Lords Sitting of 12 May 1953

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers
The Viscount Exmouth—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

CHESHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
HUDDERSFIELD CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
2.37 p.m.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I make a short announcement regarding future Business before we come to the Business on the Order Paper for this afternoon. First, I am afraid that it will be necessary for the House to meet at 2.30 p.m., instead of at 3 o'clock, on Thursday afternoon next, May 14, in order to enable us to cope with the Business which has accumulated before we can come to the important debate on Historic Houses which stands in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Methuen, for that day. Secondly, we shall receive the Flood Relief Bill from another place to-day. As your Lordships know, this Bill is urgently needed to enable local authorities, with the aid of the Treasury, to cope with important measures for relief and protection from the violence of the sea before next winter sets in. Noble Lords opposite have, I understand, kindly agreed to co-operate with us on this side of the House to press forward with that Bill. We shall accordingly take the Second Reading on Thursday next—that
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is part of the additional Business which has come up for that day—and the Committee and remaining stages on Tuesday of next week, May 19, in order that we may be able to return it to another place in time for their consideration of any Amendments which the House may think it necessary to suggest. I hope this will be convenient to noble Lords opposite.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, we certainly think it essential that we should co-operate with noble Lords in regard to the Flood Relief Bill, and we accept the arrangements which the noble Marquess has outlined.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I need hardly say that I do not intend it to be the usual practice that there should be such a short period between Second Reading and the later stages of a Bill.

CARLTON HOUSE TERRACE
2.40 p.m.
LORD MOTTISTONE: 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 observations to make concerning the future of Carlton House Terrace.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, it will be remembered that this subject was raised in your Lordships' House on March 6, 1951. The House was then informed that the previous Government were satisfied that the present premises of the Foreign Office were inadequate and would have to be replaced. They were also satisfied that Carlton House Terrace, reconstructed behind the present elevations facing the Mall and the Duke of York's Steps, would be a very suitable site for this purpose. Having regard to the need to curtail Government expenditure in the present economic situation Her Majesty's Government think it unlikely that work can start for some years.
LORD MOTTISTONE: My Lords, in thanking the noble Earl for his reply, I should like to ask this supplementary

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question. Are Her Majesty's Government in favour of preserving, without material alteration, the facades of Carlton House Terrace facing the Mall, which are a supreme example of civic architecture?
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I have no desire to range over the whole subject of whether Carlton House Terrace should be maintained in its present form. I feel that it would be far wiser to await a final decision about the future of Carlton House Terrace, and until there is some prospect of work starting.

DISMANTLING OF CORONATION STANDS
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: 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 can state that the stands in the vicinity of Westminster Abbey and Westminster Hall will be dismantled as rapidly as possible when the Coronation is over, in order that overseas and other visitors to London may be enabled to obtain an uninterrupted view—across Parliament Square and from other angles—of these ancient and venerable buildings.]
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, on certain sections of the route followed by the Coronation processions it will be possible to proceed with dismantling the stands immediately after Coronation Day. Some of the stands will, however, be retained in the East Carriage Drive for use in connection with the Servicemen's Review of July 5. On other sections of the route, and particularly in the Mall and Parliament Square, I anticipate that large numbers of people will wish to see the decorations, and many will visit London for that purpose. Subject, therefore, to weather conditions my right honourable friend the Minister of Works intends to leave the decorations in position for a period after Coronation Day and to begin their removal not later than Monday, June 22. In many cases the dismantling of the stands will involve the removal of the decorations, and where this is the case the stands will remain in
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position until the decorations are removed.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for his reply, I should like to ask whether the Government will bear in mind that if many of the Commonwealth and American visitors who are over here—some for the first and last time—could see these buildings in all their grandeur, it might have a stimulating effect on the donations to the Westminster Abbey Appeal Fund, which I understand is not making the progress we should all desire.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I would not disagree with the noble Viscount, but I feel, also, that the Commonwealth and American people who may come to this country for the Coronation will be stimulated to see the decorations for a unique event.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: But they will want to see the Abbey.

HARROW TRAIN ACCIDENT
2.43 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: 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 when the inspector's report into the train accident at Harrow on October 8, 1952, will be available to Parliament.]
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE CO-ORDINATION OF TRANSPORT, FUEL AND POWER (LORD LEATHERS): My Lords, your Lordships will appreciate that the report on this major accident will have to deal with the whole complex subject of automatic train control, and in these circumstances I should not wish to tie the Chief Inspecting Officer to a definite date for publication. But the report is well advanced, and I certainly hope that it will be available next month.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, while I am grateful to the noble Lord, the Secretary of State, for his reply, I am at the same time very disturbed, and I am sure the public will be, too. The public wish to know the cause of the accident. To find that is the inspecting

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officer's prime duty. It is not, I would submit, with respect to the noble Lord, the inspecting officer's duty to acquaint himself with all the remedies that will be taken in the years to come. It is seven months since this most tragic accident occurred. Unfortunately, the noble Lord will have to deal with many other accidents. I think the issue of this report should be expedited, and I hope the noble Lord will take note that it should be possible to deal with these things in a more expeditious manner in the future.
LORD LEATHERS: My Lords, I should like to say this, and I have referred to it in an Answer to an earlier Question. First of all, the inspecting officer made an immediate report after the close of the inquiry. That was a short statement which made it quite clear just what had been the cause of the accident. What he has pursued ever since is the very necessary consideration of what steps can best be taken to ensure that we do not get a repetition in the future. It is far better for us to have a report that is really worth while and which will give us guidance for the future. We shall have the report next month, and I think that is all I can say.

COASTAL FLOODING (EMERGENCY PROVISIONS) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
NAVY AND MARINES (WILLS) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

TRANSFERRED UNDERTAKINGS (COMPENSATION TO EMPLOYEES) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS, 1953
2.46 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend, Lord Leathers, I beg to move that these Regulations be approved. They are made under the 1947 Act and amend the principal Regulations which were approved by this House in June, 1950. The object of these amending Regulations
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is to rectify an anomaly which has since that time become apparent. Under the principal Regulations, to be entitled to compensation the claimant must have been an employee at the time when the transfer took place and, secondly, he has to have been employed in the industry since January, 1940. It so happens that in the road haulage business there are a certain number of people who have made their own businesses—in other words, have been owners or part owners, managing the business themselves. These men have subsequently, in certain cases, become employees. The typical example is a man who built up his own business, turned it into a limited liability company and became, for instance, managing director. That man would be excluded from consideration because, for part of the relevant period, he would have been owner or part owner. This Amendment is intended to cover precisely that case, so that such men can be brought in within the terms of compensation as laid down in the principal Regulations. There are two points arising from it. First, the man must still have served continuously, subject to certain limitations, during that period; and, secondly, the period of his service may in certain cases increase the amount of compensation which is due to him. I submit that this consideration was probably overlooked rather unwittingly when the original regulations were made, and that it is fair and proper that we should make an adjustment for it now. I hope your Lordships will agree. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Transferred Undertakings (Compensation to Employees) (Amendment) Regulations, 1953, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Wednesday, the 29th of April, be approved.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, on the face of it, and with the noble Earl's explanation, these Amendment Regulations appear to be quite in order and highly desirable. But I should like to ask him one question, as it is not made clear in the Order or the explanatory notice attached to it. As the noble Earl has quite rightly said, the case has to be covered of a man who was the owner of a road haulage business but who, during the term of the qualifying period, became an employee. The noble Earl has mentioned the case of a single

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owner who turns his business into a private limited liability company. Of course, it could also happen with a private ownership, a single ownership, without any limited company structure, or with a partnership. I am apprehensive, although I feel that the noble Earl is going to dispel my apprehension. Having had some experience of the lucidity with which he dealt with a great many intricate matters in our debates on the Transport Bill, I feel sure that this will come easily to him. I do not want to prevent the payment of compensation for hardship, but I do want to prevent anyone from getting compensation twice, because the single ownership business in the road haulage industry was a type of business most generously compensated under the 1947 Act.
Owing to a recent decision of your Lordships' House acting in its Judicial capacity, the compensation for compulsory acquisition has to be paid upon a gross assessment of profits, from which there need be no deduction for any salary or remuneration for the single ownership, and that will cost the British Transport Commission, at this late stage, something in the region of £2 million or more, in additional compensation. What I want to ensure—and I feel sure the noble Earl will be able to satisfy me on the point, which I will put as kindly as I can—is this. I do not want to see an individual who may have had a single ownership business for nine-tenths of the qualifying period, having come to some arrangement to be a shadow proprietor, with somebody else having the real financial interest behind it, now coming forward as the hard-done-by employee and getting compensation as well. If the noble Earl will assure me that that contingency is adequately covered, then I shall be satisfied; and so, I think, will noble Lords on this side.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for what he has said in general. He can set his mind at rest on this matter: there is no question of anybody being paid twice. A man has to be an employee at the time of transfer, in which case he could not come under the decision in the case of Road Haulage Executive v. Elrick, to which the noble Lord has referred. In regard to the other instance which the noble Lord mentioned, the instance in which a man has made an
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arrangement, I must say that, although it might have been conceivable that a man would make an arrangement, I think it would have been very difficult to do so; and I should have thought that that would be abundantly covered by these provisions. We have much more in mind the case in which, perhaps ten years or more ago, a man may have been, for a few years, an operator of a firm. I think noble Lords can rest assured. We do not know how many people are concerned, but we think there are very few. I hope that in these circumstances the noble Lord will accept what I have said.
On Question, Motion agreed to

PRINCIPAL PROBATE REGISTRY (NON-CONTENTIOUS BUSINESS) (CANTERBURY SUB-REGISTRY) ORDER, 1953
2.53 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD SIMONDS): My Lords, the object of the Draft Order which is laid on the Table of your Lordships' House is to amend the scheme of District Probate Registries which was established under Section 108 and the Second Schedule to the Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation) Act, 1925. Section 108 provides that that scheme can be amended only by an Order made by the President of the Probate Division, with the concurrence of the Lord Chancellor and the Treasury, and that before any Order is made it shall be approved by both Houses of Parliament by Resolution, with or without modification or addition.
The District Probate Sub-Registry at Canterbury which is reopened by the Draft Order was closed in 1940 on account of disturbance by enemy aircraft and lack of manpower. The Order by which it was closed was not made under the procedure which is now invoked but by an Order in Council made under the Administration of Justice (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1939. That Act was terminated in 1947, but not so as to affect things which had already been done under it. Consequently, in order to reopen the Sub-Registry at Canterbury it is necessary to comply with the procedure laid down in Section 108 of the Judicature Act, 1925.
I am satisfied that the Probate Sub-Registry at Canterbury should now be

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reopened. The war-time conditions no longer persist, and there appears to be the same public demand for a Sub-Registry in Canterbury as there was before the war. I should add that under the Affirmative Resolution procedure under which the Order is to be made, the draft has already been subjected to the scrutiny of, and passed by, the Special Orders Committee of your Lordships' House, and by the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments in another place. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Principal Probate Registry (Non-Contentious Business) (Canterbury Sub-Registry) Order, 1953, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Wednesday, the 29th of April, be approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ENEMY PROPERTY BILL [H.L.]
2.56 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, those Members of your Lordships' House who have had the courage to proceed even as far as the Long Title of this extremely complicated little Bill will, I think, agree with me that it hardly comes into the category of light bedside reading. It is a very detailed and a very complex measure, and I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will bear with me if I spend a little longer time than usual in striving to set out the principles of this measure, because it involves a large number of people and a large number of firms. It has a very important principle behind it, and, furthermore, this is the first occasion on which it is being considered by Parliament.
The Bill is an essential step in winding up the consequences of the war. Its object is to confer indemnity on private individuals, commercial or financial institutions, or Government Departments or officials, who, in the interests of the war effort, took action in regard to the property or rights of persons who were enemies or were believed to be enemies and who by that action may now be liable to legal proceedings by the former owners. The general effect of the Bill is
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that, provided action taken was in the spirit, if not within the letter, of the legislation relating to trading with the enemy, or was done under the authority of a Government Department, legal proceedings cannot be brought in respect of the action taken.
A Treaty of Peace generally includes provisions under which the ex-enemy Government on its own behalf, and on behalf of its nationals, agrees to waive claims against all parties in respect of actions taken because of the existence of a state of war and to accept the consequences of these actions. Waivers like those I am discussing were given after the 1914–18 war, and others will be found in the Treaties of Peace with the Satellite Powers, signed in 1947, and in the recent Treaty of Peace with Japan, signed as recently as 1951. Parliament is normally invited to enact legislation enabling effect to be given by Order in Council to provisions of the Treaty of Peace, such as I have indicated, and by this means they are given full legal force and effect in this country and provide a defence in our courts against claims by nationals of the ex-enemy country concerned arising out of actions taken during the war period. Thus, it appears that the principle that, after the war or period of emergency, action should be taken to bar claims against people in this country for what was done in good faith is generally accepted, and such action is normally the outcome of a Peace Treaty.
The present situation is one of unparalleled complexity to which normal procedure is not applicable. In the first place we have the very special position of Germany. In the second place, the long period of hostilities, the occupation of so much of Europe and of the Far East by Germany and Japan, and continual migrations and counter-migrations of people, have produced a state of affairs without parallel; and these afford opportunities for persons with extremely doubtful claims, or even, quite frankly, bogus claims, to start actions for all sorts of damage done to their property or rights which British companies and individuals might find it impossible at this stage to accumulate the evidence to resist. For example, a person thought to be a Japanese enemy, or a person who was thought to be technically an enemy when his country's territory was overrun, and whose bank balance or house property

