lord the assurance that this practice will most certainly continue. Clause 2 (2) (a) has been expressly inserted in the Bill to allow of this. The point is that the practical position as between Herr Schmidt and the Custodian with regard to his money and with regard to his jewellery is, in point of fact, exactly the same in both cases. I hope that that explanation, which I like to think has been neither long nor legal, will satisfy the noble Lord that no injustice will take place.
  LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, I understand from the explanation which has been given by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, that in fact the Board of Trade intend to treat a wrongful disposition of money in the same way as wrongful dispositions of other property. But I am still quite unable to understand why that should not be included in the Bill, and why it should remain merely a matter, strictly speaking, of an ex gratia payment by the Board of Trade. That is a distinction for which I am still at a loss to find a reason. I know what the historical distinctions are between money and chattels or, to be more exact, between balances in a bank and chattels, because the law with regard to money, as a tangible, identifiable thing, consisting in coins or banknotes, is, as I understand it, exactly the same as the law with regard to other kinds of movable property. In modern times, of course, money which is paid into a bank is not identifiable as such any longer; it is merely an operation which creates a debt owing by the bank to its customer. In that sense, of

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  course, it is no longer analogous to any kind of tangible movable properly. But the practical effects of these operations are precisely the same, and I do not see why, in the one case, there should be a legal right to recover the property, and yet not to recover the money, in the other.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, has only increased the dilemma. His reply was neither legal nor lengthy. As is his usual practice, the reply was concise and clear, but he said, in effect, "We shall not treat chattels and property any differently." As my noble friend Lord Douglas asked: "Then why not say so? However, we will look at this, and we will consider what the noble Lord has said. I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving us the undertaking that, in effect, the property in Clause 3 and the money in Clause 2 are to be treated in exactly the same way, so that no hardship will be caused. If that is so, I am surprised that it has not been put into the Bill and not just treated as a matter for an undertaking. Moreover, we now have it on the record, and perhaps that will satisfy us. Therefore, for the time being, at least, I beg your Lordships' leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 4 [Income from moneys invested by custodian]:
  3.3 p.m.
  LORD MANCROFT LORD MANCROFT moved, at the beginning of subsection (1) to insert, "Subject to the provisions of this section." The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment, and Amendment No. 4, which really go together, are the Government's attempt to meet what we felt was a very real uneasiness expressed by noble Lords opposite on this particular clause. Both my learned and noble friend the Lord Chancellor and I were, if I may say so quite frankly, impressed with the anxiety displayed by noble Lords opposite, but we have been at some considerable pains to try to produce a solution to this problem which we hope will meet the difficulty.
  I must confess that they are rather a formidable collection of Amendments, and they are, by and large, designed to meet the pressure brought against us on the
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  point that interest should be allowed to persons whose moneys have been wrongly paid to the Custodian and who have since had them back. This is the point to which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, recently referred. The noble Lord made it clear to me that he was not asking that interest should be paid on money that was appropriated quite properly from people who were proved to be enemies, and that he was talking only about people who had their properly appropriated and who subsequently proved that they were not enemies. The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, had the same type of case in mind, I imagine, when he referred to cases where money had been taken from people from whom there was no right in law or equity to take it. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, suggested that the possibility of making ex gratia payments at an average rate of interest to such people should be considered, and this my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor undertook, on behalf of the Government, to do. We have gone into this matter carefully, and we have now tabled these Amendments.
  Briefly, their effect is this. Where money was paid to de Custodian as being due to an enemy, or the proceeds of property were transferred to the Custodian as being enemy property, but the money was not, in fact, due to an enemy, or the property was not enemy property, the person whose money is released to him by the Custodian is to be entitled to receive interest on it at the rate of three-quartets of 1 per cent. per annum for the period during which it was in the Custodian's hands, provided that, if the money has already been released, he makes a claim for the interest within a year of the passing of the Bill. Your Lordships will see, I hope—I particularly hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, will see—that on one point at least we have gone even further than he asked us to go. We were asked to consider paying interest ex gratia. Under the Amendment, however, there is to be a statutory right to receive interest in the circumstances I have described. There have been many occasions on which, from both sides of the House, when we were variously in Government or in Opposition, that splendid clarion call "Put it in the Bill" has been made, and on an

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  equal number of occasions the Government have refused to "put it in the Bill." This is one of the rare occasions where the Opposition has not said, "Put it in the Bill," but where the Government have done so.
  Your Lordships will probably think that it is unnecessary to give details of this, but perhaps I should say one word as to why the rate of three-quarters of 1 per cent. has been decided upon, because at first appearance that is not a princely rate. It is as nearly as possible what the Custodian's general investments earned, on the average, in Treasury Bills and Ways and Means Advances. It seemed to be proper that the non-enemy should have what the Custodian earned. That is all there is to it. I should be grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would accept these Amendments in the spirit in which they are offered—namely, as a genuine attempt to meet what we felt, and still feel, was a genuine anxiety. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 4, line 39, at beginning insert the said words.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I am indeed grateful to the noble Lord, because there was a strong case against the Government's intentions in this Bill to withhold interest from innocent parties who have been deprived of their income by the appropriation of their principal. The Government had admitted that the principal should be returned, but in the original clause they said, "We are going to pay no interest." My noble friend Lord Chorley, my noble friend Lord Silkin and the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, all joined in protest. We said that it was far from being fair, and I must confess that I was rather shocked when the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack went to the length of denying that there was a prima facie case of injustice. I think there was a case of gross injustice, and this Amendment does the Government great credit. Again, I am grateful to the noble Lord and his advisers, and to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, for recognising the injustice and putting it right.
  The noble Lord says that this is a case where they have put it in the Bill without its being demanded by the Opposition. The noble Lord has scored
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  his boundary before the ball has been bowled, because that was the intention of the Amendment which I have on the Order Paper. I was going to say that I should divide your Lordships' House: we were going to ask you to put it in the Bill; so I am afraid that the noble Lord's middle stump is now reclining at a somewhat drunken angle. However, I am quite satisfied as far as I am concerned. Whether the noble Lord, Lord Chorley is, I do not know. The noble Lord has met our point accurately and adequately. I have no complaint about the twelve months period but I do not like the three-quarters of 1 per cent. I can assure your Lordships that the gentleman who sits in the Treasury and who can get only three-quarters of 1 per cent. on his investments is not going to handle much of my money, if I can help it. He had better take lessons from the noble Lord, Lord Hawke. Perhaps I can assist, and together, perhaps, we can see how we can get a little better than three-quarters of 1 per cent. But if that is the average amount earned by the Custodian, in the admittedly restricted field of his allowable investments, I am quite happy. May I once again thank the noble Lord very much. It reflects great credit on the Department that they have recognised this point, and we on this side of the House accept their Amendments with thanks.
  LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I thank the Government for accepting the suggestions made on this point from both sides of the House. I rise on only one small point. Speaking extempore and loosely at the time, I suggested a figure of 2½ per cent. or 3 per cent. as being the sort of interest that might be payable. That, of course, was quite wrong. On reflection, I consider three-quarters of 1 per cent. is quite proper as the rate which the Custodian's balances must have been earning at that time. I hope that any would-be recipients who happen to read the Report of our debates will not feel that they have been defrauded by getting, only three-quarters of I per cent. when I originally suggested 2½ per cent.
  LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the Government. I felt very shocked at what seemed to me rather shabby conduct, but it has been put right and I think it is much better that the concession should appear specifically in the Bill, rather than in the shape

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  of an undertaking. But while one ought not to look a gift-horse in the mouth, there is one point I wish to make, and that is the short limitation period attaching to claims. Twelve months is a very short period for such claims. There may well be cases in which the man whose property was appropriated is dead, and there may be difficulty over his personal representative stepping in; so that the period may be up before they know where they are. I would suggest to the Government that they might give a discretion, in proper cases, to have the period lengthened. That is quite a common thing, as the noble Lord knows, in these limitation cases. The noble Lord knows well that twelve months soon slip away, and therefore I hope the Government will take a discretion to lengthen, in proper cases, the period of twelve months.
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 5, line 6, at end insert—
  "( ) Where a custodian, whether after or before the passing of this Act, pays or has paid to any person a capital sum on the footing that—

  (a) it represents or represented money which was paid to the custodian as being money due to an enemy, but which was not in fact money due to an enemy, or

  (b) it represents or represented the proceeds of property which was transferred to the custodian as being enemy property, but which was not in fact enemy property,

  the person to whom the capital sum is or was paid shall be entitled to receive from the custodian interest thereon at the rate of three-quarters of one per cent. per annum from the date on which the custodian received the money referred to in paragraph (a) of this subsection or the proceeds referred to in paragraph (b) thereof, as the case may be, to the date of payment of the capital sum:
  Provided that—

  (i) where the payment of the capital sum was made before the passing of this Act, the right to interest thereon under this subsection shall not arise unless a claim for it in writing is made to the custodian within one year from the elate of the passing of this Act and there is produced to the custodian such evidence in support of the claim as the custodian may reasonably require; and

  (ii) where in such a case the person to whom the capital sum was paid has since died, or any other event has occurred whereby the right to the interest, if vested in him immediately before that event, would thereupon have vested in some other person, the right to claim the interest shall be treated as having devolved as if that right had been vested in him immediately before his death or immediately before that event,
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  as the case may are, if the right is duly exercised, the interest shall be paid to the persons claiming under him accordingly.

  ( ) For the purpose of making payments of interest under the last foregoing subsection a custodian who at the passing of this Act has in his hands, or thereafter receives, any income such as is mentioned in subsection (1) of this section shall set aside out of that income such sums as the Treasury may from time to time direct; and out of any sums so set aside the custodian shall pay any interest becoming payable by him under the last foregoing subsection and shall pay the balance thereof (if any) into the Exchequer.
  ( ) In this section the expression "money due to an enemy" means money which would, but for the existence of a state of war, have been payable to or for the benefit of a person who was an enemy within the meaning of the Act of 1939."—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH had given notice of an Amendment to add to subsection (2):
  "or as preventing the payment of a sum in lieu of interest in respect of any moneys the payment of which is authorised or permitted by this Act."
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, I do not wish to move this Amendment, but I should like to support what my noble friend has said. I quite understand the reason far the twelve-months period, but will the noble Lord give us an assurance that that time limitation will be used with discretion? This is a case where we are not seeking to have it put in the Bill, but when lawyers get on to these matters twelve months is but an hour. If the noble Lord can give us that undertaking we shall appreciate it very much. I do not intend now to proceed with this Amendment because the point has been so well met by the noble Lord in Amendment No. 4.
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I think, as a matter of fact—the noble Lord who speaks on behalf of the Government will correct me if I an; wrong—that if the time limit is twelve months there is no discretion to extend it. If the noble Lord is impressed with the point, as I hope he is, the Amendment may need some modification.
  Clause 9:
  Disclosure of information about inventions, etc., in breach' of contract
  (2) For the purposes of this section a certificate issued by or on behalf of the Minister or Board in charge of a Government department stating that, in disclosing or supplying

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  to any person any information, model for document specified in the certificate, a person so specified was acting at the request of that department, and for a purpose which appeared to that department to be in the interests of the defence of the realm or otherwise in the public interest, shall in any proceedings be conclusive evidence of the facts so stated.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD SIMONDS)THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD SIMONDS) moved, in subsection (2) to leave out all words from and including "issued" down to "stating" and to insert, "signed by a Minister of the Crown." The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this is a matter with which I dealt on the Committee stage, and perhaps I might move this Amendment now. The Amendment is designed to meet a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, on the Committee stage. Your Lordships may remember that there was some discussion as to the certificates to be given by the Minister or by the Department in order to prove certain matters which were not easily susceptible of proof, and there was some discussion as to whether such certificates should be merely sufficient evidence or should be "conclusive evidence." On Clause 9 of the Bill, which deals with disclosure of information about inventions, it was suggested by Lord Lucas that the certificate, which must, I think, admittedly be conclusive evidence of the facts stated in it, should be issued not simply
  "by or on behalf of the Minister or Board in charge of a Government Department."
  but should be signed by a Minister of the Crown himself. I undertook to look into that, and I have come to the conclusion, and have so advised Her Majesty's Government, that this is a case in which that form of certificate should be accepted. Accordingly, this Amendment provides for leaving out in subsection (2) of Clause 9 the words after "certificate"
  "issued by or on behalf of the Minister or Department in charge of a Government Department."
  and for substituting the words
  "signed by a Minister of the Crown."
  There is a drafting Amendment at line 24 on the same page to give effect to that Amendment. I beg to move this Amendment.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 10, line 20, leave out from ("certificate") to ("stating") in line 22 and insert the said new words.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, may I express my thanks to the noble and learned Lord for meeting us on this particular point? He is quite right; on the Committee stage we accepted the noble and learned Lord's arguments as to the necessity for this. He made it quite clear to us, and all we wanted was the lucid explanation which we received. We felt, however, that in these cases, where the certificateis to be conclusive, it should be authorised by the highest authority, a Minister of the Crown, and we are grateful to the noble and learned Lord for meeting us in this way. We accept the Amendment with pleasure.
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 10, line 24, leave out ("that department") and insert ("a Government department so specified").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.

  THE GOLD COAST PUBLIC SERVICE
  3.20 p.m.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): My Lords, may I, with your permission, intervene at this moment in order to make a statement which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies is making in another place this afternoon? The statement is as follows:
  "I am circulating with the OFFICIAL REPORT a copy of a statement which the Prime Minister of the Gold Coast made yesterday in the Legislative Assembly about the future of the Gold Coast Public Service with particular reference to overseas officers. The statement recognises that, to maintain an efficient administrative machine, the Gold Coast Government will for some years to come need the services of overseas officers. The Gold Coast Government therefore guarantee to overseas officers pensions and terms of service no less favourable than those obtaining to-day, and the maintenance of the principle of promotion by merit alone.
  "The statement proposes the introduction not later than July, 1954, of the first stage of a two-stage scheme of compensation, additional to normal

  445
  pensions, for serving officers retiring before their time. It suggests that, after the scheme has been approved by the Gold Coast Legislative Assembly and by the Secretary of State, it should form part of any constitutional settlement reached between Her Majesty's Government and the Gold Coast Government.
  "I welcome this statement and the intention of the Gold Coast Government which it proclaims, to retain the services of overseas officers under satisfactory conditions of service. I also warmly welcome the ready recognition by the Gold Coast Government of their responsibility to compensate officers whose conditions of appointment may be affected by future constitutional changes, and their desire to work out a fair and reasonable scheme."
  Following is the statement of the Prime Minister of the Gold Coast:
  "Mr. Speaker: I seek your permission to make an important statement on the future of the Public Service with particular reference to overseas officers. The occasion for making this statement arises from the proposals in the White Paper, which envisage a change in the position of officers for whom the Secretary of State is responsible. The Secretary of State has made it clear that he is particularly concerned with two important aspects of this problem. First, how to help the successful development of the country by continuing to provide overseas staff as requested by the Gold Coast Government, and by supporting the expressed desire of this Government to encourage overseas officers to remain in the Service for as long as they are needed. Secondly, he wishes to fulfil his obligations towards officers holding Secretary of State's appointments.
  "This Government for its part realises that it must have an efficient administrative machine to give effect to Government policy and it is at one with the Secretary of State in its desire to ensure that the responsibility towards officers holding Secretary of State's appointments is fully discharged. In this respect the Gold Coast would not wish to be any less conscious of its responsibilities than were the Governments of India, Pakistan and Ceylon.
  "But having said this, I wish to emphasise that in the context of this statement the countries which I have mentioned do not provide an exact analogy with the Gold Coast. At the time they achieved independence all of them had a Public Service which was largely indigenous. In my October statement or constitutional reform, I remarked that in the Gold Coast political advance had outstripped the Africanization of the Public Service. We find ourselves, therefore, on the threshold of independence having to rely far more on the services of overseas officers than was the case
  446
  in India and the other countries which I have mentioned. The Africanisation of the Public Service has made great strides in recent times and the Government is doing everything possible compatible with efficiency to accelerate the pace of Africanisation. We have more than laid the foundations of the African Civil Service of the future. But the fact must be faced that for some years to come we shall have to continue to rely on the services of overseas officers. It is therefore imperative that we should make our attitude clear towards this class of officer, and that the officers themselves should know where they stand. I am aware that on the eve of fundamental constitutional charges which inevitably involve a change of conditions of their service, there is a feeling of uncertainty regarding their future among serving officers. I want to allay this uncertainty by assuring overseas officers that a fully self governing Gold Coast will need and want their services and that their interests will be fully safeguarded.
  "I will now outline the general principles which Government propose to adopt. At the outset, I would remark that one of the main considerations is to provide a breathing space during which the transition to a Gold Coast Local Service can be completed as smoothly as possible. We seek to avoid any sudden exodus of overseas officers and by safeguarding their future to induce them to remain. While appreciating the need for accelerated Africanization. Government do not propose that this should be achieved at the expense of efficiency, or that promotion in the Service should be on the basis of colour. At the same time, changed conditions of service will be recognised by the introduction of a scheme for compensation. The timetable for this scheme is related more to the need for achieving a smooth transition than to the programme for constitutional reform.
  "Before I embark on the details of the timetable I should like to give certain general assurances.
  "We guarantee pensions and reasonable terms of service which will be no less favourable than chose obtaining today, and we propose to maintain the principle that promotion is by merit alone. This is without prejudice to a policy under which special facilities will be accorded to Africans to enable them to compete on merit with overseas officers. All overseas officers desiring to do so will have the right to join the Local Service.
  "I come now to the details of our proposals. A scheme will be introduced not later than July, 1954, under which serving officers will be permitted to retire, if they so desire, with a compensatory allowance in addition to their earned pension. This arrangement takes into consideration that the proposals for the next constitutional advance will result in a diminution of existing safeguards, but will not amount to a radical change. I have in mind the possible disappearance of ex-officio Ministers; the consultations with Prime Minister in regard to the filling of certain higher posts in the Civil Service and in respect of appointments to the Public Service Commission; the attachment of the Establishment Secretary to the Office of the Prime Minister; and the

