Lords Sitting of 19 May 1954

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The EARL OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE on the Woolsack.
Prayers
  RHODESIAN SELECTION TRUST LIMITED AND ASSOCIATED COMPANIES BILL
  Read 3a, with the Amendment, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
WANKIE COLLIERY BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendment, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

SOVIET ATTACHES
2.35 p.m.
LORD VANSITTART: 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, prior to two recent expulsions, the Soviet Government had been maintaining fourteen air, military and naval attachés in this country.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): My Lords, I have been asked to reply. Since the end of March there have been fifteen Soviet attachés on the staff of the Soviet Embassy. As the noble Lord is aware, two attachés, Major Gudkov and Major Pupyshev, have recently been withdrawn at Her Majesty's Government's request. This has reduced the figure to thirteen.
LORD VANSITTART: My Lords, if I am right in believing that the corresponding number of attachés we have in Moscow is seven, would there not be something to be said for the adoption of parity in this matter, as a relative safeguard?
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, surely we shall adopt a strict rationing system for military, naval and
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air attachés towards countries whose attitude towards our own is, to say the least of it, ambiguous.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, in reply to the noble Lord who asked the Question, I may say he is correct in believing that the number of Service attachés at present on the staff of Her Majesty's Embassy in Moscow is seven. As regards the corresponding number of Soviet Service attachés on the staff of the Soviet Embassy in London, I agree with the noble Lord; but I would go further and say that we must keep watch on that number and that we should be reluctant now to see it increased.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, will the noble Earl do his best to prevent the transplanting of the spy scare to this country?
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: That seems to me to have nothing whatever to do with the original Question.
LORD VANSITTART: My Lords, may I add that this seems to be something more substantial than a scare.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: That is what they say elsewhere.

TRANSFER OF PRISONERS IN AFRICA
2.39 p.m.
LORD WINSTER: 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 for information as to the circumstances in which the Ordinance allowing prisoners to be transferred from Northern to Southern Rhodesia is being amended to permit of transfer also to the Union of South Africa; if such a proposal has the approval of Her Majesty's Government; and if they do not agree that no prisoner should be so transferred unless he is a citizen of the Union.]
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, an Agreement between the Government of Northern Rhodesia and the Government of the Union of South Africa providing for the transfer of prisoners, including juveniles, has been in existence since 1921. In 1933, however, when a

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Juvenile Offenders Ordinance was enacted by the Government of Northern Rhodesia, the statutory authority to transfer adult prisoners under the Agreement was inadvertently repealed. This was only discovered a few months ago when it was desired to transfer to the Union of South Africa a prisoner who was a citizen of that country. The effect of the new Ordinance is to restore to the Government of Northern Rhodesia the authority which existed before 1933.
The Ordinance to which the noble Lord refers conveys a general and purely permissive power, and the Secretary of State has been informed by the Governor of Northern Rhodesia that it is the intention of his Government normally to transfer to South Africa only long-term prisoners who are citizens of the Union. Powers in relation to the removal of prisoners are due, under Item 2 of the Federal Constitution, to become the exclusive responsibility of the Federal Government and it will be for them to consider whether the present policy calls for review.
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that reply, which in many respects is very satisfactory, but may I ask whether he is aware that there is considerable disquiet about the treatment of African prisoners in the prisons in the Union of South Africa? May I therefore express the hope that, in future, the Governor of Northern Rhodesia will only rarely exercise his power of transferring Africans from Northern Rhodesian to South African prisons. The Africans of Northern Rhodesia are still, I understand, protected subjects, and one would certainly wish to protect them from the indignities and inhumanities which, I fear, African prisoners all too often suffer in the prisons of the Union of South Africa.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, as I said in my reply, the Governor of Northern Rhodesia has informed us that it is the intention of his Government normally to transfer to the Union of South Africa only long-term prisoners who are citizens of the Union.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, what is the object of the transfer at all? If Africans have been resident in Northern Rhodesia and have committed an offence there, surely it is the duty of the
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Northern Rhodesian Government to see to their imprisonment. Why transfer them to the Union?
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: An agreement was originally reached in 1921, and I understand that in certain circumstances, such as when medical treatment is required, it may well be for the benefit of the prisoner himself that he should be transferred from a tropical climate to a temperate climate, in order to complete or serve a long sentence. In many cases it may be a good proposition from the point of view of the prisoner.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, does the noble Earl remember that during the debates on the Central African Federation we were constantly assured that the protected status of residents in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland would not be affected by federation. It now appears that under federation their status is being reduced so that they can now be transferred to South African prisons.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: If the noble Viscount will be good enough to read the last part of my reply, he will see that this matter is now being considered by the Federal Government.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I listened with the greatest patience to the noble Earl's reply, but the fact remains that, whereas heretofore the practice was that people from Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland could not be transferred to the Union, an Order has now been made whereby they can be transferred. That appears to me to be—I will not say a breach, but in conflict with the promises made in this House.

PHARMACY BILL [H.L.]
2.43 p.m.
THE EARL OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to consolidate certain enactments relating to pharmacy with corrections and improvements made under the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act, 1949. I beg to move that the Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Earl of Buckinghamshire.)
On Question, Bill read 1a; and to be printed.

DUNDEE CORPORATION (WATER TRANSPORT FINANCE, &c.) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report (according to Order).
FORTH ROAD BRIDGE ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report (according to Order).
GLASGOW CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report (according to Order).

HOMOSEXUAL CRIME
2.45 p.m.
EARL WINTERTON EARL WINTERTON rose to call attention to the incidence of homosexual crime in Britain at the present time; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, in moving the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper, I have two preliminary observations to make. The first is that I am authorised by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor to say that he would have been present, and would, indeed, have taken some part in the debate, but for the fact that he was honoured by an invitation from the Lord Mayor to meet Her Majesty. My second observation is this. It is clear that it would be my duty to offer some reason and justification to your Lordships for bringing forward this nauseating subject, especially as the Government have announced the appointment of a Committee. I would say, in parenthesis, that the appointment of a Committee to deal with a public issue of moment does not preclude your Lordships' House, another place, the Press or anybody else, from discussing the matter that is to come before the Committee—indeed, it may be an aid to the Committee that it should be done. What it does is to make it difficult for a reply to be received from the Government, and my noble friend Lord Lloyd, who is, so to speak, competently under-studying the Lord Chancellor in this debate, will no doubt feel it difficult to say much on the subject.
My justification, in my opinion, is to be found from the following sequence of
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events. Though unnatural offences known to the police rose from 134 in 1938 to 670 in 1952; attempts to commit unnatural offences (including indecent assaults) rose from 822 to 3,087, and cases of gross indecency during the same period from 320 to 1,686, there was little public or Parliamentary interest in the subject until cases affecting prominent men occurred last year. The sequel was, to me, curious. There was considerable propaganda in both the editorial and correspondence columns of more than one newspaper, and similar advocacy by one well-known Member of another place over the radio, to change the law so as to legalise homosexualism between adults. In effect, this point of view is supported by a pamphlet issued by the Church of England Moral Welfare Council; and, though it would be out of order to refer here to a debate in another place, I think I can say, under the Rules of Order of your Lordships' House, that the purport of the debate in another place, so far as the only two private Members who took part in the debate were concerned, was to the same effect.
I do not question the sincerity of the advocates of this viewpoint; they may be right. It is for the Committee to adjudicate on it. But the effect of this propaganda may be to give the impression that the main issue is whether or not the law should be changed in favour of homosexuals—in other words, the issue may have got into a wrong perspective. The question of whether the law should be changed is obviously most important, but it is not more important than the investigation of the cause of this great rise in criminal vice and, above all, the moral issue of how a further rise can be prevented. Further, I would submit that the presentation of the case for a change of law displays lack of logic in some respects, unproved assertions in others, and, at least in the case of the Church of England Moral Welfare Council pamphlet, one most regrettable contention, which is contained in the following statement:
"There is ample evidence from the personal histories of those with whom we have been in touch that homosexualism is a problem and often a tragedy to those afflicted with it. As a social problem it is not, as a rule, so far-reaching and devastating in its third-party consequences as ordinary pre-marital or extramarital sexual relations."

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My comment is this. Fornication and adultery are evils; but I completely contest the view that they are more evil and more harmful to the individual and the community than the filthy, disgusting, unnatural vice of homosexuality. I think that the particular sentence which I have quoted is an astonishing doctrine to emanate from an organisation of the Church of England.
I should like to give the main reasons which have been put forward by this propaganda—because that is the word for it—outside the House for changing the law. I hope that I shall put them forward in a fair way; I shall have to put them in a somewhat tabloid form, so as not to detain your Lordships' House for more than the twenty minutes or so, which is usually considered a suitable time for anyone introducing a Motion. The first point is this. It is said that unnatural vice among women is not punished, and that it is therefore illogical and unfair to punish it among men. My comments are that two wrongs do not make a right. It seems to me to be carrying the principle of sex equality too far, and I would say, speaking from fifty years experience of public life, that it would be difficult for any Minister introducing a Bill, either here or in another place, to amend the law to gain support for this argument in favour of it.
The second point which is made is that the existing law is the "blackmailers' charter." I wonder whether this is really so. No doubt the Committee to be appointed will collect evidence on this point. Is a homosexual more liable to blackmail than men or women who break the law in certain other directions—for example, a street bookmaker or prostitute? Is he more likely to be blackmailed than a man in a responsible position who keeps a mistress surreptitiously? No doubt the Committee will consider this point very carefully. At least one member of Her Majesty's Government appears to agree with the view that the law relating to homosexualism is the blackmailers' charter, because the Minister of Works said in another place on April 29 (OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons: Vol. 526 (No. 100), col. 1865):
"… if a man is a homosexual he is much more easily blackmailed, owing to the law being what it is at present, than almost anybody else."
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I say that it may be so, but it seems to me that the statement must be based upon surmise unless more evidence is forthcoming than has been hitherto.
Another point made by the advocates of change is that in many countries there is no law against homosexualism between adults. I would submit—and I think that several of your Lordships, on both sides of the House, will agree—that this argument is valid only if the absence of the law in countries with a moral outlook similar to ours has reduced the number of adult homosexual offences against juveniles. One of the contentions made in connection with this matter is that by permitting what I may call adult homosexualism, it reduces the danger of attacks upon children. No doubt the Committee will examine this aspect very closely. I discussed the matter with an eminent legal authority, who told me that there was no ground whatsoever for saying that it was true that adult homosexualists did not attack children. He told me that the number of offences against children committed by those who were known to be adult homosexualists (if I may coin the word) was quite as great as those who were not. Not long ago, in a certain village not far distant from where I live, I came across a distressing case of two men who were sent to prison for homosexuality between themselves and who also corrupted five or six boys in that particular village. I hope the Committee will examine this matter very carefully indeed. It is like a number of other assertions which have been made of which as yet there is no proof.
The supporters of the change of law, of course, admit that juveniles must be protected against homosexualism. The Church Council for Moral Welfare pamphlet suggests that the age of consent should be twenty-one, so as to exclude National Servicemen. I can only comment on that proposal that such a provision in a Bill before either House would present grave difficulties to the Minister explaining it to that House or on a public platform, because the opponents of any change would say it meant telling the male public that when they reach the age of discretion they may commit a filthy act without punishment. Incidentally, if I wanted to be cynical I would say that I know of no better method of putting off legislation than by appointing a Committee. It usually does not report for a year

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or so—sometimes two years, and not until the next Parliament. And whenever the Government in power are faced with anything which looks like political dynamite they appoint a Committee.
What I have said illustrates the fact that the change of law is not going to be as easy as supporters of the change suggest. I should like to make this further comment on the comparison with other countries—and I regard it as a serious one. Some countries regard homosexualism at all male ages as harmless. I would say—and here I think I shall have assent from everyone in this House, however much they disagree with some of the things I have said—that neither the moral climate nor the position which those countries occupy in the world is one that we want to emulate. This weakens the argument concerning the law in other countries. The main basis of contention in favour of the change of law is the following intertwined quadruple argument: that the present law is not a deterrent; that sending offenders to prison does not cure them and spreads homosexualism in prison, and that they cannot help what they do, though some are curable by psychiatric treatment. My first comment is that I consider that there is a hiatus in the argument. For if it is wrong, because it does more harm than good, to send men convicted of homosexualism with another adult to prison, then adults who corrupt juveniles should not be sent to prison either, for obviously the same argument would apply. But the advocates of the change vehemently assert that it is necessary to protect juveniles, and would therefore presumably retain prison sentences for those who corrupt youth.
Is it or is it not true that prison is no deterrent? Is it also true that homosexuals, being admittedly peculiar and in many cases vain creatures, glory in a prison sentence as a form of advertisement? I submit that both propositions are doubtful. I should like to put before your Lordships what I believe to be an historical fact. There was a considerable amount of homosexualism at Oxford University in the early 'nineties. It may be said that the fontes et origines mali were Oscar Wilde and his associates. As it happens, the noble and learned Earl. Lord Jowitt, and the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor and I, and one or two other Members of your Lordships' House, were at Oxford in the early
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1900's. I think they will confirm that then, ten years after this horrible series of attacks had occurred at Oxford, this vice was never, to our knowledge, discussed or practised. In the Oxford of our day it was wholly taboo, and such undergraduates as had practised unpleasant sexual vices at their public school concealed and were heartily ashamed of the fact. What caused this change? In the opinion of some well calculated to judge, it was the conviction of, and sentence upon, Oscar Wilde. I admit that both were regarded at the time, and are still regarded to-day by some learned in the law, as having been harsh and unfair. To put it more accurately, the new law was regarded as harsh, and the sentence on Oscar Wilde as unfair. But it frightened Oscar Wilde's imitators and, I think, acted as a moral purge.
The matter goes further. An eminent man of the 'nineties told his son, who is himself a distinguished man, who told me, that prior to Oscar Wilde's case there was a number of undesirable "men about town," some belonging to well-known families, who made a practice of corrupting Guardsmen and other young men. They were a bane to commanding officers, employers and parents, but evidence was difficult to obtain. After the Oscar Wilde case, perhaps as a result of discreet police warnings, they fled the country for lands where homosexualism is regarded as an eccentricity and not a crime. Therefore it may well be said that the Oscar Wilde case was a moral purge, and it may be that certain recent cases will have the same effect. If this be so, the whispering campaign against the police, which is going on very strongly, and sometimes in circles which ought to know better, should cease. In any event, I believe it to be unjustified, and I stand here in your Lordships' House to say that the police have been fully justified in the action they have taken in all the recent cases.
The other point which is made is, I admit, a strong one: that the sending of homosexuals to ordinary prisons spreads homosexualism there. At first I did not think that that was the case, but after conversation with those well able to judge, who have the knowledge of administration, I think it is probably the case that it does. Surely, the obvious answer to that point—if it be agreed, as I hope it is, that it is necessary to send at any rate some homosexualists to prison, those