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is in this country and was therefore regarded as enemy property, may now come forward and allege that he had, in fact, escaped before hostilities broke out and was never an enemy, that his property was wrongly treated as enemy property, and that in one way or other he suffered loss thereby.
Claims fall, roughly, into two types. In the first place, there is the sphere of trading with the enemy. Your Lordships will no doubt remember that the Trading with the Enemy Act, 1939, was intended to provide for the preservation of enemy property and to prevent commercial, financial or other dealings with, or for the benefit of, an enemy of the King. That Act proved a very important and successful weapon of economic warfare. Under it, all holders of enemy property—for instance, a bank holding a bank balance or a block of securities belonging to an enemy, or a person or firm owing a debt to an enemy, or an agent looking after an enemy's house—were required to report such property and were not allowed to deal with it except with permission. The term "enemy" was defined on a territorial basis. Enemy status depended not on a person's nationality so much as on the territory where he was resident. The word "enemy" included any individual resident in enemy territory, and "enemy territory" included territory Occupied by the enemy. I emphasise these definitions merely to draw attention to the fact that it is extremely difficult, and, indeed, sometimes impossible, to know with any certainty where an individual was resident at any particular time during hostilities.
Moreover, as successive countries were overrun and occupied, the field over which private individuals and the commercial community were required so to order their affairs as to deny any possible benefit to the enemy was enormously expanded. Indeed, the statutory requirements of necessity overrode pre-war relationships. Goods, instead of being dealt with in accordance with a pre-war arrangement, were reported to the Custodian of Enemy Property. May I briefly remind your Lordships what was the function of the Custodian of Enemy Property. These Custodians for England, Scotland and Northern Ireland were appointed by the Board of Trade under
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the Trading with the Enemy Act, 1939. Their statutory functions were the prevention of the payment of monies to enemies and the preservation of enemy property in contemplation of arrangements to be made at the conclusion of peace. Similarly, money, instead of being held by a bank at a customer's disposal, was payable to the Custodian. Securities which were deposited in this country for coupons to be cashed or dividends collected were reported to the Custodian as enemy property.
All these actions were in accordance with the law, always provided that the owner of the goods or securities, or the customer of the bank, was, in actual fact, an enemy; but, in some cases, subsequently available information showed that he was not an enemy at all. Acting on pre-war information, the only information at hand, a bank or a merchant could only assume that the customer was resident in enemy territory and act accordingly, whereas the customer might have left before the outbreak of war or before the occupation of his country by the enemy; or the owner of securities may have died without the knowledge of the bank in this country, and may have left them by will to a person who never became an enemy. Custodians of Enemy Property themselves are also open to attack for their part in any of these transactions. Strictly speaking, the Custodian was not authorised to deal with property in any of these cases if it was not enemy property: normally, he could act only on what was reported to him, and there was usually no way in which he could verify his information. The information available may have been inaccurate or incomplete, so that in all good faith he may have been handling property to which he had no right. In time of grave emergency it might well have been regarded as dereliction of duty if benefits in property had accrued to the advantage of the enemy while the Custodian was running around like a beetle on a hot plate busily engaged in proving its ownership to the hilt.
There is another point which would obviously have occurred to your Lordships from this particular aspect. Enemy air raids were another cause of actions which were inevitable at the time but which may have been outside the strict letter of the law. There was, of

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course, great anxiety by everybody concerned to clear goods from docks and warehouses as soon as possible; and in some cases, quite frankly, goods were sold without the prior legal requirements as to formal vesting having been strictly observed. Your Lordships may have noticed a case recently in the courts about a cargo of sponges which was disposed of in this way, the value of which rose threefold in the course of the negotiations; and there are many other cases obviously which have, or will, come to light.
Apart from actions in the sphere of trading with the enemy, property rights of various kinds have been prejudiced or infringed during and since the war at the instance of the Government. The net result is that persons and firms in this country are in real danger of having legal proceedings brought against them. Immediately after the end of active hostilities in Europe, all sorts of technical and scientific information about German industrial processes were collected by teams of scientists and industrialists who visited Germany, under Government auspices, with the express purpose of making this information available to manufacturers in this country and elsewhere. The results of their inquiries and of their discoveries were issued under the authority of the Government; but, none the less, our manufacturers using this information may have incurred risk of actions for infringement of copyright. I will return to this topic, if I may, when I come to deal with Clause 6, which is one of the most difficult and important clauses in the Bill. Again, there may have been infringements of German-owned patents which, under international agreement, have since been placed in the public domain.
Finally, there is the position of the present holders of property removed from Germany and allocated to us under the reparations programme. The House is no doubt aware that large quantities of plant and equipment came to this country in this way after the end of hostilities—plant and equipment which was very useful to British industry at a time when requirements were difficult to fulfil and when the reconstruction programmes were particularly heavy. As things stand at present, all these people, all the people I have been discussing, can be sued in the courts by the former owners con-
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cerned and might be hard put to find a legal defence, although they acted on direct instructions, or with the encouragement, of a Government Department.
With regard to property taken as reparation, the position is more serious, as the present holders purchased it in good faith. The position has already been dealt with partially in the Treaties of Peace with the Satellite Powers and with Japan, to which I have already referred. The Conventions with the German Federal Republic contain certain waivers of claims which the Federal Republic will give on their own behalf and on behalf of Germans under their authority. But, as your Lordships are only too well aware, the Federal Republic is not in a position effectively to bind all Germans, since the Federal Government do not exercise jurisdiction over Germans in the Soviet Zone of Germany or other former German territories not under their administration. In consequence, for the Government simply to seek power to give effect by Order in Council to waivers to be given by the German Federal Republic, as in the case of the usual kind of treaty waiver of claims, would not achieve the object. Nor can such waiver be made available in cases of formerly occupied countries. Her Majesty's Government have therefore come to the decision, after most careful deliberation and a minute examination of this problem, that a comprehensive measure is necessary. This is the measure which is now laid before your Lordships' House for approval this afternoon. The general effect of the Bill is that, provided the original action was taken in furtherance of the Trading with the Enemy legislation or by or under the authority of a Government Department, legal proceedings are not to be brought in respect of certain action.
The Bill is divided into three parts. The first part consists of general provisions as to enemy property, and property treated as enemy property. The second part contains special provisions in respect of Germany, and the third part consists of certain supplementary provisions. The General effect of Part I of the Bill is to validate transactions in relation to enemy property or property treated as enemy property in excess of powers conferred by law relating to trading with the

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enemy, but the transactions must have taken place in the circumstances laid down in Clause 1. These are, that the transactions must have taken place in time between September 3, 1939, the beginning of the war, and the commencement of the Bill, as enacted, and they must have taken the form of action under the Trading with the Enemy Act, 1939, whether the action was taken by Government authority or by some other person.
Clause 2 deals with three cases where money has been paid or withheld in these circumstances, and provides that the making or withholding of payment is deemed (I apologies for using that dreadful word) to have been authorised by the Act of 1939. Thus, for example, where someone paid money to the Custodian as being due to a creditor whom he thought to be but who was not in fact an enemy, the effect is that the person who paid it is given a discharge just as if the debt had been due to the enemy. Similarly, where someone has refrained from paving money in the ordinary course of business to somebody whom he thought to be but who was in fact not an enemy, he is relieved from any liability arising, from the withholding of payment. Clause 3 applies in a similar way to other dealings with property—for example, where property was sold by the Custodian, or transferred to an Allied Government, or released from Trading with the Enemy Control, and the property was regarded as enemy property but afterwards proved not to be. The effect is that the person who transferred the property is in the same position as if he had been authorised to make the transfer, and the person to whom he transferred it is given a good title.
Clause 4 seeks to ensure that monies derived by the Custodian of Enemy Property from investment of funds in his hands are paid only to the Exchequer, and to legalise payments which have already been made. The Custodian's monies are invested, as your Lordships' probably know, in Treasury Bills and in Ways and Means advances. The interest on these monies was paid into the Exchequer before a recent judgment of the Chancery Division of the High Court raised doubts as to the legality of this course and suggested that it was possible for any person whose money was held by the Custodian for any period and then released to him to claim to be paid in
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addition the precise share of investment interest proportionate to his capital monies. The number of individual owners to whom money has already been returned by the Custodian may be well over 100,000. The accounting operation involved, if this argument proved right, would be formidable and protracted, and scores of trained accounting staff would be required to deal with it. Quite apart from that, I am not certain that it is really in the interests of the country or of the taxpayer, because interest on the investments comes out of the funds provided by the taxpayer, and I see no reason why that benefit should accrue to anybody else. The Government therefore consider that no alteration is necessary in the existing practice, and that consideration is confirmed by this clause. Clause 5 defines a number of terms used in previous clauses and contains provisions as to evidence.
As to Part II of the Bill, Clause 6, the one to which I recently referred, is necessary because of an essential fact: that, in law, possession of a document does not carry with it a copyright in its contents. At the end of hostilities with Germany, a body known as the British Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee, a body which was given the inevitable nickname attached to its initials, B.I.O.S.—which I may say was not the name by which it was known by the majority of Army units with which it came into contact during the war—was sent to Germany by the Government, with instructions to collect technical information about industrial processes, including documents, drawings and patent specifications, and, in some cases, prototype plant and equipment. Information was made available to manufacturers in this country and elsewhere by these investigators. Similar action was taken by the Americans. The two countries in fact worked hand in glove in this matter: each had the full benefit of information gained by the other.
As part of the drive to increase production and to improve our competitive position in world markets, British industrialists were encouraged to take full advantage of the fruits of this combined operation. The copying, the importation, or distribution to the public of copies of these documents and drawings in many cases infringed copyright—that is, German-owned United Kingdom copyright. Industrialists who made use of this

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information with the encouragement of the Government may have incurred risk of action for infringement. It is essential to protect our people against claims in respect of the original infringing act if done by or under the authority of a person acting on behalf of the Crown, and also in order that the post-war user of such infringed works may be protected against any claims which might arise out of some subsequent infringing acts done since the war or which may be done in the future. To give your Lordships only one example, extensive use has been made of captured German records for the purpose of official histories of the war. No doubt many of those records have found their way into the present popular Adulation of Field Marshal Rommel, and no doubt there will be some more adulation applied by those engaged in writing books extolling the British soldiers who finally succeeded in defeating the much-adulated and talented Field Marshal.
Clause 7 is intended to protect persons who during the war infringed German-owned patents or registered designs. I rather hesitate to mention the word "patent" in the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, as I remember that he steered the Patents Bill through your Lordships' House until it became the Patents Act, and by the time he had finished doing so he knew a good deal more about Patent Law in this country than most members of the Patent Bar. He will therefore forgive me if I just mention in passing that the grant of a patent is the right to make, use or exercise some invention, whereas the registration of a design protects only those aspects of an article which appeal to the eye. Thus, a process of weaving cloth may be paten table whereas the design of the finished piece could only be registered. Many of the patents remained in the name of German owners on the Register of Patents in the United Kingdom Patent Office from the beginning of the war until they expired or until they were vested in the Custodian of Enemy Property on May 2, 1951, when all patents then remaining on the register in German proprietorship were vested in the Custodian by a Board of Trade Order. It is quite possible that a German owner or German ex-owners could now bring actions in respect of in-
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fringements which took place while the patents concerned were on the Register in their names. Such claims would be quite contrary to our international obligations on the subject of German-owned patents. This particular clause therefore ensures that such claims are barred. It also covers registered designs, rights in design being closely associated, of course, with patent rights.
Clause 8 is intended to protect the Crown against claims by Germans in respect of the use of their inventions for war purposes while they were enemies. In a sense, the clause is complementary to Clause 7 which I have just been discussing as the reasons for protecting individuals and manufacturers who during the war infringed German patents apply here also. Clause 9 protects those manufacturers who, at the request of a Government Department, passed on secret information to contractors in breach of contract. Arrangements for technical information to be passed on by one manufacturer to others were common in war time and, when the question of increasing production of a particular munition or store was paramount, no consideration of disclosure being in contravention of a pre-war licence agreement with the enemy could be allowed to stand in the way. It is now necessary to give protection to those of our manufacturers who, quite rightly and properly, acted in this way. I should have liked to give some examples coming under the head of these last three clauses—Clauses 7, 8 and 9—because they are of extreme interest, but I now realise that there is considerable danger in so doing because the German owner of a patent which I might mention might be encouraged to launch a claim for damages against a British manufacturer or seek compensation from the Crown for infringement of patent or unauthorised disclosure of information.
Clause 10 applies to certain descriptions of "property allocated by the Inter-Allied Reparation Agency by way of reparation from Germany." The descriptions of property concerned are very wide and they include plant, equipment, ships, aircraft and other chattels, and certain non-German currencies. The Inter-Allied Reparation Agency was an international agency established by the Paris Agreement on January 14, 1946—the Agree-

