Lords Sitting of 17 June 1953

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

ATTACKS ON EAST GERMAN CHURCHES
2.35 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any information to give the House about the current attacks on the Churches in the Soviet Zone of Germany.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF READING): My Lords, in answer to the right reverend Prelate's Question, the latest information available to Her Majesty's Government is as follows. The situation of the Churches in the Soviet Zone of Germany, which over the past few years had been steadily deteriorating, became even more serious in recent months, in the face of intensified Communist hostility. This hostility took the form of arrests of clergy and laity, confiscation of Church property, withdrawal of Church subsidies paid by the State, increasing pressure on the young Christian communities (and in particular the Evangelical Junge Gemeinde), restrictions on religious instruction in schools, and the dissemination of propaganda designed to weaken the influence of the Churches.
The Churches in East Germany have not accepted these assaults in silence, and recently leading members of the Evangelical Church decided to ask the Communist authorities to arrange a meeting to discuss the differences between that Church and the State. After this meeting, which took place on June 10, it was announced that an agreement had been reached whereby the attacks on the Evangelical Church were to cease in return for an undertaking that the Church
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would refrain from interference in economic and political life.
In view of this agreement I am sure that the right reverend Prelate will agree with the wish of Her Majesty's Government to limit themselves to the facts in answering this question and not to make any comment which might harm the position of the Church in Eastern Germany.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER: My Lords, in thanking the noble Marquess for the Answer which he has given—a satisfactory answer, in the present state of affairs—I should like to say that the situation has greatly altered since I put down my Question. The attitude of the East German Government towards both Protestant and Catholic Churches was condemned by Christian and general human opinion throughout the world, and I very much hope that the present improvement will be maintained.

BRITISH BASE IN EGYPT
2.38 p.m.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what, if any, capital sums have been spent on the Base in Egypt since 1946, when it was provisionally agreed to evacuate the country.]
THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE (EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS): My Lords, as the noble Viscount is aware, the provisional Agreement reached in October, 1946, was never ratified. Between April, 1946, and March, 1953, about £14 million was spent on capital works in the Canal Zone. These consisted almost entirely of the building or rehabilitation of temporary living quarters and the modernisation of airfields.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, the Minister of State in the Commons referred to capital sums amounting in all, I think he said, to £500 million. When was that done? As the noble Earl will remember, in the provisional Treaty which was made in 1946 there is no mention of this base at all; it was treated as a thing which would be surrendered, together with the occupying positions.
EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS: My Lords, the figure of £500 million can be made up like this: £300 million was spent on the construction of the base over a period of many years. I am sorry that I have forgotten the exact figure which was spent during the war on construction, but I have an idea that it was something like £113 million, or not far from that figure. If you deduct £300 million from the £500 million, it leaves £200 million, which is the estimated figure for the replacement of various stores and articles, tools, et cetera, in the base—the bill which would have to be paid if they were replaced by new articles. There are 14,000 trucks in the base, and they are probably not of much value now: most of them are war-time vehicles. But if they had to be replaced now, it would mean a very heavy bill.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I am asking the noble and gallant Earl to consider this fact: that in 1946 we had seven years of the Treaty to run and yet we continued to spend millions of pounds, knowing that after that we should have no Treaty rights to maintain these installations at all.
EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS: My Lords, I think the answer to that is that although we hoped in 1946 to get an Agreement it was never ratified. We did not get any Agreement. Since then we have had to maintain bases, because after 1946, as your Lordships know, the whole situation deteriorated. As we consider that the United Kingdom—or Great Britain, if you like—is responsible for the safety and protection of the Middle East area, we had to maintain and keep a base in this area. As a matter of fact, owing to the cost of building and prices generally in these days, I do not think £14 million is a very large figure, spread over a period of seven years. Most of it has been spent on temporary structures; there is only a sum of about £2½ million for permanent construction, and I think most of that is for airfield runways.
LORD CALVERLEY: My Lords, would Her Majesty's Government consider stating in concise terms what are the proposals which the Government are placing before the Egyptian Government, as there is an uneasy feeling in the country that Her Majesty's Government are really giving away £500 million?
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, I do not want to interrupt the flow of question and answer between the Minister of Defence and the House, but the question which the noble Lord has just asked goes far wider than anything in the original Question. I think the Minister of Defence has gone a very long way in giving the fullest information, and I hope the House will not press him any further.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Marquess for using the encouraging word "interrupt" the flow of question and answer. My question is based on the Question down on the Paper. What I should like to know is this. Are we working under the Treaty, or are we working under some conception of our own as to where we should have strong points? Because, under the Treaty, everything that can be built is laid down in the Annex to Article 8, and there is not a word there about this £500 million. That is why I am asking why this money was spent and why it was spent at a time when we not only had no guarantee that the Treaty would be renewed but when we ourselves, through the mouth of the then Prime Minister, Mr. Attlee, had undertaken to take the whole lot away and to close the job.
EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS: I do not know whether the following information will answer the noble Viscount's question. The Annex to Article 8 of the Treaty of Alliance says:
"It is, of course understood that His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom may, when the barracks and accommodation are being used by the British forces, make at their own expense improvements or alterations thereto and construct new buildings in the areas specified in paragraph 2 above."
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: Since the noble and gallant Earl is good enough, for the first time, to refer to the Treaty—because the statement of the Leader of the House had nothing to do with the Treaty; it was to do with general world politics—may I ask him this? The noble Earl has referred to the Annex to Article 8. But under paragraph 5 a Committee was to be set up to supervise these buildings. Has such a Committee ever met? Finally, may I ask the noble Marquess this question. Is it not a fact that

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reference to this Treaty is all nonsense, and that we are in Egypt because we want to be in Egypt and because we are too strong to be kicked out?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: If I may say so, that is a most poisonous suggestion, which everybody but the noble Viscount will regret. The fullest answer has been given to his Question. His Question itself did not mention the Treaty, and now he takes the opportunity of tagging on to it, as usual, an assumption inimical to the interests of his own Government. I think the less said about that, the better.
LORD STRABOLGI: Why is it inimical to the interests of Her Majesty's Government to say that we are too strong to be kicked out?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The suggestion was that we are not there by any right at all, but merely by force, and that we would not be kicked out. If the noble Lord thinks that that statement is all right, he is welcome to that idea. I think we have a stronger basis for being there, but that point does not arise on the Question on the Order Paper.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I would not have asked any further questions had not the noble Marquess imparted a certain heat to this matter. The Treaty says that our forces are limited to 10,000 men. We have had 80,000 men in that country for years. How does the noble Marquess defend that?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The noble Viscount is still going a great deal wide of his Question, which I will now read to him, because he appears to have forgotten it. It was:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government what, if any, capital sums have been spent on the Base in Egypt since 1946. …."
He is now asking questions about the number of troops in the country and the conditions under which those troops are there. That certainly does not arise on the Question on the Paper. If the noble Viscount likes to put down on the Paper another Question, it will be answered.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I do not want to put down a Question—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, Order!
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: —because I consider that a debate on this matter in
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these heated terms would do no good at the moment. I was trying to draw attention to the fact that we ourselves are bound by Treaty obligations which we are not observing.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The noble Viscount said that a debate would do no good, but what he does is to make a number of unwarrantable assumptions, having given no notice that he was going to put these points. That seems to be far more damaging than any debate could be.