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who attack juveniles—is that in future there should be special prisons and special treatment for them.
I come lastly, because I want to detain your Lordships for only a few moments more, to what I suppose the advocates of change would regard as the strongest argument of all, what I would describe as the "irresistible urge" theory. Its supporters contend that, because of heredity, environment, physical condition or mental outlook, some men just cannot help being homosexual. The theory, though its supporters would deny it, is really based upon Freudian ideas. Those ideas have done some good but they have also done immense harm to the modern world. And I would add, with respect, that they are largely antagonistic to Christian doctrine. If homosexualism is a form of obsessive, uncontrollable mania, then presumably it is on a par with kleptomania. But no one has definitely suggested that every convicted kleptomaniac should be free from fine or prison sentence. Medical psychiatric treatment, it is true, is sometimes given them in lieu of imprisonment, but so it is to homosexuals. No one either has ever suggested that a married nymphomaniac who has an "irresistible urge" to go to bed with other men besides her husband should be absolved in the Divorce Court from the consequences of her adultery. Though it is somewhat outside the ambit of my Motion, I submit with deep respect to your Lordships, so many of whom have a much greater juridical knowledge than I have, that the "irresistible urge" argument is being carried to dangerous lengths by the advocates of penal reform generally. We are rapidly reaching the point when it is being contended that no criminal is really responsible for his acts because of an "irresistible urge," and that therefore prisons should be abolished.
Having thus tried fairly to put the arguments against the change of law, I should like to quote something from another point of view. It is too long to quote in detail, but the well-known London journalist, Mr. John Gordon, after decrying the campaign making it easier for homosexualism, said this:
"'Poor pitiable fellows!', the cry goes up; 'it is cruel to punish them because nature made them different. Instead of the prison cell they should have the doctor's clinic. Instead of
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punishment, pampering.' If the law hampers their desires, then the law ought to be changed … so their advocates say."
He says that those who talk in those ways forget that homosexualism is
"a wicked mischief, destructive not only of men but of nations. Those who are raising sentimental howls in its defence would do Britain a better service by lending their support to stamping it out."
I agree, in principle, with that statement. I believe that the real remedy for the increase in this horrible vice is a greater awareness of its evil and a much greater condemnation by public opinion of those who are known to practise it.
I have many contemporaries in age in your Lordships' House and I think they will agree with me that, when we were young, this thing was never mentioned in decent mixed society. In male society, its votaries were contemptuously described by a good old English cognomen which I cannot use in your Lordships' House. To-day, at any rate, to my disgust, you hear young ladies, themselves of irreproachable morality, say, half pityingly, half facetiously, "Of course, he is a pansy': he cannot help it." Hostesses have been known to say: "If we ask Bill we must ask Joe. You see, he is peculiar and they are inseparable, like two lovers." All this to me seems to show a serious moral declension, as does this fact. Many of the great actors of the past, in the early days of this century, were friends of mine. I knew Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Sir John Hare, Sir Cyril Maude and others. We were members of the same club. It is inconceivable that they would have been guilty of the disgusting offence of male importuning, or that the theatrical public in those days would have treated the offence with the leniency accorded to a well-known actor of the present day. In my opinion, there has been a moral declension.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: Oh!
EARL WINTERTON: I do not know why the noble Earl says "Oh!" Does he wish to interrupt me? If so, I shall be very ready to give way to him.
I end on this note. I am convinced that the majority of British people agree with me that few things lower the prestige, weaken the moral fibre and injure the physique of a nation more than tolerated and widespread homosexualism. I hope and believe that we have not

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reached that point, and never shall. If we did, I would submit with respect—and here I think I should have the support of everyone in your Lordships' House—we should lose our influence for good in the world, and we should go the way of other countries in the past, who were once great but became decadent through corrosive and corrupting immorality. I beg to move for Papers.
3.7 p.m.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, this is an unpleasant subject. The noble Earl who has moved the Motion, was, of course, perfectly entitled to move it, notwithstanding the fact that a Committee is to be appointed. On the other hand, I think it is manifest that the fact that a Committee is to be appointed makes it necessary that we should be exceedingly careful in what we say. I merely want to indicate, briefly, some considerations which have come to my mind after rather long legal experience. It is twenty-five years ago that I became Attorney-General. I had had a large practice in the commercial court and knew little about crime and criminals. When I became Attorney-General, I became oppressed by the discovery that there was a much larger quantity of blackmail than I had ever realised. I have no figures—I do not suppose one can get figures in a case of this sort—but I can certainly charge my recollection to this extent. It is the fact—I do not know why it is the fact, but it is the fact—that at least 95 per cent. of the cases of blackmail which came to my knowledge arose out of homosexuality, either between adult males or between adult males and boys. Why one earth it should be—and the noble Earl asked the question—that it attracts so much more blackmail, or did in those days, than did other vices, I do not know; but that certainly was the fact, and I think we have to bear it in mind.
The next thing I would say is this. Never let us make the mistake of thinking that we should attempt to make the area covered by our criminal law coextensive with the area covered by the moral law. I know the noble Earl would agree with that. For instance, take the case of adultery, which I certainly think is a great evil in this country to-day. No one would suggest that we should once more make adultery a criminal offence. It is not that we desire to condone or
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support adultery or anything of that sort; it is just that we realise that the criminal law and the moral law are two wholly different concepts, and we must not confuse the one with the other.
I am going to be very brief on this matter. I sincerely hope that the Committee that is to be appointed will be a high-powered Committee, a Committee having among its members some who have had great experience, who will consider afresh whether or not it is desirable that homosexual acts committed in private between adult people should of should not continue to be within the purview of the criminal law. I express no opinion about it; I merely say that I think it is a matter which merits most careful inquiry. I hope the Committee will inform themselves about the law of other countries. I believe I am right in saying that under the Code Napoleon in France it is not an offence if carried through between adults in private. The question whether or not it should be is a matter which was canvassed in a recent pamphlet issued by some members of the Church of England, a pamphlet which I thought was good up to a point, though I considered that in comparing these sexual acts with the sin of scandal or the sin of crime, there was a complete illogicality and lack of proper thought.
But, having said that, I must say that I am entirely at one with the noble Earl who has moved this Motion, in regarding this as a most grave affair. No one can see the statistics which he quoted without realising what a grievous danger confronts this country. I have not a shadow of an idea what the explanation for it can be. It may be that the doctors will be able to assist the Committee. But this is a very grave matter. I agree further with the noble Earl that for some people to make light of it and simply to say, "Well, he is that way inclined; he likes doing it, so why should he not?" is a complete perversion of the doctrine of tolerance. Tolerance I believe to be one of the greatest virtues, but a tolerance which is prepared to take no notice of that which is essentially evil and wicked is not at all the sort of tolerance we want. Therefore I find myself completely at one with the noble Earl in realising how grave, how desperately serious, are these figures, and I congratulate the Government on having had the courage to appoint a Committee to deal with this unpleasant topic.

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I hope the Committee will be quite undeterred by what people will say about them. Never mind about that. Let them, as I am sure they will, come to an honest conclusion as to what is the right thing to do. Never mind if they are held up to ridicule or contempt because they have made things easy for the homosexual, or anything of that sort; that does not matter. I hope, further, that the Committee will contain amongst its members someone who knows something about the treatment of criminals. I am inclined to think that here we might usefully look at what is being done in the Scandinavian countries, where this problem is by no means so prevalent as it is here. It may be possible, with regard not only to this crime but to other crimes, to institute a system whereby the person sentenced is allowed to go out in the daytime to earn his living in the normal way, and has to come back to his hall of detention during the night-time and for week-ends. I express no opinion; I do not know anything about that matter; but I do know that it is exercising some penologists as a possible solution.
The Committee which is to be appointed will I hope be a strong and powerful Committee, because, as the noble Earl has said, we are here face to face with a terrible evil and we have to try to find a solution which is not based on prejudice or on merely a dislike of what is a very evil thing. I do not accept for one moment the doctrine of the irresistible impulse. The psychologists have told me that they are quite unable at the present time to distinguish between an impulse which is irresistible and an impulse which has not been resisted. I hope we shall hear nothing more about this. I suppose it is a fact that these unhappy people have temptations of a nature or kind which do not attack the ordinary man. But the ordinary man has his temptations, too, and he has to learn to resist his temptations. So it seems to me that the people who are cursed in this way must also resist their temptation. That is the least we can expect of them. That, I think, is recognised in the pamphlet issued by the Church of England. That is really all I have to say on that point, except that I hope that this will be a searching inquiry.
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There is one other matter with which I should like to deal. I do not know whether it is true that there are masses of male prostitutes upon the streets. I am bound to say that I have never been accosted by a male person in my life. I do not walk about the streets of London very much now, and when I hear about these vast hordes of male prostitutes I wonder whether it is true. But I have sometimes thought that it would be very desirable to clear those people off the streets. Here, however, there is another factor to be borne in mind. Consider what a frightful risk may be run by the ordinary citizen who is going about his way if by any chance a mistake occurs and he is accused of that sort of thing. Whatever happens, even though the magistrates dismiss the charge, some people will always say, "Well, there's no smoke without fire. It is true he got off, but there must have been something behind it." For goodness sake, let us not forget that risk in considering what we are going to do. My Lords, that is all I have to say. I have really said nothing except to try to suggest that the field before this Committee is open to them; that they should investigate it with the utmost thoroughness and with the utmost skill; and that they should not be in the least frightened of coming to whatever conclusion they are led by their good sense and by the evidence adduced before them.
3.18 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (LORD LLOYD): My Lords, my noble friend Lord Winterton said that he did not expect that he would hear very much from the Government this afternoon, and I can tell him straight away that he will not be disappointed. The noble Earl started his speech by drawing your Lordships' attention to the serious increase in homosexual offences which has taken place since pre-war days; and whatever views anybody may hold about the cause of the present state of affairs, or about the correct method of dealing with it, there can, I think, be no doubt whatever that this increase has taken place and that it is indeed a most serious matter. I do not propose to weary your Lordships this afternoon with a whole string of detailed statistics, because they are probably

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well known to your Lordships and in any case are readily accessible. Suffice it to say that the number of indictable homosexual offences known to the police to-day is between, four and five times as great as it was before the war. That is a most serious state of affairs.
Admittedly, this increase may not correspond exactly to the actual increase in the prevalence of such offences. The interpretation of criminal statistics is always an uncertain matter. To take one obvious point, this is a type of case in which one person is often charged with a large number of offences, so that any increase in the number of offenders is likely to be reflected in a much greater increase in the total number of offences. On the other hand, to set against that there are no doubt many offences of this kind which never come to the knowledge of the police at all. I do not think we can escape the conclusion that an increase of this order in the number of offences known to the police must reflect a very considerable increase in the number of offences actually committed.
So far we are dealing with facts which cannot reasonably be disputed by anybody, and I think your Lordships will agree that it is not until we come to deal with such matters as the cause of this situation, the suitability or otherwise of the present criminal law to deal with such offences, and the treatment of homosexual offenders by the courts and in prison, that the full gravity of the problem presents itself. There are still many factors not fully known. The noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, said, and I agree, that it would be difficult for anybody to account with certainty for the steady increase in this type of offence. Furthermore, the very fact that the problem is not a simple or straightforward one makes inevitable the existence of that wide diversity of opinion on the whole subject which undoubtedly exists. In the circumstances, as the House is aware, the Government have felt that the proper course for them was to set up a Committee to make a full and detailed examination not only of matters which have been raised by the noble Earl this afternoon but, at the same time, of the parallel problem of the law relating to prostitution and solicitation generally. The noble Lord, Earl Winterton, suggested that Committees were really
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always a face-saving device by any Government and that this was the case in this particular matter.
EARL WINTERTON: I did not mean to say anything wounding, but it is a fact that Governments always do appoint a Committee.
LORD LLOYD: I am entirely unwounded, and wish merely to make the point that where there are so many factors—and in his very wise speech the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, raised a number of points of great interest which are worthy of investigation—I do not believe that there is any other course to take except to set up a Committee to go thoroughly into the whole matter and to try to get as much information for all of us as possible. Therefore my right honourable friend, with the Secretary of State for Scotland, is at the present time engaged in setting up this Committee, and as soon as he has constituted it he hopes to be able to make a statement giving full information about the composition of the Committee and its terms of reference. I cannot tell your Lordships at the present time how soon it may be possible to make such a statement. The noble and learned Earl stressed, and I entirely agree with him, that we want a really strong Committee, and he will know as well as anybody that if we are to get a strong Committee and to secure the services of able men and women to serve on it some little time will be necessary. In my opinion it is well worth taking time and trouble in order to get the best Committee possible.
It is the Government's view that a thorough investigation by a well-qualified body will throw useful light on the scope and nature of these difficult and controversial matters and may make a valuable contribution to the problem of how the criminal law should deal with them. In these circumstances I do not think that either my noble friend or indeed any of your Lordships would feel that it was proper or appropriate on the part of Her Majesty's Government that I should express any opinion to-day on the views that have been stated in this House. All I can say is that everything that has been said and is going to be said by your Lordships will be studied most carefully by the Government and, I am certain, by the Committee. I hope, therefore, that this debate may serve a useful purpose

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in expressing the various points of view that exist and in bringing them to the notice of the Committee when it is constituted.
3.26 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWELL: My Lords, there can hardly be any subject about which a man would more readily be excused from speaking at all, and I hope I need say only little and detain your Lordships for only a very few moments. But it might seem like evasion of responsibility if nothing at all was said from this Bench about this extremely distasteful and horrible subject, on which Christian thought must be profoundly exercised and about which, and inevitably, the clergy have some first-hand pastoral knowledge. Public opinion at the present time is deeply stirred about the whole matter, and well it may be, because the increase in unnatural offences is an ominous warning of something going radically wrong in the moral foundations of the social order. And historically, as the noble Earl pointed out in his opening speech, this always seems to be a sign of a demoralised or decadent culture. Where people cease to believe effectively in what has hitherto been the communal religion, and when there is scepticism and cynicism about the meaning and value of life itself, people get driven back upon themselves, and introversion very easily brings perversion with it. It is a warning which cannot be ignored, and it is one more bit of evidence to show that once a people lets its ultimate convictions go, then there can be no stopping halfway and the whole moral bottom is in danger of falling out of a society. As St. Paul said about this very point a long time ago, once the creature is confused with the Creator, once people cease to believe in God and, therefore, in ultimate moral obligations, everything begins to go bad on us, and natural instincts and affections become unnatural and perverted.
Therefore what I venture to say, first of all, is that fundamentally, behind all these legal and social implications of the problem, it is a moral and religious problem, and the long-term solution can be sought only in those terms. I wholly share the views which have already been
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expressed deploring the levity with which this and similar forms of sexual irregularity are at the present moment condoned and almost taken for granted. It is time that some strong stand was taken against it. The whole subject is intensely repugnant, and raises intense moral indignation in many minds, and perhaps some kind of primitive subconscious racial horror. Society—our society, at any rate—reacts very violently against it, because it feels, and rightly feels, that such practices are injecting poison into the bloodstream. But, all the same, we must not allow our judgment to be clouded by passion on this subject. Heaven forbid that I should in any way seem to minimise the gravity of the problem before us! But further medical and psychological knowledge may lead us to a more enlightened or, at any rate, to a different approach to the whole question, and to yield to a clamour for vindictive action or for even harsher punitive measures may easily defeat our ends.
A man may say that and yet wholly dissociate himself from any suggestion of wishing to condone or take for granted this grievous social wrong. We have to disinfect our minds of the idea that the state of being a homosexual or an invert is necessarily, in itself, something morally reprehensible. It is something which happens to a man, like colour-blindness or paralysis, or anything else. It is probably due to wrong-doing on the part of other people, though I think it exists in some cases just because some people are born that way. It is a state in which some people are, through no fault of their own, and there is nothing reprehensible in being in that condition. Rather does it make a demand from us for sympathy and understanding; and society, through all its agencies, ought to be co-operative in trying to help people so frustrated and so conditioned, whether men or women—and, oddly enough, nothing has been said yet about the female side of this great problem—to live happy and socially useful lives—as a very great number of them do.
Some, however, fail, and therefore try to find fulfilment and some outlet from their frustrated condition by practices of unnatural sexual intercourse in an unclean and conspiratorial atmosphere. It