  447
  proposal to create training posts in the interests of accelerated Africanisation. I want to make it quite clear, however, that these changes are in no way intended to prejudice the principle emphasised in the White Paper that the Public Service should he free from political control or influence.
  "There will be no super session of serving officers on the grounds of race; the Public Service Commission, however, would have discretion to widen the field of recruitment to promotion posts if, in their opinion, there were not officers in the Service of sufficient experience and of the necessary calibre to fill any specific appointment, or in the case of newly created posts to which special conditions apply.
  "Not more than two years after the introduction of the scheme of compensatory allowance, Government will introduce a scheme of lump sum compensation, as has been done elsewhere. The details of this scheme are still the subject of actuarial examination. At this stage, any officer who desires to do so would have the alternative of retiring with his ordinary pension and compensatory allowance.
  "In the case of African officers, it is considered that sentiments of patriotism will impel them to continue to serve their country and that they can look for a positive improvement in their prospects. Nevertheless, it has been agreed in view of the Secretary of State's responsibility for those African officers who have not opted to join the Local Service that any African officer holding a Secretary of State's appointment who can show to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State that his position and prospects in the Service have been prejudiced, or that he has legitimate cause for anxiety about his future in the Service, should be permitted to retire under the compensation scheme. This is in accordance with the precedent afforded by India, but it is anticipated that such cases would be rare, if any occurred at all.
  "At the request of the Gold Coast Government, the Secretary of State has agreed that officers for whom he has a responsibility and who by the end of the transitional period join the Gold Coast Local Service will continue thereafter to be eligible for transfer within the Colonial Service. Officers accepting transfer without a break in service to equivalent pensionable posts elsewhere would have no right to compensation; but those remaining in the Gold Coast Local Service would have a continuing right to retire with either form of compensation.
  "The representatives of the Association of Senior Civil Servants have already been informed of these proposals and will be further consulted before they are finalised. It is intended that after finality has been reached on these proposals which are subject to the approval of this Assembly and of the Secretary of State, the arrangements will be confirmed in any Constitutional Settlement arrived at with Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. I trust that in the result the future of the Public Service in the Gold Coast will be assured, and that this country, whatever Government is in power, will be able to rely on the loyalty and efficiency of the members of that Service."
  THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for this Statement, particularly because I hope and believe that it will encourage recruitment to the Colonial Service. As your Lordships are aware, the main deterrent to young men who contemplate a career in the Colonial Service has been the uncertainty and insecurity of their future. The Gold Coast Government have shown that they wish to continue to employ European officers, and on the same conditions of service as they have enjoyed hitherto. I hope that this will have very considerable publicity and that it will encourage young men to go into that branch of the public service which is second to none in its combination of service and adventure.
  LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, as one who succeeded the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, as Minister Resident in West Africa, may I say with what pleasure we hear that the irreplaceable services of these officers, many of whom have given a lifetime on the Gold Coast, are still going to be at the disposal of the Gold Coast Government.
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, may I, in reply, say that I heartily concur in everything the noble Lord says. I feel certain that my right honourable friend will welcome the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye.

  ENEMY PROPERTY BILL
  3.24 p.m.
  Report stage resumed.
  Clause 13:
  Interpretation of Part 11
  "interest," in relation to any patent, registered design or copyright, includes any rights conferred by a licence under the patent or registered design or as the case may be, by a licence in respect of the copyright;
  LORD MANCROFT LORD MANCROFT moved to leave out the definition of "interest." The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 7 and 8 to Clause 13 march together. They are really only drafting Amendments. I have put them down following some criticism which was expressed at the Committee stage of the wide terms of the definition of "German enemy interest." I explained that under Clause 13 (2) of the Bill, claims by a

  449
  person claiming in right of an interest created out of a German enemy interest were to be barred, and I said that I believed this was doing no injustice. We have, however, decided that we ought to make it explicit (it is already implicit in the Bill) that a licence under a patent is not to be, regarded as an interest created out of the patent. I hope the Amendments make this clear. The position therefore is that a person in this country who holds a licence granted by the Comptroller General under the Patents, Designs, Copyright and Trade Marks (Emergency) Act, 1939, under a German-owned patent is not barred from prosecuting an action for infringement. It is really only a drafting Amendment and I think it is quite uncontroversial. I hope your Lordships will accept it. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  page 15, leave out lines 9 to 12.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, this is only indicative of the extent to which the noble Lord has gone to help in every point that has been raised. This is, as he quite rightly says, a minor point; but although it is minor we are no less grateful to him for it. We accept it with pleasure.
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 15, line 35, at end insert—
  ("(4) References in this Part of this Act to interests in a patent, registered design or copyright shall be taken to include any rights conferred by a licence under the patent or registered design or, as the case may be, by a licence in respect of the copyright; but for the purposes of subsection (2) of this section any rights so conferred in the case of a patent, registered design or copyright shall not be treated as being art interest created out of the proprietorship of the patent, design or copyright.")—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  LORD CHORLEY LORD CHORLEY moved, after Clause 15, to insert the following new clause:
  " .—(1) Nothing in this Act shall so operate as to defeat any claim by any person who during the period from the third day of September, nineteen hundred and flirty-nine until the eighth day of May, nineteen hundred and forty-five was, on the ground of his or her race, religion, ideology or political conviction deprived of, or restricted in regard to, his or her liberty, or injured in respect of life and health.
  450
  (2) This Act shall not apply if the effect of its application would be that a person who did not at any time between the third day of September, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine until the eighth day of May, nineteen hundred and forty-five possess nationality of a state at war with His late Majesty's Government and who is at the time of the date of this Act a national of a foreign slate which was not at any time during the aforesaid period at war with His late Majesty's Government would thereby be deprived of any property, asset, title, right or other interest without receiving full compensation in respect thereof.
  (3) Nothing in this Act shall so operate as to defeat any claim against any person who or whose predecessor in title has supplied false information to an authority purporting to act under the Trading with the Enemy Act, 1939, in connection with the payments withholding of payments or other dealings in respect of which the claim but for the operation of this Act would arise."
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is an Amendment which I moved at the Committee stage and withdrew on the statement made by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, that the Government would make ex gratia payments, up to a certain point at any rate, to some of the persons whom the Amendment was designed to protect. I withdrew the Amendment stating that I should like to look more carefully at the wording of the noble and learned Lord's statement. I have put down the Amendment again in order to get, I hope, a further elucidation of that statement. The noble and learned Lord said that it had been carefully worded. It is a very cautious statement indeed. It reads:
  "Her Majesty's Government do not wish to rule out"—
  I could have hoped for a rather stronger expression than that—
  "the possibility"—
  again, very vague—
  "of ex gratia payments of compensation being made exceptionally to British or Allied subjects where serious wrong has been done resulting in grave hardship."
  It certainly is protected by a series of very strong adjectives at every turn. I do not know whether the Government would be prepared to be a little more generous. What I am particularly worried about is that it is confined to British or Allied subjects. My own Amendment was not so confined, and I should like the noble and learned Lord, or the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, if he is going to reply, to say whether the promise would cover, for example, an

  451
  Israeli subject, who might very well be in this sort of position and who would, I think your Lordships would agree, have strong claims to reasonably generous treatment in the circumstances.
  As a result of the publication of our discussions on this matter on Second Reading and the Committee stage, I have received a number of communications relating to the administration of the original Acts, the Trading with the Enemy Act and the Distribution of Enemy Property Act, 1949, which seem to me to indicate that this has not been conducted in quite the generous spirit which the noble and learned Lord claimed in the earlier part of his speech in reply to my own speech at the Committee stage. I am very anxious to secure that the concessions, limited and tied up as they are in regard to these ex gratia payments, will be administered in a rather less niggardly, indeed, in a more generous, spirit.
  Let me take a concrete case of what I mean. I believe that the Inter-Allied Reparations Agency reached agreement that property of enemies who had been victims of Nazi persecution—religious, racial or other persecution—and whose property in this country had been sequestered, should have it returned to them. That was an ex gratia arrangement, and the noble and learned Lord very properly took credit for that policy. I will not read the words, but your Lordships will find them in the OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 182 (No.77), Col. 1145. Incidentally I think we ought to note that this is an agreed policy with other Allied Governments and that we in this country have not any monopoly of generosity in this respect. Indeed I am rather afraid that our own administration of this agreement has been a little less generous than that of at any rate some other countries. I pause at this stage to say that when the noble and learned Lord drew our attention to generosity in respect of the administration of this agreement, he did not, in fact, give an undertaking that a similar generosity will be applied to cases coming under this Bill. I imagine that that was inadvertence on his part, and I hope that I may take it that the generosity will be the same.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes.
  LORD CHORLEY: On the assumption that that is so, I ask that the Government should extend these ex gratia payments not only to those sufferers from Nazi oppression who had a direct legal interest in the property which has been sequestrated, but also to those who had a beneficial interest. We are now getting into rather technical legal fields. I understand that the Board of Trade have ignored beneficial interests and have confined these ex gratia payments to those who had legal interests. I think this is a very important matter and I should be grateful if the noble and learned Lord would give his attention to it.
  I will illustrate the point from a concrete case which has been brought to my notice and particulars of which I have roughly indicated in a note which I sent to the noble and learned Lord. It relates to the case of two Jews in Roumania, but the principle of the thing seems to me to be the same, whether they were in Roumania or in any other enemy territory, as Roumania was, of course, for a period during the war. These two Jews were in partnership and the partnership owned property in London, which property was sequestrated. If they had been individual citizens and had made claims these would have been met under the inter-Allied Agreement, but as they were in partnership I understand that the point was taken that by Roumanian law a partnership is a legal entity and therefore it was an enemy legal entity and that the arrangement did not apply to such; and these two Jews, one of whom had fled to Israel whilst the other had got away to France, have been refused the ex gratia payments, which they would have been entitled to if they were making individual claims and had not been a partnership. I am sure your Lordships will agree that that is a narrow and rather inequitable view to take of such a position. In English law, of course, a partnership is not a legal entity at all, and therefore this rather narrow ruling could not have been given.
  Another and even more important application of the same principle is furnished by limited companies or corporations. A corporation may be of enemy nationality by virtue of the fact that it is registered in an enemy country, yet many of its shareholders may be British or Allied nationals, or individuals who have been the victims of Nazi

  453
  oppression. Nevertheless, I understand that since a corporation is a legal entity, the concession to individuals has not been applied, since the shareholders have no legal interest in the property which, of course, belongs technically to the corporation and not to its members, who have only a beneficial interest. I suggest that again the officials responsible hate taken a rather narrow, legalistic attitude in regard to this matter. A similar and even more unfair position arises in connection with a corporation which, while technically British because it is registered in this country, or Allied since the registration is in an Allied country, was enemy controlled because the majority of the shareholding and control were held in enemy territory. Legal members of your Lordships' House will remember the famous Daimler case, decided during the First World War, in which it was held that although the corporation was technically British it was to be treated as an enemy corporation. In this type of corporation there may be a substantial shareholding belonging to British or Allied nationals, or, again, belonging to victims of Nazi oppression; but again the technical point is taken that since it is an enemy controlled corporation these ex gratia payments cannot be made to those who have a beneficial interest of that kind.
  I submit that to expropriate the holdings of such people is to take a purely legal and formalistic view of the situation, and to shut one's eyes to the real equity of the matter and to the economic position. Indeed, this seems to have been recognised up to a point, because in certain agreements which were entered into between this country and Allied countries—such as the one with the Netherlands—specific provision was made for covering points of this sort; which makes it all the more unfortunate, I think, that it should have been taken against these unfortunate people in other cases. I understand that in the United States non-enemy interests in German-tainted corporations (whose assets in America are subject to confiscation) under the amended Trading with the Enemy Act are exempted from confiscation. This has been recognised in two important and well-known decisions in the Supreme Court, which I dare say are known to the noble and learned Lord—one is the
  454
  Kaufmann case and the other is the case of the Oberzee Finance Corporation. I do suggest that we in this country should take at any rate as generous a view as has been taken there. It is disturbing to find this more legalistic, narrow, inequitable view taken by officials who are administering this legislation in this country.
  Of course, I appreciate that officials have to administer according to the letter of the law, and have to leave it to their political chieftains to take a rather wider and more generous view. I understand that when the Distribution of Enemy Property Bill was before Parliament, the Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade then gave an undertaking that he would personally look at the cases where it was claimed that a more generous view ought to be taken. I have not had time to find the reference to that, but I suggest that something of the same kind might well be done in connection with this Bill. It may well be that in some of these cases there are legal rights which could, in fact, be enforced in the courts. I do not know about that. I understand that there are possibilities of some actions being brought. But many of these claimants are small people living in far away places like Israel. They are refugees from Germany and enemy territories, and for them to find the sinews of war for legal action is really quite impossible.
  I am inclined to agree with the noble and learned Lord when he contended that a situation of this kind is best dealt with by liberal administration rather than by actions in the courts consuming large sums of money. I hope that be will impress upon the Board of Trade the necessity for liberal and generous administration of the kind that I have indicated, and that if it is not felt that such payments could properly be made within the spirit of the Inter-Allied Reparations Agreement, the Government should consider setting up some compensation fund out of which it could be done. I should like to pray in aid for a moment the position which exists in connection with enemy prizes taken at sea. Very often, when an enemy ship is taken at sea it is found that there is a beneficial interest of some British or Allied citizen who may have a mortgage on it or something of the kind. It has been laid down in the Prize Court time after time that

  455
  that is no reason why the vessel should not be declared prize. But the British mortgagee or other person with a beneficial interest, even a neutral, is, I understand, always given compensation out of a fund which exists at the Admiralty. I suggest that, since this situation is essentially similar, a similar policy should be pursued in this case.
  As I said on the previous occasion, the policy of expropriation pursued in this Bill is exceedingly dangerous for a country such as our own. The citizens of this country have property all over the world—there are few countries in which British citizens do not own property. Moreover, it is particularly dangerous at this particular point—that of the beneficial interests of the British investors in shares in corporations which are registered in foreign countries. I have already referred to the case of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Many of these corporations own other property, such as railways, tram services, mines, and other important assets which the Governments of the countries concerned may well deem it in the national interest at some stage or another to take over. As we all know, in a number of cases they have already done so. I believe it is generally accepted as a principle of International Law that such corporations should not be expropriated without compensation to the individual shareholders. If we in this country, in the administration of this enemy property legislation, disregard the beneficial interests of the individual shareholders in companies of this kind, we can hardly expect foreign Governments to respect the rights of our own citizens when similar cases occur in those countries. Therefore I hope that on grounds not only of justice but of expediency the Government will give careful attention to this matter.
  There is one further point which I should like to ask about. I appreciate that I have taken up rather a lot of your Lordships' time but I think these are matters of some importance. I understand that the policy of ex-gratia payments to victims of Nazi oppression has been limited, in this country at any rate, to cases where the victimisation was on racial or religious grounds, and has been denied to victims of political oppression. The noble and learned Lord, the Lord
  456
  Chancellor, in answering me at the Committee stage, said that if the first part of my Amendment were accepted, the only people who would gain from it would be Communists—at least, I understood that that was what he was saying. I do not think it is likely that many claims by Communists will be received by the Board of Trade. I understand that there have been a number of claims by Social Democrats, and that the officials of the Board of Trade have taken the view that the Inter-Allied Agreement applies only to cases of religious or racial persecution, and have rejected their claims. I have not been able to obtain actual details of cases of that kind, but I am assured there have been such cases. Obviously it is very unfair if it is so. I should like to ask the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, if he would look into this matter and give me an assurance that such cases will not be rejected on the grounds that a man is a victim of Nazi oppression because he was a Social Democrat rather than because he was a Jew. I beg to move the Amendment.
  Amendment moved—
  After Clause 15, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Chorley.)
  3.45 p.m.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, perhaps it will be convenient if I deal with this Amendment also as I dealt with the matter on the Committee stage. On the Committee stage, I endeavoured to answer fully the case which the noble Lord made for this Amendment. He has put it down again. I do not feel that it would be fair to your Lordships to inflict upon you the speech which I made on that occasion. In fact, it appears to me—if I may say so, with great respect to the noble Lord—that what he has done is to put down an Amendment and then to make a speech which really has no relevance to the Amendment at all. This is an indemnity Bill, a Bill providing for indemnity for persons who have dealt with the property of persons who were not enemies on the footing that they were. It provides indemnity for those people. That is the substance and the nature of the Bill. The Amendment which the noble Lord has put down provides that nothing in the Bill which is an indemnity Bill, for the purposes and with the provisions that I have described,