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ment on German reparations. Its purpose was to provide for equitable distribution amongst the Allies of German assets available as reparations. The Agreement divided those assets into two categories. The first of those, Category A, comprised German external assets and all other forms of reparation except those included in Category B, which were, roughly, industrial and capital equipment removed from Germany. Most of the equipment was allocated to this country and was disposed of by the Ministry of Supply to firms in this country who needed it for post-war reconstruction of various and numerous kinds. The object of this clause is to protect the present owner against proceedings for its recovery and to give him a good title.
Clause 11 deals with physical property removed from Germany and imported into this country by or under authority of a Government Department without being actually allocated as reparation. In fact, a quantity of plant and equipment was removed from Germany and used in this country either for actual production or for research and development. Clauses 12 and 13 are mainly interpretative. As to Part III of the Bill, I think I need make reference only to Clause 17, which provides that the Bill shall operate as from the date of its introduction into Parliament. Actions begun earlier are not affected, but, under this clause, protection is to be afforded as far as possible to the defendant in any action begun on or after that date.
Your Lordships will, I hope, appreciate from this that the provisions of the Bill do not apply simply to the protection of bureaucracy—very far from it. I have explained, I hope to your Lordships' satisfaction, how many and varying sections of the community played their parts and did what was required of them so as to deny any possible benefit to the enemy in the sphere of enemy property. These persons are now liable to have the legality of their actions called into question. They may have great difficulty, so long after the event, in satisfying the courts that what they did was strictly covered by the law. If so, they may have damages, and heavy damages, awarded against them, to say nothing of the trouble and expense to which they will have been put. The Government feel that
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everything possible should be done to mitigate possible hardship arising from these circumstances.
I have a word of apology, perhaps, for this Bill, not only because it is an extremely complex measure, which I am afraid cannot be avoided, but for the fact that it is an indemnity Bill, and indemnity Bills in general are not particularly popular measures. The reason is obvious. Indeed, on the occasion when the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, introduced his Liberties of the Subject Bill, I fulminated a good deal myself on the subject. The reasons for the unpopularity of such Bills are I suppose, because their two chief features are that they bar the subject's right of access to the courts, and, of course, they are retrospective in nature. But the reason for barring access to the courts here is simply that we are dealing with what was done by persons who took actions for which there was no legal authority, but who did so in the interests of the country and at a time when those interests were most gravely threatened. When the action was taken in the stress of war, and when transactions have since been entered into on the faith that what was done was done with legal authority, there is ample precedent on the Statute Book for doing what this particular Bill proposes, so that those who acted in good faith or are holders for value will know precisely where they stand. An indemnity Bill also is necessarily retrospective in nature, as its whole object is to legalise actions which have already been taken. I do not feel, therefore, that objection can properly be taken to the present measure on this score.
But objection can most certainly be taken to the intolerable time which I have spent in seeking to explain this complicated measure to your Lordships. I felt, however, that a mere perusal of the Bill would not be any great comfort or support to anyone. I have now attempted, somewhat clumsily maybe, but to the best of my ability, to lay the essential principles of the Bill before your Lordships, and I hope you will now be good enough to give it a Second Reading. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Mancroft.)
3.26 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I am sure that all your Lordships are very much indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, who, with his usual lucidity and courtesy has been at such great pains to explain this Bill to the House. As he has rightly said, it is a highly technical Bill; and it really stems from the fact that there can be no Peace Treaty between this country and Germany, otherwise all that is in this Bill would be contained in that Treaty. In the absence of a Treaty, it has to be spelled out at this inordinate length. The noble Lord has a great deal of my sympathy. I remember being, in 1949, in the same position as that in which he now finds himself, when I piloted through your Lordships' House the Disposal of Enemy Property Bill. I had the advantage—or, perhaps I thought then, the disadvantage—of having to meet the keen opposition of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, who spoke from a vast experience of this particular subject—I am sorry not to see him in the House this afternoon—and also that of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, who ably aided and abetted Lord Simon. I am indeed glad to see Lord Maugham making one of his all too rare appearances in your Lordships' House to-day. I hope that he will summon up sufficient courage to put the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, on the rack, as I am certain that no one but a most eminent lawyer could digest this Bill in all its implications.
The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, has been frank. This is a Bill which none of us likes. We like no Bill that bars anyone from "access to the courts"—and that is the exact expression which the noble Lord himself used. Again to use his words, "it protects bureaucracy," and when bureaucracy sets out to protect itself it does the job well and truly; and undoubtedly it has done so in this Bill. I suppose the essence of it all is to give a legal interpretation to the old adage that "All's fair in love or war." That is what the Bill really says. Let me set the noble Lord's fears at rest straight away by saying that we shall agree to the principle of this Bill—the principle is inevitable—but at some later date we shall very seriously look at the infringements, if any, of the proper rights of the
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individual, to see whether or not the Bill goes too far in its effort to give protection to those who acted in good faith, and by doing so protects those who acted in other than good faith; furthermore, to see whether the proper rights of the individual are being unnecessarily infringed.
Both the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, and I, find ourselves in some difficulty. We could explain this Bill far better if we could give illustrations, pro and con. The noble Lord has rightly said that it would be highly dangerous to do so from the Government side, and I do not intend to embark upon examples from this side. But there are one or two things to which I want to draw your Lordships' attention. I am going to ask the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, whether he will allow more time between the Second Reading this afternoon and the Committee stage of the Bill than the Government seem to have been disposed to give to us in recent months. I do not think there is any undue hurry to get this Bill on to the Statute Book, and I feel certain the noble Lord will agree with me that, in the light of the explanation he has given, for which we have been waiting, it will be necessary for us to examine some clauses in the Bill. The noble Lord said that he could not find anybody who knew much about this Bill outside the Department which produced it. I have tried equally, and cannot find anybody who has read it. So we have all waited for the lucid explanation we have had this afternoon, which will assist us materially in our study of the Bill.
There is one peculiar feature of this Bill—it has three Parts and three interpretation clauses. In my short Parliamentary life I do not remember seeing a Bill that had three interpretation clauses. Every Part starts off to cover the bureaucracy and the individual in a different way. Part I deals with the interpretation, literally and otherwise, of the Trading with the Enemy Act, and of the disposal of enemy property. It talks about
"a competent authority purporting to act under the Trading with the Enemy Act"
and about
"any person in purported compliance with a restriction or obligation proposed by or under the Act of 1939."
That umbrella grows bigger as the Bill goes on, and covers a multitude of things. I have no particular complaint about

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Part I, because it is fairly clear. The noble Lord argued very well his case for not giving interest on money accruing through the disposal of alleged enemy property. He made a very good case: the noble Lord is a skilled advocate. But he will agree with me that there may be a case to be argued on the other side, and at some future time we may decide to argue it. I was pleased to see that subsection (4) of Clause 3does not bar from the courts anyone who thinks he has a case to argue that property taken from him by the Custodian was not, in fact, enemy property. That is a good protection.
When I come to Part II, I find myself in some difficulty. Clause 6 deals with the infringement of copyright and now, apart from a "competent authority purporting to act," we have
"a person acting on behalf of the Crown, or a person authorised by a person so acting…or a person acting on behalf of the Crown, or on behalf of a Power allied with His late Majesty…."
We now have a different set of people. I can imagine many things that could be done which would come outside the legitimate category which the noble Lord has mentioned. He mentioned, for instance, the difficulty of people using documents which have come out of Germany. I expect that future historians—and the world never lacks historians, competent or otherwise, who will go an writing history for years to come—are likely to infringe some copyright. I should like to ask the noble Lord a question on this point. Am I right in saying that the Bill deals only with an infringement during the specified period and that if it takes place after the specified period, such an infringement is actionable and not invalidated by this Bill? What about the case of a book written after the period of invalidation, if I may so term it? Is that actionable or is it not? What happens if it uses material which came from an enemy source before the end of the prescribed period?
When we get to Clause 7, we are again in some difficulty. While Clause 6 deals with copyrights and has certain limitations, Clause 7 deals with patents. It begins:
"Subject to the provisions of this section, where at any time within the war period anything was done so as to infringe a patent,…"
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That is very wide. I may be wrong, but it does not speak of any infringement by "a competent authority purporting to act," and there is no question of good faith. If a patent has been infringed during the prescribed period, then this Bill invalidates any access to the courts. I wonder whether that is what the Government intend. The scope is so wide that it could cover people who should not be covered. It is only fair to say that, as the noble Lord himself knows, in time of war a number of enemy patents were used by ourselves and our Allies, and a number of things came out of Germany which never come out of Germany under the cloak of "a competent authority" or anyone "acting with the authority of the Crown." Does the noble Lord really mean that no action can lie if it can be established in the court that such an act was committed? It appears to me that this Bill invalidates any action. I am not a lawyer, as your Lordships know, but I have applied as best I can a common-sense, layman's interpretation to a lot of involved legal jargon, and I am apprehensive that the umbrella which the noble Lord wishes to put up to cover legitimate cases will also cover a number of illegitimate cases. This, I feel, would not be the desire of Her Majesty's Government.
I am not going to discuss Crown use. We then come to Clause 9—that is, the disclosure of secret information. As we all know, there were many British firms operating in this country, under licence and agreement, on German patents, and the general practice was not to disclose any information. Sometimes, however, they were forced to disclose this information—as Clause 9 says:
"at the request of a Government department, 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."
That is a wide interpretation, but I am not going to quarrel with it. However, under an umbrella or that description, there might be a number of disclosures made for the personal gain of the unscrupulous individual, which would be difficult to prove in a court of law in the face of an Act on the lines of this Bill.
I hope that between now and the Committee stage—and I hope the noble Lord will agree that the date of that shall be mutually arranged, through the usual channels—he will give consideration to

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these matters. We shall do our best to help him. As I have said, we do not quarrel with the principle of this Bill. It is a necessary Bill; but anyone who has the interest of the individual at heart, and who is jealous of the liberty and rights of the individual, must, as the noble Lord, with his usual frankness, admitted, look with keen suspicion on any Bill that goes to the length of this attempt to indemnify certain people and to bar access to the courts of this country under such a wide umbrella. I believe that the noble Lord, as an eminent member of the legal profession, and all noble Lords in your Lordships' House, who are ever jealous of preserving the individual's right of access to the courts, will agree that this umbrella should not bar from access to the courts—as it does, as the Bill is drawn, to a great degree—anybody who feels aggrieved at a wrongful act done under the guise of war or at an indemnifying Bill following the acts of war. With those few remarks—because I do not profess to be able to understand much of what is contained in this Bill—we on this side of the House will vote for the Second Reading of the Bill. But we reserve the right to examine it carefully between now and the Committee stage to protect the interests I have mentioned.
3.45 p.m.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, at the outset, I should like to make it clear that I am not taking over the invitation of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, to the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, and trying to put somebody on the rack—far from it. I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, on the lucid way in which he has explained this complicated Bill. He has given us a clear overall picture, and I am sure we are grateful to him. So far as I can see, this is in no way a controversial measure. It has aroused no interest whatever in any quarter. No victims of the Custodian of Enemy Property have raised their voices, nor have any professional bodies had any fault to find with the provisions of the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, said, Part I of the Bill seeks to indemnify the Custodian and others acting under the powers of the Board of Trade for actions taken between September 3, 1939, and the passing of this Bill as an Act. My only experience of the Custodian of
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Enemy Property during this period was an attempt to negotiate the purchase from him of a company. However, he was unwilling to "play," and I have no interest to disclose in regard to the provisions of this Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Man-croft, explained, Part I of the Bill gives the Custodian indemnity in respect of actions taken which may not have been strictly legal at the time.
Part II of the Bill, which is concerned solely with Germany, covers various activities during the war and after the end of hostilities. Clause 6, I feel, is particularly useful, in that it protects persons acting on behalf of the Crown who may have infringed copyrights if those copyrights were in existence before March 29, 1949. The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, has reminded us that soon after the end of hostilities special teams were sent to Germany to collect industrial information. I well remember that members of these teams had to wear uniform and were I given temporary military rank, so urgent was the gathering of this information considered to be. In fact, I think it is now generally agreed that the results were disappointing, and that although the reports of the teams may have infringed copyrights, they added little to our industrial knowledge. Your Lordships will note that Clause 7 deals with infringements of patents and registered designs, and we have had the difference explained to us. Apparently, this clause does not cover trade marks, and no doubt for very good reasons; but perhaps the Government will give us a little further information on that point. In Clause 9 mention is made of the war period. This is later defined in Clause 13 as beginning on September 3, 1939, and ending on July 9, 1951. It would be interesting to know why this latter date, particularly, is considered appropriate.
Clause 10, as has been explained, deals with property taken by way of reparation: and it will be noted from subsection (6) that the property concerned includes ships. I understand that there are a number of German ships affected which have not been condemned as prize, and in relation to such ships the effect of this Bill may not be beyond dispute. I believe—I may be wrong—that when a ship is condemned as prize, that condemnation is internationally recognised; but it is not so certain that such international recognition will necessarily be given to the