PLOUGHING GRANTS SCHEME, 1953
2.48 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, this is the third scheme to be made under the Agriculture (Ploughing Grants) Act, 1952, for providing grants for ploughing up grassland. It relates to land ploughed up between 1st June, 1953, and 31st May, 1954. The first part of the scheme, which provides for a grant of £5 per acre for ploughing up grassland which is of at least three years standing, is identical with the corresponding part of the last scheme with the following two exceptions. The first exception is that summer fallowing will be allowed exceptionally. A certain amount of ploughed up grassland, particularly the older grass, can do with more cleaning during the summer, and where the agricultural executive committee considers that this treatment is necessary, permission will be given to postpone cropping; but payment will not be made until a crop is sown. The second exception is that we have thought it proper to tighten up a little the arrangement whereby a farmer is allowed to put the land back to grass, instead of taking a tillage crop. Farmers who wish to re-seed their land to grass have to get a certificate which is given only if re-seeding is the only right course in the interests of good husbandry. Re-seeding has been extended to include grass sown with another grazing crop. One of the main reasons for the scheme is to get more land under tillage; and grass with a grazing crop of rape, for example, can hardly be said to meet that bill.
Part II of the scheme provides for a specially high rate of ploughing grant of £10 per acre. The conditions in this part

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of the scheme are, for practical purposes, the same as under the previous £10 per acre scheme. The wording of Part II now makes it clear, however, that where the farmer has incurred considerable expense in cleaning and preparatory work the grant may be paid as soon as the farmer, having done his ploughing, has carried out part of the other operations needed to sow a crop. The committee will be able to arrange this where they are satisfied that the farmer will complete the whole of the work without avoidable delay. In all other respects, this scheme is the same as the last one. Having regard to the fact that these schemes have been successful, I beg to move that this Scheme be approved.
Moved, That the Ploughing Grants Scheme, 1953, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last, be approved.—(Lord Carrington.)
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, I wish only to ask the noble Lord one question—I think I have asked it before, and it is owing to my own ignorance that I have to ask it again. What I should like to know is: Do these grants bear income tax or do they not—because it obviously makes a very great difference to the value of the grant to a rich farmer. I just do not know the answer—I ought to know it. Perhaps the noble Lord will tell me.
LORD CARRINGTON: I think the grants are treated in exactly the same way as other parts of the farmer's income, but I will check that point and let the noble and learned Earl know.
EARL JOWITT: That is to say, they enter into the credit side of the account and, therefore, swell the amount of income tax to be paid. Therefore, if the farmer is earning a considerable profit (as I have heard people say that farmers are, although I have never heard a farmer say that) then, of course, the amount received by the farmer is not very much.
LORD CARRINGTON: No. But assuming that I am right, and that these grants are subject to income tax, what we are trying to do in these Schemes is to help the farmer who is not so well off, particularly the farmers on hill farms who cannot afford to do these things. So I think the noble and learned
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Earl's objection is not quite so important as may at first be thought.
EARL JOWITT: It was not an objection; it was merely that I was seeking information.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

AGRICULTURE (PLOUGHING GRANTS) (SCOTLAND) SCHEME, 1953
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Home, I beg to move that this draft Order be now approved. It is a somewhat comparable Scheme to that relating to England and Wales.
Moved, That the Agriculture (Ploughing Grants) (Scotland) Scheme, 1953, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last, be approved.—(Lord Carrington.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COASTAL FLOODING (COMPENSA- TION FOR EMERGENCY WORK) ORDER, 1953
2.52 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, this draft Order is one which my right honourable friend the Minister is required to prepare under Section 10 of the Coastal Flooding (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1953. That Act deals with the restoration and strengthening of sea defences in the areas mainly affected by the floods last January, and it gives the Minister power to authorise river boards to enter on land and carry out works necessary for the purpose of sea defences. Where highways are affected, highway authorities also can be authorised to carryout work. The Act also gives other powers to do works ancillary to the actual work on sea defences. The exercise of any of these powers may result in injury to the rights and interests of private people, so that this draft Order seeks to provide for proper compensation to be paid.
The Scheme of the draft Order is this. The first person who will be affected by works carried out on any land will be the occupier, so Article 4 entitles him to receive a payment in the nature of rent. The amount of this will represent the depreciation in the annual value

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of the land. He will go on receiving this periodical payment until the end of what the draft Order calls the "restoration period." This is defined in Article 6. In the ordinary way the restoration period ends when it is possible to estimate how far the land will suffer permanent injury and to make a final settlement. In the special case where the land is purchased compulsorily the period ends when the first step is taken in the purchase. In some cases, for example where the land has been used for temporary buildings, the river board will normally restore the land to its original condition. If this were done there would be no permanent damage, no one's interest in the land would suffer and payments to the occupier would stop when the land was restored.
Where the land is permanently affected, the restoration period will come to an end either when the river board—or it may be the highway authority—give notice that they do not intend to restore the land, or when the period allowed by the Act for works of restoration has elapsed. At this date it will be possible to see how the land is affected by the work done on it, and everyone whose interest in the land suffers will be entitled to claim compensation. Apart from claims which depend on depreciation in the value of the land, there are other ways in which an occupier may be affected. Land which a river board use for their works may be sown with a crop, or the value of manure applied to it may not be fully utilised, either of which means loss of the farmer's time or money. Losses of this kind can be compensated under Article 5 (1) (b), under the heading of disturbance.
There is another heading which I should mention, as this is also dealt with in Article 5 (1) (b). This is the case of land which, although near to a river board's works, is not actually the land on which the work is done. If any such land is depreciated in value, a claim can be made for compensation, if the claim is of the kind for which compensation is payable, or for compulsory purchase. However, I think there will be very few cases of this kind; in fact I am sure that in nearly all cases the adjacent land will benefit greatly.
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Those are the main provisions of the draft Order. If I may touch briefly on the others, Article 7 deals with damage to private ways. Article 8 provides protection for sanitary authorities and statutory undertakers—for example, where gas or water pipes have to be removed or given protective covering to prevent damage. Article 9 provides for compensation carrying interest from the time when it is due. Article 10 fixes a time limit for making claims and Article 11 provides for disputes being determined by the Lands Tribunal. The last Article, No. 12, is more important. It deals with the case where land on which work has been done under the Act is purchased compulsorily. The river board may decide that they need to own the land on which they have built a bank. In such cases we have thought it simpler for all concerned to pay compensation, as far as possible, on the compulsory purchase. In a compulsory purchase which takes place in circumstances where work has already been done on the land, certain adjustments have to be made in the purchase price in order to ensure that it is a fair one. Article 12 works out the details of this. I think that gives in broad outline what we are intending to do. Our aim is to make sure that everyone who suffers as a result of works carried out under the main Act is fairly treated, and I hope that in this Order we have achieved this. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Coastal Flooding (Compensation for Emergency Work) Order, 1953, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last, be approved.—(Lord Carrington.)
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I do not wish to make any detailed comments at all on this Order. On a first reading it certainly looks all right. But I should like to ask the noble Lord whether there have been any consultations with the persons affected. If they are satisfied, then certainly this House will be satisfied. I take it that there have been consultations, and that broadly speaking the persons who are affected are in agreement with what is proposed to be done.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I do not really know what the noble Lord means by consultation with people representing the persons affected. All sorts of different people are affected by this Order and we have consulted a great