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is there that moral condemnation is passed, and it is only at that point, clearly, that any question of criminal procedure can possibly arise. Certainly the Church, like nearly everyone else, would vehemently repudiate what I might call the "behaviourist" plea—the suggestion that a man in this condition is not a free and responsible moral agent, so that he simply says, "I am made that way; it is not my fault; I cannot help it." And here the specifically religious contribution, surely, is the reminder that, by the Grace of God, a man can triumph over his disabilities and turn even the most crippling limitations into achievement. These forms of unnatural association are, of course, morally evil and sinful in the highest degree, because they are a violation of natural law or, as the Christian would say, of the purpose of the Creator who when He made man in His own image created them male and female.
English law, as it stands at present, regards these offences with quite exceptional severity, and what I had meant to say on this particular point has already been said far more ably by the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt. I am sure that it is a highly debatable question how far sins are to be treated as crimes. There are many sins of which, clearly, the law cannot possibly take cognisance: it is impossible to send a man to prison for unclean thoughts, for envy, hatred, malice or uncharitableness. On the other hand, there may be things for which a man may be sent to prison which are not in any real sense sins at all. I venture to think, without any suggestion of condoning these offences, that we have to ask ourselves seriously whether making this particular kind of moral wrong-doing a crime may not be only aggravating the total problem. I admit that in the present state of public opinion we are on very dangerous ground there, because one of the results of the immense volume of social legislation in recent years is that the popular mind tends to equate right and wrong with legal and illegal. People tend to say: "The law does not forbid it, so it is all right." It would be most disastrous if it could ever be said: "You see, after all, there never was any harm in it, for the Government have now said that it is not illegal any longer
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and even the Church seems to think it is all right."
On the other hand, I think it is a very big question whether the moral welfare of society is rightly served by making this particular kind of sexual offence a matter of criminal procedure and I welcome an objective inquiry into the whole matter. If the law is going to take cognisance of these offences among consenting adults, what is the ground for differentiation between male and female perverts? There may be some satisfactory reason which noble Lords learned in the law will be able to state. If there is, I think we ought to know about it. Society, and especially a Christian society, must be alert to protect the young person from assault and corruption. Again there is a strange anomaly: if the law protects a boy from assault by a man, why does it do nothing to protect a girl from assault by a woman? These are singularly unpleasant questions, but once these matters are raised at all they have to come out. Obviously, in all these cases the offender must be restrained and punished, and, if possible, reformed. Almost nowhere, I think, in the whole field, is the relation between retribution and rehabilitation so difficult and so delicate as at this point. From such knowledge as I have of actual cases, I should say that there is little to suggest that a prison sentence succeeds in reforming an offender.
For these and many other reasons there are very strong grounds for an objective inquiry, and the Church welcomes that inquiry—in fact, it was the Church that took some initiative in asking for it. I hope the inquiry will be conducted by the ablest people possible, and without fear or favour, whatever its final conclusions may be. But, after all, even the most perfected legal system will be dealing only with the breakdowns and the failures; the long-term solution will be found only in that moral and spiritual re-education which is the most urgent need—and, among thinking people, the consciously felt need—of our time, and in the rebuilding of family life. Behind an immense number of these cases of homosexuality there still lie unsatisfactory or broken homes. Here, as always, the most potent form of exorcism of evil will be found to be positive and creative.
3.40 p.m.
LORD VANSITTART: My Lords, like the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, I welcome the appointment of this Committee and quite understand that the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, can say nothing further to-day. But, with the noble Earl who moved this Motion, I have an uneasy feeling that the increase in this vice during the past half century will not be checked without some balanced revival of the reprobation with which it was once regarded. I think that a backward glance can lead to no other conclusion. The noble Earl referred to the cause célèbre of the 'nineties. It was considered shocking, but exceptional, and he is right in saying that it was not thought good form to talk too much about it. Indeed, women were not supposed to talk about it at all. In France, where I spent many of my earlier years, addicts were rare. When known, they were shunned, and when detected, they were pilloried. In Germany, it is to be admitted, the vice was more prevalent.
Then there came the war and a general lapse of morals. Under the guise of tolerance, laxity flourished to quite a considerable extent. The prevalent slogan was "Anything goes"—we know it all the better now in its successor, "I couldn't care less." It became the fashion, as Edgar Wallace put it, to wisecrack the decencies out of existence. So we came perceptibly nearer to Wilde's own lesson, that the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. After the second war all standards declined perceptibly farther, and at present show no sign of checking themselves, for a host of reasons. It may partly be ascribed to a decline of faith or lack of family discipline. If another Lecky were to arrive and write a second History of European Morals, I think he would have rather a grubby and dispiriting task. From condoning a vice, we slipped into treating it lightly, particularly in men of talent. It might be interesting to compare the fate of men like André Gide with that of Wilde himself. Our generation decreed that infinite allowance must be made for artistic temperament, which is often no more than insufferable affectation. I dare say some of us may have noticed that it is not very prevalent on the way up.
In consequence, as the noble Earl has said, this vice infiltrated, for example, our
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theatre, in a degree which was undreamed of in my youth. The noble Earl said that not one of the great actor-managers in pre-war days would have indulged in it themselves. I knew a good many of them; indeed, I had dealings with some of them, and I would go farther than that: they would not wittingly have kept "one of those" in their companies. The noble Earl referred also to the case of a man, risen to honour, who was subsequently arrested and who, having thereafter to make a public appearance, received an ovation. Whatever else is right or wrong about all these things, that must be wrong—dead wrong. It shows that something is radically wrong with public opinion.
I would add a word about any suggestion of legalising homosexuality provided it did not corrupt the young. That seems to me to approach the civic courage of Dogberry—"If he will not stop, let him go on!" I should like to point out that there is one serious objection to this which anyone acquainted with the ways of the world must surely know. The customers of lust, if I may put it that way, are always searching for younger material and paying for it. If we smooth the path of the adult evil-doer, we automatically increase the prospect of the perversion of the young.
Finally, I would venture to give your Lordships one illustration which has remained in my mind, an illustration of the course of this disastrous century. In the case of a fairly recent public scandal, on the day when the news broke, I met a man—healthy-minded, all fresh air and exercise, and happily married—who said to me that by an extraordinary coincidence he happened to know all about one of those involved, and he poured out a horrified tale. When he had finished, I said, "But did you also suspect that there was any question of disloyalty?" And this was his answer, which I think it would pay us all to ponder. He was immediately smitten with the prevalent modern fear of going too far and said, "Oh, no, no, no! I did not suspect anything of that kind. None of us did. We knew about the drink. We thought there was something else. But otherwise he seemed a decent enough fellow." I think the "otherwise" contains a termendous lot of history. "Otherwise this" and "otherwise that"—half of it comes from the fear of seeming intolerant, which

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may in the end prove our undoing. For, as the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, has already suggested, tolerance is a fine thing when it is meted out to rival honesties and contending decencies, but it may become what Henley, in hospital, said in a notable phrase about life itself, "a blunder and a shame," if it is stretched to cover dirt and decadence. If we look over our shoulders to the downward slope of the twentieth century—and what we are discussing to-day is only one aspect of it—I think we shall be able to measure the inevitable descent of the second half unless we pull up.
3.49 p.m.
LORD RITCHIE OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I feel that perhaps I ought to apologise for speaking in this debate this afternoon, because I think it is clear that the view of your Lordships is that it is not desirable that we should have a detailed debate on this subject to-day. I am one of a number of noble Lords who regard it as rather remarkable that, in view of the fact that Her Majesty's Government have announced their decision to set up a Committee, this debate should have taken place at the present time at all. Having said that, I must admit that I suppose it is odd I should be addressing your Lordships now. I have but one object in doing so and I shall not take up more than five minutes of your Lordships' time. Before I come to that, however, I must say one thing, namely, that I cannot but regard it as extremely remarkable that two noble Lords should have seen fit to refer so strongly to a recent case that has been before the court.
One finds it a little difficult to escape the impression that basically the view of the noble Earl, Lord Winterton, is that this is a simple matter, merely a question of crime and of its suppression by punishment. I think it would be most unfortunate if that were to go out as the considered opinion of your Lordships' House. We have already heard that a number of your Lordships have had the opportunity of reading the pamphlet issued by the Church of England Moral Welfare Society. Those of your Lordships who have read that pamphlet will probably have realised, as I did—it may be for the first time—that this is a problem to which there is no short answer and no easy solution. It so happens that
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my work takes me into a number of rather varied walks of life, and I should like to say a word or two upon the subject of public opinion. In doing so, I want to make it clear that I am referring only to the situation with regard to the private actions of adult people. I believe that the public generally would be glad to see an end of prosecutions of this sort; and I feel that there is reason to believe that this view may be shared by quite a number of the Members of your Lordships' House.
EARL WINTERTON: As the noble Lord has referred to me and criticised my speech, would he be so kind as to tell your Lordships, when he says that prosecutions should end, if he means for adult homosexualism or for all homosexualism?
LORD RITCHIE OF DUNDEE: I tried to make it clear that I was referring to adults in private. Apart altogether from what I think is a clearly indicated and fairly general sense of uneasiness at some of these prosecutions. I should like to give one instance of what I should call an overriding reason why an end to them would, I believe, be welcomed. There can be no question amongst any of us that the protection of youth is the overwhelming objective. The conclusion, however, is unavoidable that the publicity which these proceedings cause may do far more harm to young people than any good that can come from the proceedings themselves. We have for some seventy years been trying to administer a law which came into force as the result of what is generally admitted to have been a mischance—the circumstances are no doubt well know to most of your Lordships. It now seems clear that considerable sections of Church opinion favour some reexamination of the law; I am assured that many members of the Judicature are of like opinion; and I believe that the majority of the general public and, if the noble Earl will forgive me, especially of the youger generation, will welcome the decision of Her Majesty's Government to set up a Committee of Inquiry. For reasons which have already been indicated, I would make no attempt to answer in detail anything which the noble Earl has said, and I am sure that at a more appropriate time there will be many noble Lords, far more able than I am, who will

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do so. In the meantime, I should like to congratulate Her Majesty's Government upon the decision they have reached.
House adjourned during pleasure and resumed by the Lord Chancellor.
3.55 p.m.
LORD AMMON: My Lords, first I should like to congratulate the noble Earl who introduced this Motion on the manner in which he dealt with a subject which can be, and is, extremely unpleasant. I disagree with the noble Lord who has just spoken; I feel it is appropriate that this question should be discussed before the Committee enter upon their inquiry, so that it can be seen in all its aspects. There is one point which I think has been rather overlooked, and that is that the great increase in this beastly crime has occurred in post-war years, following a time when there was a great emotional stir-up and a disregard of the moral and legal law, coupled with the mixing of numbers of our own people with others to whom this is not an offence. Nothing, I believe, shows more the moral decline that has occurred than the particular case to which reference has been made and about which I entirely disagree with the noble Lord who has just spoken. The way that case has been accepted, as it were, by the public is one of the most serious things that we have to face at the present time.
The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, in a memorable speech a short time ago in which he mentioned this matter, referred to the possible dangers of a revival of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, which have been the disaster of other nations. In the course of that speech the noble Viscount made reference to a certain school of so-called scientists whose dangerous doctrine has done more, and does more, harm to the youth of the country and many others than anything else; that is to say, the doctrine that we are not ourselves responsible and that, to a certain extent, these things are irresistible. In my youth they used to call things of this sort sin; now they call them complexes. A humorous illustration of that was given on the public platform a short time ago. A retired schoolmaster had found it necessary to take disciplinary action towards a lad who was perpetually late. The boy
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brought his mother up the next day to say that he had a complex against getting up early, and therefore ought not to be held responsible for it. That is very much the sort of excuse that has been brought forward to-day for many of the sins committed and for much of the wrong-doing that goes on. I do not think it can all be met by legislation. I believe that, to a large extent, it is due to the great decline in moral and spiritual beliefs and practices. Only a revival of those, so far as I can see, is likely to bring about an effective and lasting reform.
There are one or two matters impinging on this subject of which notice should be taken. In this morning's newspapers there is a report of a horrible case at Newcastle-on-Tyne, where a large number of youths were soliciting at the railway station. Certain action has been taken by the judge in publishing the names and addresses of those concerned, and that may have some beneficial effect. There was also a case in south-east London a few weeks ago of a girl being taken by a number of youths and each of them in turn outraging her. Legislation will not affect that. It seems that these people must undergo some form of treatment, and that it must be fairly lengthy. It is no good mixing them up for a week or so with all sorts of people; they must be under special care and direction. I believe something like this trouble is being met with in Scandinavia and in Switzerland, and something is being done on those lines.
So far as the rest is concerned, mere punishment will not provide a solution. I believe it can be provided only by a rise in the spiritual and moral nature of the people as a whole, and we can bring about such a rise only by showing our abhorrence and detestation of these filthy habits. To acclaim anybody who has been found guilty of that sort of thing in our courts is something that should give us all serious cause for reflection. Because of that, I, for one, thank the noble Earl for having raised this question. I have seen a good deal of this trouble in some of the welfare work I have done in some parts of London. On the other hand, it is probably not quite so widespread as some of us feel. As I said, a good deal of it is the aftermath of the war. Gradually, perhaps, as we