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effect of this Bill if one of the German ships in question should be made the subject of proceedings. By way of illustration, let us suppose that the German shipowners sought to regain their ship by taking legal proceedings when it was in some South American port. Does this Bill go far enough to safeguard the title of the present owner in circumstances of that sort. I should also like to draw your Lordships' attention to Clause 12, and, in particular to the definition of a German enemy as
"an individual being a German national resident in Germany or in enemy territory other than Germany…."
The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, has touched on this point, but I should like a little further explanation, because it would include a refugee of German nationality who had taken refuge from the Hitler régime, shall we say, in Denmark, which was later overrun by the Germans. Such a person might not necessarily be an enemy in any real sense, but none the less might lose his rights as if he were a real enemy, under the definition of Clause 12 of this Bill. It may well be an impossibility to exclude such individual cases from the operation of this Bill, but I submit that innocent people of this kind have a case for consideration, and I would ask the Government for further clarification on this point. Apart from these very minor points of criticism. I think this is a most useful Bill, and I hope your Lordships will give it a Second Reading.
3.51 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I am afraid I cannot altogether agree with the noble Lord who has just resumed his seat in commending this Bill. There are certain aspects of it which seem to me to be quite iniquitous, especially in the first Part, which has been welcomed by previous speakers. In effect, it is a Bill to provide that people whose property has been wrongfully disposed of shall be deprived of all their rights in respect of it. That seems to me not only a thoroughly illegal proceeding—only to be made legal, of course, by means of an Act of Parliament—but a thoroughly immoral proceeding, too. I think this is a good example of how one evil is derived from another. It used to be an accepted principle of the law of civilised States that the private properly of an individual was
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not, so to speak, stamped with the impress of the State to which he belonged, and that it could not be lawfully taken by a victorious Power at the end of a war. That principle, which was a sacred principle of international law until the First World War, was abrogated at the Treaty of Versailles. I have always thought that was a thoroughly immoral thing to do, although it was understandable, in a way, in view of the new forms of warfare which prevailed during that period.
But in this last war large numbers of individuals, in all sorts of countries which were thoroughly hostile to the Nazi régime and which were our Allies as far as they could be, but which were overrun by the German armies, became technically enemies, and their property thereupon became subject to our own Statutes; and it became necessary that their property, which was, say, in London or in some other part of this country, should be handed over to the Custodian of Enemy Property and sold by him. There have been cases before our own courts. There is a very good illustration of this in a case in which a Danish chemical company had deposited a large quantity of insulin in a London bank before the war started. As soon as the German armies occupied Denmark that insulin became technically enemy property, and it was handed over to the Custodian, who proceeded to sell it, at very much below its real worth, against competitive offers by concerns in this country, one of which afterwards purchased it from the concern that bought it from the Custodian of Enemy Property, at a very large profit to that purchaser. It has now been held, and no doubt quite correctly as a matter of technical law, that the Danish company is not entitled to have that profit back. Not only does it not get its insulin, but it does not get the profit which was made in this way. That case, of course, is outside this Bill it comes under the Act under which enemy property is taken over by the Custodian.
The purpose of this Bill is to subject property which never was enemy property at all, to exactly the same control. A large number of German Jews who owned property in London and in other parts of this country succeeded in escaping from Germany on the eve of the war. In the chaos of that time, many of them found their way to the United States, to Brazil and to other States all over the world.

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They were not only Jews. Other people living in Denmark, Holland and other countries owning property in England, or Jews who had succeeded in getting their property away in the nick of time—valuable jewellery and articles of that kind—into banks in London, and who afterwards themselves escaped, were unable in the distress of those terrible times to get to London but "fetched up" in this country or that all over the world. This property, on the face of it appearing to be the property of enemy nationals—because so far as the banks or other concerns in London who had the custody of it realised, it belonged to people who were still resident in Germany—was handed over to the Custodian, and the Custodian disposed of it, often at a very small price indeed. If the information which I have is correct, it was disposed of often at not more than a third of its real value, to people who came along and made offers for it. That is understandable in the circumstances, because times were difficult and it is quite intelligible that the Custodian, acting with the best will in the world, should have been prepared to dispose of the property in that way.
But is it right that the purchasers of that property should now be protected by a British Act of Parliament against those people whose property it still morally is? As the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, who explained this Bill so lucidly this afternoon, appreciates perfectly well, if you sell somebody's property without any legal authorisation to do so, then the sale is quite ineffective and it remains the property of the original owner. The object of this Bill is to deprive that man of his property; to confirm the position of the person who purchased it, often at a very small figure, and not to give the original owner any right beyond that of receiving what was paid for it, which may not be more than a half or one-third or even one-tenth of its real value. Surely that, on the face of it, is a completely wrong thing. The noble Lord seeks even to deprive him of the interest which may have accrued on this small sum of money, and says that that is necessary in the interests of the taxpayer. I think that is rather a mean attitude to adopt.
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My first inclination was, even if I were the only one, to divide the House against this Bill, but I appreciate that there are many parts of it which are necessary because there are, no doubt, possibilities of technical rights of action which ought not to be encouraged. A bank which handed over valuable jewellery which had been deposited with it to the Custodian would be technically guilty of a conversion, and it is quite right that the bank which acted perfectly properly in that way should be protected. I agree with the noble Lord when he said that it was in the interests of the war effort. But the action of the persons who purchased a great deal of this property—the insulin, for example, in the case to which I referred a moment ago—could hardly by any stretch of imagination be described as necessary in war interests; and it is difficult to see how it was necessary in the war interests that that insulin should be sold at all. One would have thought that it might have been kept for the Danish owners against the time when the Nazis were defeated and peace came once more.
The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, made a great point that many of these claims would be bogus claims and that it would be difficult to prove that they were bogus. But surely it is for the man who makes the claim to satisfy a court of law in this country that he had a genuine claim in the first instance. I cannot see that there is any real force in that argument and I suggest that it is wrong to deprive people of their genuine rights of property on the basis that there may be a certain number of bogus claims which are difficult to deal with. Surely it is a new proposition that because there may be bogus claims the people whose claims are bona fide and genuine should be deprived of their rights. The noble Lord used continually the expression "acquired in good faith" or words of that kind. I cannot find in Clause 3 of this Bill, which is the operative clause in respect of these particular matters, that there is any need for the person who acquired the property or rights to have acted in good faith. Perhaps the noble Lord would point out where that essential condition is proposed in this Bill.
I ask the noble Lord and the Government whether they really think that this part of the Bill is necessary. It may

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save a few pounds, shillings and peace, but I suggest that if it does so it will do so at the expense of a great deal of honour. There are at present a number of unfortunate people who have been harried for many years, who had property which they succeeded in bringing away under great difficulty and strain and who deposited it in this country just before the war. These are affected, and I should like to know how much in pounds, shillings and pence it is calculated that this country is going to save by sacrificing its honour in this way. Many of these people whose property rights are being so confiscated are foreign nationals who have become naturalised in the United States, or in the States of South America, or in other States all over the world; and it does not, in my submission, consort with the honour of this country to take action of this kind, confiscating, in effect, the property of friendly neutrals.
We ourselves are maintaining, and maintaining with great vigour, our rights against the Iranian Government, who broke their Treaty and confiscated British property interests without offering proper compensation. I would remind you of the recent case in which the late Attorney-General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, made a moving and eloquent appeal—the case of the "Rose Mary," which many of your Lordships will have read—against the validation of such wrongful deprivation of rights of property. And now Her Majesty's Government introduce a Bill which, in my submission, is flatly contradictory to the principles which Sir Hartley Shawcross was maintaining and which I submit it has always been the pride of this country to maintain in the past. I therefore associate myself strongly with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, in pleading that there should be ample time before the Committee stage and that the Government should seriously consider whether they cannot do something to provide effective compensation for the rights of property which this Bill purports to confiscate. All necessary protection of banks and others against technical actions for conversion and such things can perfectly well be provided for, without sacrificing the genuine rights of the real owners of this property. I am sure that the noble Lord—and, indeed, the noble and learned
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Lord who sits on the Woolsack, who has, with distinction, served as a judge for so long—must realise that this is a very serious business; and I hope they will be able to devise some method of ensuring that the rights of these people are preserved.
4.5 p.m.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, I rise for only a moment. I am sorry I was not able to be here to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, said, though he told me in advance what he was going to say. In the first place, I think it is necessary that we should have some Bill to clear up this matter. All sorts of difficult situations have arisen, through nobody's fault. With much of what the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, said I am in considerable agreement. There will be a great deal of sympathy with his point concerning the property of individuals affected by the war. The old doctrine was that you did not take private property. I can remember Lord Buckmaster protesting violently after the First World War against what we were doing then. It would obviously be an unpleasant thought if, as a result of this Bill, some Jewish refugee who was technically an enemy national but who had managed to escape, say, to Sweden, was deprived of any sort of right to get back his property which had been deposited in an English bank and had been sold. That would be to deal with the matter in a way which would make all of us rather unhappy.
I suggest that the House should give a Second Reading to this Bill to-day and that there should be, as Lord Lucas and Lord Chorley have both asked, ample time to consider between now and the Committee stage the points they have raised. I suggest, further, that whether or not these heart-breaking cases which have been suggested really do arise, the House should be given sonic sort of statement or schedule of the sort of cases that arise. We should be in a much better position if we were able to study the details of the Bill very carefully and find some solution which. is satisfactory to us all. I think that would be a practical solution. I make the further suggestion that, following a practice which we have recently developed in this House, this is a case in which the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, and the noble Marquess the Leader of the House might see some of

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us between now and Committee stage. There is no Party controversy about this Bill. We all want to do what is the right thing in the differing circumstances. I can promise that we will help to try to hammer out a solution which will satisfy us all. I must say that in view of what has been said by other speakers we ought to be given an opportunity to consider this Bill very carefully; and it will be helpful if we can have, as I have suggested, some sort of statement as to the nature and type of the cases which may arise.
4.8 p.m.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I am grateful to the House for the friendly way in which this Bill has been received. To deal with one or two questions which have been put to me by some noble Lords, and with the question that was raised by the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, I shall say at once that I have consulted with my noble friend Lord Onslow, who at the moment is dealing with these matters from the Government Front Bench, and he assures me that the "normal channels" will immediately start to flow. This is indeed a complicated Bill, and it is important that we should not rush it. The Government will welcome any assistance they can get. As Lord Jowitt has said, this is a non-Party matter, and we shall most certainly welcome any help in the working out of details and the clarifying of doubtful points. Lord Jowitt asked me whether I could give particulars of the sort of cases that are likely to arise. I can: but I am afraid I have not got them here in a form which would be digestible by the House. I will see that the information shall be made available to the noble Lord.
On Clauses 6 and 7 two or three questions arose which I think I can answer. Clause 6 validates both infringements during the war period and subsequent infringements. That, I am afraid, is inevitable, because they may all flow from what originally was brought out of Germany. It is a difficult and tricky matter and I will go carefully into the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. The same remark applies to Clause 7, an equally difficult one. Clause 7 applies to infringement by anyone because it was agreed internationally some years ago that all German patents were to be thrown open to the public.
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Both these points, and the point about ships raised by the noble Lord, Lord Jessel, in his interesting speech, the point about the identity of the enemy and the Jewish refugee who has gone to Denmark, are all difficult points, and some may well be borderline cases. I think I suggested in my speech, and indeed it is perfectly clear from the Bill, that it is most difficult to lay down a hard and fast rule. If we have not done it sufficiently tidily in the Bill, we shall be most happy to receive the assistance of noble Lords opposite to help make it more tidy still. It has been pretty carefully worked out, but, on behalf of the draftsmen, I certainly would not claim infallibility. I think you will find, when you come to try to improve the Bill, that it is very difficult to cover every case and to meet every objection to it.
There is one thing I should like to say quite definitely. We may not have got this Bill absolutely correct in every detail, but I assure the House that there is nothing whatever dishonourable about it. The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, suggested that there was something in this Bill of which we might be faintly ashamed. I can assure the noble Lord that there is nothing whatever in this Bill of which he need be ashamed in any way, and that his country's honour and name are in no way impugned by any single provision of it. Again, I reassure the House that I will do everything possible to meet the reasoned and helpful criticism that has been made; and so far as lies within my power ample time shall be given to the consideration of the points that have been raised.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