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number of people. I do not think there is any argument about it at all. I believe everybody is perfectly happy.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, when Clause 10 of the Coastal Flooding Act was before this House my noble and learned friend Lord Maugham, who is not here to-day, and I raised a question as to whether the Order which was about to be laid was one under which it would be possible to secure, in the case of settled property, that the compensation was distributed among the persons really affected. I am not quite clear from Lord Carrington's statement whether or not the Department considers that that difficulty is met by the Order which he is asking us to approve. There may be a case in which the property is under a settlement, and if the property was damaged the question would then be whether the compensation for that property should be paid to the trustee under the settlement—whether it should be regarded as going into the settlement to take the place of capital—or whether it should go for compensation for loss, and questions of that sort. I myself am not familiar with this kind of question. It is much more a Chancery question and no doubt the Lord Chancellor knows it very well, as does Lord Maugham. But as Lord Maugham is not here I thought it right to ask whether or not the Order which has been laid is one which would enable those questions to be satisfactorily adjusted.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD SIMONDS): My Lords, I wonder whether the noble and learned Viscount will allow me to answer the question which he put to Lord Carrington. I know that Lord Carrington is willing that I should do so. The hypothesis of tile question was this: that for the injurious affection of any land a global sum might be awarded and then there might be a dispute between persons having different interests in the land as to how that global sum should be distributed. But the hypothesis was not a correct one, for the Order proceeds upon the footing that whoever suffers any injury to his interest shall get the appropriate compensation. Therefore the Order does not proceed by way of a global sum being awarded which will be the subject of contest between those who have rival interests. Anybody who has an interest which is affected is entitled to
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claim compensation, and be awarded the appropriate compensation.
But it is relevant to add this. It is a common enough thing nowadays for an Act to prescribe for compensation to be awarded for damage to land, and often enough, of course, that land is subject to divers interests, whether of landlord or tenant, or of tenant for life or remainder-men; and it is common practice, even where a global sum is awarded, not to prescribe machinery for the division of that sum. I think that the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, must have been in error if he thought it was the practice so to provide. Machinery is not provided. I could refer the noble Viscount to a number of Acts which would confirm this—namely, the Compensation (Defence) Act, 1939, the Indemnity Act, 1920, the War Damage Act, 1943, and, going right away back, the Riot Damage Act, 1886, where machinery has never been provided for dividing up a global sum between the several interests, and in respect of which no difficulty has been found to occur except on very rare occasions. Those who advise me have, I think, found three cases where it has been necessary to go to the court to determine how such a sum should be divided Here the question does not arise because the Order itself prescribes that those who are injuriously affected in respect of their interests, whatever they may be, make their claims and get compensation accordingly. I have no doubt that in cases of damage of a permanent character to settled land a common claim would be put in by all those interested, and if they were not in agreement there would be a proper division between them.
VISCOUNT SIMON: I am much obliged to the noble and learned Lord for his explanation which, no doubt, will be of much interest to my noble and learned friend, Lord Maugham.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COASTAL FLOODING (ACREAGE PAYMENTS) SCHEME, 1953
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, the Government are further considering this Order, and with your Lordships' permission, I do not move it this afternoon.

RETIRED OFFICERS' PENSIONS
3.4 p.m.
LORD SCHUSTER LORD SCHUSTER rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they can now make any further statement on the subject of the pensions of retired officers in the three Services; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I trust that your Lordships will not regard the intrusion of a civilian into this discussion as a kind of gate crashing. I admit that it requires some courage on my part, when so many noble and gallant Admirals, Field-Marshals and Marshals of the Royal Air Force have in the past argued it, that I should on this occasion take up the cudgels. But it was thought by those who asked me to speak this afternoon that there would be some advantage if, for once, someone who had no direct interest in the assessment of Service pensions, that is to say, some civilian, should speak, and thereby show first, as a civilian may feel and may desire to do, his gratitude to those who, in peril and in hardship, have been our sure shield during so many years. Secondly, it was thought that one who has served the Crown otherwise than in arms for so long should show that he is as jealous as any serving officer can be for the maintenance of public faith by whatever Government may be in power.
To start with, I have a great embarrassment to meet. The noble and gallant Earl who is, I suppose, to reply is a gallant Field-Marshal who occupies the post of Minister of Defence. Therefore, not only should I have an impossible task if I were to try to persuade your Lordships that he could possibly say anything that was not entirely agreeable to your Lordships, but I have a personal obligation to express regarding the respect in which I hold him. He once did me a great favour—I suppose that he himself has forgotten it—and I subsequently had the privilege of serving as a humble camp follower under his command. Lord Napier, when dedicating the History of the Peninsular War to the Duke of Wellington, said that he did so because serving under his command he had come to understand why the Tenth Legion were attached to Caesar. Perhaps I may be allowed to say that, having served, very humbly, under the noble and gallant Earl, I can fully appreciate how it was that everyone, civilian and soldier, male
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and female, officer and other rank, came to feel for him not only respect and regard but also, if I may say so, affection. Therefore, if I, in the course of my remarks, use harsh expressions or hard words, I hope they will not be taken as in any way reflecting upon the noble and gallant Earl.
The subject on which I am speaking is capable of being made extremely complicated. I have here a great sheaf of documents, with elaborate statements and warrants of all kinds, which have been put out by the Service Departments from time to time for dealing with this matter. If I were to deal with my case properly I should read them all. The result of my doing that would, I think, be this. Those who know anything about the matter would only hear again what they already know perfectly well, whilst no one else would ever be able to follow the arguments. So I prefer to put my case as simply as I possibly can. At the close of the First Great War, when the cost of living had risen considerably, all the Service Departments put forward to officers serving under them, in respect both of their pay and pension and their widows' pensions, statements to the effect that those payments should be henceforth married (if I may use the expression) to the cost of living. As the cost of living rose, so the payments would follow within limits of, I—think the noble and gallant Earl will correct me if I am wrong—20 per cent. It was originally planned that a revision was to be made every five years, but at a later date that five years was changed to three. No one makes any complaint of that.
At a still later date, the cost of living having gone up and gone down, the position was, as it is said, stabilised. Now "stabilised" is a very beautiful word. It really meant that the promise made at the end of the war was completely disregarded, and that the pay and pensions, and widows' pensions, were fixed—which is a shorter word than stabilised, but has much the same meaning—at 9½ per cent. below that which many people thought they were entitled to receive. It will be understood that in the meanwhile, on the faith of the promise given, a good many officers had retired from the Services, supposing themselves to be entitled to an income which varied as the cost of living rose and fell. As we know now—and I do not make

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any complaint that it should not have been anticipated—the cost of living has risen very considerably ever since and the plight of these men and their widows can well be imagined.
That is a very simple story. I could elaborate it at great length but I am not going to do so. What is more germane to the present discussion is the answers which the Government have made when asked why they do not keep their promise. Two answers are given. The first is that they cannot afford it, and the second is that the promise did not mean what it said. I should like to deal with each of those answers separately. First, as to expense. When one of the deputations which came, I think, to the Treasury on this matter was arguing, a voice from the official Benches said, "Where is the money coming from?" That was a very pertinent and relevant observation, and if it had been asked before the promise was made it would have been very potent. But if I sit down to a bridge table and rise some hours afterwards, having lost every rubber—as I usually do—I do not then begin to say, "Oh, I thought we were playing for penny points, and I am going to pay out at that rate." If it has been agreed to pay at the rate of 2s. 6d. a point, I do my best to find the money to pay, and try to look pleasant. We have every sympathy with economy. When we were young we were all taught—and I wish all Governments had observed it—that we ought to be just before we are generous. But I think we might also believe and hold as a maxim that we should be punctual to all our obligations before we try to be economical. This is a very simple question to deal with, and one on which anyone can make up his mind at once. Have we come to a position in which Her Majesty's Government cannot afford to pay that which, on my hypothesis, they promised to pay, and on the strength of which promise people have altered their position?
The second answer is much more complicated and difficult to deal with: I find it difficult to deal with because I cannot understand it. It is said in defence of this performance that the promise did not mean what it said, and there is a great deal of talk about legal language. Legal language is language which expresses as concisely and as clearly as possible the thought which it endeavours to convey in
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the way in which it is best understood by the person who receives it. It is quite useless now, when the promise was thought to be one thing by those who made it and those who received it, for the Government to say, as the previous Government also said, that it meant something quite different. If I could persuade your Lordships that when the promise was made the Board of Treasury laid a trap for those to whom it was made, and that the Board of Admiralty, the Army Council and the Air Council all concurred in laying that trap, I should take a very serious view—as I am sure would your Lordships. We should be very ashamed of ourselves. But I do not make any such suggestion. I have not the faintest doubt that when the promise was made it was intended to be kept in the very simple terms in which it was made. The cost of living and pay and pensions have been going up and down within the limits I have expressed, and nobody has talked any nonsense about "mays" and "shalls" and "wills." It was not to be construed as a conveyance, or in any sense except in that sense in which those who made it intended it and those who received it understood it.
The matter does not rest there. In our history there has always been a time when, the peril having passed, those who served are neglected. We all know the old lines which came into existence when an illustrious Admiral, the ancestor of a distinguished Member of this House, swooped on the French on the West Coast of France and removed for the time being the peril of invasion:
"Till Hawke did bang Monseer Complang We'd lots of beef and beer.
Now Complang's beat, we've nought to eat,
'Cos you have nought to fear."
I thought those days had passed. Certainly the attempt after the 1918 war to apply the cost of living to these payments gave some indication that this was so; but apparently not.
See what happened next. Since these gentlemen retired from the service of His Late Majesty, those who have joined the Navy, the Army and the Air Force have been put on the same terms as the promise which has been broken. I have never understood a great many of the parables in the New Testament, and none puzzles me more than that of the workers