  457
  shall operate so as to defeat claims—by whom? By enemies who happen to be enemies bearing a particular characteristic—that they have suffered by reason of their ideology or their faith, or something like that. Therefore, the Amendment is wholly irrelevant to the Bill. I think if accepted it would effect nothing at all.
  Upon that Amendment, the noble Lord proceeds to deal with the question of ex gratia payments. With great respect to the noble Lord, the Amendment is irrelevant to the Bill, and his speech is irrelevant to the Amendment. When the matter was before the House at the Committee stage, realising the sincerity of the noble Lord—indeed, sharing many of his feelings in the matter—I went out of my way to explain (although it was irrelevant) what this and the preceding Government had done in the way of making ex gratia releases. I went on to make a carefully prepared statement as to what Her Majesty's Government would do in the future. Beyond that I am not prepared to go one jot. Of course, everything the noble Lord has said will be conveyed to the appropriate quarter, and if it is thought wise to extend the system of ex gratia releases, which both by the preceding Government and by this has been consistently adopted, since 1946 when the Agreement was made with the other Allied Powers, to which the noble Lord has referred, if it should be thought fit to depart from that practice, then no doubt a departure would be made. It would be quite wrong for me to give the noble Lord any assurance that any such departure will be made.
  It is true, as the noble Lord has said, that the Agreement was made in 1946. Rules were drawn up—I will not say rules which were to be binding, but rules which were recommended for the treatment of those German nationals, those enemies who were thought to have suffered for their faith. Special arrangements were made by all the Allies as to the way in which they were to be treated. It is true that, in this country at least, individual enemies have been treated in a different way from the treatment of enemy corporations and partnerships. I
  458
  think that was probably entirely due to the great difficulty of administration, when it is a case of attempting to ascertain what share in a corporation beneficially belongs to a particular individual, and soon. That, I believe, is the reason for it. At any rate, that was the practice adopted in 1946 by the late Socialist Government, and which has been adopted and carried out by this Government. Though I fully appreciate the depth and sincerity of the noble Lord's feelings in this matter, he cannot expect me, in respect of an Amendment which is wholly irrelevant to this Bill—but which might very well be relevant to the 1949 Bill which dealt with the distribution of enemy property—to give him such assurances as he has suggested. Although, as I have said, what the noble Lord said will be conveyed to the proper authority, I cannot accept this Amendment, nor can I give the noble Lord such assurances as he has asked for.
  LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I cannot agree that this Amendment is altogether irrelevant to this Bill. The Bill is directed not only to indemnifying officials but also to legalising the taking away of property from certain people. The Bill is directed to sequestrating the property of a certain class of people, and an Amendment such as this, directed to taking a certain group of people out of that is, in my submission, perfectly relevant. My main object was, as I hoped, to obtain rather more generous assurances from Her Majesty's Government. I am very sorry that I have not been able to do so. Whether it was the last Government or this Government who do it, I submit that it is completely unjust to treat the owners of beneficial interests in corporations and partnerships in any other way than individual owners of property rights are treated. The sooner such an unjust system is brought to an end the better. At any rate, I have had an opportunity of ventilating this matter in public and I hope, now that it has been admitted that this has been going on, pressure will be brought to bear on the Government to bring this iniquitous system to an end. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

  ARMY AND AIR FORCE (ANNUAL) BILL
  3.51 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY): My Lords, I think it may be for the convenience of the House if I move formally that this Bill be read a Second time, then listen to the course of the debate and, with the permission of the House, speak at the end of it. I hope that course has your Lordships' approval. I believe that it will be for the convenience of the House. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord De L'Isle and Dudley.)
  3.52 p.m.
  VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, I do not propose to deal generally with the Army on the Second Reading of this Bill, because there was an opportunity for the House to do so on Lord Ogmore's Motion a short time ago; but there are three points I should like to make. The first is about the Territorial Army. I regret that I was prevented from taking part in the debate on the Motion of the noble Lord. Lord Ogmore, for a number of speeches were made about the Territorial Army. I should like to speak now because I feel that, as a result of that debate, the House may have an unduly pessimistic view of the state of the Territorial Army, partly because some misleading information was given and partly because some of the figures used in that debate, although correct, were not used in quite the right context. Another reason why I want to say a word or two is that I have just come back from a visit to a Territorial Army camp of a unit which I know well, and there I found no despondency of the kind which has been referred to in this House and elsewhere.
  The real trouble is the question of whether the original volunteers—by which I mean those who were recruited in 1948, when the Territorial Army was restarted—will remain in the force until the National Service volunteers begin to volunteer in sufficient numbers and gain sufficient experience to take command in all ranks. That is a problem which was
  460
  foreseen when the Territorial Army was started in its present form in conjunction with National Service. It was also realised, when the first appeal for recruits was made in 1948, that a large number of people would join, and that many of them would run off four or five years later. What is happening now is exactly what was foreseen. There is only one thing that might have happened differently—that is, the previous Government might have started the Territorial Army two years before they did, in which case the process would have been two years further advanced. The National Service volunteers would then have been coming in for two years longer, and it would not have been necessary to rely during those two years on people who had experience of the war and, of course, who were getting no more numerous and no younger. I think the position is that, although the original volunteers are running out, as we expected, the National Service volunteers are coming along in adequate numbers and are obtaining experience fast enough to be able to take over as N.C.Os. and as officers from the original volunteers when the time comes for them to leave the units.
  I was glad to see that, in the Statement which accompanied the Army Estimates, the Secretary of State referred to the importance of dealing fairly with the National Service volunteers. That is the main problem of the Territorial Army now. These National Service volunteers are the people in their generation who would have volunteered for the Territorial Army if there had not been National Service. The National Service men themselves represent those people who in former times would have done their first four-year period of enlistment, and the National Service volunteers represent the people who would have carried on from that first period of enlistment, or commissioned service, in such a way as to take posts of higher responsibility. There is no reason to suppose that the same number of people will not be forthcoming now as in former years. Anyone who looks back at the statistics of the Territorial Army, and the Volunteer Force before that, will see that there was a steady figure of about 200,000, which varied very little except when there was a scare of war. That figure represents the number of people whose hobby it is to do Territorial Army service, and there is every reason

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  to suppose that that number of people will go on volunteering if the conditions are made right for them to do so.
  I am glad to know that the Secretary of State for War is now giving urgent attention to this problem. I think the two directions in which his attention is required are, first, to see that Territorial Army leaders are not burdened with administration, and secondly, to recognise that, while no one expects to make money out of his Territorial Army service, equally no one expects to be out of pocket. Both these questions can be ascertained by methods common in business life, by time study and cost investigation. A good deal of work has been done on that already, but while I am delighted that the Secretary of State is having these inquiries made, I feel that I should issue a word of warning. When evidence is produced, it is necessary that it should be accepted and acted on, whether it is the evidence the War Office want to see or whether it is not. I say that because three or four years ago an outside inquiry by experts produced a Report, known as the Hamlyn Report, which certainly did not get a cordial reception in the War Office. A long time was taken discussing the figures, although the evidence was clear (this was before the present Government took office), and at the end the thing petered out. It is no good producing evidence on these questions, if it is not acted on in time to be reflected in the following year's Estimates. If the evidence is not what is wanted, it is no good spinning out the matter until the Estimates season is passed. I have put the matter frankly, but I do not think I am wrong in doing so.
  I want to say only one other thing about the Territorial Army. I have no special knowledge of anti-aircraft units, but it may be that in these units there are some special considerations which make the position more difficult for them than it is in the Territorial Army as a whole. If so, I hope that these special considerations will not be regarded as applying to the rest of the Territorial Army, but will be dealt with separately. To sum up, I hope that the Secretary of State will stand firm on the original plan, which I am confident is the right one and will work. I hope that he will prosecute his inquiries with the greatest vigour, will accept the evidence which he receives and act on it without delay.
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  I come now to my second point, which is the problem of the "dead end boys" who come into the Army through National Service. This is a problem which has existed for a long time. There always has been a large body of National Service men of low intelligence qualifications and low physical standard who do not go into field force units, and do not spend the last six months of their National Service being trained for battle. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, may remember that, when he was answering for the War Office, I raised this question at the time when National Service was being extended. These men remain in depôts, in Ordnance Corps and Pioneer Corps establishments, and so forth—they are the "Queen's hard bargains." In those units where they go, in the nature of things, man management is bound not to be so good as in the field force units.
  This matter has recently come to a head in public through the trial of two soldiers from a depôt in Shropshire for armed assault: one was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm, and the other of manslaughter. But although those things have attracted attention in the newspapers, they are noting new. It has been known in Shropshire for a long time that these things have been going on. These affrays which take place in the streets of the towns are the effect, and not the cause, of the trouble. Some of the trouble is caused by failure of man management; some of it is caused by failure to realise that these young soldiers are really probation types. I should like to read to your Lordships a short extract from the report given by the defending officer at the trial of one man, as reported in the local newspapers, and confirmed by the High Sheriff, who was at the trial. The soldier was said to be most satisfactory. The officer went on:
  "It was his job to keep the garden tidy at a sub-depôt. He also did odd jobs, such as making seed boxes."
  If you give young soldiers of that kind jobs which are unsatisfying, which lead to nothing, and witch, as a matter of fact, do not make the boy do a day's physical work, it is not surprising that at the end of the day some outlet, for better or worse, has to be found.
  A great many of these young soldiers have criminal records of one sort or another, or have been on probation: they are Borstal, approved school or probation

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  types. I cannot believe that the method of handling these young soldiers in the Army is in line with the accepted methods used by those who have to run approved schools or by the probation service. I feel that the time has come when my right honourable friend the Secretary of State should pursue inquiries in this direction. I do not think those inquiries will be successful unless other Departments, such as the Home Office, and possibly also that of my noble and learned friend, the Lord Chancellor, take a hand in them, too. There it is. This matter has got worse. It is one which is causing a great deal of concern to the countryside where it happens, and I am certain that it is one which needs to be tackled as a matter of urgency.
  My third point has relation to the Army Act itself. I am delighted that this Bill has come to this House without amendment, as at one time we feared might not be the case. I feel that it is no good tackling the Army Act at all until we can tackle the whole thing as one piece. After all, events have shown that this is a most complicated matter, and it is long overdue. It ought to have been tackled immediately at the end of the war. A Department which allows an Act to get into such a bad shape is only laying up trouble for its Ministers, whoever they are. That, of course, is what happened last year, because a lot of what is in the Army Act, 1882, is quite inapplicable to what goes on at present. Then an investigation started in another place. I hope that I shall not be accused of disrespect if I compare that investigation to the hunting of the snark, because in the end I think that snark, like the original snark, turned out to be a boojum. In other words, it was found that, although the Army Act as a whole looked a quite coherent piece of work until you started to touch it, the moment you started to touch it you found that one Amendment led to another, until the time came when there was nothing to be done short of a radical overhaul. I am glad that we are not attempting any piecemeal operations this year, and I hope that, whatever the Select Committee in another place report, the Secretary of State, or the Government, will not feel themselves necessarily limited to dealing only with what the Select Committee have recommended. I believe that we
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  can go a great deal further. I shall be sorry to see anything left of the sections dealing with billeting and the impressing of carriages. They have proved quite unworkable in two wars, and they have been replaced by requisitioning procedure, which is now well known and has statutory authority. If we are to billet people, or if we are to impress carriages, surely, for modern war conditions we must make those powers apply to services like Civil Defence, the Fire Service, and so on.
  A further matter which I feel the time has come to tackle—and this is my last point—is this. Is it really true that we are obliged by Statute to continue the Army and Air Force only for a year at a time? I very much doubt it. I doubted it so much that I looked in the Library to see what was said in the Bill of Rights, 1689. Section 6 of that Bill says:
  "That the raising or keeping a Standing Army within the Kingdom in time of peace unless it be with consent of Parliament is against Law."
  Of course, it is. But your Lordships will notice that that Bill, which is the foundation of such things, does not mention that the Army Act has got to be passed annually. In fact, I fail to see how the fact of having an annual Act for the Army and the Air Force can be reconciled with our present obligations in time of peace to N.A.T.O. and under the Treaties concerned. I hope that when the Select Committee have reported, the investigation carried out departmentally and by the Ministers will go as wide as possible, and will not exclude the possibility of getting rid of archaic provisions of this sort, while, at the same time, preserving to the full the Parliamentary control of the Forces as laid down in the Bill of Rights. With a modern Army, and still more with a modern Air Force, I do not think it is necessary that that sort of tin can should be tied to its tail. I know that my noble friend who is to reply will not be able to give any detailed reply to the points I have made, and he knows that I do not expect him to. All I ask, therefore, is that he should take note of what I have said which in a limited way applies to the Royal Air Force, and that he will bring to the notice of the Secretary of State those things I have said which apply to the Army Act. I do not wish to delay longer the Second Reading of the Bill.
  4.10 p.m.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, I intend only to ask one question of the Secretary of State, and that is: What has become of this Select Committee? We remember the debate, and we remember how the Army Act, 1882, had a great many features which we found objectionable. And the noble and gallant Earl, Lord Cork, raised also the question of the Manual of Military Law. It was arranged at that time—I speak from recollection—that we should defer the period of determination of the Act from April 30 to July 31, in order to give us time to make the necessary alterations and bring them before Parliament. This House is not a party to that Select Committee but is, of course, vastly interested in its work, and it is disappointing to know that we have to go on for another year—we have prolonged the Act, up to now, to July 31—without having the Amendments which we hoped the Select Committee would present. Perhaps the noble Lord the Secretary of State can tell us more about that.
  As to what was said by the noble Viscount who has just spoken, I must say that the debate has taken a turn far beyond any Service aspect. Is the noble Viscount suggesting that the annual control of the Armed Forces is to be taken away?—because that, I understand, is what he says. He says that there is no need to have an Annual Bill, but that in modern conditions the Army should be perpetual. The Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill, as I understand it—I am a humble student and admirer of our Constitution—is absolutely the bedrock by which we prevent an Executive from maintaining an armed force against the wishes of Parliament. If the noble Viscount is really serious about this he can put down an Amendment to the Bill, and we can have a Division upon it. But it is a matter which is certainly worth notice by the public—that it is being suggested in the Higher House of Parliament, by a noble Lord holding the distinguished record of the noble Viscount who has just spoken, that the principle of annual Parliamentary control of the Armed Forces should be abolished, and that we should hand over the force to any Government, whatever Government it might be, despite the wishes of an elected House of Parliament.
  VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, if the noble Viscount reads Hansard tomorrow he will see that I said that while Parliamentary control, was necessary, I doubted whether the Bill of Rights, in itself, stipulated for annual control.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: It would need a lawyer to interpret the Bill of Rights. To me it seems a basketful of odd Stuff. I certainly understood that the principle was that there was no discipline in the Army unless the House of Commons were prepared to discipline it from year to year. I understand that to be our protection against tyranny and dictatorship. It is not a question of money at all: it is a question of discipline. I understand that the noble Viscount proposes that that control over discipline should disappear. If so, I think he should justify his suggestion, and if certainly hope that the Secretary of State, in his reply, will give a clear Ministerial statement on the most important point that has been raised in these matters for many years.
  4.12 p.m.
  THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, when the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, raised these matters, I am sure he was not expecting—indeed, he said he was not—an immediate answer. He certainly ranged well beyond the usual limits on debates on the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill. The noble Viscount's remarks on the subject of the Territorial Army deserve some mention, because it was unfortunate that, owing to the change of date of the Motion on the Array moved some months ago by my noble friend Lord Ogmore, the noble Viscount was not able to be here. The interesting thing is that his evidence on the stare of the Territorial Army is plainly in conflict with that brought forward by my noble friend Lord Ogmore, and, I think, by my noble friend Lord Wise. Evidently there is room for some doubt as to the working of the present system of National Service in the Territorial Army. We hope that the Secretary of State is making such investigations as will assure him of the true position. I imagine that he will at the same time beware of the fatal practice of taking a plant up by the roots to see how it is growing.
  On this Bill itself—and who could be more appropriate to move its Second Reading than the noble and gallant Lord,