AUXILIARY FORCES BILL [H.L.]
4.14 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this Bill which I ask the House to read a second time is a Consolidation Bill, and it will in the ordinary course be sent to the Joint Committee which deals with Consolidation Bills. In accordance with the usual practice, I think it is necessary only for me to move it formally. Accordingly, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a,—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

HOSPITAL NURSING SERVICES
4.15 p.m.
LORD CROOK LORD CROOK rose to call attention to the Hospital Nursing Services; and to move for Papers, The noble Lord said: My Lords, it is something over four years since your Lordships were last invited to discuss nursing subjects, and to-day, in moving the Motion standing on the Order Paper in my name, I move a Motion phrased in somewhat wider terms, in order to afford an opportunity of looking at a rather wider aspect of the subject than the general aspect of the shortage of nurses which we discussed in 1948. I think it will be agreed by all of us that our efficiency as a nation depends, to a large extent, upon the way in which we can deploy our manpower; and the deploying of our manpower depends, again to a large extent, upon the health that we can bring to our people. At times, such as the occasion of the recent tragic Tube accident and other tragedies, we hear much of the heroism of doctors and nurses; but, as many of your Lordships know, the daily task goes on for all of them, all the time, often unrecognised and unrewarded. How much we owe to them some of us know, and let me say how glad we are to see the noble Lord who is to reply to this Motion to-day sitting there fit and able to reply because he has been the recipient recently of such excellent care from the medical and nursing services.
The truth is that we are fortunate to have in employment in our hospitals today as many as 47,000 fully trained nurses and some 8,000 part-time nurses. I note with some concern that this campares with the statement in 1948 that there were 52,000 trained nurses employed and another 48,000 in training. I quote from the OFFICIAL REPORT, Column 308 of November 9, 1948. The figures, therefore, of present employment fall far short of the ability to meet the needs of the present situation, much less the potential growth of the Health Service.
On the former occasion to which I have referred, I ventured to bring to your Lordships' attention some of the problems which meant that young women were discouraged from becoming student nurses; and I pointed out, or sought to point out, with the assistance of other noble Lords, that the total manpower that was available in the hospital service was not deployed effectively and to the best advantage. On that occasion I suggested that too much domestic employment was given to nurses, and that that was having a prejudicial effect on recruitment. Not only was the value of the nurses already recruited reduced by their wrongful use, but the knowledge of the wrongful use of nurses on domestic work caused others not to come into the service. On that occasion, I had the support of the late Lord Rushcliffe, speaking from his great knowledge of nursing conditions.
I also ventured to suggest to your Lordships' House that the greater employment of part-time nurses would be of considerable value. I had in mind trained nurses who got married and left the hospital service but whose home duties were such that they could spare some period of time in the day to come back and help in the nursing services. I was fortunate to have the support on that matter on that occasion of the noble Earl, Lord Beauchamp, and also of the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, who I am glad to note is again with us this afternoon. Lord Amulree made a number of most valuable suggestions, and I hope we shall hear from the noble Lord who is to reply that the Government have looked at them and, indeed, may have found it possible to accept them.
One of the reasons I have waited so long before putting a further Motion on the Order Paper is that on that occasion the noble Lord who was replying for His Majesty's Government indicated that there was about to start work a Committee of Inquiry set up by the Nuffield Provincial Trust. He said he expected that the results of that Inquiry would be of considerable assistance to the Ministry of Health, the Government and this House in showing what the staffing problems were and in showing up by job analysis the best means of using skilled nurses in the most skilled jobs. It is precisely because the Report of the

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Nuffield Provincial Trust has just been published that I have now ventured to invite your Lordships to look at this Motion to-day.
If there is one thing which stands out in that Report, it is that the most skilled nurses are not being used in the most skilful jobs. The Report makes it clear that the allegation which some of us made in 1948, that proper use was not being made of the grade of ward orderly, was true, though we are glad to note that there are 25,000 members of that grade now employed. Perhaps I may detain your Lordships for two or three minutes to tell you of the method which was adopted by the Nuffield Trust team in order to prepare what The Lancet has described as "this most unique Report."
Your Lordships who were interested in the 1948 debate will recall that we had the benefit of the Report of a Working Party set up by the Minister of Health who had undertaken a "job analysis" in hospital life. It was a very small "job analysis." They had looked at the daily routine of thirty-six student nurses, a few midwives and a few staff nurses, in order to establish the nature of the time spent on domestic duties, the amount of time spent on repetition work in nurses' training, and the extent of the overlap between the various training courses. The "job analysis" undertaken by the Nuffield Provincial Trust, which is the subject of this Report, was, however, on a much larger scale. It involved continuous observation over a period of time in entire wards in some twenty-six wards in twelve general hospitals scattered over England and Scotland, so selected as to get the maximum possible coverage of all types. For instance, nine were formerly voluntary hospitals and three were formerly municipal hospitals; eight of them served urban or industrial populations, and four of them served rural populations. They ranged in size from the 200-bed hospital to one with only fifteen beds. They varied in that the two rival systems of training of nurses were each being used in approximately half of the hospitals. The three-shift system for the employment of nurses which some of us advocated to your Lordships in 1948, and to which the noble Lord who replied for the Government on that occasion gave his blessing, was in use in only three
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of the hospitals; the remainder used the two-shift system, with a spell of split duty during the day.
In these twelve hospitals, the happenings in the twenty-six wards were charted minute by minute throughout the twenty-four hours, so as to show not only all the tasks that were performed but even the most minute of interruptions, down to telephone calls. So far as nursing duties were concerned, the most outstanding finding was that almost three-quarters of the time spent on nursing duties in the wards was contributed by student nurses—one of the tragic things that some of us were forecasting in 1948 would happen. Indeed, only 16 per cent. of the time spent on nursing duties was shown to have been given by trained nurses. The sister of a ward is so engaged these days with administrative functions and the like that she gives only a very small percentage of her time to nursing. Nor is the staff nurse in a much better position; she has only a small amount of time to devote to actual nursing. Most of the nursing is done by the girls who are studying and, as I think noble Lords felt in 1948, the total amount of training is established to be absolutely negligible. The highest figure of training recorded in this Report was eleven hours in a week and, be it said with great regret, the lowest was only seven minutes in a week. The Report establishes that a ward sister, in a nine-hour day, gives no less than four and a half hours of her time to organisation matters inside the ward; whereas the student nurse, who is supposed to be learning nursing, gives 75 per cent., or at least 68 per cent., of her time to nursing, depending upon the year of her training period which she has reached.
The Report shows the importance of the ward orderly grade to which some of us referred on that past occasion, but of course the ward orderlies are untrained people. The British Medical Journal, commenting on this Report about the employment of ward orderlies—I do not pretend to be competent to judge, but some of my medical colleagues in this House who follow me may be able to comment on it—expresses the view that many of them could become fairly good auxiliary nurses if they were given the proper opportunity to train in that employment. I should like to know from Her Majesty's Government whether attention is being given to that suggestion.
It is only right to say that in the time that has elapsed since we last discussed this matter there has been a considerable change in respect of domestic work. One of the deterrents to recruitment which worried us so much in 1948 has at least been reduced, in that the total volume of domestic work now performed by student nurses is very much lower—and I am sure we are all glad to know it. Indeed, as the Report makes clear, the amount varies from thirty-five minutes a day, in the first year of the training period, to as low as fifteen minutes a day, in the nurses' fourth year in the hospital. The worrying thing, however, is the nature of the work shown to be performed by student nurses in this large amount of time which they now devote to nursing. They receive only a diminutive instruction, which might well be described by a layman such as myself as alarming. To the taking of pulses and temperatures by student nurses I think we are all accustomed. but when we learn from the Report that, apart from doing dressings, student nurses now give injections, are responsible for checking drugs, carrying out urine tests, and in one case were noted as taking blood pressures, then I think a very serious situation has arisen; and at least one is entitled to express some surprise and concern. Indeed, 72 per cent. of the total time spent on the dressings of patients was shown to be contributed by student nurses, and the theory of wound dressing is, in the main, shown to be picked up rather than taught. I think the Lancet
comment was the right one—namely:
"This kind of practice is a useful makeshift when teachers are scarce, but it cannot be classed as efficient training."
I think that paper well summarised the general position in its editorial, when it reached the conclusion that the student nurse is so little of a student and so much of a nurse, for the same reason that the ward sister is so little of a nurse and so much of a clerk.
My Lords, it works out that the end result of training for nursing to-day is not nursing at all, because the maximum amount of nursing is now done when the young lady is a student. As soon as she becomes a staff nurse the amount of nursing that she does falls. When, by her ability, she manages to become a nursing sister, she cart satisfy herself that thereafter she will never be able to spend
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more than 16 per cent, of her day engaged on nursing. So, just as some of us advocated, four years ago, the relief of the nursing staff by the introduction of more people to do domestic and lower grade jobs, so it seems that there is now a case for considering the appointment of a person of clerical or secretarial type who, without any interference with the nursing functions of the sister or the staff nurse, might take over some of those jobs of filling in forms and looking after telephone calls which are now done by the ward sister, to the great misuse of the skill which she has attained by such devotion to duty during the years before.
The misuse of the services of sisters and staff nurses in general is clearly established in the Report. Nurses walk backwards and forwards carrying bowls of water, nobody apparently having thought of organising a system in which the bulk supply of water in the ward is moved on a trolley by a domestic or ward orderly. But how can one expect that some of these things would have been thought of, when there is a bland little paragraph, which I am sure must have amused the noble Lord who will reply for the Government, as it has me—to the effect that
"a shortage of matches was the cause of many wasted journeys to and fro with a taper."
I cannot believe that that is general, but it is typical of the kind of thing which someone ought to start trying to put right. Similarly, there are comments relating to the manner in which food has to be dealt with It is recorded that long loaves are sometimes sent up for the nurses to cut up by hand for the patients. These are trained people, and they are kept away from their task of looking after patients in order to spend time laboriously cutting up these long loaves. The average hospital does not seem to have heard of ready sliced loaves—in fact none of the hospitals under review does.
Much of the waste of manpower, I want to say straight away, is due to the poor design of buildings and the shortage of good equipment. I am a realist, and therefore I do not want to blame anyone particularly for that, or to throw criticisms about. Being a realist, I realise that the National Health Service inherited a large number of Poor Law buildings the construction of which paid regard all the time