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settle down and get back to better ways of thought and conduct, so we shall be able to grapple with it better. But it is good that this question should be raised in this House, where we can deal with it impartially and dispassionately and, at the same time, give a lead to the moral uplift of the nation itself.
4.2 p.m.
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: My Lords, some criticism has been raised against my noble friend Lord Winterton that he should have raised this question, in view of the fact that a Committee is to be set up to investigate the whole subject. I do not take that view at all. I think it is a very good thing that we should have discussions on these questions, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ammon, that there is no better place for such a discussion than your Lordships' House. Here we are perfectly free to say exactly what we like; and there is no idea of constituents chasing us afterwards for what we have said, and all that sort of thing.
There are only two points that I wish to raise. One is the regrettable recent case, which had curious repercussions, when the police questioned one of two guilty men for more than ten hours in order to get one of them to turn Queen's evidence, and promising him immunity in order to convict the other. That may be all right in foreign countries, but it was much against the public approval in this country. That case had the most extraordinary repercussions, which I hope your Lordships will note. Instead of public condemnation going, as it should have gone, against the condemned, it went against the police for their methods. That was a shocking and a terrible thing—first of all, that the guilty should be almost condoned and, secondly, that the police should be looked upon as a guilty party. If the law is such as to encourage over-zealous police departments to indulge in manoeuvres of that sort, then it is time that the law was changed.
I know perfectly well, of course, as has been said by the right reverend Prelate, that nature is very unkind in many ways. Not all people are produced perfectly. There are the hunchback, the blind and the dumb; but of all the dreadful abnormalities surely abnormal sexual instincts must be one of the worst. It must colour the whole of a man's life,
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and it is a subject more for our pity than for our rage. This extreme penal legislation can go too far, and it becomes sometimes quite illogical—you might as well condemn an hermaphrodite to penal servitude for life. My noble friend below me spoke about yielding to temptation. Surely, to the normal man there cannot be any yielding to temptation, because there is no temptation. The trouble with the whole of this subject is that there is abnormality; consequently, it is more a clinical question than one for legislation. We shall not change people's habits by threatening them with penalities. What we must do, if we are to diminish the increase in homosexuality, is to look into the far more complicated question of breeding, environment, education and that sort of thing.
The second point to which I wish to draw attention is the Church of England Moral Welfare Council's Interim Report. My noble friend Lord Winterton criticised that Report. It has dealt with a difficult subject, and I think it redounds to the credit of our Church. I am indeed proud to belong to such a body as will grasp this difficult nettle as it has done and issue such a remarkable document—remarkable for its understanding, for its charity, for its endeavours to protect the young, and for all the difficult problems that arise which it faces so completely. I am grateful, and I am proud of it; and I hope that, when the investigation is being made by the Committee which is to be set up, laws will be pasted along the lines recommended by the Council.
4.7 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, when I came into the House this afternoon I had no intention of taking part in this debate, especially in view of the fact that I shall be addressing your Lordships later on a different and, from many points of view, less difficult topic than the one which is now before us. One of the main reasons why I did not feel that I should speak is that I entirely agree with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee—that it seems rather inappropriate that we should hold this discussion when Her Majesty's Government have made it known that they propose to appoint a Committee to investigate this subject.
This subject is one which has never really been properly investigated by a thoroughly able scientific Committee, and

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it is one which, I suggest, is of a sort that can be profitably discussed only on the basis of a really searching investigation of a thoroughly scientific character. I rather deplore a good deal of the discussion which has taken place this afternoon, because it seems to me that it has taken place on an emotional rather than on a scientific level; that attempts have been made by one or two of your Lordships to bring a sort of heat into the discussion. That is most unfortunate, because this very difficult problem needs to be tackled in the light of cool, clear scientific knowledge and discussed on the basis of facts which have been ascertained. We have had very little of that knowledge.
The noble Earl who introduced the Motion made all sorts of statements about how this crime was practically unknown when he was a young man. In fact, it is quite obvious that that was not so at all: it has always been fairly prevalent. It is probably more prevalent now than it was then, but we really do not know; we have not the material on which to form a view about it. In some of its aspects it is one of those subjects which are rather typical of the criminal law of this country in which we are at the parting of the ways; and I hope that the Committee, when they come to deal with the matter, will look at it as much, or more, from the point of view of treatment as from any other point of view. There are so many aspects of criminal law, in this country and other countries, in which we are making very little progress, from the point of view of reforming and dealing with the criminals, simply because we have no adequate method of handling them after they have been found guilty in our courts of law.
At a recent quarter sessions in my own county, we had a case of a wretched man of about sixty, a perfectly respectable tradesman with an admirable record, who had been interfering with small girls. There was nothing we could do with him, as the law stands at present, except send him to prison. That is so with many of these cases where homosexual acts are concerned. It is really much more a medical question than a criminal question, and the courts which have to handle the cases have no satisfactory methods of dealing with men of this kind—I am talking now about the really inverted people,
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not the perverted people. The distinction between these two types—which is, I should have thought, common form, and, so far as I know, quite accepted by every psychiatrist in the country and by everybody who really has given any thought to the matter—was never alluded to by the noble Earl who opened this discussion. Yet surely there is all the difference in the world between the two types.
The inverted type must be dealt with—it is fair and just that he should be dealt with—as a psychological case and not as an ordinary criminal. It is because the noble Earl, Lord Winterton, seemed to be quite incapable of understanding this aspect of the matter that I felt his speech was so deplorable. It is not a question of tolerance of things that are evil; it is a question of trying to understand what is going on. Until one can really understand it, how can one effectively deal with it? I felt that the Church's pamphlet, which I was glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, supported, seemed to me to evince a true attempt to approach this problem on real Christian lines. There are many points in it with which I do not agree, but it contains all the real human sympathy which is essential if we are to tackle this terribly difficult problem with any hope at all of success.
To take another illustration of the sort of emotional utterance which fell from the noble Earl, he said that the idea that this was a sort of crime in which blackmail played an important part was, in his view, quite unsupported by any evidence.
EARL WINTERTON: I never said anything of the sort. It is quite obvious that the noble Lord did not listen to my speech. The point which I made was a wholly different one. I said it had still to be proved that blackmail was more prevalent in these cases than in other cases. I never said what the noble Lord attributed to me as saying—that blackmail played no part. Clearly, the noble Lord never listened to my speech.
LORD CHORLEY: I beg the noble Earl's pardon. I agree that his point was that blackmail played no more part in these cases than in other sorts of crime.
EARL WINTERTON: I said that it was not proved.
LORD CHORLEY: That seems to me to indicate a sort of absence of factual background which was characteristic, if I may say so, of the noble Earl's whole speech. I was glad that the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, who as Attorney-General saw so much of this, was able to contradict him and contradict him most effectively, with his very wide knowledge. Surely, anybody who has had any experience of the criminal courts, whether as a practising lawyer or as a judge at assizes, must know perfectly well that, of the cases of blackmail which come into the courts, a large proportion are based on this sort of trouble. To come and ask your Lordships to believe that that is not so seems to me to show that the noble Earl has not the knowledge that is necessary if we are to handle this problem effectively.
I do not wish to pursue this matter into detail, but I should like to refer to one final point. The noble Earl suggested that, if we were to bring our laws more into accord with the laws of almost every other civilised country in the world, we should lose our influence for good in the world. That seems to me a most exaggerated statement.
EARL WINTERTON: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord again, but I never said anything of the sort.
LORD CHORLEY: I am quoting words which I took down from the noble Earl's speech.
EARL WINTERTON: The noble Lord has a somewhat indifferent memory.
LORD CHORLEY: I took the words down as the noble Earl uttered them—"lose our influence for good in the world." If the noble Earl likes to look at the OFFICIAL REPORT later, he will find those words in his speech.
EARL WINTERTON: The noble Lord has the words completely out of context. I said that if we followed the example of some countries who tolerated homosexualism, we should lose our position in the world. If the noble Lord wants to know to which countries I am referring, I am referring to certain countries in the South.
LORD CHORLEY: If the noble Earl will study the laws of the Scandinavian countries and Northern European countries, to which apparently he was not
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referring, he will find that their laws are different from our laws. To suggest that if we brought our laws into conformity with the laws of those civilised countries we should lose our influence for good in the world is quite absurd. In fact, in this particular branch of our criminal law we have a reputation for being completely hypocritical. Our position and influence in the world would improve if we were to deal with this matter in a more civilised and sympathetic manner.
4.17 p.m.
EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, in asking leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers, I should like to say that, with the exception of two speeches, to which I propose to make a brief reference, I am extremely grateful, as a comparatively new Member of your Lordships' House, for the manner in which the tentative views which I have put forward were received. I am most grateful to the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, and also the noble Lord, Lord Ammon. I think the debate has achieved the object I had in mind, which was to try to bring the matter into better perspective. In regard to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, I am not in the least prepared to apologise for having referred to Sir John Gielgud. If a man is convicted of a disgusting crime and shows no public repentance for it, the public in this House or out of it are entitled to refer to his action. I think my noble friend and I were fully justified in making the reference which we did in support of the argument that there is greater tolerance for this form of vice to-day than there was, say, thirty years ago.
LORD RITCHIE OF DUNDEE: The noble Earl is perfectly entitled to his view.
EARL WINTERTON: I am much obliged to the noble Lord. I knew that, with the generosity which he always displays, he would accept that I was as sincere in putting that forward as he was in controverting it. I regret that he suggested to the police that they should refrain from further prosecutions. One unwritten rule of this House, which we usually have regard to, is that neither we nor Her Majesty's Government, give directions to the police on the carrying out of the law.
LORD RITCHIE OF DUNDEE: The noble Earl has entirely misunderstood what I meant to say. I meant to convey that the public would be glad to see an end of these prosecutions by means of having the law altered. I was not suggesting other than that the police should administer the existing law.
EARL, WINTERTON: I am obliged to the noble Lord. He has now made it clear. He is entitled to put that view. I thought he was referring to the existing law.
In conclusion, I say this with regard to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Chorley. I am afraid I do not accept him as a great criminologist. He spoke to me rather as if I were a wholly ignorant person, sitting at his feet and listening to a lecture. Incidentally, he misinterpreted almost every single part of my speech from which he quoted. The real answer to the noble Lord came from the noble Lord, Lord Ammon, who sat on the Bench below him. Lord Ammon had anticipated almost everything that the noble Lord who sat behind him said. The noble Lord, Lord Ammon, agreed with me that this is a matter that does need ventilating and one in which there has been too much tolerance. The noble Lord above him differs from that. He said that there should not be a debate on the subject, and then proceeded in the most didactic manner to attack the views held by the noble Lord, Lord Ammon, and myself. My Lords, I think we have had a very useful debate, and I now beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

LAW REFORM (ENFORCEMENT OF CONTRACTS) BILL
4.20 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, as I indicated a moment or two ago, the subject to which your Lordships are now being asked to turn your attention is one which is of a much less difficult and emotional character than the one which has been occupying your Lordships' attention earlier this afternoon. The object of the Bill, to which it is my pleasure, and indeed my privilege, to ask
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that your Lordships should give a Second Reading this afternoon, is to remove what I think one might properly call a nasty abscess from the body of the law of England. It is an abscess which has been there for a long time. For many years, eminent judges and lawyers, and teachers of law, have been trying to persuade Governments to remove it, but until this Bill, which is a Private Member's Bill, came before Parliament, it had been left unattended and had undoubtedly festered.
My Lords, during the Restoration Period, which is, of course, now a very long time ago, the judges were very much worried by the amount of perjury which was taking place in the courts over which they presided, particularly in connection with property transactions and contracts in which the most barefaced attempts were made to defraud and cheat litigants out of their property and contractual rights. The judges took steps to remedy the situation. The prime mover in this matter was Lord Nottingham—an eminent predecessor of the noble and learned Lord who is sitting on the Woolsack this afternoon. As a result of his energetic intervention in the matter. eventually the famous Statute of Frauds was passed in 1677. It was the last of four Bills which were introduced during the preceding years to deal with this difficult subject, the earlier of which, for one reason or another, failed. From a legal point of view the Statute was of considerable interest, because the drafting of it was undertaken almost entirely by the judges themselves—Lord Keeper Finch (as he then was), afterwards Lord Chancellor Nottingham, and Chief Justice North, being very prominent in this important piece of work. Lord Nottingham is alleged to have stated, after the Bill reached the Statute Book, that every line in it was worth a subsidy—and certainly from the point of view of the legal profession, in the years since 1677 down to the present time, the subsequent history of the matter has, I think, amply proved the accuracy of his prophecy.
The policy of the Statute was, broadly speaking, to require that there should be written evidence of certain important types of legal transaction, because Lord Nottingham and his fellow judges felt that it was only if one had some dependable, extrinsic evidence of that kind that

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the attempts of these perjurors could be effectively defeated. Every perjuror would be much less likely to succeed if, in the case of important types of transaction and contracts, it was essential, in order to get the case effectively before a court of law, that there should be some evidence of the transaction in writing. A number of different types of legal interests were dealt with in the Statute, and in particular it dealt with six specific types of contract—those types of contract in which the experience of the judges had shown that there was a tendency towards fraud and that the perjurors were being successful. These types of contract were, quite shortly, promises by executors to answer damages out of their own estates, contracts for suretyship, contracts made in consideration of marriage, contracts relating to the sale of interests in land, and contracts not to be performed within one year of the making of them; and finally, in a different section of the Statute, contracts for the sale of goods to the value of £10 or upwards—although, in this last case, it was possible to have alternative forms of evidence if the evidence in writing was not forthcoming. It is with this group of contracts, or rather, with four out of the six, that the present Bill is concerned. Its object is to do away with the need for written or other special form of evidence in the case of sale of goods contracts, so that in future this type of contract will be treated in the courts just like all other ordinary forms of contract.
In modern times the policy of the Statute of Frauds has been very much criticised, and it has been pointed out that, in effect, instead of being a preventative of fraud the Statute has in a large number of cases become an instrument of fraud. As long ago as the 1880's, in relation to the section dealing with sale of goods cases, Mr. Justice Stephen, the famous Sir Fitzjames Stephen, said that in the vast majority of cases
"its operation is simply to enable a man to break a promise with impunity because he did not write it down with sufficient formality."
I think that most practising lawyers would concur in that opinion. Most of them have known of cases which a party to a contract has quite deliberately made use of this technicality of the law in order to evade his legal obligations. I myself, during the time that I was practising at
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the Bar, came across many cases where business-people of the more shady type had behaved in that way, and where a situation arose in which the honest and more reputable type of business-man would not take advantage of the Statute but the less honest and disreputable type of business-man, being well aware of the existence of this particular rule of law, would often play his cards in order that he might take advantage of it, and in that way evade his real obligations.
There were very good reasons in the sixteenth century why this particular section should have been put upon the Statute Book. The rules of evidence at that time prevented a person who was a party to litigation from giving evidence in the witness box at all, and therefore made it particularly easy for the perjuror to succeed. The art of cross-examination was in a very rudimentary stage, and it was not within the competence of many of the lawyers of that time to break down the fraudulent and perjuring witness, as so often a competent barrister can do to-day. Of course, there are obviously many cases in which it is desirable, even at the present day, that there should be a requirement that evidence of particular transactions should be in writing, and some of the cases dealt with in the Statute—such matter as wills and declarations of trust, and other matters of that kind—have in fact been dealt with in detail on the same lines in later Statutes. But in respect of most of those provisions of the Statute of Frauds the result was that in later times, as the defects in the law of procedure at the time of the Restoration were gradually overcome, the inclination of many judges was to relax the requirements of the Statute.
The result is that we now have a vast mass of technical Case Law, which has been building itself up even within the last thirty years or so, when very important decisions in your Lordships' House have been given on aspects of Section 4 of the Sale of Goods Act and Section 4 of the Statute of Frauds. In 1893, when the law relating to the sale of goods was codified and Section 17 of the Statute of Frauds, dealing with contracts for the sale of goods of £10 and upwards, was taken out of that Statute and put into the Bill relating to the sale of goods, a determined effort was made to get rid of it at that time. That was over sixty years ago. But he feeling was that as