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in the vineyard. I have great sympathy with those who, after bearing the heat and burden of the day, found that the people who came in at six o'clock were to receive the same wages. What would they have said if at the end of the day the people who came in late were to receive a considerable amount in addition to what they were to receive themselves? I do not want to introduce what people call "sob-stuff" in this discussion, but we have not only an obligation of honour to fulfil but an obligation of gratitude. I think we should all desire to retain the Government's and the country's reputation for good faith and public honour. I think I have said enough to show that in this case we are in grave danger of outraging those principles.
I have nothing more to say. I have put the matter before your Lordships in the simplest way I can, and I think that I have disposed of these two excuses, so far as they can be disposed of. If we cannot afford to pay, I suppose there is no national bankruptcy court to which we can go; but I see no particular reason why these gentlemen and widows should be singled out for this treatment. If we can pay, then we ought to pay. As for the so-called legal objection, it is one which as a young man I should not have cared to raise in the most obscure county court or police court; and if I had done so I should have expected to have been swept out and silenced. I will leave the case at that. I apologise to the noble and gallant Earl because I have put him to this trouble. I am afraid of how far he will demolish me and how far I shall be punished for introducing, as a civilian, a military matter which does not really concern him.
3.16 p.m.
LORD JEFFREYS: My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lord Schuster in his Motion to-day. My noble friend has adduced reasons why in any statement that may be made—and I have no doubt a statement will be made by my noble and gallant friend the Minister of Defence—it is essential that substantial improvements in the rate of these pensions should now be announced. We have waited too long for an announcement of that kind to be made. We are much indebted to my noble friend Lord Schuster for once more
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bringing this matter before the House and for bringing it forward as a civilian, as he said himself, who is in no sense personally interested, but who does believe in the cause of justice and fair dealing for old servants of the Crown.
As this debate is on pensions and retired pay generally, I must declare an interest, as I am in receipt of retired pay; but I am not affected by the codes of 1919 and earlier or by the stabilisation of 1935 with which the bulk of my noble friend's speech has been concerned and with which, with your Lordships' permission. I intend to deal today. Some months ago, on February 16, a strong and authoritative letter appeared in The Times. It was signed by the three noble Lords who were Chiefs of Staff of the three Services in the late war. Towards the end of the letter are the following words, which I will read:
"We … welcome the assurance by the Minister of Defence that the case put … in the House of Lords last month will be most earnestly considered, and we would ask that as a matter of immediate justice, at least the retired pay of those officers who are still on pre-1945 rates may now be brought up to the 1945 rate."
Nothing of the kind has in fact been done. There is great disappointment at the failure to make any provision in the Budget to meet the long-standing grievance—and it is a grievance—of those officers who retired under the code of 1919, in spite of the fact that the Secretary of State for War in his Memorandum on the Army Estimates recorded that there is a shortage of Regular officers in the Army, and I believe I am right in saying that in the other two Services neither the quantity nor the quality of the intake is at present satisfactory.
Let there be no mistake: the shortage of officers is in no small measure due to the dissatisfaction of retired officers at their unjust treatment in this matter of their retired pay. Their advice to the younger generation is only too apt to be: "Take warning from the way your elders have been treated, and do not render yourselves liable to similar treatment." When, on January 20 of this year, I brought a Motion on this subject before your Lordships' House, the Motion was supported by every speaker, from whatever side of the House he spoke. Only my noble and gallant friend the Minister of Defence, speaking, of course,

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to the Treasury brief—and, if I may say so, not speaking very convincedly or, in my submission, very convincingly—had to pour cold water on the Motion; though he said that the case would continue to be earnestly considered by Her Majesty's Government. He added these words:
"The whole question of retired officers' pay and pensions will be kept constantly under review and examination and, if and when it becomes possible to assist them financially, they may rest assured that they will not be forgotten."
I drew some encouragement from that statement. But, in fact, nothing has been done, though I am perfectly certain that my noble and gallant friend meant exactly what he said.
The fact is that the enemy of the retired officer is the Treasury. There is, of course, no representative of the Treasury in your Lordships' House; but even in another place it is almost always a representative of a Service Department who is put up to present the Treasury case when the subject of pensions or anything in the nature of pensions is being considered. No one expects generosity from the Treasury; it is not the business of the Treasury to be generous. But justice and fair dealing are expected from the Treasury, and in this instance they have been neither fair nor just. Their methods, in fact, seem to be a cross between those of the miser, who is unwilling to spend a farthing on anything, however necessary, and who always pleads extreme poverty, and those of the sharp financier, who will seize any pretext for withholding what he should rightly pay to his creditors, while taking every care to extract every penny that is due to himself. In this instance, I submit that the Treasury have no case whatever.
May I again briefly refer to the code of 1919? This laid down new rates of retired pay. Those rates were to be subject to revision, not exceeding 20 per cent., according as the cost of living rose or fell. In the first place, that reconsideration had to be after five years, and subsequently every three years. In 1931 there was a further Warrant which made the revision due every six months. From 1922 to 1933 the cost of living fell steadily, and as it fell the rates of retired pay fell with it, until in 1933 the rates were 11 per cent. below the basic rates
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of 1919. In 1934 there was a slight rise in the cost of living, and a corresponding rise in retired pay from 11 per cent. below the 1919 rates to 10 per cent. below those rates. Then in 1935 the Treasury decided that retired pay should be stabilised at 9½ per cent. below the basic rates of 1919—there was no question of any rise in the cost of living—and to this day those rates are 9½ per cent. below the rates of 1919. I wonder if there is any other class of annuitant, pensioner or worker whose rates of pay are below those of 1919. notwithstanding the tremendous fall in the value of money and the tremendous advance in the cost of living.
My noble and gallant friend the Minister of Defence said on June 20:
"This decision I have always understood was welcomed by the officers affected"—
that is, the decision to stabilise pay. That is the Treasury claim, but it is certainly not a correct one. My noble and gallant friend was, I know, serving in India in 1935, and so was I. I well remember the indignation of my retired officer friends whom I met on my return at this arbitrary reduction in their rates of retired pay. Welcomed it? They never welcomed it at all, sick of variations as I think I have said they were. They were sick of variations downwards, but not sick of variations at all. They hoped that there would be the upward movement that had been promised. They were disgusted when their pay was stabilised at 9½ per cent. below the basic rates of 1919. There has been talk of all State servants being treated equally, and a hint that a rise in officers' retired pay would mean rises in civil servants' pensions. I am in favour of justice for all State servants, and I do not wish to enter into any invidious comparisons. But it should not be forgotten that officers do not, even in peace time, serve under settled conditions as do civil servants at home; that they are liable to recall to service in war, and that this liability to further service is a distinct handicap to a retired officer's earning capacity. His retired pay is, in fact, in part, a retaining fee.
I would again plead for consideration for the pre-1914 retired officers. These have had no undertaking given to them, such as was given to those who retired under the terms of the 1919 Warrant and