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  Lord De L'Isle and Dudley, with his experience in both Services?—I think the only thing that is in the minds of all of us is that the Select Committee are sitting, and we hope that their Report, before next year, will enable us to deal with any Amendments to the Army Act that may be necessary.
  LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY: My Lords, I think it would be appropriate in my reply to this short debate if I said something first about the state of the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill and the position of the Government in relation to its eventual amendment in a rather radical way. Noble Lords know that the Select Committee which is sitting upon the Bill is a Committee of another place, of which we can take no official cognisance as a House of legislation. But it is common knowledge that the Committee—or, rather, Committees, because the Select Committee is reappointed each Session—have had a large number of meetings and have taken a great deal of evidence. Her Majesty's Government, in recognition of that fact, have thought it proper to present the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill in its present form, because the Select Committee of another place have stated that, in its view, it would be a mistake to anticipate its eventual findings by piecemeal amendments. I feel sure that that will strike this House, as I think it has struck another place, as a sensible arrangement.
  I think the recollection of the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, was accurate, and that the intention was, if possible, to produce a Report which would be considered in another place, and to have the amended Bill considered in this House this year. But, by common consent between both sides of the House in another place, the task has been more than even the most conscientious Committee could tackle within the time. I am sure that we should be the last people to accuse them of any dilatory behaviour, and I should like, not as a Member of this House but as a Minister of the Crown, to offer to that Committee my deep sense of the value of the work that they are doing. Certainly it has not been done without controversy, but it has been on a very high plane, and members of both Parties have worked in considerable harmony and to great effect. All I can
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  say to the noble Viscount is that we are anxious that a reform of the Bill should be presented to Parliament and that this House, not having been joined as a party to the Select Committee, shall have its full, free and unfettered right of considering and amending any legislation which is presented to it. I am not sufficiently fortified by the presence of legal luminaries to enter into the constitutional debate which has sprung up. All I can say is that we are good constitutionalists and eager as ever for the control of Parliament over the Executive. If I may say so to the noble Viscount opposite, not in the least in a hostile spirit, we on this side of the House were, for that very reason, strongly opposed to the kind of streamlined legislation which was fashionable in his Party at one time.
  The speeches of the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, and the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, largely centred on the Territorial Army and on a further topic—on the question of what the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman called the "Dead-end kids" and those who had the misfortune to be convicted by the civil power. So far as the Territorial Army is concerned, I do not think we ought to give way to any undue pessimism. The Territorial Army, dependent as it is largely upon a cadre of volunteers, can never rest completely secure; that is, in the nature of things, impossible. But I do not think we need be gloomy about it. The fact is that, as the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, said, when the Territorial Army was reconstituted by the late Government in 1947 a number of Territorial officers of the inter-war years came back, and a number of new officers and non-commissioned officers joined. We praise them for their public spirit and we thank them for the work they have done; but undoubtedly, with the passage of the last five or six years, the average age of the volunteer cadre has risen and their numbers in the nature of things are bound to dwindle—as was foreseen at the time.
  That means that the National Service volunteers who, as Lord Bridgeman said, are just those who would have joined the Territorial Army as volunteers, must take over. That means, of course, because they have had shorter service, that the age level of company commanders and senior non-commissioned officers is bound to fall, and perhaps fall rather precipitately. But responsibility is always

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  a challenge. There are always people who will shake their heads about the younger generation and the danger of trusting them with responsibility because of inexperience. I am glad to say that in my short experience, fortified by the experience of others it is always found that these people are equal to the event; and although it is perfectly true that the Territorial Army could do with more volunteers, it does impose a greater burden and strain upon the cadre of volunteers upon whom so great a responsibility for the success of the system must rest. It is a great mistake to think that volunteers are not forthcoming. Something like 1,000 a month are coming forward, and I believe it is a great credit to the foresight of those, among whom I number Lord Bridgeman, who taught us that we should, as it were, amalgamate the voluntary spirit of the Territorial Army and harness it to the great new experiment of National Service in peace time. That does validate their faith in the Territorial Army, its vitality and its versatility.
  My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for War is fully seized of the importance of not placing too large an administrative burden on the voluntary cadre. That that burden has increased is true; it is inevitable. It is inevitable for three reasons. First of all, the modern Army is a much more complicated structure than the Army with which we were familiar between the wars. The second reason is that we need in this post-war world a much higher state of readiness and training for both Regular and Territorial Army—and that means a greater administrative burden. Thirdly, the larger turnover of personnel, as well as the increased numbers as a result of National Service, means that documentation is much more burdensome.
  Being aware of these things as he is, my right honourable friend believes that the burden of administration must, so far as is possible, be lightened. All I can say to-day, and all that I think that the noble Viscount will expect me to say, is that he is fully aware not only of the problem but of the urgency of its solution. There is just one thing 1 should like to say concerning a point to which Lord Bridgeman referred: the age of the cadre of the Territorial Army. It was referred to in the debate on Lord Ogmore's Motion on the Army. I think
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  it was the noble Lord, Lord Lawson (I have not had an opportunity of telling him this, but I do not think he will resent my saying it) who made a statement about the average age. There are 9,500 Territorial officers serving to-day. Of these only 68 served as officers in the First World War and a further 460 were born in 1900 or earlier. That is not a very high proportion. It is not representative of the Territorial Army; nor does it make the average age very much higher. I say that merely to get the record correct.
  Now to turn to die last question to which the noble Viscount referred—that of National Servicemen who had had a conviction in civil life or had been in Borstal or on probation or some system of reformation, or even in prison. I fully understand his particular concern because of the numbers of depôts and other units in this county of Shropshire. But under National Service it is inevitable that the intake into the Army and, to some extent, in the Royal Air Force and to a smaller degree into the Navy consists of a cross-section of the community, and that does mean that you get a small proportion—happily a very small proportion—of men with previous criminal records. It would be, in the nature of things, impossible to segregate those men from the rest, even if it were right to do so, which it is not, because it is an essential part of the measures for the reform of these individuals that they should be given a fresh start in military life and, later, in civil life, unhampered by their previous records. With this principle of what I may call "anonymity" it is, I am afraid, inevitable that from time to time men with these records, who are likely to fail to go straight, meet each other in a military unit or camp and cause trouble. Sometimes, inevitably, I am afraid, they give leadership in the wrong direction.
  My right honourable friend is very much aware of this problem and has for some time been discussing it with the Home Secretary, who has special ministerial responsibility for matters of this kind. They are both hopeful that the interests of the Army can be protected, as they ought to be, without prejudicing the interests of the individuals concerned. I cannot say more than that, but I am sure that noble Lords will understand that it is a most difficult problem to undertake the reformation of these men in their own

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  interests without prejudicing the interests of the Army or of the many individuals who go into the Army with clean records. It is a pity that incidents of this kind, which naturally, and perhaps properly, attract publicity, obscure the true quality of Her Majesty's Forces, in particular, perhaps, of the Army.
  We must not forget the very heavy burden borne by the Forces since the War—an exceptionally heavy burden in our history. The fact that despite the size of the Army there is no single division in this country—which is exceptional in times of peace or semi-peace—is itself testimony of the burden which our Forces, and in particular the Army with its overseas commitments, have to bear. When we think of Malaya, of Korea, and the many other difficult and dangerous jobs carried out overseas by our forces, and very largely by the Army, in the last seven or eight years, I am sure we can see that in the long and proud record of the Services they have never given a better account of themselves as a disciplined and highly-trained force. It is the more remarkable in the case of the Army because it contains a relatively small force of Regular officers and non-commissioned officers, and they have had to form the cadre of a very large National Service Army. I think we owe it to them to say in Parliament that they have done a splendid job and made the best of the very fine material with which our system of annual call-up has provided us. I feel that, in debating the Second Reading of the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill, we ought to put it on record that we are cognisant of, and are grateful for, that proud record, which ought not to be obscured or tarnished by any incidents, however deplorable, which may occur from time to time.
  4.31 p.m.
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I apologise for intervening at this late stage in the debate, but there are one or two things the noble and gallant Lord has just said which prompt me to say a few words. First of all, we on this side of the House are all delighted to be associated with what he has just said about the Armed Forces in the last two years. They have
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  done a magnificent job. I was rather interested, as the person most responsible to Parliament for the policy in 1947, to hear his general tribute to that policy, to which, very largely is owed the present state of the Armed Forces and the record they have achieved. I felt rather pleased that the noble Lord was quite frank about the situation regarding training divisions. He referred to one matter about which I was often attacked from noble Lords then on this Bench and from the Opposition Benches in another place—namely, that at the time when I was Minister of Defence we had not so much as a division in this country. But, of course, the tasks facing the present Government were there then; and one of the great reasons for the Act of 1947 was to make up our proper reserve of armed strength by including the training of regular divisions in the Territorial Army. However, I am glad to have heard this justification by the Secretary of State for Air for the policy of 1947.
  With regard to the Territorial forces, the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, was right, in my view, to draw attention to the administrative burden, but I hope that if anything is to be done by the Secretary of State for War to lighten the burden, it will not be too long delayed, and that it will be possible to divide the additional help so that the burden does not fall too much upon the Regular staff of the Army itself. I hope there will be some alternative means for that, because they have a very big and heavy job to do.
  As to the other matter which the noble Lord mentioned, I do not profess to be an expert upon these ancient Statutes which have been quoted by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate. I am not sure—I listened to the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, when I was standing at the other end of the House—how far he went. I have taken note of what he said in his second interruption in the debate, but it is absolutely fundamental (and I hope that the Government will prove themselves to be just as good constitutionalists in this matter as the other Government to which the Secretary of State referred) if we are to maintain discipline in the Forces, not merely by Vote but through recognition of the fact that they are under the annual authority of Parliament, that the present condition of annual authority should be retained.

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  The only other thing I want to say is that I observe with pretty close attention in my own district, the Eastern Division of the Eastern Command (I live near Colchester), what a considerable amount of difficulty the authorities have with the soldiers who get into trouble just now. But we have to take the rough with the smooth in these matters. My experience of talking to senior officers while I was in office was that the National Service forces have proved that they can provide those who are responsible for the control, training and operation of the Forces with as fine a force as ever was available to the country before, if not finer, because of the range and cross-section of the population referred to by the Secretary of State for Air. To some extent, you have to take the rough with the smooth in such a matter as that.
  On the other hand, it would be helpful if the Secretary of State, in conjunction with the Secretary of State for War, could produce for us at some time figures of how the percentages stand up at present—that is to say, the percentages of those who have to be treated as delinquents compared with, say, the period between the wars and the actual period during the war. If in the Annual Reports, perhaps next year, the responsible Service Ministers could give us some information on that, it might prove of some help and guidance to noble Lords in offering any contributions which they may have to make with regard to dealing with this difficult problem. I hope very much that the good report which the Secretary of State for Air has been able to give us on the discipline, morale and fine behaviour of the Forces will continue to be maintained, and that we can go on being as proud of them as I am sure we all are to-day.
  4.38 p.m.
  LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY: My Lords, I should not normally ask the indulgence of the House to make a further speech, nor do I intend to make more than one comment. We have very lax rules of order and procedure in this House, but I feel that it would be for the advantage of the House, when we are to have a debate, if we could have a list of speakers from the Opposition, because it makes for a good debate if the Government are the winders-up of the debate. For that reason, I
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  ask the indulgence of the House to make one or two additional remarks. The last thing I want to do is to filch any credit from the late Government for anything they did in the matter of defence. Noble Lords know that in general we supported their policy because we thought it was a patriotic policy and for the good of the country. From time to time, we offered criticisms. I do not want the noble Viscount, however, to think that, because I praise the Army, the Navy or the Air Force for their conduct or their quality. I withdraw any of the criticisms of the previous Administration which we made at the time. Lord Alexander mentioned the fact that there was not a single division in this country. I can equally reply that, if that Government had taken some of our advice on foreign and military policy when they were in office, we might not now have to spread our forces so widely over the world.
  I should like to say, however, that in general our defence policy has been a national one, and it has been the better because it has been a national one. Although we will certainly listen with attention, and perhaps sometimes with impatience, to criticisms from the other side, I feel sure that they will give us that general support which we offered them at that time.
  VISCOUNT STANSGNTE: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down (which is our form of words), would he say one word about a very serious matter—namely, the suggestion from a responsible quarter of his own side that we must reinterpret the Bill of Rights and so impair the annual control by Parliament of the Armed Forces?
  LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY: I thought I had mentioned it in my speech. I do not want to be drawn now into the question of the interpretation of the Bill of Rights. The noble Viscount is going to question these things, but the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, has offered his comments on Section 6 of that Bill and has suggested that the constitutional authority of Parliament does not necessarily demand an Annual Bill. He did not say that it should not demand that Parliament should control the discipline of the Forces. I do not know how long there has been an Annual Bill—
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: Have the Government no view about the Annual Bill?
  LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY: I am, advisedly, not going at this short notice, in a debate which is not upon the constitutional principles but upon the matters dealing with the Territorial Army, to express an opinion about a future possible general amendment of the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill. When the Government wish to express their view, they will express it in due time and in due form.
  On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

  DOGS (PROTECTION OF LIVESTOCK) BILL
  4.40 p.m.
  Read 3ª (according to Order), and passed.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL
  Read 3ª (according to Order), and passed.
  SCHOOL CROSSING PATROLS BILL [H.L.]
  Read 3ª (according to Order), an Amendment (privilege) made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

  HEIGHT OF NEW CITY BUILDING
  4.42 p.m.
  LORD MOTTISTONE LORD MOTTISTONE rose to call attention to the proposal to erect a building rising to 170 feet and 380 feet long in the very centre of the City of London, and to ask Her Majesty's Government whether this great increase in height above the previously agreed maximum is not a matter of grave national concern: and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I hope your Lordships will agree when I suggest that the matter upon which I am about to speak is a national one, and that you will therefore forgive me for taking up your time. It might seem at first glance that, by asking your Lordships to consider the case of one particular building project, I am exaggerating
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  the importance of what should be the business of the locality concerned, for the sole, personal reason that I happen to be one of the very few residents in that locality, the City of London. Having lived, as well as worked, there for more than twenty years, it is perhaps right, however, that I should be the one among your Lordships to draw attention to this project; and I hope that I may be able to convince your Lordships that I am not making a mountain out of a molehill. In fact, the proposed Bucklers bury House, adjoining St. Stephen's, Walbrook, and the Mansion House, is the very reverse of a molehill; it is to be, as at present envisaged, a veritable mountain of steel, stone and concrete, almost exactly in the centre of the City and about 450 yards from St. Paul's Cathedral.
  If this building, great as maybe the area upon which it stands (and indeed it is very great) were to be what I may call of normal height—that is, reaching only to the height that has been agreed either by common practice or by the observance of the London Building Acts—its erection might not be thought to be a matter for the national Parliament to consider. But if it or any new building in the historic centre of the capital City is to rise in massive bulk far above all previously agreed heights, so as to alter the whole character of the neighbourhood by its domination, then, indeed, I submit that it becomes a matter of grave national concern. Let us, therefore, consider first what is the normal or agreed height to which we have been accustomed, and then compare that standard with that which is proposed. It has long been thought that height regulation of one sort or another is a necessity if the character of a city is to be preserved, and the London Building Acts have in part been framed to ensure that this limitation of height shall be observed. It was after the appalling mistake of building Queen Anne's Mansions to a height of over 150 feet (which produced a storm and outburst of indignation) that, broadly speaking, a limit of 100 feet was imposed, except in cases of specific application and approval.
  Generally speaking, this limitation was the rule until the war, after which, and owing to the resulting destruction, the City Corporation in 1947 prepared a plan for the future rebuilding of the greatly damaged City. The question of the height of new buildings came into the