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this was a codifying Statute it ought to codify the law as it then stood, and that attempt was abandoned.
In 1937, the Law Revision Committee, among a number of important recommendations, recommended the repeal of the whole of this section of the Statute of Frauds and of Section 4 of the Sale of Goods Act, and although many of the Committee's recommendations were accepted by the Government of the day and put into statutory form, that particular one, for some reason that I have not been able to discover, was not. As recently as last year the Committee on Law Reform, under Lord Justice Jenkins, which had been tackling the same problem, made a recommendation on almost exactly the same lines as the Committee of 1937, with one exception: they did think that surety contracts should still require to be in writing. Obviously, there is an arguable case there, but the sponsors of this Bill have felt that, on the whole, they would prefer to go ahead with the measure on the basis of what could be agreed and not risk opposition. Therefore, the Bill which is before your Lordships this afternoon does not deal with surety contracts but confines itself to the four cases to which I have already referred: promises by executors to pay damages out of their own estates; contracts in consideration of marriage; contracts not to be performed within one year of the making thereof; and contracts for the sale of goods valued at £10 or upwards. If this measure receives the assent of your Lordships these types of contract will no longer be required to be evidenced in writing.
There is one final point that I should like to make. It seems rather unfortunate that a blemish on our law of this importance—and I think most, if not all, lawyers will agree that it is a serious one—should have to be left for a Private Member's Bill. I should like to suggest to the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack that his Department might devise some method by which, when matters of this kind are recommended, when changes in the law of this kind, which are completely non-contentious and of a non-Party character, are recommended by strong law reform committees of this sort, speedy steps should be
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taken to give legislative effect to those recommendations. With those observations, I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Chorley.)
4.35 p.m.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, with regard to the vehicle by which this Bill has come before you, a Private Member's Bill, I must say that I think the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, is greatly to be envied. In my days as Lord Chancellor there were no Private Members' Bills and I had not that means of bringing Bills forward. In my time I brought in a not inconsiderable number of Bills dealing with reform of the law, and the noble Lord will find, when he goes before a legislative committee and tries to get them to allow him to bring in a Bill, that he will be met by colleagues with a desire to bring in Bills of their own and will find they are very strict about it. It is not that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor is not ready and willing to bring in Bills, it is that Parliamentary time in another place gets so hopelessly clogged that there is no room or time for Private Members' Bills. But now that time is given in another place, as it is on Fridays, for Private Members' Bills, this seems an especially convenient method of getting these small changes in the law brought into being.
I want to say this. I wish that I were as happy about the subject-matter of this Bill as are all the very distinguished Judges who have pronounced upon it, for there was an absolute galaxy of talent in the Committee presided over by Lord Wright, in 1937, and the further Committee presided over by Lord Justice Jenkins in March, 1953. Notwithstanding that weight of opinion, although I am not going to oppose the Bill, I should like to record the fact that I have misgivings. I suppose that I am completely wrong but my misgivings arise not over the amendment of Section 4 of the Statute of Frauds—I am delighted that that should go through—but over the repeal of Section 4 of the Sale of Goods Act. The law at the present time, briefly, is this. A contract for sale of goods of the value of over £10 is not enforceable under the Act unless some note or memo

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random in writing of the contract is made or signed by the party to be charged. There are exceptions—for example, if part of the goods have been accepted or something has been given in earnest to bind the contract. But, broadly speaking, a contract for the sale of goods of a value of over £10 must be in writing, signed by the party to be charged.
When I was in large practice at the Bar, and had a good deal of money to spend, it used to be my habit to go in and buy pictures, or to visit old curiosity shops to buy china, and so on. I am appalled at the risk you run if you go into a shop now. Suppose that you go into a shop—and I suppose there are some jewellers, though very few, who are not honest men—and a jeweller shows you a diamond ring or a watch and says, "This is £1,000." Perhaps you play with the idea of buying it, but do not make a contract. If he says afterwards, "But you have bought it," then it becomes simply a matter of oath against oath. He says, "You have bought it," and you say "I did not." Perhaps an assistant comes and says, "But I was there, and you did buy it." In future, unless you are perfectly certain of the people you are dealing with, it will be a most perilous thing to go into one of these places, because you may find yourself absolutely landed. And what is an unhappy judge to do when it is a question of oath against oath?
In these days everybody writes. I should have thought there was much to be said for saying that a contract for the sale of goods over a certain amount should be in writing. I quite agree that the amount of £10 is an anachronism today, but the amount might be £100. I think it is a dangerous thing when no requirement exists for anything to be in writing. Why have all that uncertainty in a country where nearly everyone writes nowadays, when a simple writing could put the thing beyond all argument and beyond all danger? It does not matter to me, because I am no longer in a position to buy anything, and therefore I shall not go into the shops and look at these attractive things. But I do suggest to your Lordships, as hard-headed businessmen, that there is a very real danger here. I understand that the Government have given this Bill their blessing, and, as I have said before, all
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the legal stars in the firmament are certainly giving it their blessing. Therefore I am sure that what I say is wrong. But it is a salutary practice that anyone who feels misgiving should voice them, and I confess I do feel misgivings about this Bill. The recent Report of Lord Justice Jenkins' Committee said, apropos of the suggestion that the amount should be increased:
"It has been suggested that instead of repealing section 4 of the Sale of Goods Act, the figure of £10 should be raised to take account of modern conditions, but this would answer only one of the criticisms which have been levelled against the section."
One of the criticisms is that if this document has got to be signed by the party to be charged, a situation arises in which a contract between A and B which is signed by B can be enforced by A against B but not the other way round. That is an anomaly which, if it is to be overcome, calls for the signature of both parties. I suggest that if this matter is to rest entirely in contract, put forward on one side by evidence in writing, serious consequences and positions may arise in which there will be no finality short of a lawsuit. I am not for a moment going to oppose the Second Reading of this Bill or say anything more about it, but I thought I should voice the misgivings which I feel about abolishing altogether, in a society such as ours, the necessity for a writing in a contract for the sale of goods, no matter what the amount of the contract may be. Of course it remains the law that contracts for the sale of land must be in writing. It remains the law for contracts of guarantee; they have to be in writing. It remains the law for contracts of marine insurance; they, too, have to be in writing. It remains the law in Scotland in respect of all sorts of special contracts which are required to be in writing. I should have thought it to be a matter beyond argument that there was much to be said for a system of law whereby contracts over a certain amount for the sale of goods did require a writing. But all these authorities have taken a different view; my noble friend Lord Chorley takes a different view, and, in the circumstances, the least I can do is to be silent and say no more. At the same time, I have voiced my misgivings. I sincerely hope I shall be proved to be wrong.
4.44 p.m.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a Private Member's measure which the House will of course accept or otherwise as it thinks fit. However, it may be of some assistance to the House in making up its mind if I now give an indication of what is the view of the Government about the Bill. I will say straight away that the Government gives the Bill its wholehearted support and hopes that your Lordships will do likewise. I have, of course, listened carefully to what the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, has said. He puts me in a difficult position. Of course I see the point which he makes. But when I was in practice at the Bar, I, unlike the noble and learned Earl, was in small practice, and I bought no pictures or antiques. My purchases were invariably under £10. So I was not faced with the problem which faces him.
EARL JOWITT: With which he was faced.
LORD MANCROFT: The noble and learned Earl by his remarks draws attention to the necessity of observing the maxim caveat emptor—perhaps in this particular case caveat quasi emptor. I would remind him that in this day and age a very large number of important contracts in the great exchanges and markets of the country—the Stock Exchange, Lloyds and so on—are made by word of mouth. I think the tendency has been, as Lord Chorley observed in his clear and fair exposition of the Bill, to move away from the commercial conditions about which the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, no doubt genuinely, entertains some apprehensions. I take careful note of what he says, and your Lordships will, of course, do so as well. But I must go with the weight of judicial evidence and support that weight which is in favour of the Bill.
I would only add that I think that the passing of this measure—as passed as I am sure it will be—must evoke in the mind of anyone who has ever practised the law certain nostalgic memories, because this aspect of the law of contract is almost the first to which the law student is introduced. When I learned that I was to answer Lord Chorley today, I took down as a matter of interest some of my old legal notebooks which I had used at Oxford. I found on the first
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page of the first notebook I took down a wholly inaccurate version of the law on this very subject, as explained to me by the celebrated Dr. Stallybrass at Brazenose College, Oxford. My other nostalgic memories come from the other end of my legal career. Had this Bill become law before I left the Bar eighteen months ago I should have won the last case in which I appeared—instructed, I am happy to say, by a Member of your Lordships' House. I should have won that case hands down instead of losing it, as I did, with costs. But nostalgic memories are no excuse for standing between your Lordships and this Bill which I hope will meet with the commendation for which Lord Chorley has asked.
4.48 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I think it would be appropriate for me to add a few words upon this Bill. I had meant and hoped to speak for Her Majesty's Government, but as I apprehended that I might be elsewhere the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, was good enough to take my place. With regard to the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, I echo what the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, has said. How thankful would I be if the legislative programme of Her Majesty's Government admitted more time for Bills of this kind. As the noble Marquess who leads the House knows so well, it is very difficult to find time, and it is a fortunate thing indeed that we can make use of private Members, both in another place, and in this place too, to introduce these very valuable Bills. I do not propose to say anything more upon the merits of the Bill, except that it receives, I think, the universal assent of lawyers, and it receives their assent not from any a priori reasoning but after long experience of the courts and, so far as those lawyers are concerned who in successive Reports have recommended the change, upon evidence of the business community as to what is desirable. Therefore, there is a great weight of opinion in favour of a change which most people think long overdue. For my part, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, for introducing the Bill, and I give it my wholehearted support.
4.50 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I am very grateful to the Government for the friendly reception which they have given to this Bill. I do not really wish to say anything more except that I was rather disappointed at the speech of my noble and learned Leader, Lord Jowitt, who did not like the sale of goods side of the Bill. I agree with him that there are certain types of transaction in which it is so important to protect the party to a contract who is at a disadvantage that the law is quite right to insist on a written memorandum of the terms of the contract. Moneylenders' contracts are one type which occur to one immediately. Again comparatively recently—and again it was a Private Member's Bill—that was the important Hire Purchase Bill which was moved in another place by the late Miss Ellen Wilkinson. In that type of case it is important that there should be a written memorandum. I think the noble and learned Earl, who has had so much more experience of commercial matters than I, did not remember, as the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, pointed out, how in the great commercial centres hundreds of contracts of great importance are fixed up orally.
I remember a case, in which I appeared when at the Bar, in which a contract was placed orally with a cotton mill in Manchester for something like £100,000 worth of goods. By the time the goods were ready for delivery the bottom had gone out of the market and the buyer refused to accept delivery. The seller had no redress whatever. There was nothing in writing. In nine cases out of ten in the Manchester market a technical point of that kind would not be taken, but on this occasion the buyer was a businessman of a kind who I am glad to say is rare, but unfortunately is not so rare now as at one time, and he was prepared to take this rather mean point. The result was that £100,000 worth of goods were thrown on the market and fetched a very small price. That type of case is much more important than the odd case in which a fraudulent curio dealer might try to "work off" the sort of fraud which the noble and learned Earl described, of which we should all disapprove. I hope he will realise that although there may be a disadvantage here and there, on the whole the result of the acceptance of this Bill by your
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Lordships will be to the advantage of the commercial community: and, after all, it is the commercial community, and indeed the mass of the citizens of this country, whom the law ought to be serving, rather than attempting to cope with the exceptional case.
On Question, Bill read 2a; and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

ATOMIC ENERGY AUTHORITY BILL
4.53 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF DROGHEDA in the Chair]
Clause 1 [The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority]:
On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I listened with great interest to the debate on the Second Reading of the Bill, which turned on the issue of whether this work could better be done by private firms or by a Government Department. We had a remarkable debate, with my noble friend Lord Wilmot of Selmeston, with his great administrative experience, on one side and the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, probably our most experienced civil servant, on the other. Of course I do not propose to go back on that now, but on looking at the Bill one or two other points occur to me. There are times when I wonder what is going on. Since the Bill was introduced and since the Lord President became Chairman of the Committee for Scientific and Industrial Research, a gigantic thing has happened, the like of which has not happened in thousands of years—namely, the invention of the hydrogen bomb. And power to decide primarily—not finally—in this matter is laid upon the Lord President by the new machinery that is being set up. He carries it on, together with the other duties he had under the old authority. Therefore, I am tempted to ask, and I