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subsequently. But they are old men, and their small pensions which were fixed in days when a pound was worth a pound are, owing to the fall in the value of money, worth very little now. As an act of grace and of justice, I hope that they may be considered and that their pensions may be increased. I am talking about the small number of officers who retired before the First World War on very small pensions. I hope that they may be considered. I do not claim for one moment that they have a right, or that they have had any promise made to them, as have their successors who retired after 1919. But they are a small body and a diminishing body, and any increase given to them would be an increase that would diminish year by year, because they are old men now. I trust that they may be treated with reasonable consideration and fairness. Finally, I would again submit that the Royal Warrant and corresponding instruments of 1919, as confirmed and amended by those of 1931, do, in fact, constitute an undertaking and promise to those officers who retired under their terms, and the full implementation of those retired pay codes would not only vindicate the good faith of the Treasury and the Government—and that good faith has been quite considerably placed in doubt—but be an act of bare justice to the retired officers affected. We have never been told the actual sum involved, but £2 million has been mentioned—perhaps it might be a good deal less. Surely, when national expenditure is in the neighbourhood of £6,000 million, £2 million could be afforded to do justice to and keep faith with a number of old officers who have served their country faithfully in peace and in war.
3.30 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, once more I should like to support the plea which is made for these retired officers. I do not think there is any need for me to try to reargue the case. We had a full debate, going into all the intricacies, on January 20, and to-day my noble friend Lord Schuster, to whom I am sure we are all indebted for bringing forward this subject, has disposed briefly but effectively of many of the arguments put forward by Her Majesty's Government to resist this claim.
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If expressions of sympathy and expressions of good will and good wishes governed the actions of the Government, something would have been done already, because we have had very sincere expressions of sympathy and understanding and admissions of hardship. But, unfortunately, that is not the case. For within the Treasury the Chancellor lives alongside those Treasury twins, Repercussion and Precedent. Those are ever ready at his elbow whenever a voice is heard raising a suggestion for some particular settlement of a problem such as this.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, that it is not the Minister of Defence whom we have to tackle on this subject, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Treasury. I can well imagine the scene in the Treasury room when the noble and gallant Earl the Minister of Defence goes to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Chancellor comes in smiling, as he always does, full of good will, well diluted with frozen austerity, and says, "Well, I am very sorry, but I cannot do anything, because of precedent and because of repercussion in so many directions." I suppose he would have to say, too, "I admit that at the Treasury we have accepted wage increases for workers. We have had to help civil servants. We have tried to do something for judges in retirement, and for judges in actual work. We can manage to afford to pay, in the Central Office of Information, for information on present happenings in the world. However, we cannot afford to pay for these services of the past. It is true that the Treasury can find money for a new Embassy here and there, and they can even make some provision for that memorial to the past, the Albert Hall. But, unfortunately, they cannot make any provision for the services of the past of these retired officers."
I suppose the Chancellor would say to the Minister of Defence, "It is an unpleasant task that I am asking you to perform. I have seen the War Office, I have seen the Air Ministry and I have seen the Admiralty, and they all press me strongly to make some concession. But, unfortunately, I cannot do it, and you, the Minister of Defence, have got to carry the torch." And then the Chancellor, I suppose, would say, "My officials have made the position easier

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for you; here is a bundle of papers which will help you when you come to deploy your case in the House of Lords." The Chancellor then hands the Minister of Defence the Treasury brief. The noble Lord, Lord Schuster, broke into verse at one moment in his speech, and I am reminded of Mr. Hilaire Belloc's Little Lord Lundy. The Chancellor could finish his interview by handing over this brief and saying, "Here is the brief—
'The type is set,
The brief prepared,
Objections met,
Departments squared.'
Now go to it, Minister of Defence, and do your best."
That is the sort of interview that might take place in the Treasury. But it would be a shame that this Government's fine record in many directions, to which we, the Back Bench supporters, are proud to pay tribute and give all the support we can, should be blemished by this refusal to remedy this injustice to old servants of the State who, as the noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys said, have given the best of their lives to the service of the country. I do not believe in any precedent or any repercussions in this case. I believe that a concession on the part of Her Majesty's Government would raise no such great objections in other quarters. I believe that it would gain the support of those who, perhaps the Government think, might come forward with parallel claims. I believe that such a concession would clear away a longstanding grievance which I hope we may hear is to be tackled by Her Majesty's Government now, at this eleventh hour. If it is not, then I say to the noble Earl that there are many in this House arid in another place who feel very deeply and who will come back and back again until something has been done.
3.37 p.m.
LORD HAILEY: My Lords, I hope you will pardon me if I repeat here an assurance which I ventured to give on behalf of all past and present civil servants of the Crown in the debate on January 20 last—the assurance that they feel deeply the failure of the Government to implement their undertaking to consider with sympathy the readjustment of the injury done to the men of the Fighting Services by the arrangements of 1919 and 1931. Personally, in the course of a some-
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what long official career I do not think I can remember any case in which the Government could so clearly be accused of lack of faith as in this case. It has a debt of honour to the officers who were affected by the arrangements of 1919 and 1931 which even now I hope it will discharge.
But may I, with no intention whatsoever of detracting from the force of the arguments used by the noble Lord, Lord Schuster, go somewhat further, and point out that the whole of the question of pensions is one which should be considered together, and that you cannot discuss the general question of military or Service pensions apart from that of civil pensions? To begin with, the fundamental reason why we ask for the readjustment of the pensions of retired officers is the same—namely, the fall in the value of money and the rise in the cost of living. Equally, I think that the disinclination of the Government to yield to that claim is also fundamentally the same, for again and again it has used the argument that the pensionary arrangement is a contractual arrangement between the Crown and its officers and that the officers must abide by the contract just as the Crown does.
Well, my Lords, it is because the cases are so similar in this respect that some of us have ventured to ask that the whole case of pensions, military and civil, may be examined by some special body, in the nature of an inter-Departmental Committee or a Royal Commission. We made this request not only in your Lordships' House but in the Press, and I am venturing to repeat it now. The advantages to my mind would be obvious. In the first place, the public would be placed in possession of the facts beyond question of argument. It would be able to see the fallacy, if I may so express it, of the argument drawn from contract, because it would be possible to quote very many instances in which the readjustment of pensions has not been made subject to the argument drawn from contract. The latest case, of course, is, that of the pensions that have been raid as the result of the Chorley Report which took full effect in 1952.
But I think, above all, that the Commission or Committee might be able to set before the public the evidence of the extent to which the Government is falling behind the example which has been set