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to keeping down the rates and costs generally. The Service also inherited a large number of hospitals which were in a parlous condition financially, being unable to get sufficient money from the public on whom they had to rely for voluntary contributions. I realise, too, that because we were rather ahead of other countries in providing hospital treatment, many of our hospitals are now completely out of date, whereas some other countries that took up later the kind of treatment with which we started have somewhat better hospitals.
It follows, therefore, that the mere fact that in the last few years the State has taken over these buildings and this equipment does not mean that the State, whatever Party are in power, can, as it were, through the Ministry of Health, wave a fairy wand and immediately produce a cure for all these troubles and difficulties. For that reason, I would press upon the Government that there should be some system of priorities to make certain that the expenditures are now made in the right way, that they are made so as to get the maximum possible results in the easing of the manpower problem, generally making the job easier than it is, and providing some of the equipment which is so badly needed. Parts of the Report really are tragic to read. For instance, the Report makes it clear that there is a great shortage of such elementary hospital equipment as bedpans and wash-bowls. In one instance, there were only five bedpans for twenty-eight female patients, and seven wash-bowls for thirty-seven patients. Those are regrettable figures. And this ought not to be the position in respect of a State Health Service of this kind. Sterilisers for the bedpans have rarely been installed. Student nurses were seen wasting time daily disinfecting bedpans, and I was amazed to read that three wards performed the sterilising operation with fish kettles on gas rings. Two other wards had no means of sterilising bowls other than by flaming with methylated spirit. In one hospital, which I believe is supposed to be modern, the sterilising room had no running water. The only water for sterilising purposes was brought in jugs from the kitchen.
Let me say how much I welcome the publication by the Ministry of Health in the last month or two of the valuable
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document entitled The Reception and Welfare of In-Patients in Hospital. This document was prepared by the Central Health Service Council. I was glad to note, in paragraph 74, the recommendation to hospital management committees that equipment of this sort should be up to date and hygienic, and that every ward should have adequate facilities for sterilisation of bedpans. I was glad to note, too, that the comment is made that this is the kind of thing which can be afforded, even at this time. The Council say that they see no reason why financial stringency should prevent the carrying out of these recommendations. Whether these recommendations are to be accepted by the Ministry of Health I do not know—perhaps the noble Lord who is to reply on behalf of the Government will tell us, and perhaps he will tell us also if this publication is to be circulated. It would be very gratifying if we could get this allocation of priorities, and we might then see, even if major structural changes at hospitals cannot yet be undertaken, such things as new water taps, wash basins and lavatories installed where there is a shortage. All of this would help the considerably over pressed and overworked nursing services. At this point I would venture to give your Lordships a quotation from the Lancet. Somewhat sarcastically in reviewing this Report, that journal said:
"It is customary just now to talk about economising our nursing power. One simple way to do it would be to provide nurses with the tools of theft trade in adequate quantity."
I could never hope to say anything quite so well and so adequately.
The comfort, the welfare and even the safety of life of the people of this country may depend on some of the improvements which we ought to make. By ancient custom the patient must be awakened, washed, eased and fed before the medical staff appear on the ward. This is the subject of a very valuable chapter in the Report. The custom means, apparently, getting patients up as early as 5 a.m. Of twenty-two wards, of which there are details in the Report, only four had the patients' tasks commenced at any time after 5 a.m. In eighteen cases the time was actually 5 a.m. The earliest was 4.15 a.m. Indeed, in only one ward was the washing round started after 5 a.m. In some cases the round started at 4.30 a.m. The making

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of the beds for the day was the actual starting task, as early as 4.45 a.m. in one case. I deliberately mention that part of the Report in order to bring to your Lordships' attention a further extract from this valuable document, The Reception and Welfare of In-Patients in Hospital. It reads:
"We suggest that no patients, apart from those receiving special treatment, should have to be awakened before 6 o'clock, and later if possible."
I hope we may hear from the noble Lord who is going to reply that that recommendation of the Council has the support of Her Majesty's Government.
All these things would help to relieve the pressure on these short staffs. And how limited these staffs are was shown by the replies to Questions which I put to Her Majesty's Government a few weeks ago. The number of under-staffed hospital beds in April this year was shown by the Government reply to one of my Questions to be no fewer than 28,502. The same reply indicated that the employing authorities responsible for hospitals estimated to the Ministry of Health that the present shortage of nurses of which they are conscious is 10,420. At the time of our last debate the estimated shortage was 12,575. So, in the four and a half years that have followed, the improvement in the shortage position has been very slow.
Time will not permit, and your Lordships would not wish, me to go on from general hospitals to deal with a number of very serious points about mental hospitals and sanatoria; but some of the facts in that connection are shocking. In many mental hospitals, particularly on the female side, a nurse is responsible for up to seventy patients. I have been given in the last few weeks details of one mental hospital where a nurse goes off duty and leaves a patient in charge, locking the door behind her as she leaves duty. In those cases the only care and attention is the visit by an administrative sister or nurse from another ward, who has to leave her own ward while she pays that visit. That is not the fault of anyone in the hospital it is entirely due to the shortage of staff and the existing inability to do anything about it.
I hope, therefore, the House will be given one important assurance by the noble Lord replying for the Government this afternoon—that is, about the 5 per
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cent. reduction in staffs which I believe the Ministry have told management committees to make. Indeed, I hope the Government will go further, because I believe that management committees have been instructed to submit to the Ministry details of staffs in post at a fixed date, and that the number given is to be recorded as the establishment and to represent the maximum number of posts which there can be inside the hospital. Thereafter, no additional staff will be engaged without the prior approval of the Ministry. I am all for fixing establishments, and I quite appreciate the necessity for submitting the figures to the Ministry, so that the Ministry may see that there is no wrongful use of manpower by diversion of people to the wrong places, at a time when female labour of this kind is so scarce and we are trying to staff the hospitals under these conditions. Nevertheless, I suggest to the noble Lord that to impose this kind of condition on management committees who have wards closed because there are 10,000 nurses short and who have 28,000 beds unused because of under-staffing, is to tackle the thing the wrong way round, especially when, as we all know, so many thousands of members of the public are waiting for medical and surgical attention. I do not think that such restrictions should be imposed on management committees. If the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, can tell us either that this is not true or, alternatively, that for under-staffed hospitals, and hospitals with beds not in use, there will be some easing up in the proposed cut, that will go some way towards helping the position.
This issue goes even deeper. If this 5 per cent. cut is applied to domestic staff, where do we stand? Cutting the domestic staff by 5 per cent. does not cut down domestic work by 5 per cent., and once again this will cause the domestic work to fall on the student nurses. They will flow out of the hospitals faster even than now—and we know how fast they are going. Then, too, the knowledge that domestic work is falling on student nurses will slow down the already slow rate of recruiting of nurses. I think the Ministry need to look into this carefully.
Finally, I hope the noble Lord will be able to assure us that there is to be no waste of time in examining the valuable Report of the Nuffield Trust and adopting as many as possible of its

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recommendations, only a few of which I have touched on sketchily in the course of the last half-hour. This is a most valuable Report, as I imagine the Minister will say, and my noble friends who are doctors and who are to follow me in the debate will agree. Probably there is nothing new in it from the point of view of many of us, but it contains a record of facts set down by a reputable body—not just casual suggestions of people like myself with no real authority. As the Lancet said:
"…this report gives the backing of fact, which those advocating experiment have long needed."
It does not bring to light much that many of us who have taken part in these debates do not know, but it gives the facts necessary to help us to improve this great service of ours which has a great part to play in this country. I hope the Government will be able to tell us this afternoon of their plans for future action, and that they will be able to promise us a further debate at an early date, when perhaps we may hear that further progress has been made as a result of this Report. I beg to move for Papers.
4.45 p.m.
LORD MORAN: My Lords, more than three-quarters of the inhabitants of these islands—that is to say, the majority of the population—when they are ill in hospital are nursed by student nurses who have neither completed their training nor passed their final examinations. Therefore it is of some consequence that these nurses should have the benefit of instruction and supervision by trained nurses. When that does not happen, either because there is a scarcity of nurses or, alternatively, because the nurses are occupied with other duties in the wards, then it becomes a matter of public concern.
The scarcity of nurses is not a passing factor. The wastage of student nurses in training is 50 per cent. Of every two girls who begin with the intention of becoming nurses, only one completes the course. When one hears that the chief factor in that wastage is marriage, it becomes less hopeful to tackle it. I think we may say there is general agreement that we cannot look for any great increase in the number of trained nurses in the
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future. We have to concentrate on making the best use of those we already have. Therefore, we come at once to the question: is the time of the nurse wasted in any way? Are there any of her activities which could be done by somebody who is not a nurse or, alternatively, could be cut out altogether? The job analysis, to which the noble Lord, Lord Crook, has referred, gives us the material with which to answer that question.
I do not imagine you will think I am ungenerous to the authors of this valuable Report if I sound a note of warning. A man of many years must have seen many fashions come and go. I remember, in the kindred field of medical education, how Abraham Flexner descended on us from across the Atlantic and bestrode us like a Colossus. We who were concerned with medical education were left with a feeling that, compared with middle Europe, we were unscientific and unorganised. Any system of education must be judged by its fruits, and nowadays we are not so certain as we were that the German ideals of education are sound. Nowadays, the fashion is for working parties and job analyses. They are invaluable to prevent thinking without the facts, but there is always a danger that we may get the facts without the thinking.
Let us apply this valuable Report to the question I put a moment ago—namely, are there any activities of the nurse which could be done by somebody who is not a nurse or cut out altogether? At the outset, I wonder whether some of the nursing procedures are not apt to degenerate into rituals. Some months ago I had an operation. I was not ill—I golfed the day before—but when it was all over, although I was admirably nursed, at all hours of the day nurses came and vigorously rubbed my back in order that I might not get a bed sore. When they had gone, others appeared and chaperoned me through deep-breathing exercises, to prevent my getting pneumonia after the anæsthetic. No doubt these procedures are invaluable in the appropriate cases, but I think we might plead for a certain amount of discrimination in the choice of the victim. Again, is it really necessary to take the pulse, respiration and temperature of every patient twice daily up to the very moment he walks out of the ward as a convalescent?

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Again, take the ward sister's nine-hour day—take only two items in that day. One hour is devoted to clerical work. I went through this and found that nearly all of it could be done by a secretary. But when an enterprising and well-known provincial hospital instituted the secretarial system, they were told to desist on the grounds of economy. Another hour of this nine-hour day is given up to going round with doctors. In the male ward, surely, much of that is unnecessary. At the risk of offending many of my own calling, I would say that no doctor should go round before ten o'clock in the morning, or between the hours of twelve noon and two o'clock, or after five o'clock. We must co-operate more with our nursing friends if they are really going to economise their time. Then we come to the almost complete absence of labour-saving devices, to which reference has already been made. I give your Lordships only one example. In the twenty-six weeks which this Report covers, 194 hours were spent by nurses in moving heavy screens from point A in the ward to point B. If we could simply have curtains around the bed, with a flick of the wrist all that might be eliminated. Surely, when we are spending £400 million or more every year on the Health Service we should not shrink from a single, non-recurrent, small capital expenditure of this kind. And I have given your Lordships only a few examples of how some, at least, of the activities of the trained nurse might be eliminated or done by somebody who is not a nurse.
I pass to the much more controversial question: Are there any of her activities which must be done by a nurse, but not necessarily by a trained nurse? Why is this more controversial? It is because there are two conflicting arguments, both of them very strong. On the one hand, the very centre of the theme of this job analysis is that administration has taken away the trained nurse from the bedside, and that it is our job to get her back to the patient. That is an overwhelming argument. How do we judge a nurse? We judge her by the accuracy and the discrimination of her observations. Where will she learn that, except at the bedside; and where, having learnt it, will she keep it fresh but at the bedside? If it be said, as it will be, that many of these bedside nursing operations are
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repeated time and again, I would quote a wise matron who said to me: "It is by doing these things many times that nurses learn to adjust their procedures to the very various temperaments of the innumerable patients they have to nurse." Again, a wise woman, who was not a nurse, said to me: "My babies were all bottle-fed, but I did it myself, because that is the only way to get to know the difference between my babies and other babies." In other words, the repetition of these apparently menial duties allows the nurse to get to know her patient. It seems to me that that is an overwhelming argument.
But the argument on the other side is almost equally strong. Perhaps before I go on to that other argument I ought to take up one point in this job analysis—namely, the stress that is laid upon the taking away of the nurse from the bedside by administration. The Committee obviously regret profoundly that the average nurse looks upon administration as her end and aim in life. It is inevitable, because administration is not only looked upon as promotion, but it is better paid. We have the grave warning of what happened in the Royal Army Medical Corps. There, after a certain stage, a man must give up clinical work for administration or he will not get to the top. As the result, that service has been made less attractive to the doctor and is at present very short of personnel. The other argument is this. It is said that all these bedside duties, or most of them, should be done by a pair of hands belonging to a person who is not as skilled as the trained nurse. This Report shows that three-quarters of the nursing is done by student nurses, arid apparently adequately done, and therefore, it logically follows that at a time of great scarcity of trained nurses we should provide to do those duties a pair of hands belonging to a person less skilled than a trained nurse.
This brings me to the question of dilution. Nobody that I know has ever introduced dilution into any trade or profession without profound controversy. But we have had dilution amongst almoners; amongst dentists it is still being considered; and the doctor has already been diluted. After all, what is the nurse? The nurse is dilution. She is now doing jobs which the doctor did