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think I am justified in asking, the Lord President one or two questions on that general issue before examining other matters in the Bill which will fall to be discussed as the clauses are put from the Chair.
May I ask the noble Marquess, as the head of scientific research for this purpose and as representing the Government in this matter, this question: Would he agree that the explosion which took place in the Pacific recently marked, not a development, but a complete revolution in these matters—that is to say, are we faced with something the like of which has never been known? Because, if so, we cannot treat this as if it were a Service matter when we might decide, for instance, whether we should have 8-inch or 12-inch guns. We must treat it in quite a different manner. I would also ask the noble Marquess, further, whether this new machinery is suitable for this new task. I will not go back on what was said about commercial development. I do not think it is possible to stop research in these matters: human nature would not tolerate it. And it well may be that the Government are right in handing this work over to private scientists and private industrialists. But the effect of so doing on the military side is very serious, and people are thinking about it. We may be silent here, but people are very disturbed about this matter and want to know where we stand. Would the Lord President be willing to give an overall answer in reply to the few remarks I shall make on this clause?
I would ask him first, if he would agree that the hydrogen bomb represents something which is completely new. Since the Creation, what has been like it? From that we shall be able to see some of the problems that arise. There are all sorts of questions which the noble Marquess has to consider. He has to consider, for instance, the great political issues to-day in Asia, whose people are apt to regard themselves as the guinea pigs of the world. We did not let off a hydrogen bomb in the Azores or in the Atlantic: it was done in Asia. I think that that fact is one of the elements which makes for the passionate nationalism which is sweeping over Asia and has been since Hiroshima and the development of the Pacific as a private shooting reserve. That is one of the things that falls for
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consideration, primarily through the Lord President but also, of course, by the Cabinet. It is, indeed, a major issue.
Then there is another consideration. Under the North Atlantic Treaty we have a number of American air bases in this country. It will be possible to deliver hydrogen bombs by aircraft. I believe that when the Air Estimates come forward in a few days my noble friend Lord Douglas of Kirtleside intends to raise the question of how to use this bomb by aircraft—that is, indeed, the bounden duty of an efficient airman. Whether or not we use these bombs, I want to ask the Lord President: Does the Treaty obligation which binds us in respect of America permit them without our consent to store hydrogen bombs at their bases in this country? That is extremely important. It might well not be worth while for the enemy to bomb an air base to get only a few aircraft, but it might be important to bomb an air base that had hydrogen bombs stored in it. And I think the public is certainly entitled to have a plain answer on that question. Under our Treaty obligations are we to receive these bombs to be planted at American bases in this country?
I do not know whether Clause 1 is the appropriate clause on which to hang these few remarks, but as regards subsection (5) of Clause 1 there is an interesting procedural point.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): I think I must tell the noble Viscount, here and now, that the points which he is raising are totally irrelevant to the Bill and totally inappropriate to this Committee stage. I do not propose to answer any of his questions. That may shorten proceedings.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: It may be shortening the proceedings, but it will not prevent my putting questions which the public are asking and about which they feel disquiet. The noble Marquess may be silent here and it is quite easy to snub me, but that will not prevent the general disquiet in the public mind. The Lord President may be sure of that. Perhaps in his present frame of mind the noble Marquess would not be willing to answer matters trifling in kind. But I ask him to look at Clause 1 (5) of the Bill. We are creating a new class of

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semi-civil servants, who may sit in this House but may not sit in the House of Commons. That is an interesting point, and if he would make an observation on that, I should be glad to hear it. A civil servant normally cannot sit in the House of Commons; I do not know whether a civil servant can sit in your Lordships' House. I do not know whether a member of a national board can sit in the House of Commons. I understand from my noble friend behind me that a civil servant cannot sit in the House of Commons. But Clause 1 (5) says:
"A person shall be disqualified for being appointed or being a member of the Authority so long as he is a member of the Commons House of Parliament."
So that a member of the board may not be a member of the House of Commons, but may be a Member of your Lordships' House. It may be a good arrangement, but I think it is something on which those (if there are any) who, like myself, are ignorant on the matter, would like some observations to be made. There are other things which I intend to ask, which I hope and think will be appropriate, but I will reserve them until we roach the clauses on which they appear to be most appropriate.
5.2 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Perhaps I should say a few words to the noble Viscount, although I have already explained the position, as I see it. The noble Viscount gave me no notice that he proposed to raise any of these questions. He told us just now that he was present in this House during the Second Reading debate on the Bill, when, by Parliamentary custom, any questions of principle should be raised. He did not raise them. He now comes here and puts a number of questions which, as I say, are inappropriate to the Committee stage and ought not, by proper Parliamentary procedure, to be dealt with on Committee stage. I do not propose to answer them; and I believe I shall have the support of the House in not answering those questions at this stage. If the noble Viscount wishes to raise the question of whether it is proper for this Government, or any other Government, to manufacture the atomic bomb or any other of these modern weapons, then I suggest that his proper course would be to table a Motion on the subject, when I can assure him it would receive the closest attention and
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the fullest answer. It would be quite wrong, I think, that this matter should be dealt with now.
There are many other Members of your Lordships' House who would no doubt wish to make a contribution on a great issue of that kind, none of whom has had notice that it is to be raised; none of them has had any time in which to prepare what he would wish to say; and, indeed, I would feel myself, speaking for the Government on a matter of that kind, that it would require much more consideration than it is necessary for the noble Viscount to give it, he speaking—I do not say this in an offensive sense—in an irresponsible position, speaking for himself and nobody else. Therefore, as say. I shall not deal with that matter now, or any of the questions he has raised. If he is unhappy about the membership of the Board, it was open to him to put down an Amendment on that point.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I am not unhappy; I am merely asking for a little disquisition on it.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I will take note of what the noble Viscount has said, and if I can give him the proper information I will do so in due course. But I am distressed by what the noble Viscount has done this afternoon. We are a body where it is most important that everything we say should be carefully considered, and indeed, that is particularly true of the Government. He cannot conceivably have thought that, without consultation with any Government Department, I should make a Government pronouncement on the matters he has raised. The noble Viscount is one of the most experienced Members of your Lordships' House: he has been in the House of Commons or the House of Lords for a large part of his life. He knows very well the position of responsibility in which Ministers stand, especially at a time like this. I do not want to be rude to the noble Viscount, but I am deeply shocked at the lack of responsibility he has shown.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I would only say this to the noble Marquess. I should not have made my remarks if I were not deeply moved in this matter, as the public are also deeply moved. Something has happened in the world which has raised a great moral issue.

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I left the Second Reading alone because we were discussing the technical side of the machinery. First, the noble Marquess says it is improper to raise this matter on Clause 1 of the Bill; then he suggests that I should give notice to the other Members of the House who would have wished to speak on Clause 1. Those two arguments do not dovetail—but that is not important. What is important is that the whole public are deeply moved by this matter. I am going to raise later on the question of whether in this Bill we are retaining any vestige of Parliamentary control. If the noble Marquess is angry with me I am sorry, but I ask him to believe that I do not raise this matter in an irresponsible way; I raise it because millions of people in the country are disturbed.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The noble Viscount talks as if the hydrogen bomb has been discovered since the Second Reading debate took place in your Lordships' House. That is not the case. Everything he knows to-day he knew then. He has deliberately come here in order to make, without notice, a speech to which there can be no reply. I think that is a most discreditable performance. Having said that, I feel that we should now proceed with the Committee stage of the Bill.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2:
Functions of the Authority
(2) Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Authority shall, as from the appointed day, have power (whether within the United Kingdom or elsewhere)—
(a) to produce, use and dispose of atomic energy and carry out research into any matters connected therewith;
Provided that—
(i) the Authority shall not, save in accordance with arrangements made with the Minister of Supply, develop or produce any weapon or part of a weapon, except that nothing in this proviso shall limit the power of the Authority to conduct experimental work which may lead to improved types of explosive nuclear assemblies for atomic weapons;
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON moved, in proviso (i) to subsection (2), after "weapon," where that word occurs a second time, to insert:
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"and shall make available to the Minister of Supply such research establishments as are necessary to discharge those functions,"
The noble Lord said: I would say at the beginning that I attach no importance to the actual wording of this Amendment, but I have endeavoured to put down on the Marshalled List of Amendments in some tangible form, as best I can, the essence of a point which I raised on the Second Reading, and to which I believe noble Lords other than myself attach considerable importance. As your Lordships know, this Bill transfers all atomic work from the Ministry of Supply, under whose ægis it has so far been carried on, to this Atomic Energy Authority. That Atomic Energy Authority will ultimately be responsible to the Lord President of the Council—and about that I make no complaint, particularly while the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, occupies that office. But there is a point here which I believe is of some substance. Your Lordships will be aware that under Clause 2—and for brevity's sake I use the words of the Explanatory Memorandum:
"The Authority are to develop and produce atomic weapons only under arrangements made with the Ministry of Supply"—
which means that the Minister of Supply still has the duty of procuring atomic weapons on behalf of the Services—
"but are free to conduct experimental work which may lead to improved types of warheads for such weapons."
In other words, the duty of procuring atomic weapons remains with the Minister of Supply, but the duty of carrying on all the research work appertaining thereto passes from the Ministry of Supply to the new Authority. It seems to me to be a most dangerous thing to dissociate research and development from the duty of procurement.
A parallel situation exists in the aircraft field. The duty of procurement of aircraft for the fighting Services rests upon the Minister of Supply; but he has at his disposal the vast research organisation in the Royal Aircraft Establishments at Farnborough and elsewhere. It is because of the existence of these research establishments, the work done in them, the knowledge obtained and the progress made that he is able to place his development contracts which, after much experiment, lead ultimately to the production of the best type of

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military and, indeed, civil aircraft. We have resisted in Parliament and elsewhere every attempt to part the duty of procuring aircraft from the management of the research establishment. It is essential that they should be in the same hands. But here we do it.
It is a matter of the utmost sadness that in dealing with this vast new human power we should have to consider it as a weapon of destruction; but, as things are, we must so consider it. We cannot ignore the fact that this is the dominating weapon of war, and although it remains the paramount duty of every Government to find a way of getting rid of this danger of war by atomic methods, until we have got rid of it we must try to retain the lead. Therefore, it seems to me of the utmost importance that, if the duty of procurement of an atomic weapon for our fighting Services rests upon the Minister of Supply, he should not be hampered by being denied the necessary research establishments. Now which is the best way to do it? Obviously, the expense in men, resources and money in this field are so enormous that you cannot duplicate where duplication is unnecessary. Some way must be found to make the powers of research available to the procurement authority. I will not weary your Lordships by belabouring the point. As it seems to me, it is obvious, and I would ask the noble Marquess, the Lord President of the Council, if he can tell us by what means it is proposed to meet it. I beg to Move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 4, after the second ("weapon") insert the said words.—(Lord Wilmot of Selmeston.)
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: As I understand it, the purpose of the noble Lord in moving this Amendment does not really depend upon the wording of the Amendment. He wishes to raise a broad point and to get a fairly broad assurance.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: That is so.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: As I understand it, what the noble Lord seeks to ensure is that that type of research in which the Ministry of Supply is properly interested shall be carried on in the future as it has been carried on in the past. It was a point the noble Lord made in the
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Second Reading debate and to which he has reverted now. I entirely agree that it is a point of considerable substance. If I read his intention correctly—and I understand that I have—I think his Amendment is unnecessary, and I hope to be able to give him assurances now which will be all he needs.
As the noble Lord knows from all his past experience, which is very great, there are two types of contract into which the Ministry of Supply and the Atomic Energy Authority might enter: there are production contracts and there are research contracts. I would entirely agree with the noble Lord that, if the extent of the collaboration between the two bodies were to be limited to the production contracts, then it is perfectly true that the Ministry of Supply would come into the picture far too late, and the situation would be impaired by the change which is taking place. But in fact there are also research contracts, and it is the intention of the Government, and of the that under the research contracts the Minister of Supply shall be brought into the picture very early in the proceedings.
In fact, as I understand it, I go so far as to say that the great bulk of the work which will be done at Aldermaston is likely to be done under contract with the Ministry of Supply. There will remain, of course, what I may describe as a residue, and that residue will be composed of research of a basic or speculative nature—feeling out into the far future. This the Atomic Energy Authority will carry on, on their own initiative. This research, one may hope, will lead ultimately to the improvement of weapons generally. But it certainly will not be linked at that stage with any individual weapon. As soon as anything is discovered which would or might be of value to the Ministry of Supply, then the Ministry of Supply will be brought into consultation. Indeed, the Ministry of Supply will normally be already aware of the lines of thought on which the research is proceeding, and that, I hope, will always continue to be the case. In conclusion, I assure the noble Lord that his intention and the Government's are exactly the same, and in view of this explanation I hope he will not find it necessary to press his Amendment.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: In view of that explanation and assurance, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: Clause 2 (1) (f) of the Bill says that the duty of the authority shall be:
"to distribute information relating to, and educate and train persons in matters connected with, atomic energy or radioactive substances."
This is the centre and source of knowledge about the effect of radioactive substances. Now this new bomb has an operative area, I understand, of 400 square miles—10 miles in every direction from the centre. Will the Lord President tell us what steps have been taken to prepare the public in case such an attack took place, on how to prepare the material to give any shelter that may be possible, or any action or remedial help to those who will suffer under such an attack? If he will tell me that—and I think it arises directly on the clause—I am sure the public would be interested to have the information.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I think the answer to that is that the noble Viscount is misreading the purpose of paragraph (f). That paragraph is really a power of the new Authority
"to distribute information relating to, and educate and train persons in matters connected with, atomic energy or radioactive substances."
It is not really concerned with attacks. What it is mainly concerned with is the civil uses of radioactivity. We hope that it is going to be a great boon and benefit in many ways. We hope that British industry may be brought in at an early date in order to help in the construction of power stations and the use of isotopes, and matters of that kind. That is the purpose to which paragraph (f) is directed. It is not the duty of the Atomic Energy Authority to give directions to the general public as to what they should do in the event of the dropping of an atomic bomb. That is a matter for the Government and Home Office; it is nothing to do with the Atomic Energy Authority. Nor, I would say, is it directly the job of the Lord President. If I understood the noble Viscount correctly in what he said, the duties he was discussing were duties primarily of
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the Home Secretary, and no doubt the Home Secretary is considering these duties very carefully and thoughtfully at the present time.
5.20 p.m.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I believe that that answer will be disappointing to the people who fear this attack if it comes. The Home Secretary has produced a leaflet in which the only recommendation that I can find is that a writer of wide popular appeal should be asked to produce a cheap book in pocket size which could be issued on this matter. But how can the Home Secretary possibly know how to deal with the scorching effects, the burning effects, of the new bomb? He cannot know anything whatever about it. It is not in his ken. The man who knows is the Lord President of the Council: he is at the head; he controls all the scientific thought in this country. And it now appears that not only has he made—I retract at once if I am wrong—no preparation to tell the public what to do or to prepare at a long distance what the public should do to protect themselves, but he repudiates any responsibility for giving that information. I say that that is a shocking state of affairs. I suppose it means extermination when this thing happens—I do not know. Does the noble Marquess wish to intervene? Certainly I would never fail to give way.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I think the noble Viscount is, either wilfully or unintentionally, totally misleading both the House and the country. If he reads again through the Second Reading debate, he will find that the subjects which he is now discussing are not within the purview of this Bill. The noble Viscount has been a member of the Cabinet; he knows how the Cabinet and Government work. When I say that it is primarily the responsibility of the Home Secretary to deal with Civil Defence, that does not mean that that absolves other members of the Cabinet or other Departments from considering the matter. Nor should the noble Viscount give the public the idea that these new dangers are not at present being considered by the members of the Government. Of course they are. No responsible Government would think of acting otherwise. But to raise the matter on a clause in the Committee stage of a Bill, the limitations of which