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by some of the great commercial, industrial and banking institutions in this country in the matter of the treatment of their retired servants—treatment which, I may note, has been extended by those institutions to all ranks of their retired employees, and not merely to those on the lower scales of pay. Although the Committee would not, perhaps, be able to quote the whole of the evidence which my friends are now ready to place before it, because many of these institutions will ask that their names should not be published, it would nevertheless be possible to quote a substantial mass of evidence showing how far more fair and just these institutions have been than has the Government. I cannot help feeling that the Committee would draw this conclusion, namely—that if the State desires to obtain recruits for its services, whether they are civil or whether they are military services, with the same traditions, the same standard of conduct, and the same qualifications as it has obtained in the past, then it must show itself as considerate to its employees as those who will compete with them for recruits from the same sources. Unless it does that, it will undoubtedly have to recruit from sources that do not have the same standards, the same qualifications or the same traditions as before.
In conclusion, may I say this: though we are all proud of the political institutions of this country, I would ask you to reflect how far our appreciation of these institutions is really based upon our knowledge of the behaviour and the qualifications of our public servants; and if there is to be any falling off in the standard of recruitment, then it will be a great national loss.
3.43 p.m.
EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS: My Lords, I think we can all welcome the debate we have had this afternoon on this problem of the retired officers' pensions. We are most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Schuster, for having brought this matter before your Lordships' House. I much appreciate the way in which this problem has been tackled this afternoon, but I would ask your Lordships not to try to relieve me of any responsibility in this matter and shift it all on to the Treasury. I belong to a team. It is a team decision that I will give you this afternoon: I play for my team.
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Your Lordships will appreciate that in the field of pensions this is only one aspect of a much larger problem which affects a great number of pensioners and which also may involve a very large sum of money. Another point which we cannot just brush aside is the likelihood of repercussions, as has been suggested by some noble Lords. The Government must take into account the likely repercussions which will raise their heads if relief is given in one part of the pattern. Therefore, in considering the matter, I honestly think it is impossible to try to take one section of pensioners in isolation. We have heard what the noble Lord, Lord Hailey, has said about the Civil Service. We are this afternoon discussing pensions for retired officers, but, you see, it immediately has a repercussion because the question of the Civil Service is bound to arise
To make the situation clear, let me broadly summarise the main claims which have been advanced in this House and elsewhere in relation to officers. First of all, there are the old retired officers who retired on the 1919 pay codes and whose pensions were reduced to 9½ per cent. below the 1919 rates. Secondly, there is the question whether all officers who retired before September 1, 1950, should or should not have their pensions brought up to the same level as those who retired after that date. As regards the first group, your Lordships are aware that there are between 300 and 400 old officers who are still receiving only the stabilised 1919 rates.
LORD SCHUSTER: The 1919 rates?
EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS: The 1919 rates which were stabilised in 1935.
LORD SCHUSTER: Surely, less the 9½ per cent.?
EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS: Less the 9½per cent., yes. The exact numbers of these officers are as follows: 173 in the Royal Navy, 178 in the Army and 8 in the Royal Air Force, which makes a total of 359. In addition, there are some 5,000 or 6,000 officers pensioned originally on the 1919 rates who have had the 1935 cut partially restored in varying degrees, either through re-assessment of pension for war service in the Second World War or by increases under various pension increase schemes, of which there

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was one in 1944, another in 1947 and a later one in 1952. The cost of the restoration of the 9½per cent. cut to all these officers including the 359 is a very small sum—I admit that; it would come to only £210,000 a year and, of course, sum would diminish as the years went by.
Your Lordships will, I hope, forgive me if I weary you with a little back history of this matter, because I think we need to get this matter straight. After the end of the First World War, revised rates of retired pay were fixed in 1919. As has already been said, 20 per cent. was considered as due to the then increased cost of living and could be varied by periodical revision, either upwards or downwards as the case might be. Owing to the fall in the cost of living, adjustments, which were nearly always downwards, were accordingly made in retired pay, until in 1935 it was decided to stabilise the rates at 9½per cent. below the 1919 code. The decision to stabilise was made in 1932, following a strong recommendation from the Tomlin Commission, which said in 1931 that Civil Service emoluments should be stabilised. This recommendation was accepted by the Government of the day and subsequently applied to Civil Service pay and pensions. It was also applied to officers' pensions in 1935. At the time—and it is quite true I myself was out in India, but this is what I am informed, and I take it that it is correct—pressure from pensioners, both Service and civilian, was for a stabilisation of this kind. As has already been quoted, I have always understood that this arrangement met the wishes of those officers concerned, and indeed was welcomed by them. But I am open to correction, and I withdraw that statement if it is not the case.
To be quite fair, I think the arrangement was not an ungenerous one. Just consider: in 1935 the 9½per cent. stabilisation corresponded to a cost of living of 55 per cent. above the 1914 cost of living index; but, in fact, the cost of living index in 1935 was only 43 per cent. above that for 1914. So that at the time the settlement was made it was quite favourable to those concerned, I am also informed that if the final stabilisation had been related to the cost of living at the time it would not have been a 9½ per cent. cut but it ought to have been a cut of between 10 and 11 per cent. So that what happened was, in effect, that
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these officers received a bonus which was not overtaken until the cost of living started to rise in 1939, four years later. It is only fair to say that no one in 1935 could possibly have foreseen what was going to happen in regard to the cost of living a few years later. From 1939 onwards, of course, the Service pensioner found himself in the same difficulties over the rapid rise in living costs as did all other pensioners—not only all State pensioners, but, indeed, all those living on fixed incomes. A number of those who retired between the wars, however, came back to active service with the Forces during the war years, and they have benefited by various changes and improvements in pensions schemes, some of which I have already mentioned. I think I might enlarge upon that—
LORD JEFFREYS: If I may interrupt my noble and gallant friend, surely it is the fact that the increases which were given in the case of those who were recalled for further war service were increases for further service; they had nothing whatever to do with the stabilisation or reduction of pensions in the past.
EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS: No; but are not all pensions given in respect of services rendered?
LORD JEFFREYS: It was for extra services rendered.
EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS: Why not? You may retire at a certain pension and if you come back and render more service to your country you get more.
LORD SCHUSTER: I wish I did.
LORD JEFFREYS: I would entirely agree with my noble arid gallant friend with regard to that. But is it not equally a fact that you ought not to get less for your past service?
EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS: Well, the pension was not reduced; it just remained as it was.
LORD SCHUSTER: But it had been reduced.
EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS: Only because it was reduced to correspond to the cost of living at that time. As I have tried to point out, when it was stabilised it was in favour of the officers concerned. May I now say something about the operation of the 1944 and 1947

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increase schemes? Both schemes were on a hardship basis. I could give your Lordships some examples of what the increases were, but I will not weary you with them. As you would expect, they varied according to rank and, to a certain extent, to length of service. But as regards the hardship cases, the increases were subject to certain conditions of old age and total income.
I should very much like to be able to tell your Lordships, as I am sure the House would appreciate, in all seriousness, that the Government had decided to make good to these officers the so-called 9½ per cent. cut. The sum involved is, as I have said, a very small one by itself, but there are other factors which must be considered and which are involved in this question. To begin with, to restore the cut would have the effect of improving the position only of pensioners on the higher rates of pension, and I must point out that this is contrary to the Government policy that in our present economic situation any money available for increased pensions should be confined to alleviating hardship.
Now may I say a few words about the second of the two main aspects of this officers' pensions problem—that is, the claim that all officers who retired before the present pensions code came into operation on September 1, 1950, should be given the benefit of that code. When considering this matter I think it only right that we should appreciate what is involved. To begin with, to raise the pensions of all officers who retired before September 1, 1950, to the present level would cost the Exchequer over £2 million in the first year—a not inconsiderable sum and I must warn you that it would not end there, because we must take into account other relevant factors as well as the inevitable financial repercussions which would arise and which I have already touched on. For example, it would be idle to think that a large-scale improvement of this kind in officers' pensions could be made without involving a similar review of the pensions of other ranks. And it must be borne in mind that any increases as suggested would most certainly have repercussions on civil servants' pensions and on a variety of awards, such as National Insurance benefits, compensation for industrial injuries,
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war pensions and so on. I think it only right to point out the difficulties with which we are faced because we must take these things into consideration in tackling these big problems.
But, apart from these considerations of principle, the consequences of abandoning the established rule against retrospection, which is very easy to laugh at but which may not be so easy to laugh off, would be very serious and might lead us anywhere. I think that at this time we must, in all honesty, ask ourselves whether we should be able to afford very large increases in pensions all round—this at a time when the Government are doing their best to try and reduce Government expenditure. As I have already said, the cost of raising the retired pay of all officers who left the Services before September 1, 1950, to the rates now operative would be over £2 million. But, as I have already pointed out, this sum is insignificant compared to the cost which might be involved by opening the gates to everyone.
It seems to me only wise to point out, in the interests of the Services themselves, that if every improvement in current pensions had to be applied retrospectively, the cost involved would almost certainly inhibit such improvements or at least badly delay their introduction. I trust that your Lordships will not think that I am being obstructive and trying to put obstacles in the way of bettering the lot of my old Service comrades, because I would remind your Lordships that a tremendous number of these old retired officers are fellows who served with me; they are personal friends of mine. Far from that being the case, I want to see them get a fair deal. But it is my duty as a responsible Minister to point out some of the difficulties with which we are faced. And really they are quite formidable, as I have tried to indicate. After all, it is not so very long since the matter was debated in your Lordships' House, and a great deal has been happening since then. I repeat that this is a problem to which the Government have given, and are giving, the most anxious consideration. They cannot but be moved by great sympathy with the claims of numbers of retired officers who have given long and valuable service to their country. On the other hand, the primary task of

