Lords Sitting of 30 October 1956

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers
  LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD
  Sir Henry Cohen, Knight, having been created Baron Cohen of Birkenhead, of Birkenhead in the County Palatine of Chester—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

  DISTURBANCES IN SINGAPORE
  2.45 p.m.
  LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
  [The Question was as follows:
  To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any statement to make on the present disturbances in Singapore]
  THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (LORD LLOYD): My Lords, on September 24 the Singapore Government dissolved the Chinese Middle School Students' Union, and ordered the expulsion of some 145 students and two teachers from two Chinese schools. A White Paper published by the Singapore Government (of which I have placed copies in the Library) shows how the Union had become a Communist front organisation engaged in subversive political activities, and demonstrates the extent to which its activities were disrupting the whole Chinese educational system in Singapore. Several thousand students staged a sit-down strike in two schools on October 10 in defiance of the Government, and attempted in daylight sorties to provoke similar action in other schools through picketing and intimidation. On October 24 parents were warned by personal letter, and through the Press and the radio, that they must remove their children from the schools by the evening of the 25th, after which firm steps would be taken to restore discipline.

  1119
  The students continued to defy both their parents and the Government, and on the morning of October 26 the police cleared them from both schools without incident. Members of certain Communist front trade unions came out on strike and large groups of students and strikers began to collect in the streets. Increasingly large roving gangs began attacks on cars, buildings and police. A curfew was imposed on the Island and troops were called in to assist the police. During the rest of last Friday and again on Saturday there were a series of attacks by roving bands on vehicles and police posts. The police and the military forces, who showed exemplary restraint, were constantly engaged in dispersing large mobs of up to a thousand persons and preventing their reassembly. The police were forced to open fire on a number of occasions. The situation quietened down on Saturday afternoon and Sunday passed without any serious incidents. Since then the situation has been quiet. The Singapore Government have made a large number of arrests both among rioters and those believed to be fomenting the disorders. Thirteen persons are reported to have lost their lives and 122 to have been injured.
  LORD OGMORE: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, may I say that we on this side of the House should like to express our sympathy with all those innocent people who have suffered injury in these disturbances? May I, first, ask the noble Lord whether he would agree that the Chief Minister of Singapore has acted with patience and with courage and should be commended? Secondly, may I ask the noble Lord whether charges will be preferred against those adults who have been instigating these misguided schoolchildren to commit these wrongful acts? Thirdly, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware with what feelings of gratification the people of the Federation of Malaya welcome the visit of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh to Penang and Kuala Lumpur?
  LORD LLOYD: I am much obliged to the noble Lord for what he has said. I am sure that all your Lordships will reecho what he said about the visit of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh to Malaya, and we wish that visit
  1120
  well. I should like to take this opportunity of endorsing what the noble Lord has said about the patience and the restraint, and also the courage, that have been shown by Mr. Lim Yew Hock in a very difficult situation. I feel that all your Lordships would wish that message to go out to him from this House. As regards the point raised by the noble Lord in respect of charges against those concerned in these riots, he will have observed from what I have said that a number of arrests have been made. I must tell your Lordships frankly that the final report on the riots has not reached my right honourable friend and therefore I am not in a position to tell the House exactly what charges will be preferred. I do not even know at this stage exactly who are all the people who have been arrested. I will take note of what the noble Lord has said and later on if it is possible to add anything to what I have said I shall be glad to do so.
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord could tell us what is the average age of the children concerned. The word "children" is used in the Answer and I presume, therefore, that they are children. Can he tell us whether any of those are being charged, or whether it is the people who are deemed to be responsible for instigating the children.
  LORD LLOYD: My Lords, I think "children" is perhaps in some cases a euphemism. Certainly many of the students are of secondary school age. Some I understand stay on rather longer than that, and you may get in these schools students as old as twenty-one or more. Therefore the range of age is rather large. In reply to the second point, I would say that anybody who has been involved in the rioting, whatever age he may be, is liable to apprehension, and some have undoubtedly been apprehended. I have forgotten what the noble Lord's third point was.
  LORD SILKIN: I assume that, by and large, the people charged will be those who have instigated the children rather than the children themselves.
  LORD LLOYD: I think there are two elements. Anybody who is guilty of rioting lays himself open to arrest. Those

  1121
  who instigate the riots also lay themselves open to arrest. I am afraid I have not got the full report and cannot tell the noble Lord any more to-day.
  LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, I wonder whether. on the assumption that there will be some inquiry into this unfortunate affair, I may ask the noble Lord whether or not there are any indications of inspiration from outside the Colony.
  LORD LLOYD: My Lords, at this stage I should not like to go any further or add anything to what I have already said.