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have been explained to the House several times, is to my mind an abuse of Parliamentary time.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: The noble Marquess has his remedy. I would invite him to use it if he wishes. He can move that what I have to say be not heard. I would invite him to use that procedure if he thinks it right. I contend that, in a Bill which sets up a Ministry to deal with atomic research, we are entitled to ask whether that Ministry is making any sort of research into the protection of the public against this new form of attack. I say that this pamphlet issued by the Home Secretary is ridiculous. It was issued after the explosion in the Pacific, but the truth is that the whole Civil Defence organisation is now being attacked. One or two councils—for instance, Coventry—have said that the thing is no use whatever. Other people have said: "That must be wrong. You must protect yourselves if this is coming." Every sensible person would say that. But, at the same time, we must go to the fount and origin of knowledge to ask how to do it.
Then the noble Marquess said that this was not a Committee point and not suitable to be considered with a large number of other points. I say that it is in order under this Bill. If the noble Marquess says that it is not in order, let him move that it is not in order and I shall not be allowed to pursue the matter.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The last thing I should want to do would be to move that the noble Viscount be no longer heard. Every word that he has said this afternoon is alienating the whole House more and more from him. He is behaving entirely unreasonably. The longer he goes on, the better pleased I shall be.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: We have a Standing Order, No. XXVIII, which says that speakers should address themselves to the matter and not to the person. When the noble Marquess has finished with me—for he always goes into these short biographical speeches where I am concerned—perhaps he could tell me whether his Department is concerned with finding out counter-measures. I want to know that. I think one is entitled to ask that because his Department is the Department
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concerned with these matters. If the noble Marquess brushes me aside again, I must leave it. He says that I am alienating the House. I regret it but, with respect to noble Lords, I am not so concerned with whether I am alienating the House of Lords; what I am concerned with is whether I am attempting to protect the public against something for which the Government appear to have made no preparations.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I would not accept for a moment the last statement of the noble Viscount, which is utterly unreasonable. If he asks me, is my Department responsible for countermeasures against atomic attack, the answer is: It is not.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: Of course.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: That is perfectly clear—it is not.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: Of course.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: That is not the duty of the Lord President's Department. The whole Government have a responsibility in this matter, and primarily the Home Secretary, who produced the pamphlet to which the noble Viscount referred. If the noble Viscount wishes to raise the question of Civil Defence, the course is open to him at any time to put down a Motion in this House, when he will receive a full answer. I suggest that, if my Department is not responsible, then it is a little queer that the noble Viscount should raise this matter on the Committee stage of a Bill which concerns my Department.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I do not want to weary your Lordships further. The point is this: that of course the Home Secretary must make the shelters and enlist the Civil Defence volunteers; but the Home Secretary cannot possible know what chemical or other action is required. Only the Lord President can know that. The noble Marquess says that I am out of order. I have made my point. I know that I am not in a majority in this House. I can do no more.
LORD HANKEY: If I may step in where angels fear to tread, surely the whole system of co-ordination of the Government is available for this purpose? There is the Prime Minister at the top,

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in touch with all his Ministers, with his hand on the whole machine of defence, through the Ministry of Defence. All the Departments connected in any way with Civil Defence would naturally be informed automatically if there was any new information available on the subject; or, if they wanted any advice, they could get it through the ordinary system of supreme control over the co-ordination of Government business.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Financial Provisions as to the Authority]:
On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?
5.28 p.m.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: In another place, an Amendment was moved seeking to give direct Parliamentary control over the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. That attempt did not meet with the support of my Party and it did not meet with the support of the other place. I am not going to renew or even to discuss its merits. But I think the noble Marquess, who himself is a very old Parliamentary servant, will agree that Parliamentary control should be protected. Let us see where we are. I remember a great many debates on defence. One of the earliest was on the question of the eight battleships in 1908—
"We want eight;
And we won't wait."
The noble Lord, Lord Hankey, will remember that. I remember the full and open debate as regards the issue, between Mr. Balfour and Mr. Wyndham and Mr. McKenna and Mr. Asquith. Therefore, I do not consider that it is at all improper that we should discuss here detailed matters of defence. The more strong and violent the weapons are, the more important it is to retain Parliamentary control.
So far as I can judge from this machinery, Parliamentary control has just disappeared. We are not in a democracy at all. One man advises the Cabinet as to the priorities—that was in the last clause—between the offensive and industrial uses. It is very doubtful whether the hydrogen bomb could ever be a
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defensive weapon. But he advises, and then a decision is made by the Cabinet. Naturally, the Cabinet do not tell the Commons or the Lords what action is to be taken. That is an action by a few men which is far more effective than many Governments and many nations could take in many centuries. So I would not say that, if we ever reached the hydrogen age, we could consider it an age of Parliamentary democracy. In the meantime, however, it is the duty of Parliament to try, subject to considerations of national security (I cannot imagine that they arise very much in this country so far as the hydrogen bomb is concerned), to retain so far as possible, and according to our conventional training, control of this affair.
I may be asking questions that are founded on complete ignorance, because I am not very clear in my mind about this, but I understand that in Class 9, Vote 7, of the Estimates, the Atomic Energy Estimate amounted to about £53 million; and this Estimate would, of course, come before Parliament. We do not discuss Estimates here, but we can discuss questions of finance. In another place I should have been free to put down a Motion to reduce this Estimate by an amount, and then I should have persisted, because it is in Committee, until I received a satisfactory answer. Am I right in supposing that Class 9, Vote 7, Atomic Energy, disappears, or is it going to appear in the Estimates? Is it going to be transferred to some new account, to be inspected and certified by the Comptroller and Auditor General? If the Estimate remains, I have nothing more to say, because then, either in another place or here, the matter can be raised. But from what the noble Marquess said in his speech, and from what Clause 4 sets out, it would appear that the whole Estimate is to be removed from Parliamentary inspection and passed to the Comptroller and Auditor General, who will make a report to Parliament. I may be quite wrong about this. Perhaps the noble Marquess would clear up the matter at once. If he says that the Estimate remains, then, of course, I have nothing more to say. If the Estimate is to be removed, then I should like to be allowed to offer one or two observations.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I should have thought Clause 4 was quite

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clear, though I may be entirely wrong. Subsection (1) of that clause says:
"The Lord President of the Council may, out of moneys provided by Parliament, pay to the Authority such sums in respect of the expenses of the Authority as he may, with the consent of the Treasury, determine."
That is to say, he pays it over, but he has to get the consent of the Chancellor of the Exchequer before he does so. Then the clause goes on:
"(2) Any revenues of the Authority for any financial year … shall be applied by the Authority in such manner as the Lord President of the Council may, with the approval of the Treasury, direct, and any such direction may require the whole or any part of those revenues to be paid into the Exchequer.
(3) The Authority shall keep proper accounts and other records and shall prepare in respect of each financial year statements of account in such form as the Treasury may direct and those statements shall … be transmitted to the Comptroller and Auditor General, who shall examine and certify the statements and lay copies thereof, together with his report thereon, before each House of Parliament."
This House can debate those statements. The noble Viscount thinks that obscure, but to me the clause is as clear as it can be made. Perhaps the noble Viscount will allow me to remind him that the late Government (I am not complaining of it at all) spent a large amount of money in research into the atomic bomb, about which Parliament and the nation knew nothing. I am not complaining of that—I think it is probably one of the wisest things they did. He is suggesting that suddenly Parliamentary control is removed, but I should have thought that under this system there was more control than there was before.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: I am obliged to the noble Marquess for his explanation. It is a long time since I sat on the Public Accounts Committee and I do not remember what was the form of words. But would the noble Marquess give me an assurance that the amount of Parliamentary control over the expenditure of money in this case is no less than it is over the expenditure of money for any other purpose in any other Department?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: As I understand it, so far as these moneys are concerned, the control will be the same, and they will come before the Public Accounts Committee in the same way.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: The Public Accounts Committee is not Parliamentary control in the detailed sense. I understand the situation now to be this. We are going into the hydrogen age. It will be very expensive to experiment in this matter. Suppose that the Lord President, who has the say, decides that, in view of the national need, the military rather than the industrial side should have priority. That being so, it is open to him, with the consent of the Treasury, which is the Government, to give money to this Corporation to go ahead with the hydrogen bomb. Of course it would be very desirable that that decision should be subject to review or challenge in another place. But that is not the position in this Bill. Under it, the answer to my question is that the whole of this Estimate that I spoke of, the £53 million, disappears from the Estimates and a report is made by the Corporation to the Comptroller and Auditor General, who then certifies that it is in accordance with—I do not quite know what; I suppose the directions given by the Lord President. Therefore, it appears to me that unless the noble Marquess has something to add, what I feared is true—namely, that the whole of this enormous, uncharted and terrifying territory is being withdrawn entirely from criticism or control by the Houses of Parliament.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I honestly think the noble Viscount has not studied this subject with the full care which I should have expected of him. It is not the Lord President of the Council who will give these instructions to manufacture the hydrogen bomb. Of course if there were a decision with regard to the hydrogen bomb, that decision would be taken by the Cabinet as a whole. But under proviso (i) of Clause 2 (2) it is the Minister of Supply who would be really the ultimate source from which the instructions would come. I can read the proviso to the noble Lord:
"the Authority shall not, save in accordance with arrangements made with the Minister of Supply, develop or produce any weapon or part of a weapon, except that nothing in this proviso shall limit the power of the Authority to conduct experimental work which may lead to improved types …"
That I have already discussed on the Amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wilmot of Selmeston, and

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I think I have satisfied him as to the intention of those words. But certainly it is not myself, or my successor, who will give the ultimate instructions—that is to say, I should not act in a matter of that kind except on the initiative of the Minister of Supply. That may not satisfy the noble Viscount, but I think it puts him straight on a point in regard to which he was imperfectly informed. Then, with regard to the whole question of whether Parliament will have control, this matter was dealt with in another place, and I have nothing to add to what was said there. It is not possible, in a matter of this immense importance and secrecy, to say that everything shall be publicly discussed in Parliament. If Parliament is dissatisfied with the policy of the Government, the ultimate resort it has is to remove that Government. I am sure that those who were members of the late Government would accept exactly the same position. Therefore, in regard to details of that kind I do not think any responsible Government would take into account what has been done in other cases. I do not think any sensible person would expect it. But, within that limitation, the explanation I have given as to the responsibility of Parliament, and the opportunity of Parliament to discuss the expenditure, applies. I do not withdraw anything that I have said, and, as I say, I think Clause 4 is really completely clear on this question.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: The short answer is that, whereas where we have Estimate No. 9, which deals with atomic energy, on which any Member of another place can move a reduction, that Estimate disappears from the list of Estimates, and we are given a report which we may debate if we can find the time, or we may not. That is the short answer to that measure, to the measure of £53 million—and, of course, perhaps a greatly increased sum, if we go into the hydrogen bomb field. Parliamentary control disappears.
EARL JOWITT: Is that right? I am getting confused about this. I am not arguing. I quite understand what the noble Marquess said, but I should like to understand whether the gloss which the noble Viscount has put upon it is right or not. I am really in a state of confusion.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I do not think it is right. It would be open to either House, in that situation, to move that my salary be reduced. That would present an opportunity for a debate. I think that is the way it should be done.
5.40 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: Is it not even clearer than that? I assume that the Lord President of the Council may use moneys provided by Parliament to pay that Authority. Does that not go on his Vote? Does not Parliament therefore know how much money the Lord President is providing for atomic energy? It goes into the Estimates, and if any Member of Parliament thinks that the amount which the Lord President is providing is excessive he can move a reduction. Therefore Parliament has control of the overall sum. The amount of detail which the noble Marquess gives to Parliament is, I imagine, a matter for the discretion of the Government. They may not think it right to give to Parliament exact details of how this overall sum is going to be spent. That is a subject which all Governments have to consider, and in a matter of security naturally they are not in a position to give all the details. But the overall sum is under the control of Parliament and it can reduce it or can refuse to permit any of it to be spent. Is not that so?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I do not want to dissent from what I said at all, and I think that what is said in paragraph (c) is absolutely clear and definite.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: This is a very important matter, and I am much indebted to the noble Marquess for the trouble he has taken in explaining it. Moneys voted for these purposes will be voted on the ordinary Parliamentary Votes either of the Minister of Supply or of the Lord President of the Council. So far as the Ministry of Supply is concerned it would be accountable to Parliament in the ordinary Departmental way—not that that way always gives Members of Parliament much information as to how the money is going to be spent, as we have seen in the use of atomic money hitherto. But so far as the Lord President's Vote is concerned, he is authorised to hand over to the Authority such money as is required to carry on

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their authorised functions, and they will be subject to the Comptroller and Auditor General and will report to him in such form as the Treasury will require. Parliament can require the Treasury to do that, and it seems to me, and I hope the noble Marquess will be able to confirm it, that these arrangements are not diminishing in any way the control of Parliament over the expenditure. In some respects it seems there will be rather more than less light.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: That is quite correct. There is an ordinary Estimate first, and that will be subject to debate or a Motion to reduce it, if Parliament is not satisfied. Then there will be an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General and an examination by the Public Accounts Committee. I think the noble Lord is right in saying that in the old days, when it was all wrapped up among a million other items in the Ministry of Supply, it was perhaps even more difficult to distinguish what was being spent on this subject than it will be under the Lord President's Vote.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I was confused in my presentation of the case and I understand now. It is quite simple. I am not asking for details—no one can ask for details in these intimate matters of security—but I understand from what the Lord President says that there will be an overall Vote of the sum, and if people are asked, "What is this money, and how are you spending it?" it will then be as in the case of the Home Office and the Secret Service: they will not answer at all. If that is the situation, that leaves Parliament with at any rate this amount of control: that it can measure the growth in the overall expenditure in this field. Parliament will be able to watch the growth, although it may not know the details.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Powers as to purchase of land, carrying out works, etc.]:
On Question, Whether Clause 5 shall stand part of the Bill?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: There is something I should like to say on Clause 5 although there is no Amendment down. I refer to a comparatively small point raised in another place.
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During the debate on Clause 5 (3) in the Report stage in another place, the Solicitor-General undertook to inquire whether the position as regards damage to fishing rights from pollution of rivers was substantially the same in Scotland as in England. These inquiries have now been made and I can give the House the result. The Lord Advocate's Department has advised that there is no doubt that the owners of salmon fishings can take legal action to protect themselves against damage by pollution. In the case of other fishings it has not been possible to find any case where the point has been specifically tested in an action brought solely in respect of damage by pollution to fishing other than salmon, but the position is thought to be the same. In these circumstances no Amendment is being put down; but in view of the Solicitor-General's undertaking I should like to take the opportunity to explain that Clause 5 (3) will afford protection for the owners of salmon and probably other fishings in Scotland from pollution of rivers by radioactive waste discharged from the Authority's premises, and I am prepared to give an assurance that the Authority will not seek to base a defence in any action on the possible distinction between salmon and other fishings. I hope that this statement will make the position quite clear.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
5.47 p.m.
First Schedule [Provisions as to the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority]:
LORD SILKIN LORD SILKIN moved, in Paragraph 7 (4), to leave out all words after "not" down to the end of the sub-paragraph, and to insert:
"terminate on security grounds the employment of any officer of, or person employed by, the Authority.
In this sub-paragraph the expression 'security grounds' means grounds which are grounds for dismissal from the civil service of Her Majesty, in accordance with any arrangements for the time being in force relating to dismissals from that service for reasons of national security."
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name. If noble Lords will look at the First Schedule, Paragraph 7 (4) they will see that this provides for the dismissal of