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the Government is to restore the economic health of this country, and, in pursuing this main object, they have to resist many claims to extra expenditure which are both well-founded and desirable in themselves. However, I can assure your Lordships that we shall do our best to find a fair solution to the case of these retired officers, for whom your Lordships have so rightly shown such great interest and such concern.
4.2 p.m.
LORD SCHUSTER: My Lords, I now realise that I ought, when I began my first observations, to have declared my own interest. I am myself a Civil Service pensioner, but it never crossed my mind for a single second that payment of the full pensions promised to officers of the Armed Services and their widows might possibly result in my obtaining any benefit. As your Lordships know, we put our case on two perfectly simple grounds. I tried, so far as I could, to leave out detail and to state those two grounds clearly, but I cannot have stated them sufficiently clearly. First I said—and I have not heard the statement contradicted—that in 1919 a promise was made, that on subsequent dates the promise was confirmed, and that now the promise has been broken. What has been said does not seem to me to answer that. No one has ever answered what I said on that matter, or tried to do so.
In industry and commerce where people are employed, whether on wages or on salary, there is something which is known as the "rate for the job." We know that it is difficult both for industry and commerce to fix the "rate for the job," but employers have assistance in doing that which is not open to Her Majesty's Government—nor ought it to be. There are vigilant trade unions to look after the interests of those employed. The employers have their own balance sheets to look to. They have the knowledge of what other firms in like circumstances are paying. None of these things are available to Her Majesty's Government as criteria. But they have this: they have the rate which they themselves fixed. In this case, they have fixed a rate which is greater in respect of new entrants than of those who have borne the burden and the heat of the day. To that I have
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heard no answer, either here today or on any other occasion. But your Lordships have been very patient with me, interfering in a matter which does not concern me—I hope I may say that, in spite of any possible effect on my pension, about which I spoke lightly just now. I will not go on making observations. I leave the matter in your Lordships' hands. I do not propose to divide the House, for I do not wish to strain the tender conscience of anyone who might feel that his obligation to the Government must hold him on this occasion to desert his convictions. So I close by thanking your Lordships, and asking leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

ACCOMMODATION AGENCIES BILL
4.6 p.m.
Read 3a (according to Order).
Clause 1:
Illegal commissions and advertisements
1.—(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, any person who, during the continuance in force of this Act,—

(c) issues any advertisement, list or other document describing any house as being to let without the authority of the owner of the house or his agent,

shall be guilty of an offence.
EARL JOWITT EARL JOWITT moved, in subsection (1) (c), after "issues" to insert "without reasonable excuse." The noble and learned Earl said: My Lords, I do not in the least want to prevent this Bill from having a happy passage to the Statute Book. I hope that the Bill will do good work: I hope that it will check fraud. We have heard from the noble and learned Viscount who is in charge of the Bill that there has been certain fraud of a particularly mean type. When there is a great shortage of houses, as there is at the present time, it is both mean and despicable for anyone to say, for instance, that he must charge a fee to insert people's names on a list, when he has very slight prospect of getting them a house. I think that mean and contemptible, and I should desire to put down such a practice.
But having said that, I want to submit this. I think it a very dangerous thing that in these days, if we have a spare afternoon, we should cast about to see whether we cannot invent some new criminal offence. We should be most careful to see that any criminal offence which we propound should be so narrowly and concisely defined as not to bring within its mischief an honest man who has made an honest and genuine mistake. I believe that that is something about which we shall all agree. Of course, it is an answer, in one sense, to say that if a man has made a perfectly genuine mistake no one would be so foolish as to prosecute and, if they did, no judge would think anything larger than the smallest coin of the Realm was an appropriate measure to mark the offence. But I do not regard that as a complete answer. I do not think that we should propound criminal offences, even if that is so—as I am glad to think it is.
I ask your Lordships to consider with me some aspects of this Bill. It is not a highly technical and legal Bill, and what I have to say is really a matter of reading English. I am not moving anything with regard to paragraphs (a) and (b) of Clause 1, which begins in this way:
"Subject to the provisions of this section, any person who, during the continuance in force of this Act"—
and now I go to paragraph (c)—
"issues any advertisement, list or other document describing any house as being to let without the authority of the owner of the house or his agent,
shall be guilty of an offence."
For that offence he can be dealt with, in a proper case, by being fined £100, or by being sentenced to three months' imprisonment, or, I think, by being both fined and imprisoned. A list of houses, I should have thought is, in the nature of things, somewhat fluid. If I had a house to sell, I should, I hope, instruct a highly reputable firm of land agents to sell it for me. But I might, in process of time, decide to withdraw the house from their hands. Or I might succeed in selling it privately. In either of those cases, I should instruct that firm of land agents to take my house off their list. If everything went correctly, they would immediately communicate with all their branches and say, "This house is no longer on the list." But if by error, or
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for some other reason, a house which was once properly on the agent's list is not taken off when it should be, is that really a case in which it should be held that a criminal offence has been committed?
Take this case—the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack, or the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, will tell me if I am right or wrong: there is no Party issue in this. Suppose that I decide to change my home, and put my house on the books of Messrs. Knight, Frank and Rutley. Then I write asking them to take my house off their list, as I have sold it privately. Suppose, that being so, that on the following day they send out a list which still contains my house upon it, I conceive that they would have committed a criminal offence. I think that is undesirable. We should try so to define and limit our criminal offences as not to catch that sort of case within the language used. If I am right (and the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, will say presently whether I am), we have used phraseology in this Bill which is so wide that it would include a case of that sort, whereas what we all want to do is to catch the rascal who is making a good thing out of the present situation. We do not want to bring within the ambit of the criminal law anybody who has made, carelessly if you will, a perfectly genuine and honest mistake. As the Bill is drafted at present, anybody who sent out a list after instructions had been withdrawn would commit a criminal offence and could get three months' imprisonment. He might suffer the indignity of standing in a dock, although obviously the magistrate would say that it was purely a technical matter.
Your Lordships will remember that we cannot discuss matters on Third Reading unless there is an Amendment tabled, and I have put down this Amendment because I heard last night that this Bill was coming on to-day. I am not proud of this Amendment, and I realise that it may not be a satisfactory piece of machinery. I make it plain that I am not going to press the Amendment. I have raised this matter because I think there is to-day a tendency, which we should watch, for private Members to introduce Bills providing for new criminal offences which may be committed, and not be careful enough to define those offences in language so narrow as to make it appropriate to a criminal offence but