  HUNGARY
  2.54 p.m.
  VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
  [The Question was as follows:
  To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any statement to make on the recent events in Hungary.]
  THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF READING): My Lords, your Lordships will be aware, from the statement made by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary yesterday, of the course of events in Hungary. Since yesterday, the Hungarian Government have announced that the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Budapest would begin twenty-four hours after the Nationalists had laid down their arms. This is at variance with the Hungarian Prime Minister's earlier statement that he had already secured an agreement with the Soviet Commander to withdraw his troops from Budapest and that he was negotiating with the Soviet Government their withdrawal from the whole of Hungary. Moreover, the Soviet Minister of Defence and the Soviet Foreign Minister are reported to have said in Moscow that Soviet troops will not leave the country until it has been pacified, whatever "pacified" may mean in that context.
  I have no information later than October 28 to show whether Soviet forces continue to enter Hungary. Meanwhile, the Soviet forces in Budapest have brought up heavier weapons than before in order to reduce the strong points still
  1122
  held by Nationalist forces. It appears that local cease-fires have been arranged between Nationalist and Soviet commanders in various parts of Hungary outside Budapest, where according to our information the Nationalist forces are in control of wide areas.
  The matter remains on the Agenda of the Security Council, which may be expected to meet again shortly to consider I cannot yet foretell what the result of the Security Council deliberations will be. Meanwhile copies of Sir P. Dixon's speech in the Security Council are being placed in the Printed Paper Office of the House. The House will be glad to know that a large part of the consignment of food and medical supplies which Her Majesty's Government have undertaken to provide has already reached Vienna. The airlift is continuing to-day, and will be completed as soon as possible. I am sure your Lordships will wish to join with Her Majesty's Government in paying tribute to the steadfast courage of the Hungarian people, and in expressing sympathy with those who have suffered in fighting for the freedom of their country.
  VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE: My Lords, may I thank the noble Marquess for his statement and inquire whether the Government does not agree that the events in Hungary to-day are a direct consequence of the infringement of the Peace Treaty in denying the people of Hungary their true rights of representation? Secondly, is the Government aware how widespread and deep is the sympathy with the gallant Hungarian people, so long held down by Communism, and how fervent is our hope that their courage will prevail?
  THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, I agree with the noble Viscount that this appears to be a direct infringement of the terms of the Peace Treaty with Hungary which should have prevented the occurrence of such events as we are now discussing. Article 2 of the Treaty laid down that the Hungarian Government guaranteed the human rights and fundamental freedoms for persons under their jurisdiction. As regards the second of the noble 'Viscount's supplementary questions, Her Majesty's Government are fully aware of the very widespread feeling on this matter amongst the people of this country—and, indeed, not this country alone.
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, we on this side do not wish to put any specific question, but we should like to be associated with the expressions of goodwill and with the help Her Majesty's Government have given to the Hungarian people.
  THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord.
  LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, with regard to the proceedings in the Security Council, could the noble Marquess say whether a country which has sent troops into another country is entitled to vote and to veto decisions in the Security Council?
  THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, I think we had better let the Security Council proceedings take their course and see how matters develop as the proceedings go on. I do not want to anticipate them.

  THE ISRAELI-EGYPTIAN CONFLICT
  LORD REA: My Lords, I beg leave to ask Her Majesty's Government the Question of which I have given Private Notice: whether they have any statement to make about the present situation on the Egyptian-Israeli border.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, I am in touch with my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, and I hope it will be possible to make a statement at about half-past four. I cannot tie myself to the actual time, but if it is convenient to your Lordships I could interrupt Business at about that time in order to make a statement.

  MEDICAL BILL [H.L.]
  Returned from the Commons, agreed to.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I beg to move, That Standing Order No. 41 be considered in order to its being dispensed with for the purpose of passing the Hill Farming Bill and the Crown Estate Bill through their remaining stages.
  Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

  SOUTH OF SCOTLAND ELEC- TRICITY ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

  HILL FARMING BILL
  3.0 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL ST. ALDWYN): My Lords, this Bill has two things to commend it. First, it is short, and that is something which I feel the House will appreciate; secondly, it reaffirms and continues a very important feature of agricultural policy—namely, support for hill and upland farming. This policy, initiated in the Hill Farming Act, 1946, and continued by the Livestock Rearing Act, 1951, has so often been spoken of with approval on both sides of your Lordships' House, that I am sure that it needs no further commendation from me.
  The Acts allow Ministers to approve schemes for improving livestock-rearing land submitted up to November 6 this year. The schemes can cover a wide variety of work. The aim is to create up-to-date and economic holdings for the rearing of livestock in the uplands. Schemes of this kind attract a grant of half their cost, and I am glad to say that considerable use has been made of them. Since 1946, the number of schemes approved is approaching 10,000; they cover over 6 million acres and cost over £32 million. Over 1,000 more schemes are under consideration, and it is estimated that the cost of these will be about another £3½million, making a total of nearly £36 million.