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  review, and the distinguished consultants in their report said this:
  "We put forward the suggestion that the maximum overall height should be raised to 120 feet over a certain proportion of the ground plan of the large building sites, except in areas of special architectural control, such as the vicinity of St. Paul's Cathedral."
  This suggestion was accepted by the Court of Common Council and embodied in the City Plan. The Plan, having thus been approved, is incorporated, with modifications as regards the lay-out, in the Development Plan of the County of London which is now being discussed and considered in detail.
  At the start of the year 1951, just over two years ago, the City Corporation published a most comprehensive and excellent volume describing the City Plan in all its details. This book is profusely illustrated and is full of admirable diagrams and photographs, none of which envisages a height greater than the 120 feet suggested as a maximum in the Plan itself. Furthermore, in the section of the book dealing with the question of height, the authors (that is, the Corporation of the City) say this:
  "Although the maximum height under the London Building Acts is still proposed as the limit"—
  that is 100 feet—
  "it is suggested that parts of large buildings might be taken up to a maximum of about 120 feet in the form of towers."
  That seemed to be the final word—a very clear and definite final word on the part of the Corporation so far as anyone outside was to know.
  Now some while before the time of the publication of that book negotiations were in progress between the City Corporation and a developer with regard to the building of a new office block—the one of which we are speaking—to be known as Bucklersbury House, on a triangle formed by Queen Victoria Street and Cannon Street and with its eastern side bounded by Walbrook. I cannot go into all the details of the negotiations now—indeed I could not do so even if your Lordships would wish me to, because naturally I know very little indeed about them. I do know, however—and I am sure many of your Lordships also know—how great are the difficulties on every side that beset both a developer and the local planning authority in a question of this size, magnitude and com-
  478
  plexity. I feel the greatest possible sympathy with the developer and his architect who, I know, have been trying their hardest to produce acceptable plans.
  It would be impossible, without wearying your Lordships, to delve now into all the ramifications involved in the question of what is called "plot ratio"—that is, the ratio between the floor space to be permitted and the area of the site. Indeed it is hardly possible for a layman in these subjects to understand it without long and careful study. Suffice it to say that all these negotiations were being carried on in the normal way, naturally without coming to the notice of the general public, until at a meeting of the Court of Common Council at the end of March, 1951—that is, about the time of the publication of the book to which I have referred—permission to develop the land, on which the new Bucklersbury House is to stand was granted. In the minutes of the meet rig describing in outline the proposals for development—detailed designs had not yet been worked out—are found these ominous words:
  "The London County Council are prepared to consider permitting the building to rise to a height of from 130 to 140 feet"
  My Lords, the red light was beginning to glow. Could it be that the City Corporation was already starting to go back on its most definite and avowed intention with regard to height limitation, as set out clearly both in its consultant's report and in the passage from its own book, which I have just read and which was then hardly dry from the printing press?
  There was, of course, no definite proposal that the building would in fact rise to such heights—it merely said that such heights would be considered. However, it meant that the general public—the lovers of London—had had a warning. But I, in my ignorance, felt that when more detailed plans had been worked out—and in this connection we were glad to note that one of the conditions was consultation with the Royal Fine Art Commission—we should have time to consider the designs and their impact on London as a whole. From that day, consultation went on with the parties concerned, but no word reached the general public until copies of the summons to the meeting of the Court of Common Council were issued on May 26 of this year. In this agenda

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  intimation was given that the Court would be asked to approve, with the concurrence of the London County Council, drawings and perspectives of the proposed new Bucklersbury House. No mention was made of the height to which the building would rise.
  Therefore your Lordships may imagine my consternation when I heard that not only had the Corporation's own declared policy of a maximum of120 feet been exceeded, but also that the later suggestion of a maximum of 140 feet was to be outstripped by a further 30 feet. Part of the building, as now proposed, was to rise in sheer height of fourteen storeys to 162 feet, in one unbroken wall 55 feet wide and over 340 feet long—that is 10 feet longer than the facade of Buckingham Palace—with another block at right angles, 153 feet long but 20 feet lower. Upon the 162 feet high block were to be lift motor and tank rooms, which would bring the total height to 170 feet; 170 feet, which is nearly 20 feet higher than Queen Anne's Mansions, of which I have spoken, and which I believe I am right in saying led to the introduction of the London Building Acts, with the express purpose in mind of preventing such mistakes in future; 170 feet, which is exactly twice the height of the highest portion in the centre of Buckingham Palace; 170 feet which is nearly the height of the capitals of the peristyle supporting the stone gallery at the base of the dome of St. Paul's, and 60 feet higher than the cornice of the main roofs in the Cathedral.
  The summons containing the news of the submission for approval of these plans was made public, as I have said, on May 26, which was only two and a half days before the meeting of the Court on May 29. I submit that this method of procedure precludes the possibility of adequate consideration by the public as a whole of proposals fraught with such weighty consequences for the future of London. How could those who view with alarm this apparent tendency to abolish the height restrictions in the historic centre of the capital, marshal their forces or express their views in this short time? I was able to warn the noble Viscount, Lord Esher—who has expressed his great regret to me that he is unavoidably prevented from being here
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  to-day—and a letter from him, as President of the London Society, appeared in The Times on the morning of the day that the Court met, and I believe this may have been one of the causes of the narrowness of the majority for the adoption of the proposal.
  Your Lordships will remember that as soon as the approval by the Court was announced a Question on the subject was asked in another place of the Minister of Housing and Local Government. You will also remember how strongly the questioner was supported from both sides. We, who have this matter at heart, are most grateful to the Minister, in that, following his reply, he has interested himself greatly in the problem. I am sure I voice the thoughts of all your Lordships in wishing him a speedy recovery from his illness. I should like to comment, however, upon one of the remarks which he has made. He referred to the fact that he is not there to stop people doing things, rather implying that the objectors wished to prevent the erection of this building in whatever form. None of us wants to do that, I am sure. Certainly we all want to see the City and the rest of London rehabilitated at the earliest possible moment, but we hope to see the essential character of the Capital preserved. In this case, I earnestly hope that some reduction of height may be achieved.
  That brings me to the crux of the matter. In rebuilding are we to ignore the scale and character of this most famous and beautiful of cities, and treat it as if it had suddenly become one of the new towns? We all realise that in many circumstances there is a great deal to be said for high buildings, but is the very centre of London, with its wealth of historic and ancient buildings and all the traditions that go with them, the right place to indulge in this change of values? We have only to look at the Royal Commission's Survey Map of the City, which shows the ancient monuments in red, to see how many are the memorials of our glorious past. Your Lordships can see from where you sit the number of ancient monuments in this area. Are all these to be sunk in pits, as it were, beneath the towering walls of these new monster buildings? We realise all the difficulties and the great financial inducements to building high if sufficient

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  floor space is to be achieved on expensive sites, without the evils of dark and ill-ventilated courts. We all understand the advantages to be gained by what is now so fashionably considered an open type of plan. But I am perfectly certain that in this case, having regard to the locality, this idea of an open plan has been overdone, and the developers have been asked to surrender far too much of the site area. After all, according to the City Plan, this site actually adjoins the proposed large new square, which is to be no less than 500 feet long and 300 feet broad.
  Has the time not now arisen when this matter of heights in the Capital should be treated on a national basis, and when all these vexed questions of height and the problems relating thereto should be considered in a Council of the Nation? The present position is grotesque. There is a height limit fixed by Parliament under the London Building Act, 1894, covering the whole of London, but which, at the discretion of the London County Council, can be varied to such an extent that it loses all meaning. I should like to see these regulations replaced by a new code which safeguards our priceless inheritance in its appropriate setting but permits, without let or hindrance, and indeed encourages, in neighbouring but less historic localities the energy and enthusiasm of the youth of our new Elizabethan Era to greater heights, both literally and artistically, than ever before in this land. Therefore, I ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider calling together such a conference at which, perhaps, some method might also be evolved of giving the public time to make their attitude felt in matters such as this and, incidentally, of arranging for the Royal Fine Art Commission to announce their disapproval of a scheme, as they have done in this case, but before, and not after, permission has been given.
  In closing, may I be allowed to quote three lines from a much loved and most beautiful sonnet:
  "Earth has not anything to show more fair.
  Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
  A sight so touching in its majesty."
  To what was the poet, Wordsworth, referring? He had the whole wide world to choose from, and he singled out the
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  view of London from Westminster Bridge as being as fair as anything the earth could show. He wrote that 150 years ago, and the wonderful and almost astounding fact is that it is still true to-day—changed, of course, but true—due largely to our forbears' insistence upon some form of height control. I think the truth of this is borne out by the feelings expressed by a young Australian architect whom I met last week, who is working over here for a while. Every morning his work takes him across Westminster Bridge, and he told me that every morning he pauses for a few minutes to survey the scene and marvel at the beauty of it. When I told him of this proposal and all that it foreshadows for the future, he could hardly believe that Londoners could contemplate such an enormity. I am firmly convinced that the views which this young man expressed are typical of many who, being privileged to call themselves citizens of the British Commonwealth of Nations, regard the City of London as their own. Are we to sacrifice all this beauty that we have inherited from the past? Is the dome of St. Paul's no longer to dominate the scene, and are the spires and towers of the City and Westminster no longer to grace that incomparable skyline? My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
  5.9 p.m.
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I should like to begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, on the sincerity of his remarks and on the way in which he puts his case. Whether we agree with it or not, we must recognise that he speaks with deep feeling and concern about the beauty of this City of ours. In addressing your Lordships I should like to make it clear that I speak for myself alone, and not for my Party. This is not a Party matter. I have not consulted my Party; I do not know what their views are. It would not surprise me if some of my noble friends took a different view from myself. In considering this matter I have endeavoured to see whether I could lay down certain principles upon which we might decide whether a building of this kind is desirable, or not. The first principle I would lay down, as I always did when I was in control of planning, is that prima facie the developer is entitled to develop his land as he pleases. We are entitled to prevent him only if it is; against the public

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  interest. That is an important consideration. We have no right to step in and stop building unless we are quite clear that it is against the public interest. The onus is definitely upon those who seek to prevent it. The noble Lord criticised the statement of Mr. Macmillan that he was not there to prevent building. I imagine that that is exactly what he meant, and with that statement I would agree.
  Secondly, I would say that it is difficult for Members of this House, without having the full details of the application before them, and all the circumstances, to form a really reliable judgment. What we do know is that both the City Corporation and the London County Council—and the noble Lord omitted to mention the London County Council in this; after all, they are the planning authority—have given full and prolonged consideration to this project. The London County Council—and I would say the same about the City Corporation—are by no means oblivious to amenity considerations. After all, it was the London County Council who were responsible for the London Building Act, 1894. I have at times crossed swords with the London County Council on amenity matters, and I know how deeply they feel about these things. In spite of that feeling, both of these authorities have approved this project.
  LORD MOTTISTONE: May I interrupt to say that, as the delegated powers of the London County Council have gone to the Corporation, I do not think the whole Council, as a Council, have sat on this project. It has been considered only by the Town Planning Committee of the London County Council. It does not appear before the general public. The whole Council has not considered it.
  LORD SILKIN: No. The whole Council never do consider planning applications. But the Planning Committee of the Council speak in the name of the London County Council. I am sure that if the Planning Committee had rejected this scheme the noble Lord would not have complained that it was not the London County Council, as a Council.
  The third point—and I regard this as a most important consideration in weighing up this matter—is that we are all anxious that the City of London should
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  be rebuilt as quickly as possible. After all, the City of London is the heart of the British Commonwealth. I need not in this House enlarge upon the vital importance to the welfare of the Commonwealth, from the economic, the social, and every point of view, of rebuilding the City of London. Everybody who comes to London goes to see the Mansion House, the Guildhall and all those old glorious buildings, and we do want to see the City restored as soon as possible.
  Those are three fundamental considerations that we must have before us in weighing up any application for rebuilding. Unless we are absolutely satisfied beyond all doubt that this project ought not to go forward in its present form—and in a case of this kind the onus is placed more strongly than ever upon those who object—then I submit that we ought not to intervene. Having listened carefully to the noble Lord, I gather that his real objection to this project, and I imagine his only objection, is that it is too high. He referred to the bulk and the length of the building—that it was longer than the facade of Buckingham Palace—but I do not think he enlarged on that, and he did not explain why Buckingham Palace should be the building with the longest facade in this country, and why no other building should exceed it in length. I take it that those of us who want to see this project, or something like it, go forward have to address ourselves only to the question of height. That I propose to do.
  What is the objection? The noble Lord stressed the fact that at two or three points it was 170 feet high; and he rather tried to make our flesh creep, by emphasising the height, by telling us this same fact in so many different horrific ways, comparing it with other heights, and so on. But let us be realistic and frank with ourselves. What really is the objection to a building 170 feet high? Is it because it is higher than the normal height laid down in the London Building Act? I must confess that that does not impress me very much. The London Building Act, 1894, was more or less a panic measure. It was passed, as the noble Lord himself said, because of the erection of Queen Anne's Mansions. Up to that time there had apparently been no real restriction on the height of buildings, and many people were horrified at the erection of Queen Anne's Mansions.

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  No doubt they were right, because anyone who knows that area realises that Queen Anne's Mansions deprive the surrounding area of light and air. The building is dark in itself and darkens the whole of the surrounding district. It is objectionable because of its height. Nobody is arguing that, in all circumstances and in all places, we should go to the kind of height of this building. It is no use for the noble Lord to tell us that 170 feet is an objectionable height in itself. If he does object to it, he must go further and prove to us that a building 170 feet high is wrong in Bucklersbury, and wrong in relation to the particular plans of this building.
  LORD BLACKFORD: I should like to ask the noble Lord a question. It is not only this one building. Suppose that this building is the forerunner of many others of equal, or even greater, height, will not the effect of that be to hide, minimise and dwarf all the spires of Wren, which are the great beauty of the skyline of the City of London, particularly as seen from such an aspect as Black friars Bridge or London Bridge?
  LORD SILKIN: I see the noble Lord's point. Of course, it is the function of the Town Planning Committees, both of the City Corporation and of the London County Council, to consider each scheme on its merits. This scheme is not necessarily the forerunner of anything else. This in no sense binds anybody at all. It is the duty of the Planning Committees of the Corporation and the London County Council to consider this particular problem, and no other. Since the noble Lord has made this point—and it is a perfectly legitimate point—let me say this. The London Building Act does not limit the height of buildings at all. It lays down what is the normal maximum height, but makes provision for greater heights than 100 feet. But in those cases it also lays down that any owner of land within one hundred yards of the proposed building who regards himself as being detrimentally affected by this building—through being deprived of light and air, say, or even of a view—can appeal against the decision to permit this building. He has a right of appeal, and his objections will be considered. In every single case the surrounding owner has that right if the building exceeds 100 feet. Therefore, the
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  public are really protected against a recurrence of heights all over the City of London.
  But supposing the noble Lord is right, is there any particular magic about 100 feet? We are living in very different days from the days when Wordsworth wrote his poem, and the view from Westminster Bridge, as the noble Lord quite rightly said, has changed considerably since those days. I would say that it has changed for the better, and there are many new sights from Westminster Bridge as a result of changes to which many people, including, I imagine, the noble Lord himself, strongly objected at the time. I should be surprised to hear that the noble Lord did not object to the pulling down of the old Waterloo Bridge and the erection of a new bridge; and yet to-day, by general agreement, Waterloo Bridge is one of the beautiful sights to be seen from Westminster Bridge. I do not think you can see another building from Westminster Bridge beyond the Bank side Power Station. But many of those who protested about it at the time have since seen it and no longer object. So what is the magic about this 100 feet?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (VISCOUNT SWINTON): What is the height of the Shell Building?
  LORD SILKIN: I think it is more than 100 feet, but less than the height of this proposed building. Of course, in 1894 100 feet was considered in relation to the method of building in those days. It bore some relationship to safety considerations. The days of reinforced concrete, and so on, were not exactly unknown, but they were untried; and the authorities were concerned with fire precautions and considerations of that sort. These were factors which led to the limit, under the London Building Act, of, normally, 100 feet.
  We are living in very different days to-day. We have to reconstruct the City of London. The noble Lord agrees with that, and I hope no one will consider that the function of the present day is to replace the City of London exactly as it was before, with all the in sanitary buildings, and buildings with inadequate light and air. The noble Lord lives in the City of London and, therefore, knows all