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not appropriate where there is a mere error. This Bill seems to be a glaring instance of that tendency. In another private Member's Bill which we discussed recently, where we dealt with removing earth from a site, your Lordships may remember that introduced an Amendment, which was accepted by the promoters of the Bill, to provide that no prosecution should be brought save by leave of the Attorney-General or the Director of Public Prosecutions. If that is in a Bill, there is some sort of safeguard that unworthy prosecutions will not be brought.
I have raised this matter in order that it may be discussed. I know that the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, who is in charge of this Bill, feels as I do about it. He wants to put down what I think he has established to be an abuse, but I am sure he wants to put it down by using language which, while it hits the rogue, does no harm to the honest man who makes a mistake. In this House we must always be careful and, if I may say so, particularly with regard to private Members' Bills, to see that they are drafted in such a way that we do not rope into the ambit of the criminal law all sorts of people who are not near it at all. As I have said, I do not propose to press my Amendment to this Bill; still, it will be a useful reminder in the future to define criminal offences in precise language, so that they hit only at people who should come within the ambit of the criminal law.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 15, after ("issues") insert ("without reasonable excuse").—(Earl Jowittt.)
4.15 p.m.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, with the general proposition of the noble and learned Earl I most warmly agree. I think it is most important in this House that we should narrowly examine any proposed provision which creates a new criminal offence, to see that it is properly limited and is not in such language as to punish people who do not deserve to be punished. On that proposition I am entirely at one with my noble and learned friend. But I suggest to him that the Amendment that he has put down is not one which we ought to adopt. I do so for two reasons.
First of all, the part of the Bill with which we are concerned, as the noble
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Earl has pointed out, is a prohibition on issuing a list describing a house as being to let, without the authority of the owner; and the object is to put a stop to what the noble Earl has rightly called a fraudulent and discreditable practice. I not only want to lay down the law, I want to encourage people to be careful to observe it. And if we introduce qualifying words like "without reasonable excuse," I feel that we are offering to people who may be disposed to perpetrate this discreditable trick the opportunity of looking for something or other which they can describe as a "reasonable excuse." Let me put this example. We are agreed that it ought to be a criminal offence to put forth a list of houses to let, without authority. Suppose one of these people does that and includes in the list a house which he knows is to let, though he has no authority to offer it to the public. Might not such a person say that he knew these premises were to let; that he therefore presumed the owner wanted to find a tenant, and that he hoped that was a reasonable explanation for supplying a list which included that house?
The truth is that this phrase "without reasonable excuse" is not a happy phrase, I venture to think—my noble friend will forgive me, because he said as much himself—because no sort of test is set up of what is meant by a "reasonable excuse." The case which my noble friend has in mind is one where authority has been given to an agent to include a house in a list. It is, consequently, included in the list, but that list happens to be issued the day after authority is withdrawn. I agree with the noble Earl that nobody would dream of prosecuting on those facts, because the explanation would be accepted at once.
If the noble Earl had proposed to introduce a provision that the authority of the Attorney-General must be obtained for a prosecution, I think it would not have been unreasonable. I am certain that if the Attorney-General had such facts before him he would not authorise a prosecution when there had been a pure mistake, or because it takes 24 hours to print and circulate a document. But we are not entitled to consider that situation: the only Amendment we can make is the one on the Order Paper. And I submit that the Amendment on the Order Paper is not very happily framed to meet the

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difficulty. Since we are engaged in suppressing what is a fraudulent trick, a dishonourable practice, we had better lay down the rule that a man is not to issue a list containing houses which he is not authorised by the landlord to include. The noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, in the course of his illustration, spoke of the Bill requiring, if an agent receives notice, after issuing a list, that the owner had found a tenant, or was withdrawing the house, that he—the agent—should circularise those getting his list to say, "That part of my list is no longer effective." I understood the noble and learned Earl to make that suggestion. There is nothing in the Bill requiring that. The question is, when the agent issues the list, is the house one which is in his list because he has been authorised by the owner to insert it? The fact that the list issued a week ago is to-day not effective as regards this house would not in itself constitute any breach of the clause at all.
EARL JOWITT: I agree with that. I did not mean to say to the contrary.
VISCOUNT SIMON: I thought that my noble and learned friend would agree. Therefore, that is the real limit of the issue. If I may be allowed to say so, I am glad that the noble and learned Earl has taken the opportunity of emphasising that we should not manufacture new crimes lightheartedly, and expose people to prosecutions without thinking carefully whether the case is one which ought to be dealt with, and is dealt with in properly limited language. So far, I go with him all the way, and I feel that his intervention is most useful, and puts a warning on record for all of us, and especially, perhaps, people who have been trained as lawyers, to watch constantly.
My submission is that this Bill, as it stands, aims at suppressing an undoubted evil, and that the rather far-fetched illustration introduced to explain why the Amendment has been put down is really dealt with quite satisfactorily by saying that nobody would prosecute and no judge would convict in such circumstances; and, further, that this phrase, "without reasonable excuse," is capable of furnishing other explanations, quite apart from the explanation that the agent has made a mistake; and it is therefore not to be encouraged. My notion
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is that by this Bill we are giving a stern warning to a set of people, who have been doing this at the expense of the public for some time, that these are the rules that are laid down; and that if these rules are not observed they will "catch it." I myself am not disposed to think that we are doing our duty in this respect properly if we introduce qualifying words, which might in some case be justified but which in other cases would not be justified, and would only encourage people to go on with what they are doing, without justification, in the hope that they could produce, when the time came, some excuse which might be classified as reasonable. Therefore, with great respect to the noble and learned Earl, and thanking him for raising the question, I would ask that the House should not make this Amendment.
4.24 p.m.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, your Lordships will naturally look to the sponsor of the Bill, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, for ultimate advice upon this particular Amendment; but since I have throughout the course of this Bill voiced the support of Her Majesty's Government, I think it would be right if I were to indicate what are the views of my right honourable friend upon this Amendment. May I begin by identifying myself strongly with the views expressed by the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, concerning the undesirability of the creation of wide and sometimes wild criminal offences in new legislation, and particularly in private Members' legislation? While he was speaking, I myself had a slight twinge of conscience, because I have in the last year attempted to introduce no fewer than four private Members' Bills into your Lordships' House. But I am happy to think, upon reflection, that the only time when I dealt with an offence—namely, in the Marriage (Enabling) Bill—it was to remove what is at present an offence and make it in future not an offence. So I have a fairly clear conscience. If I may say so with respect to the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, while we all appreciate what he is trying to do, I do not think that in his present wording he has quite achieved his object. I feel that the argument put forward by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, that this offence is one which a judge would of necessity deal with in the way he suggested, is

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advice which should prevail in your Lordships' House. With great respect to the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, I would advise the House to follow the guidance of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon.
4.27 p.m.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, I was going to rise to withdraw the Amendment, in any event, as I indicated I would. However, I do not like the argument which the noble Lord advanced last. I do not believe it is an adequate answer to this point to say: "The offence would be such a small one that the judge would say, 'I will treat you as a first offender, and let you go.' "I believe that is a dangerous principle. We must try in the future so to define new offences which we are creating in legislation as not to bring within their ambit at all the man who makes a perfectly genuine and honest mistake. But there is this about this Bill: it lasts for only five years. If there are any difficulties of this sort during the next live years, then in five years' time those of us who are still alive will have the opportunity of voicing the matter and putting it right. That is one reason which I feel justifies me in not pressing this Amendment.
I hope that by this discussion I have enlisted the sympathy of all your Lordships—the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, and the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, have voiced theirs—and that we shall in future be careful when we introduce all kinds of new offences in enacting new legislation, and particularly private Members' legislation, which I feel is the danger, so to circumscribe the language in which those offences are defined that we shall not bring in the perfectly honest man. I protested against the Cockfighting Bill, introduced a short time ago, because it did not define the subject matter of the offence. For the same reason, I protested against a recent Bill making it an offence to transport a cubic
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yard of soil, and I had the appropriate Amendment put in there. I am in a difficult position here, because I fully concur that the Amendment I have propounded to this Bill is quite unsatisfactory—I admit that frankly. Therefore, I do not think my Amendment would cure this trouble. But, by having raised the matter and received considerable support on the broad theme of the argument, I have done what I wanted to do; and, with your Lordships' permission, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Bill passed.

NAVY AND MARINES (WILLS) BILL
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
House resumed.

RUNCORN-WIDNES BRIDGE BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to with an Amendment: the said Amendment considered and agreed to.
WARKWORTH HARBOUR BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to with Amendments: the said Amendments considered and agreed to.

GATESHEAD EXTENSION BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to with Amendments: the said Amendments considered and agreed to.
House adjourned at half-past four o'clock.