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years ago. It is inevitable that we should have dilution in the nursing profession. Those who speak for the nursing profession, like those who speak for my calling, are generally attached to teaching hospitals. The result is that perhaps our horizon is a little narrow. But I would remind the nursing profession that half the hospital beds in this country are in mental hospitals. Surely the case for dilution of the nursing profession is overwhelming. Who is to be the diluting agent? If it could be the assistant nurse, we should all be happy. The assistant nurse trains for two years instead of three or four; her training is practical, with a minimum of theory. Unfortunately, many nurses if they are not getting on well with their examinations, when they are advised to become assistant nurses, say: "If I cannot be a proper nurse I will not become a nurse at all." That is a grievously mistaken attitude. These assistant nurses are invaluable. But, whatever we may say about them at the present time, there does not appear to be any prospect of getting anything like enough of them.
That brings me to the controversial subject of the orderly. I believe I am not misquoting the nursing profession when I say that, generally speaking, they feel that an orderly should do domestic duties and not even engage in minor nursing procedures. But I feel that if an orderly were trained for a year, he would be a most useful pair of hands, at any rate in hospitals where acute cases are not treated. I hope that the nursing profession, in the crisis we are now going through because of the scarcity of trained nurses, will give the most careful attention to the use of the orderly. When you get these two conflicting arguments, the verdict is quite obvious. If we had enough trained nurses, then they should be taken to the bedside; but, in the present scarcity, we have no option but the dilution of the nursing profession. When we are concerned with the proper use of trained nurses, it is obvious that we ought for a moment to glance at the question of redistribution. The tidy mind will find that in the sanatoria devoted to tuberculosis, in the mental hospitals and in the institutions devoted to the chronic sick and to the elderly, there is probably—I have not the figures—a gross shortage of trained nurses. I would say only two things about that: first, if
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a nurse is to be sent there she must go voluntarily—there can be no direction of labour; secondly, at a time when nurses are so scarce, it is surely wise to be very prudent before we further deplete the hospitals where acute illness is nursed.
Now I end as I began, with student nurses. This Report says that the student nurse is left to her own devices; that she is neither taught nor supervised, and that even the arrangement of her hours is so constructed that many finish their training and are found not to have served in important departments. If that is true, it does not matter, because very shortly, before she will be able to go up for her final examinations, she will have to be signed up—that is to say, she will have to produce a certificate to testify that she has worked a proper time in each department. I think the trained nurse would say of these criticisms that they are gross exaggerations. She would say that they take no account of the teaching which takes place outside the wards; of the three months' preliminary instruction before she enters the wards at all, and, where the block system operates, of the twenty-six weeks—more than six months—when the nurse is taken away entirely from the wards and given theoretical training. My answer would be that that is no substitute whatsoever for teaching by the bedside. When I think of all the hours and years that I and other physicians and surgeons have tried to stimulate the student's mind to observation and to make him ask the "Why?" of everything, I cannot believe that the student nurse's mind is less in need of this stimulation, this encouragement to observe and think.
But if we are to do this, then let us do it after an English model, and not in the manner of our American friends. I speak from hearsay only, but it would appear that in America there are two kinds of nurse—the nurse who can do technical procedures is called a graduate nurse, and the nurse who cannot is called a practical nurse. Now it is the graduate nurse who counts. She is really a junior doctor, but she dislikes very much what may be called menial duties. If you have been ill in America, as I have, you will realise that you do not get anything of what we mean by nursing. Even in England, of late years, technical nursing has been exalted over basic nursing. For example, as the training of the junior nurse goes on, more and more time is

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devoted to technical nursing at the expense of basic nursing, and in her examinations emphasis is almost entirely on technical procedures. Does it matter? It matters very greatly, because there is an element in human nature which finds great satisfaction in rushing about and doing things. It is so much more preferable to the lonely processes of thought. And it has always been so; more than 300 years ago Pascal said that most of the wrongs and the evils of mankind arise through man's inability to sit still in a room and think. Therefore, these procedures are weaning the nurse away from the difficult art of observation.
It is very easy, in a debate of this kind, to over-simplify—to fall into error in that way. I have been content to try and submit to your Lordships that, at a time when there is a scarcity of trained nurses, much of their activities must be reviewed, because so only can we get the supervision and the teaching of the nurse in training, the nurse of to-morrow, to teach her the elements of her art. I even hope that in a properly constituted State, administration may not be the peak of every nurse's ambition. It is a great pleasure to your Lordships that the Government reply will be made by the noble Lord, Lord Woolton. I do not think anybody is really fully qualified to discuss nursing until they have been a patient, and I am sure that what he will say will have the truth that comes from actual experience.
5.6 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, before I address a few remarks to your Lordships, I should like to join the two previous speakers in expressing my great pleasure that the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, is to reply to this debate, and to say how glad I am to see him back in his place once again. The subject of nursing has been very widely covered by the noble Lord, Lord Crook, and my noble friend and colleague, Lord Moran, and I do not propose to cover the ground that they have already traversed. I should like to make one or two extra observations which may be germane to the subject.
We are told that about 10,000 or 12,000 nurses are still required, and that the total number involved in hospitals is not quite so big as when we had our debate four years ago. One of the things which puzzles me is whether we can continue
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to make this great call upon the young educated women of the country to take up the nursing profession. One of the rather frightening things is something that I read in the Report of the Royal Commission on Population, which came out in 1949. In Table 40, they estimated that the number of persons between the ages of fifteen and forty will drop from 18 million to about 16½million by 1962. On page 98 of the Report they report the conclusion that the number of young grown-up people between fifteen and thirty-nine years of age will show a fall of about 1½ million during the next fifteen years. It will be from among those kind of people that the young nurses will be called in the future, and I wonder whether hospitals, local authorities and industrial firms employing nurses realise what is likely to be the position.
I was pleased to read in the Ministry's circular, B.G. (52) 127 Economy in Manpower, which has already been quoted, that hospitals were encouraged to look at their staffs to see whether there were any means by which they could economise. When I raised this matter before, I thought it was a command from the Ministry, but I was told by the noble Earl that it was only an encouragement. I think that is the sensible line to take, because I believe that the supply may fall a great deal more below the demand than it is now. Therefore, I should like to join the noble Lord, Lord Moran, in saying that some form of dilution is the only way round our difficulties. I do not want to cover the ground that the noble Lord has already traversed, because I am in agreement with. what he said, but there are one or two other ways in which I think we can dilute the nursing profession without doing any serious harm. One is by making different arrangements for them to care for more people in the future than they do now. I do not mean that I wish to increase their work or hours or anything like that, but recently one or two schemes have been set going whereby patients can be discharged from hospital properly and rather more quickly than before, which means that the same staff can deal with rather more patients. There is the rather interesting scheme at Cambridge, where, by co-operation with general practitioners and with the district nursing service, patients—that is to say, mainly surgical patients

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with clean operations—can be discharged within four or five days, instead of ten days. As far as I can make out, this has led to no increase in the district nursing service and means that nurses can take more patients.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, referred to the chronic sick. In one hospital at which I work, which was a chronic sick hospital, they managed to use the nurses in such a way that they visited patients at a particular time before they were due to go into hospital, and in many instances it was found that the people did not need to come into hospital at all. Furthermore if you can choose your patients rather carefully—not in an unpleasant way, but because they are ill—and bring them in quickly, you can get them back to their homes again in a much shorter time than if they had had to wait a long time before they came in. That, again, is a form of making your nursing power go a great deal further than before. Those are the points that I want to make to the noble Lord who is going to reply for the Government.
There is, however, just one further point which I should like to make with regard to what a nurse should do. After all, we must not forget that the most important person in a hospital is the patient. The second most important is the nurse; but the patient comes first. Therefore when you say that the training of nurses has got to be paramount and the needs of the hospital second, I do not altogether agree. I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Moran, when he says that the teaching of nurses should be done at the bedside. Teaching is done by taking care of your patient. One of the things which the Working Party emphasises is that the patient gets to know the nurse when the nurse is doing the daily nursing—looking after the daily hygiene, comfort in bed, feeding, taking away of body waste. The patient gets to know the nurse in this way, and it is very important that the student nurse should concentrate on that and not try to become a doctor.
It is curious to note that in 1947 a Working Party on the training of nurses suggested that the training might be made two years' or eighteen months' basic training, followed by specialised training for a period. That proposal has not been
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accepted, so I take it that it was frowned upon by the powers-that-be. But it seems to me that the danger now is that we get too many nurses trained to too high a standard. They are, in fact, going to be not very good doctors, rather than very good nurses. Although the medical service has been diluted by nurses it is possible to carry that a little too far and make these trained nurses of a higher standard than is necessary. It always seems to me to be rather a pity to make the trained nurses' standard too high. The nurse so trained looks for an administrative job; no other would give an increased salary. The standard is so high that it approaches very closely to what was the final you could obtain when you were trained. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Crook, for bringing up this question, because it is one of great interest and importance to everyone. I am sure that we shall have an encouraging reply from the noble Lord who is to speak for Her Majesty's Government.
5.15 p.m.
LORD HADEN-GUEST: My Lords, I too should like to express thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Crook, for bringing this matter forward, and for the way in which he made clear many things which are at present obscure. The noble Lord mentioned that there were 47,000 fully trained nurses actually in service. A Question put down by Lord Crook the other day produced the Answer that there are in training 50,470 student nurses. That is a considerable number. I think it is very unfortunate that this proportion exists, because the difficulty is to keep the student nurses until they finally get their qualifications. What the noble Lord, Lord Moran, said is, of course, very interesting; we can rely on his great administrative experience and his equally great professional experience over a long period of years. But when he said that dilution of the nursing profession is inevitable, I frankly regard that as a defeatist argument. We must do something more drastic with the nursing profession; we must do something which is more productive of efficiency, something more than merely unlimited dilution. It is true that there is a great deal of difference between ordinary nursing and nursing in a mental hospital, between certain other types of nursing and nursing in the acute ward of some of the big

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hospitals or the big teaching hospitals, which deal with a large number of accident and other urgent cases. But to use the word "dilution" is unfortunate, because there is already in the nursing profession far too much dilution. That is one of the difficulties.
Lord Moran also thought that orderlies should do certain nursing tasks. But there are already a considerable number of male nurses, properly trained, and other orderlies can be trained to do these duties and can then become nurses; but I adhere to professional standards in this respect. I think we ought to have carefully trained people, rather than those who have just "picked up" the knowledge as they went along and have not had adequate training. I am glad that the noble Lord made reference to the American system of nurses, and that he did not approve of the system. The American methods of nursing organisation are entirely different from our own. I find myself very much in agreement with what Lord Amulree said in his interesting speech, but he also, unfortunately, thought that dilution was necessary. I hope he will reflect on that again and see whether we do not need something more fundamental.
The noble Lord, Lord Crook, mentioned that trained nurses spend only 16 per cent. of their time on nursing, while student nurses spend up to 74 per cent. of their time looking after patients. It is difficult to contemplate calmly fiat state of affairs because it means, in fact, that the student nurses are bearing on their shoulders the main burden of nursing. Most senior student nurses and staff nurses interviewed by those who went round the hospitals under the auspices of the Nuffield Provisional Hospitals Job Analysis work were contemplating further training, presumably to fit them for administrative and other special posts. I notice that the Nursing Mirror has this to say:
"One cannot escape the conclusion that, at present, the end result of nurse training for the hospital service is not nursing but administration."
The Nursing Mirror is an authoritative paper, and its opinions are regarded with the greatest possible respect as being of considerable importance. Basic nursing, although occupying 71 per cent. of nursing time, is progressively less and less the occupation of the nurse advanced in
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training. Very little time is given to the instruction of student nurses. The Report says:
"In no wards in hospitals studied did Sister Tutor come into the wards."
Many complaints by student nurses about the incompleteness of their ward experiences were received when the members of the Committee went round. Then I noticed an interesting leader in the Nursing Mirror of February 27, which said this:
"No one reading this Report with an impartial mind can fail to arrive at the conclusion that in this administrative chaos the patient's comfort and whole well-being are lost in the complications of the set-up intended to preserve them."
The Nursing Mirror looks forward to the medical and nursing professions analysing and facing the facts brought out in the Nuffield Report, and expresses the gratitude of the whole nursing profession to the Nuffield team for the work they have done.
I think we should face the facts. We must agree, I think, that there is no immediate solution in prospect, and the Report of the Nuffield Trust does not in fact offer one. What it offers is a survey of the facts discovered. I would remind those who may not have looked at the Report that this investigation was carried out, not by doctors but by qualified, high-grade people who were non-medical, in order to look at the thing quite impartially, without any professional bias. In the Nursing Mirror, from which I quote again—because in this way the Nursing Mirror undoubtedly speaks for the nursing profession—a leading article on March 13 speaks of "The proper task of the nursing profession." It says:
"Something must be done about the 'Job Analysis' report, for it shows up a situation which is extremely disquieting and for which we cannot escape responsibility. We are here, in the nursing and medical worlds, to nurse the patient, and somehow we have let a situation grow up in which the basic nursing of the patient has been turned over to the untrained or the little trained person, with no adequate supervision; a situation in which there are virtually no trained nurses in hospital doing nursing."
That is a very serious statement made by a responsible journal representing the nursing profession. May I pay my tribute to the courage and the resolution expressed in the attitude of the nursing profession, as interpreted with such vigour and understanding in the Nursing Mirror?