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  about it. I have worked in the City of London for the greater part of my working life, and I know that the majority of old buildings in the City are not healthy places in which to work. In the olden days a great many people had to work under constant artificial light and with inadequate air space. I hope that when we come to rebuild the City of London we shall provide adequate light and air for everybody, and a certain amount of open space. That is essential, if not on health grounds at any rate on the grounds of securing maximum efficiency, because you do not get efficiency from people working by artificial light all day long.
  If, however, we are going to get in the City of London roughly the same amount of accommodation as we had before—and we need it—there is no case for decanting the City of London to other parts of the Metropolis. There has been a trend, which I think has already gone too far, towards moving the City to the West End of London. I do not think that trend can go much further, because the West End of London is now fairly congested. If we are to get into the City of London even that amount of accommodation which is essential for the special purposes of the City of London—insurance buildings and banking; then there is the Aldermanbury district, the textile industry and that kind of accommodation—and if we are to provide healthy conditions of work for the people in the City of London, we can only build upwards. We cannot remain at the existing heights and yet provide the necessary open space, light and air, and so on that we need. Therefore, it seems to me inevitable that the modern trend on every ground must be to go higher. It is a pity that we cannot expand the City of London, but whatever happens, the magic square mile remains; and if we are to get what we want in that square mile, and to get the necessary volume of accommodation, it can be done only by going higher than it has been the practice hitherto to go.
  I would say one other thing about the building itself before I come to its effect on the general appearance of the City of London and its effect on St. Paul's. We are dependent upon people coming forward and risking their capital in the reconstruction of the City of London.
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  Unless we can give people a scheme which is efficient and economical, and which will give them a reasonable return for their money, we shall not get buildings put up at all. Nobody is going to put up buildings at a loss. It is notorious that the cost of land in the City of London is extremely high, and that sites, for that reason, have to be used in the most efficient way. I am not sympathetic to landowners who ask too much for their land, but I imagine that the promoters of this scheme are not paying more than the normal market price for the land, and they have to see a reasonable return on their money. If I understand the noble Lord correctly, he would answer that he is not quarrelling with the cubic content of this building: he says that it is possible to get the same cubic content by spreading the building out. I am assured, however, that that is not the case; that if we are to get the standard conditions of light and air that are necessary, it is inevitable that the building must go upwards. I fear that the alternative to approving this scheme is to leave the site derelict; and that nobody would want.
  Now a word about the dominance of this building and its effect on St. Paul's and other important buildings. The noble Lord has been good enough to give us the opportunity of seeing this for ourselves on a small scale—and, of course, no amount of talk in this Chamber can be a substitute for seeing a model. I have had the opportunity of seeing it, and I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Lord for letting us have the opportunity. I invite any noble Lord to go and look at it—it is in the Royal Gallery—and I defy anybody to say that this building is going to dominate St. Paul's. I feel personally that St. Paul's dominates the whole scene and, indeed, in perspective, it is most difficult to pick out this particular high building. It does not look as if it stands much higher than most other buildings; but, of course, measurements cannot be wrong, and it is higher. But as to dominating St. Paul's, that idea seems to me to be utterly misconceived: it does not do anything of the kind.
  LORD MOTTISTONE: I did not say it is going to dominate St. Paul's—I admit it is not as big as all that, and I am very glad it is not—but it is a dominating building.
  LORD SILKEN: Of course, it is: it is I very large building. But I do not understand the relevance of its relationship with St. Paul's. I thought the noble Lord's case was that it was higher than St. Paul's. At any rate, I thought he was giving the impression that it was rivalling St. Paul's. That used to be said of the Bank side Power Station. If the noble Lord does not say that, I do not understand what his case is as regards dominance. Looking at this model, it strikes me that it is very much like any other building. It is a little higher, though it does not even look its full height; certainly it does not dominate St. Paul's or rival it or the other important buildings in the area.
  There is one other point, though I do not think I need labour this question. We have to take into account that we are living in a different age, and that if we want both the best possible conditions for those who are going to spend a great part of their lives in the City of London, and also if we want to provide the volume of accommodation that is necessary for preserving the importance of the City and enabling it to discharge its proper functions, the only way is to go upwards. Therefore, while I feel that this discussion may have served a useful purpose and that it is a good thing to ventilate these matters, I hope we shall all of us look forward and not look backward. I hope that we in these islands are capable of as great architectural achievements in the future as we have been in the past. This is a new age with great and splendid opportunities. All artists have had to contend with those who were the exponents of standing still or of going back. Noble Lords may remember that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony was howled down when it was first produced; to-day it is recognised as a masterpiece. I have referred to Waterloo Bridge. Possibly in the days to come Bucklersbury House will be pointed to as one of the great achievements of the present age. At any rate, I feel that we ought not to stand in the way of opportunity being presented to modern architects to see what they can do, and not be governed entirely by what has happened in the past.
  LORD HAWKE: I am on the noble Lord's side but I should like to ask him a question. I wonder whether he can
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  enlighten the House as to the possible necessity for altering the entire fire fighting arrangements of London because of one inordinately high building. Can he say anything abort that?
  LORD SILKIN: Not without asking for the indulgence of the House for a much longer period. But I do not think that the height of this building is in any way influenced by fire fighting considerations. I think that factor can be met to-day, whatever the height of the building is, and I do not consider that the height of this building is influenced in any way by that consideration.
  5.31 p.m.
  LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, before I begin the speech I have prepared, I should like to say one or two words to the noble Lord who has moved this Motion. He seemed to doubt whether the London County Council and the City Corporation were in favour of this project. I can tell him definitely that the London County Council is unanimously in favour of it and that the City Corporation is in favour of it by a substantial majority. I believe I am stating exactly the facts of the case. Now, with regard to these towering walls the noble Lord referred to, if he were to stand on the Victoria Embankment at the foot of Somerset House, I wonder what he would imagine the height to the top of Somerset House to be. I should say it is probably a good deal over 140 feet—I am, of course, speaking from a casual look at it. The noble Lord also spoke of the London Building Act. Well, my Lords, we know that that Act is quite obsolete now. It has been abused many times. After all, there is Faraday House, which is 140 feet high and only 235 yards from St. Paul's.
  I think I may be able to give some information which I hope will convince your Lordships that the Bucklersbury House project is not unreasonable. I was privileged to attend a joint meeting of the London County Council, the City Corporation, and the developer concerned in this building, under the chairmanship of one of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government planning officers. Amongst the City Corporation's representatives there was a speaker in opposition to these plans. I believe he is a partner of the noble Lord who moved this Motion. He spoke strongly against the project though he did not go into the detail which the

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  noble Lord did just now. His opposition to it was principally on the question of height. I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, that we should not tie ourselves down to any particular height. Anyway, let us consider this project in regard to the height. I propose to deal with it from that point of view. I am afraid your Lordships will have to bear with me a little longer than usual. I generally speak for a very short time in this House, but I have to cover a good deal of ground, and I feel that this is a very important debate on the development of the City of London.
  Now the maximum height above ground of this project is stated to be 168 feet. This includes the height of the lift towers which house the lift machinery. Ignoring these projections, the average height of the building proper would be 153 feet. Let us take the utmost height of 168 feet. We find that the fall in the land from St. Paul's to this building is 20 feet; therefore this height, in strict comparison with that of St. Paul's Cathedral, is 148 feet only. The plans already approved for the Bank of England buildings—the plans are going to be issued—give a height of 140 feet. These buildings, when erected, will be adjacent to St. Paul's Cathedral, whilst Bucklersbury House, as the noble Lord has already told us, is 450 yards from St. Paul's Cathedral. Is the difference of 8 feet, therefore, the cause of all this trouble? I will show your Lordships shortly what a trouble it has been to arrive at agreement on this subject. If it is only a question of a difference of 8 feet between what is going to be done close against St. Paul's and what is going to be done 450 yards from it, then I think, with the greatest respect, that the criticism is somewhat frivolous and indeed vexatious.
  It was agreed that the bulk granted on this section, as compared with what existed before, should be as follows—it is always a bore to give figures, but, to demonstrate what I mean, I will give your Lordships the situation over this site as it was in 1939. The gross floor area in 1939 was 461,250 square feet. The gross floor area of the suggested new building is 467,700 square feet. In the 1939 building there were 6,202,648 cubic feet and in the proposed new building there will be 6,523,378 cubic feet. The cube of the 1939 buildings has been agreed with the
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  district valuer, and the gross floor area of these buildings has been agreed with the City Corporation, so I do not think there is any doubt that those figures are accurate.
  It will be seen that, although the actual gross floor area is increased by 6,450 square feet, the difference after allowing for the extra space set aside in the new building for corridors, walls, lifts, lavatories, et cetera, is very small in favour of the new buildings; whereas on the cubic feet measurement of the old buildings, plus the 10 per cent, permitted increase by law, there is less cubic feet capacity in the new building than the developer could have claimed. The opposition went on to say—I am quoting from what took place at the meeting with the Ministry—that they thought that, if the plans were again sent back for revision, the height could be lessened by a greater spreading of the whole building over the site. At present it occupies only 65 per cent.—that is, 85,000 square feet. The balance, no less than 44,000 square feet, or just over one acre, has been absorbed in road widening and open spaces. If the open spaces are lessened to reduce height, we shall be faced with a request to reduce the angles of light and thus the amenities will be affected—which is the very point made by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin.
  Four years, at a cost in architects' fees of £31,000, has been spent in trying to get a compromise to suit all parties concerned in this area. Even if these plans are sent back again, is it likely that any other scheme, evolved at the expense of amenities or angle of light, will not arouse opposition from another section, equally as ill-informed, shall I say—perhaps I am putting it rather strongly—as the present objectors? Surely it is impossible to please everybody all the time. After all, the argument simply means that for the sake of, say, 30 feet, reducing the height to 118 feet, net, above ground level as compared with St. Paul's Cathedral 450 yards away, the company will have to lose a capital value of well over £500,000. It would, therefore, completely upset their financial plans and make the proposed building uneconomic, unless rents can be raised by 5s. to 7s. 6d. per foot. Such an increase, I venture to say, is almost impossible to achieve.

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  It is suggested that this building will set a standard for all the City. That is demonstrably incorrect. It is an island site, a very rare type of site in that area, and the height granted can be repeated only for buildings on similar areas in the City. Where are these areas? I know of none. Even if an area of a similar size were available, it is certainly outside the bounds set down for special treatment as to plot ratio by the planners. Consequently, this problem of bulk does not arise, and hence height considerations are of much less importance. Bearing in mind that this area is one that calls for concentration of business activity—a matter that brooks no criticism as to its need—the two necessary authorities have given their judgment. On this judgment, all plans have been based, both as to need and to economy. As Mr. Edmund Howard wrote in his letter to The Times, it is for the architects to solve the problem on these facts and not to ignore them.
  With your Lordships' permission, I should like to read what Mr. Edmund Howard, who is no less a person than the President of the Associated Owners of City Properties, gives as his opinion with regard to this matter. I am quoting from his letter in The Times of Thursday, July 2. This is what he says:
  "This style is entirely opposed to traditional form of architecture adopted in the City for the purpose of dealing with, first, its needs; secondly, its economic aspects"—
  He is referring here to the United Nations Building in New York, which had been referred to by some of the critics of this scheme. He continued:
  "bearing in mind the first two points, the merging of these into an harmonious architectural plan that does not clash with existing new or comparatively new buildings in the vicinity. What we require in the City are buildings of such a bulk as will house tenants in close proximity to their respective markets."
  Any one of us who has ever been in the City—whether in the Stock Exchange or in a bank, or in any sort of big firm—knows the absolute necessity of having one's office near one's main place of business. Then Mr. Edmund Howard goes on to say:
  "It is useless to contemplate a style of architecture that at the same time enforces on the City greater financial difficulties than ever before in carrying out its functions as a world financial centre.…The London County Council and the Corporation of London must
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  be permitted to pass plans without reference to the Royal Fine Art Commission or any other body."
  I entirely agree with that statement made by one of the highest authorities in regard to City property.
  My Lords, I come back to the tenor of my speech. If, as they say, the authorities cannot produce a building to meet conditions that satisfy their aim of emulating contemporary art, then contemporary art goes to the ground; for the City cannot live on the principle that they must subscribe to art as against their need to produce dollars. Here let me remind your Lordships that this area of the City earns more dollars than any industry in the whole country. Surely it is time to consider the way in which this matter of such importance has been treated. Driven from pillar to post, thwarted by regulation after regulation, restrained by the Treasury on various national financial grounds—that is the position which has faced the City. For over four years this interminable struggle has gone on. I do not say that some of the restrictions were not necessary, owing to our financial position; but that is the situation. What an example to future developers of the City, as Lord Silkin has said, so urgently needing new office accommodation! Yet they were promised every help by the City Council in regard to priority as to building licences, in so far as it lay in their power to induce them. It was further added that by their efforts they saved the City Corporation the need to find the money necessary for the sites to be purchased, as it was a declaratory area, and the cost of the building, a matter in all of between £7 million and £8 million, if the City were forced, as they could be, to take over the sites. This was freely spoken of at the recent meeting with the Ministry, where one of their representatives stated that they were in the dilemma of having to find, under the present planning scheme adopted, between £40 million and £50 million on other schemes.
  It must be remembered that when the Capital Issues Committee approved the first steps in this company's financial programme, they would surely have done that only under approval from the Treasury and the Ministries involved in the project. Whilst it is true that capital issues permission does not mean that licences are immediately forthcoming, does it

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  mean that we have got to have four years' delay? How can any developer move in these circumstances? Since the project was first mooted, building costs have gone up 25 per cent.—a further hardship inflicted on the developer. One very irritating phrase arising over the building licence relates to what is termed "the position in the queue" at the Ministry of Works for the necessary licence to build. How can this be operated when, to commence, the company must negotiate to purchase all the sites, and did so, in the belief that this condition was non-existent? I think I am right in saying that these sites cost somewhere between £1 million and £1,100,000. The time has come when this work has to proceed. May I say, therefore, that to alter these plans at this stage amounts, in my view, simply to bowing to criticism such as has already been fully dealt with in the departments of the authorities concerned? Further, may I ask what is the use of vesting the power in these authorities, who are in full agreement with the present plans, if they are to be overriden?
  I am intervening in opposition to the noble Lord's Motion because, like him and many others in your Lordships' House, I have had many years' experience in City of London offices. It is only latterly that offices which were, and still are, in a sense (I am not putting it too highly) literally slums, have begun to be improved, giving a new outlook to City workers, who now come to their work to fine buildings, giving light and air and every modern amenity, enabling them to carry out their jobs efficiently and speedily. And, of course, it means everything to the firms who employ them to get the work economically carried out. Environment means much to the workers—not only to their minds but to their happiness and contentment. I am anxious, as I know your Lordships are, that our blitzed City shall be rebuilt in a manner worthy of its great name. Every encouragement should be given to those developers who have enterprise and imagination to do so.
  What is the present position? All the authorities concerned approve the plans. The banks, both British and American, insurance companies, and great corporations want the accommodation—in fact, the place is let before one stone is put
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  on another. I have seen letters from an American bank asking at what date they can take over their new office. So they really believe that this is going to happen. I am sure that it is bound to happen in the end, whether there is a slight alteration or not, as it is absolutely essential to the welfare of the City. Some offices of these great firms, and indeed the banks, are spread all over London, which is bound to be unsatisfactory and uneconomic. This situation must be rectified at once; the need is vital. Facilities must be given, at a reasonable cost, to re-establish our great businesses in the City—I do not mean in London as a whole, but the City of London. I have already referred to dollar-earning capacity. Why should not the City worker have the amenities of an up-to-date factory? This question has far too long been ignored. I do not know whether the noble Lord intends to divide the House—I do not think he does. But I hope noble Lords, and particularly those in Opposition, will take the view that Lord Silkin does, and support me in opposing the Motion, which undoubtedly is detrimental to the health and happiness of our City workers, and also to the efficient management of our great business firms. All I am asking for at the present moment is a licence for £100,000 to test the natural foundations of the site. This will take roughly nine months, and an assurance must be given that a further licence will be forthcoming to start the building itself on completion of this testing.
  I hope that what I have said has somewhat shaken the views of the noble Lord who has moved this Motion. This is probably the most momentous debate that has taken place in regard to the future of the rebuilding of our great City of London. Finally, I would just like to say this. I understand that the developers have constantly said that they hold no particular brief for this particular plan. In fact, they consider that their own earlier efforts were better; but their original plan was not acceptable either to the City Corporation or to the London County Council. I take a very strong view about this matter, and I hope that what I have said, and the information which I have given, will greatly influence those in power to enable this project to go forward.
  6.0 p.m.
  LORD RENNELL: My Lords, not only has the Motion before your Lordships' House been useful in eliciting the information given by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, but there is one aspect—perhaps a by-product of the Motion—which is, I think, equally, if not more, important. The plans and the model of the building in Bucklersbury which are shown in the Royal Gallery have produced on me an effect which is not perhaps what Lord Mottistone would have wished, but which I think is even more important. The peccant building shown in the model is not the proposed structure in Bucklersbury but that on the so-called Bank of England site in the neighbourhood of St. Paul's I sincerely hope that one of the outcomes of this debate will be that that plan will not be proceeded with in the form shown on the model exhibited. In common with other people, I think that the plan will mask St. Paul's from the eastern end. On the other hand, I hope that the plan for the Bucklersbury site will be proceeded with as soon as possible.
  I am not clear, from the terms of the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone's Motion, what is the particular trouble in his mind. He spoke about the height of the building, and re-emphasised time and time again the height of 170 feet. Now the height of a building, by itself, is not, as it seems to me, the essential point of his argument at all. It is the height in relation to the bulk of the building, and the number of buildings of that height in a given area, that affect the skyline and the whole conception of the plan. Lord Mottistone said he hoped that if the building were proceeded with it would not form a precedent in height for other buildings in the devastated areas of the City. On the contrary, I feel that it should be a precedent. Development of that vast devastated area between St. Paul's and the centre of the City was decided in principle, so far as I know, a long time ago, and it was to take the form of a spread-out disseminated plan of large blocks, with open areas around them. But to have one building only of 170 feet and to fill up the rest of the area, or large parts of the rest of the devastated area, with low buildings of 100 or 120 feet would result in drawing attention to the height of one building and would alter the conception, the skyline and the view of the City far more than if—as I hope
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  will be done—a number of buildings of approximately the same height are placed in the devastated areas. In other words, I should like to see an entirely different conception from that which the noble Lord seems to have in mind about how the site ought to look after the devastated areas have been rebuilt. I should like to see large island blocks of buildings, with open spaces around them, and with the gardens and the amenities to which Lord Teviot has referred, which have been lacking in the City, not for generations but for centuries.
  If I may enlarge upon one small point in what Lord Teviot has said, I would just say this. The City of London, as a contributor to our invisible exports, accounts, probably, for 100 per cent. of the invisible exports in banking and insurance; for a very large proportion (it is difficult to say how much exactly) of the commodity trade of this country, and for probably about 80 per cent. of the invisible revenues from the shipping industry. Yet that contribution to our balance of trade has been made from an acreage, from an aggregate mass of buildings, that no one would allow as a factory or allow a; an area in which a manufactured export was produced in this country. It is inconceivable that such conditions would be allowed to go on in factories without a public outcry. Yet in the City this major contribution—very much larger, as has been said, than has been made by any manufacturing industry—has been permitted for seven years since the war from buildings standing in about two-thirds of the area formerly occupied and containing—with the exception of two or three; one in Walbrook, and another in the Mincing Lane area—nonew buildings. The language which Lord Teviot used is moderate compared with what would be needed for many of us who work in the City to express our feelings on that subject.
  If this beginning is to be made, as I hope it will be, I trust that it will be the beginning of the construction of large blocks of buildings; all over the area, so that not only can the existing population, the working population, of the City be rehoused, but provision can also be made for the additional people who have to work there and who are now uneconomically disseminated all over London—again under conditions which