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persons in the employment of the Authority on the grounds of national security. It provides that:
"Except with the consent of the Lord President of the Council, the Authority shall not dismiss any officer or other person employed by them on the ground that his political associations render his continued employment undesirable in the interests of national security."
I raised this matter on Second Reading. I regard the test of political associations as being quite unsatisfactory, and I think that the noble Marquess, in his winding-up speech. agreed that it was not altogether a satisfactory test to apply. For one thing, it suggests that inquiries should be made of a person's political associations, and I think it is a very short step from that to asking point-blank, as a condition of employment, what are a person's political associations. Otherwise, it seems to me that it would be very difficult to judge whether or not a person was unreliable. Furthermore, to base a person's reliability or otherwise on the question of what are his political associations is, in my view, not the right test at all. A person can belong to any political association and be unreliable or belong to none at all and be unreliable. Therefore I feel—and I think this is also the view of the noble Marquess opposite—this test is not altogether a satisfactory one. The Amendment which I move in a sense evades the question, but it applies the same test to persons employed by the Authority as to civil servants. Whatever may be the arrangements made in the Civil Service, it is suggested by this Amendment that they should be applied to persons employed by the Authority. It is the best Amendment, I think, that can be devised, and I have every reason to hope that it will be accepted by Her Majesty's Government. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 8, leave out from ("not") to end of line 10 and insert the said new words.—(Lord Silkin.)
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I am happy to say, quite briefly, that the Government will be ready to accept this Amendment. Indeed, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, for tabling it in the form which he has done, for it is clearly important, in a matter which is obviously of very real importance, to get a solution agreeable to all Parties. Actually, I do not believe there ever
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was very much difference between us. As I indicated in my Second Reading speech—or in the winding-up speech—I was never entirely happy about the words "political associations," to which the noble Lord has referred—indeed, the question has already been under examination, as a result of the raising of the matter in another place, and my right honourable friend the Minister of Works made it clear there that the object of the Government (I use his own words) was to:
"write in the Bill what is the practice in the Civil Service."
The only doubt was how this was to be done. The Amendment which the noble Lord has now put forward, I think, entirely meets the case. If, of course, the Civil Service practice changed then the practice of this Authority would change, too. The important thing is that they would continue to be identical with each other. In these circumstances, I am ready to accept the Amendment.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: I am greatly interested to note that the Amendment is being accepted. The point is very important. I do not know whether the words "political associations" appear in any existing Statute—perhaps the noble Marquess can say—or whether we should be writing on the Statute Book for the first time a disqualification arising on account of political associations in those terms. Whether this would be a new precedent or not will not now arise, because, owing to the vigilance of the noble Lord on the Front Opposition Bench, the point has been raised and, I think, has been met by the Government in the most satisfactory way.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I was pleased to hear what the noble Marquess said, but I am not surprised, for the Conservative Party, in the matter of civil liberties, has a record which commands respect. I should like to ask the noble Marquess whether it would be possible, if I gave notice of the Question, for me to ask for some information about the probable numbers of people who will be coming under the new rule, and also to ask, from time to time, the numbers of those employed and how far the rule has been applied. I do not know whether this will concern thousands or hundreds of people. As the noble Viscount the Leader of the Liberal Party has said, this

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is a very big issue. Would the noble Marquess consider giving us from time to time details of how many new people are brought under the new conditions, how many, from time to time, have been transferred, and so on? If the noble Marquess could do that I think it would help.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: If the noble Viscount will put down a Question I shall be very happy to give him what information I can. I do not know how far it would be possible to give details in these matters. My impression at the moment is that the number is a pretty limited one.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
First Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
Second Schedule agreed to.
Third Schedule [Adaptations and Modifications of Enactments]:
5.54 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY moved, in the part of the Schedule headed "Other Enactments," at the beginning to insert:
"In section ninety-seven of the Explosives Act, 1875, references to a department of the Government, except the second such reference in paragraph (5) of that section, shall be constructed as including references to the Authority."
The noble Marquess said: I beg to move the next Amendment which stands in my name. The purpose of the Amendment is to provide that the Explosives Act, 1875, shall not be applicable to the Atomic Energy Authority. The Explosives Act, as your Lordships know, is an Act—I quote the words:
"to amend the law in respect to manufacturing, keeping, selling, carrying, and importing gunpowder, nitroglycerine, and other explosive substances."
It contains the statutory provisions under which the storage and transport of conventional explosives are controlled and under which the explosives inspectors of the Home Office work. Section 97 of that Act provides that it shall not bind the Crown and it has not, therefore, so far applied to the Atomic Energy Project, which has been within the purview of the Ministry of Supply. But by virtue of Clause 6 (5) of the Atomic Energy Bill, which says that:
"save as otherwise expressly provided in this Act, the Authority are not to be treated for the purposes of the enactments and rules of
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law relating to the privileges of the Crown as a body exercising functions on behalf of the Crown …"
the Act will henceforward apply to the Authority unless a special provision is made in the Bill.
There are, I suggest, three reasons why the Act should not be applied to the Authority. First, by Section 3 of the Act, the term "explosive" means
"gunpower, nitro-glycerine, etc. … and every other substance … used or manufactured with a view to producing a practical effect by explosion. …"
The provisions of the Act might therefore be held to apply to "atomic" explosives—that is to say, fissile material. That would be totally erroneous in present circumstances. Secondly, the provisions of the Act (which require licensing of magazines, hearings by local authorities, and public inquiry into accidents) would be entirely out of keeping with the stringent security requirements which are necessary in this particular case. Lastly, the classifications in the code of practice laid down in the Act do not accord with the classifications used in the project. The project establishments, which have grown up in the Ministry of Supply, base their practice on that of the Service and Supply Departments, and in particular on the Ammunition and Explosives Regulations (Land Service), 1953, issued by the War Office, and other prescriptions as to the safety distances et cetera as laid down by the Inter-Departmental Committee.
The matter was fully examined by the Department concerned and it has become evident to the Government that this old Act almost belongs to a different world, and is entirely inappropriate to the Atomic Energy Project, and the Amendment is necessary. At the same time, I should not, of course, suggest to the Committee that the Authority should by this Amendment both be exempted from the civilian code and, by ceasing to be a Government Department, escape from the administrative control of the War Office code, which is observed by all Service and Supply Departments. I should therefore like to make it clear that I intend to ensure that the Authority shall comply in detail with such Magazine and Explosives Code of Practice as is from time to time in force in Service and Supply Departments. We mean merely to harmonise it with them. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 15, line 6, at beginning insert the said words.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: Before we leave this matter, I would say that I think there are certain aspects of what the Lord President has said which affect the safety of people working in these establishments. I am not quite sure how the old Explosives Act applies, but it applies in some regards—indeed, the noble Marquess the Lord President intends in devising his rules of conduct, I understand, to have regard to that.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Oh yes; very much so.
LORD SILKIN: I was going to raise an analogous point, and that concerns the question of public inquiries in the event of serious accidents, which I fear must inevitably occur from time to time. Under the Explosives Act, I gather that in such an event a public inquiry is bound to take place. In this case, I imagine, it will be in the discretion of the Lord President. I realise that it may not be practical politics to have a public inquiry in which all sorts of secret information might have to be disclosed. Nevertheless, one of the safeguards that the public expect is that, in the event of a serious accident, there should be an inquiry. While I do not expect the noble Marquess to be able to give a specific reply upon the matter to-day, I hope that it is one of those matters which will be taken into account, and that consideration will be given to the question of how to reconcile the interests of security with the general safety of the public.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I will certainly bear in mind what the noble Lord has said. Of course, it has great validity. We all like to have public inquiries where they are possible. I should not like to give an advance opinion, but in matters where secrecy is vital it might be better not to have a public inquiry. I should have thought it was a matter on which the Lord President must use his discretion, and I should have thought that any Lord President, who I hope would be a person of mature experience, would use his discretion so as not to rule out an inquiry should that be at all possible.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: There is one final point that I should like
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to make, with your Lordships' permission. In handing over the whole of this work to a new Authority, we have to remember that it is a new Authority and will not carry with it quite the same traditions, powerful, though short in time, which have grown up in the Ministry of Supply, particularly in matters of the health and safety of the people involved. It is a highly creditable thing that within the Ministry, often in the most dangerous work, the highest records of health prevail—higher, in fact, than among the general public. This is due entirely to the discipline and public spirit, the research and good work which has become an inalienable tradition of this Department. I have no doubt that under the Lord President's guidance the benefit of that tradition will be handed to the new Authority.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I give the noble Lord an absolute assurance that, so far as it lies in my power, it will be. Of course, he will know that the main establishments of the Authority will be, fortunately, under the same highly trusted management as they have always been.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Remaining Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed.

POOL BETTING BILL
6.3 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD BURDEN: My Lords, I am sorry that the Parliamentary time-table has made it necessary for me to trouble your Lordships with this Bill this afternoon, particularly in view of the many important matters which have already come under your consideration. However, I will promise to be as brief as I possibly can. I hope that any contentious points which may arise will be fully considered by your Lordships when the Bill is in Committee. In the first place, may I say I have no interest to declare. I know nothing of the "Three Draws," "Ten Homes" and "Four Aways"; I know nothing of the mathematical fascinations of permutations, and I have yet to read what I believe is an amusing book by Sir Alan Herbert on How to Win at the Pools. When I first had the honour of

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being a Member of your Lordships' House, one of the most widely read of our morning newspapers informed its readers that for five years I had been a Church Commissioner and that I had won a sum of £10,000, I believe it was stated, in a sweepstake. The first statement was, of course, true, but the second statement, I regret to say, was not true. That is the nearest I have ever been to winning a fortune, either in the pools or in a sweepstake.
The purpose of this Bill which I wish to present to your Lordships is to implement certain recommendations of the Royal Commission on Betting, Lotteries and Gaming, 1949–51, relating to the conduct of off-the-course pool betting. In particular, it is designed to confine within narrow limits the ability of the promoter to control the size of prizes, and to oblige the promoters to publish information about the conduct of their pools. The Bill applies only to off-the-course pool betting, of which the kind most widely carried on is the football pool, with which the Royal Commission's recommendations were primarily concerned. The Bill provides that the conduct of pool betting shall be subject to a form of supervision carried out by professional persons, and requires statements to be made available to competitors showing how the moneys staked have been disbursed by the promoters of the pool.
There is no doubt that the running of pools has become one of the major business activities of this country. The amount staked by way of pool betting in 1951 was £57 million. In 1952 it was £65 million and in 1953 £70 million. It seems reasonable that where, as in this form of activity, very large sums of money are entrusted by the public in the hands of private persons, there should be some supervision of the manner in which those moneys are handled. It seems also to be desirable that the public should know how much money has been distributed in accordance with the rules and how much retained in respect of expenses and commission. This is what the Bill seeks to do.
Perhaps I may briefly run over its main provisions. Your Lordships will observe that by Clause 1 all promoters of pool betting businesses are required to be registered with the local authority, which will arrange, under Clause 2, for
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the appointment of an accountant to supervise the conduct of the business. The requirements relating to the actual running of the pools are contained in Clause 3. At this stage I will not go into these requirements in detail, except to say that this is the clause which is designed to prevent prize money from being transferred from one pool to another or prizes from being artificially swollen, by money that has not been paid in as stakes. This implements one of the recommendations of the Royal Commission. Clause 4 provides that a weekly statement of the percentage deducted for commission and expenses shall be made known to all competitors and that annual statements showing the total moneys staked in all the promoter's pools and the amount or percentage of commission retained by him shall be submitted to the local authority, by whom they will be made available for public inspection. In addition, the accountant has to be sent the promoter's annual profit and loss account. Clause 5 confers powers upon the accountant which will enable him to carry out his task of supervising the conduct of the business in accordance with the rules laid down by the Bill.
The sixth clause provides for the case of void competitions and Clause 7 allows, subject to safeguards, the apportionment of stake moneys among various competitions by a sampling technique. Clause 8 is the penalties clause, and Clause 9 permits certain local authorities to delegate their functions under the Bill. The tenth clause permits ready money pool betting to be carried on by post. The various definition are contained in Clause 11, which excludes from the operation of the Bill bets placed on totalisator pools operating on horse and dog-racing tracks, which are governed by existing legislation. Clause 12 contains certain provisions which apply only in Scotland.
The Bill may appear to be somewhat complicated, but this complexity is inevitable if the provisions of the Bill are to be workable in practice. I understand that there have been detailed consultations with representatives of the pool promoters about the provisions relating to the conduct of the pools, and that the numerous Amendments which have been made to the Bill as originally introduced in another place were prepared with the

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assistance of the Parliamentary draftsman, whose services the Government were so kind as to make available. I do not wish to weary your Lordships with details at this stage; there will be ample opportunity in Committee to explain any points which require elucidation. This is, I believe, a carefully-thought-out and useful measure, and I trust that your Lordships will give it a Second Reading.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Burden.)
6.12 p.m.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, at this stage I think it would be convenient if I intervened to make clear the attitude of Her Majesty's Government towards this Private Member's Bill. I should, first of all, apologise for the absence of my noble friend Lord Lloyd. He would have liked to be present, but he has a long-standing official engagement in North Wales; he hopes to assist in the later stages of the Bill in your Lordships' House. We are greatly indebted to the Royal Commission on Betting and Gambling for producing a most interesting Report which I commend to your Lordships. In that Report is a great deal of information about pool betting. From the Report it is clear that the pools provide a widespread pastime, with a slight chance of a magnificent prize and
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a slightly better chance of a more humble prize. As a form of gambling it is a most expensive one, and for a professional gambler it is obviously out of the question; but something like 16 million people are believed to extract enjoyment and, indeed, mental exercise out of its pursuit. In doing so, they pay heavily for postal services and they pay heavily in taxation and to the expenses of running the pools. But they evidently think the game is worth the candle, and, after all, it is their money.
The promoters of the Bill want to implement the Report of the Royal Commission to the extent of securing that people who put money into pools shall have an opportunity of finding out what happens to it; and they also want to see the conduct of the pools regulated in some respects. In this they have the support of the Government. They had that support in drafting in another place, and if further amendment should be required in your Lordships' House I can promise the help of the official draftsman. In fact, Her Majesty's Government recommend your Lordships to give this Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at a quarter past six o'clock.