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May I draw attention, also, to one other very important fact in the nursing profession, and that is the wastage of student nurses to which the Report calls attention. A large proportion of the nurses who enter the profession as student nurses leave it before completing their training. No doubt, some of them leave for marriage, as the noble Lord, Lord Moran, said, but undoubtedly, if the profession were more attractive, it would probably mean that a good many fewer of them would leave, and it would not be unattractive to those who want to be nurses. Will the noble Lord who is to reply let us know what action the Government are prepared to take to remedy the situation revealed? I do not think it will be enough for him to say that the matter will be seriously examined. I think that some action must be taken to see whether we cannot tackle the nursing difficulties which now confront all hospitals in the land. The truth is that at the present time we are not able to give adequate and proper nursing to the patients admitted to some of the hospitals. It is true that the large teaching hospitals and many of the large hospitals in the big cities give excellent nursing; but it is also true that in some of the small hospitals which not very long ago were places like Poor Law infirmaries the arrangements for medical treatment are by no means as good as they should be, and sometimes they are definitely bad.
The nursing profession is ready to help, and I feel that the medical profession also will help. Here is something which can be done by agreement, and in which the primary consideration is not length of hours or amount of salary received, although these have their great importance. But essentially the demand is: "Let the nursing profession be able to give better service to the sick and suffering." This better service must solve the difficulties and, in fact, the dangers revealed by the present situation, and the nursing profession will certainly throw in its weight to help in every way possible. May I say, in conclusion, that some of the highest medical authorities in this country strongly approve the attitude of the nursing profession and will be willing to help to achieve the better use of nursing services which the Report of the Nuffield Trust shows to be urgently necessary.
5.26 p.m.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (LORD WOOLTON): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Crook, not for the first time, has placed both the nursing profession and your Lordships' House in his debt for having raised, as he has done in a broad manner, the whole question of the nursing profession. This is an extraordinary Chamber. In the fourteen years in which I have been a member of it I recall no occasion on which, when a subject has been brought up for debate, we have not found a number of experts who are all prepared to come along and place their expert knowledge at our disposal. To-day the noble Lord, Lord Crook, has done this from his own point of view. We have had the lengthy experience of such eminent doctors as the noble Lords, Lord Moran, Lord Amulree and Lord Haden-Guest, who, from their intimate knowledge of this subject, gained professionally, have sought to help us. As the patient is by general consent the most important person on this issue, I present myself to your Lordships as the person most recently qualified by prolonged personal experience to deal with this subject. Perhaps it would not be considered amiss if I expressed my intense gratitude to the nursing profession for the benefits I have received from it. And will your Lordships forgive me if I say how grateful I was to your Lordships for passing on to me messages of goodwill at a time when I was considerably in need of outside support?
It is always difficult, as your Lordships know, for any Minister to reply in detail for a Department over which he has not any detailed control. I have every reason to suppose that the Minister who is responsible will be very well aware of the debate that has taken place in your Lordships' House, and perhaps it would be convenient if I were to suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Crook, that to the questions which I cannot answer, because I did not know that he was going to ask me them, I should ask the Minister to enable me to reply or, if it would be more convenient, to reply himself.
The discussion in so far as it has gone this afternoon might lead one to think that the situation was rather worse than it is, but there are good sides to this

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subject. Many of them, I agree, are probably due to the debates that have taken place here. The nursing force in this country has increased by two-and-a-half times in the last fifty years, so we are making some progress. The demand has increased even more, but that also is a sign of progress—we are taking more care of the sick. Nursing was out of fashion for a period in the middle of these fifty years, but I think it has shown every sign of coming back and—so importantly—of being recognised as one of the noble professions of the country. I am sure your Lordships will agree that you recruit nursing staff not so much by stereotyped regulations as by showing the people who might go into it that it is a profession that is held in high esteem by the public of this country, even when they arc well. I submit to your Lordships that during the period since the war the Ministry of Health has done a very good job in encouraging recruiting.
In 1947, the Ministry setup the Working Party to which reference has been made. Since I became interested in this particular subject for the purpose of to-day's debate, I have never been quite certain why when the Working Party was engaged on its task in 1947 it did not take a job analysis and find out what it was that nurses did. That was left to the Nuffield Trustees who, by no means for the first time, have placed this country considerably in their debt. They have produced a wealth of new information. One of your Lordships (I think it was Lord Haden-Guest) asked me what is going to be done, because, he said, this is a time for action. Let me give him some assurance on that point by telling him that the Minister of Health received this Report at the beginning of April this year and immediately summoned his Advisory Committee, which met on April 29, in order that it might advise him as to the action which he should take. He is indeed anxious that no time shall be lost. Your Lordships will appreciate that this Report covers a period of time, although the actual job analysis took only a short time. Evidently the Nuffield team have gone to a great deal of trouble in analysing the figures and in working out their implications, because they have had them for three years, and during that time I hope there have been a certain number of improvements.
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I think the House will be grateful to Lord Moran, as I am, for many things that he said, but particularly for one phrase which I hope I have remembered correctly—that we must not let the facts prevent us from thinking. Those of us who are very much prone to ask, "What are the facts?" must recognise that there is something else to do when we have got the facts, and that is to think about them. I am not quite so depressed as some of your Lordships appear to be by the fact that 74 per cent. of the basic work in hospitals is done by student nurses. A great deal of that work does not require high professional skill, although it does, indeed, require a great deal of personal kindness. The professional skill that is necessary can be provided by other than student nurses. A great deal of the work that is done for patients does not require such a high rate of skill as to justify a fully trained nurse doing it. I mention that only because I do not want your Lordships to get too depressed by this figure which, put baldly, suggests that 75 per cent. of the work is done by students. This might lead one to suppose that the patients are being badly neglected. That is certainly not my experience.
The point that I gained out of reading the Nuffield Report was the importance that they attach, I think very rightly, to the need for a reorganisation of hospital services. I had many long talks with nurses and, feeling, as I did, very important as the patient, I was horrified to find that promotion went in the line of administration. At the moment I was thinking very little of administration. It is a great pity if highly trained nurses are being called upon to do clerical work which involves an entirely different sort of capacity and a different attitude of mind; and it seems to me from this Report that the things we ought to look to are to see what reorganisation we can get, both in the direction of the personnel employed in administration and also in the fuller use of orderlies—a subject on which, in a different capacity, Lord Amulree and I have had a common interest for some time.
LORD CHORLEY: May I ask the noble Lord a question? I am not sure whether he is now passing from the position of the student nurses. Before passing from that subject, would he

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devote a few words to the very disturbing thought that these student nurses are being employed to make injections, take blood counts and engage in matters of that kind?
LORD WOOLTON: I should be quite unqualified to deal with that problem, which is obviously entirely a medical problem, and I do propose to pass from it. In regard to the question of the supply of nurses, I think the noble Lord, Lord Crook, was quoting from figures taken from a different basis when he said that there were fewer nurses now than there were in 1948. While he was speaking I was advised that the figures that he quoted for 1948 were for Great Britain as a whole. The figures that have been given to me are these: that the number of full-time trained nurses in England and Wales only has gone up from 40,000 to 47,600 in the last four years, and that student nurses have gone up in number from 42,000 to 50,500; there has been a drop of 500 in the total of assistant nurses—from 12,000 to 11,500—but other nursing staff has gone up from 16,000 to 25,500. I hope I have not wearied your Lordships in giving these figures, because I could have given you the total figure and saved you the rest. The total figure is one of 135,000 full-time nurses of varying grades now, as compared with 110,000 in 1948. These figures are for England and Wales only. With regard to the shortage of beds, to which the noble Lord referred, in 1948, there was a bed shortage, due to shortage of nurses, of 57,000. In 1952, the number of un-staffed beds was 28,500. I have no doubt about the seriousness of the present shortage—
EARL JOWITT: Could the noble Lord equate the shortage of beds with the shortage of nurses? I think he spoke of a shortage of 28,500 beds. Can he give me an idea—or if he cannot do so, perhaps the Minister will do it later on—what that means in terms of shortage of nurses? If the noble Lord does not happen to have the figure, perhaps the Minister will supply it.
LORD CROOK: The figure given by the Ministry in answer to a question was something just over 10,000.
LORD WOOLTON: Lord Crook asked whether the publication entitled The Reception and Welfare of In-Patients in
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Hospital has been circulated. It has been circulated to all hospital authorities, and the recommendations in it have been commended to them by the Minister. The noble Lord raised another question and that was concerning the cut in staff. I do not know whether he is aware that when the hospital authorities were urged to cut staff it was stipulated that this must not be done by throwing domestic work on to the nurses. I think the noble Lord would like to know that. Then he spoke about the restriction of the engagement of nurses. The reason for that, I am informed, is that the Minister felt that the problem was becoming to a considerable extent one of distribution of nurses. Some places were considerably better off than others, though still short; and in order that nurses might be employed to the best advantage he brought in the restriction order.
I hope I have done something to indicate the position. It is a position which is improving. It is a position in connection with which, quite clearly, the Ministry of Health and the Minister of Health—and I make the distinction because I want to cover a wider period than the present Minister's occupation of office—have been seriously concerned, I think with some success, in trying to recruit a large number of nurses to the profession. I believe it is inevitable that there will be a considerable wastage in this profession. I gather that one of your Lordships felt it was regrettable that there was so much wastage. But if the wastage is due to marriage then it is not any use any of your Lordships regretting it, for I am certain that it will continue and, probably, to the great advantage of the nation.
What the nurses require is recognition. We are all the children of history. There is no doubt about it that they were underpaid, but that is a matter which has been considerably remedied. There is no doubt that at one time discipline was of a very severe nature. I gather that at the present time over 50 per cent. of the nurses, according to the Nuffield team, are satisfied that the discipline is all right. Over 30 per cent. think that it is not strict enough—they probably belong to the higher age group of those who were investigated. Some 5 per cent. think that discipline is already much too severe. They will probably join the ranks of the

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wastage as time goes on. In the meantime, I am certain that the nursing profession will be gratified at the step which the noble Lord, Lord Crook, has taken in bringing this Motion before the House, and at the expressions of high esteem which have fallen from the lips of all speakers in referring to this profession. Doctors and surgeons have the knowledge and the skill that enables them to save human life, but it is the nurses who make the process of recovery endurable.
5.45 p.m.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, may I first express my gratitude to the three noble Lords of the medical profession who have spoken on this Motion, and also thank the noble Lord who has just replied for Her Majesty's Government. Since he has referred to it, perhaps it will not be wrong for me to say how glad we have been to notice the great interest in this debate which the Minister has shown in the course of the afternoon. Before I withdraw my Motion, I should like to say that I am sure we are all conscious of the fact that there are many good sides to this matter. A most significant fact, when I came to speak, was that I did not have occasion to mention complaints about discipline. Complaints of this nature formed quite a part of what I had to say in 1948. All that have heard in this connection has impressed me as to the easing which has taken place in the hospitals of the country of what in my view, and in the view of many others, including many nurses, was the quite intolerable discipline imposed in earlier years. I find that very few people make complaints on that score to-day. Probably if they do, they are people who have already become part of the wastage and are trying to explain why they are no longer part of the Health Service.
May I also say how conscious I am that our great Health Service in this country
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has undergone a huge expansion. I know that we started this century with only about 68,000 people, all told, in the nursing profession, and I believe the total manpower now exceeds 200,000. There. fore, when we talk about the grave shortage of nurses it is not a shortage by comparison with the past, but a shortage only compared with what is required to meet the needs of what we regard as the expanding services to which the nation has a right to look forward and which are, in fact, being planned. May I thank the noble Lord for the correct figures which he gave me, arid say that I appreciate the difference between the two sets of figures in the two different places. It was good to have brought to our attention the fact that although there is a shortage of 28,000 beds by reason of the shortage of nurses, the figure four years ago was about twice that number. If we go on improving only at that same pace in the next four years, we shall wipe out that shortage which all of us so much deplored when we last discussed the subject.
The noble Lord told us that we must expect wastage to continue because of marriage. He has had personal experience, as I have, of moving among nurses, and no doubt he realises what good choices are made by so many men who take their spouses from the nursing profession. It would be wrong for me to withdraw a Motion which contains the words "To call attention to the Hospital Nursing Services" without paying my own tribute, and a tribute on behalf of noble Lords, not only on these Benches but throughout the House, to the medical men and nurses who make up this great, untiring and unselfish profession, to which both Lord Woolton and I, and indeed all of us, owe so much. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

WEST BRIDGFORD URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.