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  leave a great deal to be desired. Therefore, the argument in Lord Mottistone's Motion about the height of the building is, I consider, misplaced. What I had hoped he would have touched on was the height of the building in relation to its mass. It is arguable—I do not know whether Lord Mottistone would agree or not—that it might have been better to have a building rising to a central element init of 200 feet in height and have had a smaller mass at the 150 feet or 160 feet level. That, however, is arguable. It is a matter of taste and, to some extent, of economics. I should prefer to see a higher building than 170 feet with rather less mass at that height.
  LORD MOTTISTONE: May I interrupt to say that I did stress the length of the building and its width? My point was that the height alone is not the real trouble, so much as the vast bulk. I said that it was 340 feet long. That was my point, and to that extent I agree with the noble Lord.
  LORD RENNELL: I am glad that the noble Lord has explained that, because his reiteration of "170 feet" left the impression on my mind—and I think on the minds of others of your Lordships also—that it was the height he was worrying about, more than the height in relation to the mass. There is a method of correcting that which is to go higher and reduce the mass. But that would perhaps take us into a discussion of the architectural merits of various schemes.
  On the question of height, I should like to say as strongly as I can that we need an entirely new conception of what buildings in London are going to be. I do not feel that it is the height of the buildings in Queen Anne's Mansions that has shocked people; it is the shape of Queen Anne's Mansions and the relation of that building to buildings around it. Lord Mottistone surely would not want, as an alternative, to have the City built tight, without open spaces, at an average level of 100 feet, or on the lower level at which it stood before it was destroyed by the enemy. If that is not his view—and I do not think it can be—and he is in favour of open spaces around buildings, then we have no alternative but to go up.
  The other point about which the noble Lord felt strongly is that a building of
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  this size dwarfs other buildings. In regard to this point, Bucklersbury House is not the peccant building; it is the new Bank of England building. But let us see what Bucklersbury House is supposed to dwarf in its immediate neighbourhood. St Stephen's, Walbrook, is a very small church: it is already dwarfed, and has been for many years, by new buildings. St. Mary-le-Bow is sufficiently tall, even if immediately surrounded by tall buildings, not to run the risk of being dwarfed. There are different views about the architectural merit of the Mansion House, but the existence of a large building and a small building near it does not necessarily mean that a small building is dwarfed or vanishes from sight or, indeed, ceases to be a remarkable monument.
  I think the greatest contrast in height in the world is the Church of the Trinity in Wall Street and the immense buildings which surround it. In my view, these buildings have added a great deal of dignity to a building which otherwise has little artistic merit. It has become much more than it would have been if skyscrapers had not been built around it. It is not necessarily the case that a large building draws attention away from the small, beautiful, old building near it—rather the reverse. A large modern building, such as that conceived at Bucklersbury, is so large that the eye is unlikely to take it all in from one point, and the eye will remain on the buildings surrounding it, like the Mansion House. I think the Mansion House will be emphasised by large buildings rather than by an open space. Therefore, far from wishing that this Motion will receive the approval of your Lordships, I hope that the Bucklersbury building, on which so many years of work and negotiation have been spent, will be a precedent for other buildings of that sort, size, height and conception in the devastated areas of the City of London.
  6.14 p.m.
  THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, all noble Lords who have spoken so far seem to me to have misunderstood the plea that the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, made in his speech. They accused him of wanting to stop the rebuilding of the City, and to stop building over a certain height, whereas, as I undertsand it—though, of course, the noble Lord will speak for himself when he comes to reply—his complaint was not against the building itself, but

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  against building it on the proposed site. That brings up the question of town planning—and here a layman has to walk warily, because nowadays no subject seems so full of jargon which may be misused—and of legislation. I understand that there is provision for what is called areas of "special architectural control," areas in which the planning authorities have the duty to preserve the amenities of whatever is the principal feature of the area.
  It seems to me that the ground for concern about Bucklersbury House is that from anywhere west of Waterloo Bridge it will, on the skyline, appear close to St. Paul's, and compete with St. Paul's on the skyline to such an extent that it will spoil the silhouette as we know it and as Wren planned it. On that ground it ought not to be allowed in that area. From that, it follows that this plan should have been brought to the notice of the public at some earlier stage. I would strongly support the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, in his plea for earlier opportunities for public discussion of these plans. It has happened again and again in my experience, in a society like the London Society, that plans are suddenly heard of at a stage when it is too late to stop them without causing great loss to the people undertaking the development. I think the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, will be able to tell us something about that from the planning aspect.
  It is all very well to give the planning authorities full discretion but, as servants of the public—after all, they are not the masters—we expect them to give the public a chance of expressing its opinion on anything which is likely to be controversial. I know there is a danger of those bodies who devote themselves to the preservation of the amenities and the beauties of our cities and countryside being prone to take a narrow view, to urge preservation for preservation's sake and to resist anything new. Obviously, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, has said, that is an impossible standpoint. Every generation has to build for its own needs and build in its own style. All we can do, space being limited, is to ensure that the really valuable features left us from the past are not obscured from view by new buildings. That is why I think there is a case against this building, on the ground of its proximity to St. Paul's.
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  I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, quote, from a letter in The Times, but he omitted a sentence in that letter which seemed to me to give a clue to another danger in matters such as this. The letter is a frank expression, I would say an almost shameless expression, of the purely business view that the only thing that matters is to make a profit, and the results to the rest of the community do not matter. The missing sentence in the letter from the Associated Owners of City Properties is this:
  "Developers of City properties object to the Royal Fine Art Commission being brought in to approve or disapprove modern buildings in the City."
  It is as bald as that. Surely, that is the authentic voice of the Victorians, who wrecked many cities and much of our countryside; people who do not acknowledge that there are any values but those of business profit and loss. I am sorry to see that the City property owners have committed themselves to such a view, and I can hardly believe that they all feel that way.
  There is one last question on town planning which I should like to ask the noble Lord; it was, in fact, asked in a letter to The Times from Mr. Gordon Stephenson. We hear that it is absolutely essential that the City, when rebuilt, should house more people than before—I believe 10 per cent. is the figure allowed for. I might add that the City seems to have been conducting its business of earning invisible revenue quite successfully over the last ten years, in spite of half the City being devastated. I wonder whether the argument that the only possible place for business headquarters is within the boundaries of the City has so much validity as we are told. If we are going to maintain the number of people working in the City, or even increase it, is not that going completely contrary to the whole tendency and the whole aim of present-day town planning in London? Have not all the London plans had as their object decentralisation and the reduction of congestion? If you increase the number of people working in the City, you encourage the sprawling of suburbs out from London. The County of London and the Greater London Plans, new towns, and all the rest of it, are the means we have adopted to prevent that very thing.

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  Mr. Stephenson says in his letter:
  "'Does it make sense to go on increasing the amount of office accommodation in central London, including the City, when the main thesis of the plans is decentralisation and the reduction of congestion?"
  This small area of high ground deserves special treatment to prevent St. Paul's, the largest and finest single feature of London, suffering from competition from other huge blocks of buildings. There is a good deal of room to the north and north-east of St. Paul's where there is devastated land waiting to be built on. Why cannot the developers who want these huge buildings be given their licences for land in areas other than that small area of the City? I should like to support the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, with the qualification that I do not go all the way with him on the question of the general raising of building heights.
  6.25 p.m.
  LORD BLACKFORD: My Lords, when my noble friend Lord Mottistone drew my attention in private to this forthcoming debate, and told me about the proposed erection of this large building, I must say that I was struck by his æsthetic arguments, and those of his partner who made a most eloquent speech before the Common Council of the City on this subject. Therefore, I looked forward eagerly to seeing the plans and models which are now to be seen in the Royal Gallery. I am bound to admit that the more I looked upon those models the less enthusiastic was my support for my noble friend's æsthetic objections to them. It seems to me that this building will not be of the all-dominant character which I conceived it would be. It will have no effect whatever on St. Paul's, of course; but it will dominate the immediate area around it—the Mansion House and St. Stephen's, Walbrook.
  I was struck by the remarks of my noble friend Lord Rennell on this aspect when he said that a smaller building may even gain from the propinquity of some overpowering eminence by the actual fact of its smallness. Therefore, I would not argue on the architectural merits of this scheme. One must remember that the City Corporation are advised by two eminent architects, Professors Holden
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  and Holford, and the London County Council have Professor Abercrombie. Surely, each case will be judged on its merits. In this case they have allowed 170 feet. I hope—and that is why I interrupted the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, when he was speaking—that no particular height will be considered universal. I deprecate the idea that Wren's skyline should be entirely obstructed by high buildings, and I think we must leave it to the expert advisers of those two bodies to treat each case on its merits. We may be sure that they have just as great a desire for the future beauty of the modernised City of London as has my noble friend Lord Mottistone or anybody else.
  The reason why I have ventured to intervene for a few moments in this debate is that during the thirty-three years or so that I have been intimately connected with the City of London I have sat on a large number of committees, of one kind and another, connected with the beautification of the City, making open spaces in the City, Tower Hill improvement, and what not. The last one on which I sat was presided over by Mr. Holland Martin, a director of the Bank of England and consisted of about six members, each representing some phase of City life. I represented the banks and insurance companies; somebody else represented the City Guilds; somebody else represented the Churches, and so on. Our object was to keep an eye on the replanning of the City of London after its devastation; to do what we could to represent our various interests in connection with that replanning, and, above all, to hurry up the replanning. We signally failed to achieve anything in that respect. We started to sit in about the year 1945, I think it was; we met about once a quarter—and very boring the meetings were because they produced so little result. Eventually, on the Motion of our chairman, Mr. Holland Martin, about the year 1952 we considered that it was an utter waste of time for us ever to sit again, because we could get nothing whatever done. Since that time the committee has been in abeyance.
  Therefore, when I see a plan coming forward to get something done, I lean very much towards it, and it is a satisfaction to me to notice that in the past year or so several big buildings, such as

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  St. Swithin's House and Plantation House, have been completed. Here we have a new project coming forward, in the shape of Bucklersbury House, a very clumsy name which I hope the promoters will eventually modify to Walbrook House, a name that is equally historic and is more easily handled. But here is a big project coming forward to get something done, and on the whole I think it is being done reasonably well, having due regard to the amenities which are so desirable in the future, such as open air, light, space and so on. Therefore, I hope that the project will go forward without further delay. If the promoters, having listened to this debate, having noted the anxiety which your Lordships as a whole feel, that the general height of the City shall not be uniformly so overpowering as to wreck Wren's skyline, should therefore feel inclined to modify their plans at all, as the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, adumbrated they might be inclined to do, that would be all to the good. I hope that the project will go forward, and, therefore, I cannot support Lord Mottistone's Motion which is in the contrary sense.
  Before sitting down, and in view of the emphasis which has been laid by so many of your Lordships on the necessity for more open spaces in the City of London, I should like to go completely out of order—to which your Lordships are always so sympathetic—and point out that at Bunhill Fields there are no fewer than six acres of utterly useless gravestones cluttering up the City of London. That site would make a most admirable park and playground for the children of Finsbury, which is the most crowded district in the City of London. Nobody has been buried in the graveyard since 1853, and nobody of note has been buried there for about 170 years. There is no earthly excuse for leaving that graveyard of six acres to clutter up the City of London any longer. It should be treated in the same sensible manner as the graveyards of Chelsea Parish Church and Holy Trinity, Brompton.
  6.33 p.m.
  THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, the issues raised by this proposed Bucklersbury building are more important than would appear from the rather narrowly drawn Motion of the noble Lord, and this debate is a more important one than might appear at first
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  sight, because upon the decision which Her Majesty's Government take, whether to interfere or not in connection with this proposed building—a decision which doubtless will be decidedly influenced by the course of events in our House this afternoon—depends to a great extent the future development of the City of London, so essential to the whole life of the community. I feel that the apparent suggestion put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, that we should regard the height hitherto considered to be the maximum permissible in the City as sacrosanct for all time is rather lacking in reality.
  As I understand it from my friends who have businesses and offices in the City, there is a tremendous shortage of office accommodation, partly caused by natural development and, of course, greatly aggravated by the destruction during the last war. The result is that office accommodation is at a premium; rents have risen to fantastically high figures, and most people whose leases are due to fall in in the near future are shaking in their shoes. Another unfortunate result has been that industry has been forced to go further and further west, and I think that the development—admittedly showing before the war—whereby offices and commercial houses were tending to invade the west, and particularly the south-west of London, has been accelerated and strengthened by this lack of accommodation in the City. I do not think that many people will feel that the amenity of south-west London has been greatly improved by its being changed from an entirely residential into a quasi-commercial area.
  While it may be desirable that fewer people should have to earn their living in the narrow confines of the City, I feel that with many of the essential commercial undertakings, particularly the Stock Exchange and other, which are situated there, we must expect to have for all time a very large number of City workers. For that reason, we must try to provide adequate modern accommodation in which they can work in comfort. I entirely agree that Ails cannot be done if we are going to rebuild London merely to the heights that have hitherto been regarded as adequate. I do not suppose the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, was objecting primarily to height in itself, but

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  merely to the places in which an excessive height was to be found, for I think that few people would agree that the somewhat fantastic skyline of New York is in itself unattractive. For New York it is extremely suitable. Admittedly it is not suitable for here, but to say that a height of 170feet, or any other arbitrary figure, is one which is undesirable and should never be exceeded, is not, in my opinion, a position which can be reasonably maintained.
  I agree that once we get the environs of St. Paul's safeguarded, there is no reason why buildings much greater in height than 170 feet should not be contemplated. Such a development must come slowly, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, that some body should be set up to be entrusted with the careful scrutiny of every new project. I should certainly be the first to oppose violently any scheme which sought in any way to remove, destroy or damage any of the monuments of the City of London. But it seems to me that the proposed Bucklersbury building, ugly though it is in itself, is not per se undesirable. I entirely agree that the Bank of England building is much too high and is more likely than Bucklersbury to interfere with the amenity of St. Paul's. There, I should like to see a fairly drastic alteration enforced. As I say, Bucklersbury itself does not appeal to my eye, but since I find practically all modern architecture singularly hideous, that may possibly be due to my jaundiced views. I should like to see something slightly less gaunt, and I agree that something taller and less square and shapeless would be a great advantage.
  I think that our architects might well take some notice of what has been done in New York, where there are these immensely tall buildings, beautifully graduated and also artistic. Bucklersbury House is not artistic and in its present suggested form it is, in my view, an eyesore. But to endeavour to halt all progress in the redevelopment of the City unless such progress is to be on traditional lines seems to me a great mistake. There are, however, one or two other considerations which have not yet been mentioned, and I should like briefly to draw the attention of your Lordships and of the Government to them. One of them is the question of the construction of Bucklers-
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  bury House and any similar building in regard to the lamentable possibility of another war. I would suggest that the construction should be extremely substantial, not only in view of the devastation that would be caused by the collapse of such a gigantic building but also because it seems to me, speaking without any technical knowledge, that a building of these dimensions, strongly built, might well act as a very good shield to buildings on the far side of it against any damage which might be done by any bomb that might fall. I agree that the question of fire is also one that should be given careful consideration.
  I feel, too, that in connection with all these proposed new buildings the Government should give very careful consideration to the question of traffic, on which we had such an interesting debate in this House yesterday. Traffic conditions in the City are universally recognised as chaotic, and the opportunity should be taken to try to find some way out of the difficulty when these new buildings are constructed. Methods should be devised to keep lorries off the streets. The Government should also consider the question of working hours in the City, and methods of getting people to and from their work more quickly and with less trouble. It is very difficult to suggest any solution—no practical one seems to have been found so far. But I feel that this traffic problem is indissolubly involved with the whole question of the development of the City of London. I hope, therefore, that Her Majesty's Government will approve in principle this Bucklersbury project, but will consider carefully the possibility of linking up any future developments with the problem of traffic in the City of London.
  6.43 p.m.
  LORD NOEL-BUXTON: My Lords, we have heard some very important arguments in favour of the Motion in this debate on Bucklersbury House. I personally do not agree with the building as at present proposed, and I think our attitude to this building and to the whole City of London is rather controlled by what we think of history. This is not a matter for local decision only; the City of London belongs to the Commonwealth as a whole. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, and other noble Lords who have spoken, that

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  this matter is of very great importance, and concerns an issue much wider than one building in particular.
  It may seem a pompous thing to say, but it struck me that a city is in danger of retreating from its own greatness when it permits commercial buildings to over-reach and rival its Cathedral and its church spires and towers. I do not think it is difficult to imagine how this building will look. This is a very congested area already. Frankly, I think that ideally this site should become a garden. But we cannot ask this when we realise the value of land per square inch in the City. I was standing on Waterloo Bridge to-day and looking in that direction. The site would be somewhere between Cannon Street Station and St. Paul's. Incidentally, Cannon Street Station has already spoilt the landscape, and that is not, I suppose, more than 100 feet high. One realises, standing there, what this building will mean; and what is as frightening as its height of 170 feet is its length: there will be a sheer cliff 380 feet long. We should not place too much emphasis on the closeness of the Bucklersbury site to St. Paul's. It is, in fact, a full quarter of a mile away, but as regards the distant prospect the point I have just made is important. It is extraordinarily unpleasant to imagine the Mansion House being dwarfed by a building more than twice its own height and only a few feet away. I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, said about the possible gains from buildings being overshadowed. I think one would want to explore that idea, but it is one with which one could not agree. The lovely church of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, on the opposite side of the road would be made to look tiny by this plan. The Mansion House—the very centre of the civic life of the City—is only 70 feet high, and would live under the immediate shadow of this proposed new building.
  I realise that the question of reconstruction in the City of London is of the greatest importance. Buildings must go up again; we must earn our living in the world. But this is a special area, and a special area belonging to the whole Commonwealth, in which we must not move far away from the great Wren and other buildings of the past that are there.
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  I favour this building as a building. I think it would look fine in Paddington, or Holborn, or Finchley, but not within the walls of the City of London. If one takes what I have called this "special area" view, I suggest that we cannot possibly believe in great buildings of the past being dwarfed by tyrannous utility.
  6.47 p.m.
  THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I have little to add to what has been said in the course of this extremely exhaustive debate. Having been a member of the Town Planning Committee of the London County Council, I have given this proposed development considerable thought in the last year. I think the position is—and the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that the Minister is now considering this matter and has not yet made up his mind. If that is the case, then this debate is extremely timely; and we are all greatly indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, for initiating it. I am certain that the Minister will now be in a position to weigh most carefully the æsthetic and the practical, which have to be weighed before the correct decision can be made. I should like to assure the House that this matter was considered extremely carefully by the London County Council. We went into all the objections to the scheme that have been raised this afternoon. And I can add this: the original scheme went back and had to be modified on both amenity and other grounds, and the developer was not happy about that; but we had had the matter before us several times before we were satisfied that it was desirable. We were equally anxious to protect the amenity as well as the other aspects of the development.
  The only other thing is this, and I think it has not been said so far. If it were decided that this plan should be either cancelled or modified, it would mean a very heavy cost in compensation to the developer, and that cost would be borne by the London ratepayer. I do not know what it would amount to, but I suppose it would be several hundreds of thousands of pounds. It would have to come out of the City rate or out of the rate paid in the County of London. In view of the large amount involved to cover abortive expenditure up to the present time and perhaps to cover future losses,

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  I think the Government should consider extremely carefully before adding this to the financial burden on the ordinary London ratepayer. I personally hope that when the Minister has weighed the arguments very carefully on both sides he will come down in favour of the proposed scheme.
  6.50 p.m.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, if I begin my remarks by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, upon the eloquent way in which he has brought this matter forward and by thanking him for so doing, I do not do it in anything of the normal, polite and conventional way, customary for the Government spokesman who winds up a debate such as this. For reasons upon which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has touched, I think this debate has been more than usually useful. Most of the debates which the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, and I have either initiated or participated in have proved most useful. He and I did battle together over the Colonial Office building, to very good purpose, I am happy to say. But a remark was made in that debate, and again in a debate in which he and I were on opposite sides, on the two new top storeys at Carlton House Terrace, and that remark has also been made to-day by the noble Earl, Lord Lucan. He commented upon the unfortunate fact that these great projects do not catch the public eye until it is either too late or getting dangerously late for public opinion to form itself and for any action, if action should be required, to be taken. That is a point which I myself have made once or twice on both those previous occasions and it has been made again to-day. It is not in this case a Governmental responsibility, because the Government are not the planning authority here, but I think perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, who is more closely connected with this subject than most of us are, might like to pass back to his friends, certainly in the London County Council, the suggestion that they could consider with profit giving more publicity at an early stage to projects which clearly have an effect on the development and well-being of our city. If that had been done in this case, some expense that he has mentioned might have been spared and some anxious scurrying to and fro might have been avoided.
  THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I am sorry I think the Government should consider to interrupt the noble Lord, but I am sure he will include in his indictment the City Corporation, which took the original decision, as being an accomplice of the London County Council.
  LORD MANCROFT: Yes. I am not indicting the London County Council; I am merely suggesting that the good work could start with them, because we have a very good and close friend amongst us. It applies to the City and to every other planning authority throughout the land which is dealing with a matter which one day may cause widespread feeling and attract much interest. It does not apply to the London County Council alone. But this is a point made in both previous debates, and I think the London County Council are probably quite familiar with it.
  I must make my position clear straight away—or rather the position of my right honourable friend, the Minister. I do not mean his personal position, to which the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone was good enough to refer, for he is unfortunately prone in St. Thomas's Hospital, and the latest news is that he had a fair night and his condition is going along satisfactorily. I refer more to his position vis-à-vis the planning authority. Let me make it perfectly clear that my right honourable friend has not yet taken any decision, so this debate is not about something that the Minister has done but about whether he should or should not do something. The position, roughly, is this. If a person is refused planning permission he can appeal to the Minister, but if the permission is granted the Minister does not usually come into the question. He can, of course, direct the planning authority to submit an order revoking or modifying the permission that has been given, but that is a drastic and unusual step to take. It is a lot to ask the Minister to step in after all the authorities have reviewed the whole case at great length and in great detail. It is asking a great deal, and my right honourable friend wants to make it perfectly clear that he intends to intervene in this particular case only if he is absolutely convinced that a wrong decision has been taken. I want to make that point quite clear. Perhaps I can explain it by telling your Lordships that since the Act came into force, which is some years ago now, on no more

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  than three or four occasions have I been able to find that the Minister, when either side was in power, has so intervened. I want to make it quite clear to those who think with the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, that the case for the Minister's intervention has to be a strong one.
  At the moment the score, if I have it correctly, is six to three against the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone. Deliberately, I am not going to add my voice to either side; but what I should like to do is to try to sum up the principal arguments upon which my right honourable friend will have to make up his mind. The first thing that he will have to do before considering those arguments is, clearly to my way of thinking, to check over again some of the figures that have been given us, because I have listened to figures this afternoon which do not tally with figures that I have already received. Obviously there is a difference of opinion, or perhaps an inaccurate approach to one or two of the important figures with which we have to concern ourselves. Those, clearly, must be agreed before the Minister can make up his mind.
  If I have listened accurately to what has been said to-day, the arguments can be grouped under five heads: bulk, height, money, employment and the whole function of the City in our national make-up. May I turn first to the question of bulk, because this was, if I understood it aright, the point upon which the Royal Fine Art Commission objected most strongly, and I do not think it has been emphasised enough in the debate that the Royal Fine Art Commission are against this scheme. They have been all along. They have admitted that this present scheme, which is on view in the Royal Gallery, is the least objectionable of those submitted, but they do not support this scheme. The noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, mentioned the question of plot ratio. Plot ratio is one of the planners' ju-jus and it means the floor space—that is, all floors—compared with net area of the site. I believe I have got that right. It is rather interesting. The plot ratio for the whole of this scheme which we are discussing is 5·75. It is rather interesting to compare that with the ratio of other buildings, because it gives some idea of the actual size of this building. This scheme is 5·75; the War Office is 4·13; County Hall is 3·4; Carlton House
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  Terrace is 3·1; the National Gallery is 1·7 and Somerset House, which was mentioned earlier this afternoon, is 1·5. I have deliberately given those going down in a descending scale.
  Now we come to the modern buildings. Shell Mex is 8·2, and Berkeley Square House is 8·5—to mention buildings which I think your Lordships have in your mind's eye and therefore can compare fairly easily with the plans in the Royal Gallery, because the difficulty for all laymen like ourselves (not for the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone who is a most skilled professional), is to try to translate these plans and designs into reality in our mind's eye. I walked around this site last night for some time, trying to visualise what it would be like, but it is almost impossible for the layman to do it, and you have to take some form of comparison if you want to get an idea of it correctly. The purpose of this plot ratio, as I understand it, is to control bulk and density, to prevent the overshadowing of neighbouring buildings. I was struck by the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, about the Trinity Church, Wall Street. That is going too far. We do not want that in the City of London. Here I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, that most of these huge, featureless, cliff dwellings that we are erecting throughout the cities nowadays have little or no architectural merit at all. That is merely a personal prejudice. But, as I was about to say, the plot ratio of 5·75 for this scheme compares with the maximum of 5 which is laid down for the whole City generally, and the special maximum of 5·5 laid down in this dense building area round about the Bank.
  I thought I had better mention that question of bulk because that is what the Royal Fine Art Commission are worrying about, and they have been directing their efforts to securing an open type of development, one which allows plenty of daylight and does not give a depressing effect of undue weight and solidity. But as I understand it, unless you change the plot ratio you can attain this open type of building only by increasing the height, either all round or, as has been suggested, in certain parts. This, of course, brings us straight away to the question of height, to this argument about the City skyline. I do not think we want to be too quick on this question of the City skyline. I hope that I shall not be considered

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  a Philistine, but I think that in a good many of the stretches of the City skyline some of the modern, and even some of the very Victorian, embellishments have greatly improved it. If you stand on Westminster Bridge, one of the most attractive buildings, I think, is Whitehall Gardens—a remarkable piece of architecture, and a striking addition to the skyline.
  THE EARL OF LUCAN: But not the City.
  LORD MANCROFT: I am taking the skyline as it is caught by your left eye when standing on the bridge. If you look further round, you have then got Shell-Mex House, a much more modern building. But if you look right round as far as you can see, the modern and the old merge together much more happily than one would have thought.
  I well remember the excitement we had in this House at the time the Bankside Power Station was going up, and I remember some fierce letters to The Times and several people at that time saying that the prospect of the Bankside Power Station and St. Paul's in juxtaposition would be intolerable. The noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, very sensibly pointed out that, unless you had a physiogomy designed by Picasso and had one eye in the back of your head and the other round the side, you could not possibly get a view where the two structures would stand in juxtaposition. Wherever we can, we have to strike a happy medium. Of course, we are not going to put a building of this size up against St. Paul's. It is 450 yards to the outer edge and about 500 yards to the far side. Everybody would protest if it were suggested that it should be put right up against St. Paul's and I am certain that due weight will be given to the arguments against the new Bank of England offices much nearer to St. Paul's. I should object very strongly if this building were to be up against St. Paul's; but it is not. And having looked at it carefully last night, or rather having looked at the gap, I cannot think that it will really be very offensive to the eye. But again, that is purely personal opinion.
  We have got to fix some sort of standard of height. About 125 feet appears to have been a popular one among some people, but several noble Lords have said
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  they could go up much higher without spoiling the skyline. Both sides may be right, but whichever decision we take it throws us back on the other horn of the dilemma. If we are going to have this height limit, and not going to have increased bulk, it must be done in one way, and in one way only; and that is by reducing the plot ratio again. That brings us on to the hard question of cash. As we all know, sites are very expensive in the City, and building costs are extremely high, and it is only natural that people should want to get as much lettable space as possible, or the venture will be unprofitable.
  The next argument is that in regard to employment. I understand that this building will house 5,000 people. If other sites were equally densely redeveloped, there would obviously be a great return of business occupancy to the City. That is quite clear. That raises two considerations. There is, of course, the convenience of a central location. It is a nuisance if you want to do business with a man to have to go halfway across London. One noble Lord, I think, suggested that one would not take the Stock Exchange to Dover. That is an extreme case, but it illustrates the need for those branches of the City's activities which are in contact with each other to be in physical contact as well. I confess that I often wonder whether these smaller firms, whether they be solicitors or accountants who are in the City, have to be there, but I suppose they know better than I do, and are there because they prefer it. But if they are there, and if these buildings on the scale of this particular erection are going to increase, the transport and traffic congestion arising from that concentration is bound to get beyond all endurance. The need for decentralisation, therefore, has to be weighed against the need for keeping the big issuing houses, Lloyds and so on, all in as close a contact as possible.
  I think we have got to consider most closely the point which Lord Rennell put before us in regard to the function of the City. What is the function of the City? We have to make up our minds whether the City of London is a show place or a work place. As I see it, that is the real question. If you take either view to extremes you will lead yourself straight away to chaos. I think this is best illustrated by a cartoon in Punch about three

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  weeks ago by an artist who signed himself "Acanthus." He suggested that the only way of considering this problem of buildings in close contiguity to St. Paul's was to have all other buildings put up, whether banks, power stations or schools, exactly on the same model as St. Paul's. He drew about nine copies of St. Paul's, which reduced the question to the absurdity to which it will be reduced if either of these two extremes is followed. There must be a compromise, otherwise this absurdity will result.
  The problem which faces my right honourable friend is where to draw the line, both on the question of height and on the question of density. My Lords, he is now in a better position to form an opinion. I began by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, for bringing this Motion forward. He speaks with great authority as a practising architect of distinction, and he speaks with great emotion as a Londoner born and bred—one of the few who not only work but live in the City. He has done a real service this afternoon in allowing us to ventilate this matter at a time when the Minister is looking for other people's opinions and wanting to know what is the general feeling of people who have, like your Lordships, studied this matter carefully.
  To sum up, the City and the London County Council think they have arrived at the best compromise in agreeing to the plans and the plot ratio which have now been submitted. The developers say that they have co-operated over four years in revising the plans. The Royal Fine Art Commission, on the other hand, say that the building is still too bulky; they say that it will be a bad neighbour, that it will overshadow and dwarf the other buildings in the City. Some of the other experts have said that we must cut down the height, even if the design has to be adjusted further. My right honourable friend has promised in another place that he will consult those interested, on an informal basis, to see whether some common ground of agreement can be reached. One or two private conferences have been held, but I do not think there is going to be much hope of any common agreement along those lines.
  Therefore, my right honourable friend must seek for further and better particulars and make up his mind. He will bear in mind all the considerations which have been enumerated in these remarks,
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  and I am certain that he will be greatly influenced by the comments that have been made in your Lordships' House this afternoon. But want to end, if I may, where I began, by saying that my right honourable friend will intervene in this matter only if he is convinced that something has gone seriously wrong—that I want to make quite clear. My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, for having made this additional information available, and I will make quite certain that all the points that have been made this afternoon are brought before my right honourable friend as soon as his health permits him to study this interesting subject.
  7.10 p.m.
  LORD MOTTISTONE: My Lords, the time is late, and I will not detain you. But should like to say two things. First, with regard to the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about compensation, it is important to realise that the cost in compensation would not be great if what was in question was merely alteration of the skyline or the design of the building. Noble Lords seem rather to have got the idea that. I have been trying to say that the building should not be built at all. What If am suggesting is only an alteration, a reduction of height and so on. There is therefore no question of vast compensation. Incidentally, I understand that no licence has yet been received, so there is no hold-up in that connection. The noble Lord, Lord Teviot, said that all he was asking for was a licence for a certain amount for digging, so there is no hold-up.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: The noble Lord did go on to say, "and to be followed by a licence to proceed. "I am not giving judgment, and I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone says: "I am not asking that the building should not be built." But you can ask for conditions which will make it impossible economically for a building to be erected.
  LORD MOTTISTONE: I am grateful for the noble Viscount's intervention, but it does not alter my point. No licence has been issued for the building, therefore work cannot be started immediately. So it would be possible to make some alterations without vast compensation being involved.

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  The other thing I should like to say is this. We are really nearly all on the same side. I do not think I agree with the suggestion that the proportion is six to three against, because so much of what every speaker has said reflects what is in my mind. I am most anxious to make it clear that I am not trying to persuade your Lordships that this building should not be built. I am only trying to communicate to you the feeling which I, and many other people in this country, I am sure, have: that we do not want the whole character of the centre of London changed so that it becomes a series of great cliffs. I shall be glad to know whether the Government will be prepared
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  to consider the broader issues which I have put forward—namely, that the whole question of the London Building Acts may be delved into to some extent, and that some opportunity may be given for the general public to know more about these things in time for them to express their views. I think that this debate has been most useful, and I thank your Lordships for allowing me to bring my Motion before you. With your permission I now beg leave to withdraw it.
  Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
  House adjourned at twelve minutes past seven o'clock