  1125
  Although the whole of the £20 million provided by the present Acts has not been earmarked for schemes so far, they continue to flow in, and we have come to the conclusion that we should be justified in continuing the Acts for a further seven years, by which time all those likely to undertake schemes should have submitted their plans. To cover the cost of these additional schemes we are providing a further £5 million, raising the total available under the Acts to £25 million, which could, if necessary, be increased by a further £2 million. We consider that this will make ample provision for the purpose.
  The Acts also authorise the payment of subsidies on hill sheep and hill cattle. The hill sheep subsidy is a useful insurance policy for hill sheep farmers, and we think that it should continue. The hill cattle subsidy at present takes two forms. The more important, which is common to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, consists in a subsidy on breeding herds kept on hill farms to rear store cattle for sale. We intend to continue this subsidy at the present rate of £10 a cow for the full period of seven years allowed by the Bill. The other subsidy, which is paid in England and Wales and Northern Ireland only, consists in a small payment of £2 a head paid on cattle grazed on hill pastures during the summer. This is a survival of a war-time subsidy designed to relieve lowland pastures during the ploughing up campaign. We consider that the original purpose of this subsidy has been fulfilled and we intend to discontinue it after this year.
  I feel sure that this Bill will commend itself to both sides of the House. Although it is a short measure, it is an important one. A great deal has been said about the need for a long-term policy for agriculture. I feel that here we have an excellent example of that. I invite the House to give the Bill a Second Reading, and, as time is so short, I hope that your Lordships will feel able to pass this useful measure through all its remaining stages this afternoon. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Earl St. Aldwyn.)
  3.5 p.m.
  THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I am sure that we are all grateful to the noble Earl. Lord St. Aldwyn, for his clear and short explanation of this Bill. I think this Bill is one of the most striking examples we have had for some time of a bipartisan policy in agriculture. The policy of financial assistance for upland farmers which we initiated in the Hill Farming and Livestock Rearing Acts is being renewed, under the terms of this Bill, for a further period of seven years, instead of lapsing, as it would otherwise have done, at the end of the current year. I hope, and l am sure the noble Earl will share my hope, that this is a policy which will continue to be followed by Governments of all Parties, for I think it will be needed until such Lime as all the hill and upland farms in the United Kingdom that can become profitable and productive with the help of these monies will, in fact, have used them to add to our supply of borne-produced and home-killed sheep and cattle.
  As the noble Earl has pointed out. it is satisfactory that improvement schemes since 1946 already cover over 6 million acres, and that at present 1.000 more schemes are under consideration by the authorities. But it should not be forgotten that there are about 16 million acres of hill and mountain rough gratings in this country and that there is still a considerable part of this area that could benefit from improvements. Of course, everything depends on the willingness of farmers to apply for grants and on the readiness of Ministers to sanction these grants wherever they can be justified. I should like to point out why, in my view, some farmers do not apply, even when their land would benefit, and to suggest what the Government could do to make this money more easily available for genuine applicants.
  I remember, when I was at the Ministry, making a tour of the hill and upland farms in the north-eastern counties. I was much impressed by the admirable way in which large landowners and large owner-occupiers had taken advantage of this legislation to improve their land. For example, the properties owned by the noble Duke, the Duke of Northumberland, in the Cheviots,. were an excellent example of what can be done by good landlords to improve and modernise farms in upland areas. But I was no less

  1127
  impressed—though far less agreeably—by the real difficulties of the small men, the tenant farmers or owner-occupiers, with just a few acres of in-bye land and perhaps three or four times that amount on the fell. The small man just does not possess the capital required to finance his half-share in the cost of improvements, as required under the Act; and it is even harder for him, of course, because of his limited financial resources, to borrow the capital required for this purpose. That is much more difficult to-day, with the credit squeeze and the high rate of interest, than it was when I was in that part of the world, as long ago as 1951.
  If the small man tries to get an overdraft from his bank and avoids the credit squeeze—and I think all credit is due to the Minister, and to the banks, too, for helping agriculture in this respect—he will have to pay interest at the rate of 6 per cent. But, more often than not, he has no assets to offer the bank as a security for his loan. What is needed, I think, is some form of credit for small farmers, on the security of their personal honesty and ability as farmers, on the prospect that they will make a success of the job and, being reliable and honest men, will repay the loan when they can do so. It is obvious that the commercial banks cannot be expected to give credit on this basis. It would have to come from some sort of public agency, such as the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation, with different and extended powers, or, possibly, from a new lending institution such as a Land Bank. These are merely ideas that I am throwing out, and to which I hope consideration will be given. I do not expect more than that at the moment.
  The precise machinery for giving credit to these small men is, after all, of secondary importance. What really matters is Mat the Government should recognise that there is a crying need for capital for the small tenant farmers and owner-occupiers in England and Wales, and for crofters in Scotland, for the financing of these improvement schemes, which would greatly add to the supply of home-killed meat, and that the money they require cannot be raised at the present time by borrowing in the ordinary way. I read carefully the reply given in another place by the Under-Secretary of State to the complaints that were made by Members
  1128
  representing all parts of the country about difficulties experienced by these small men. I must admit that I was far from satisfied that he realised how serious this difficulty has become. I sincerely hope that the noble Earl will ask his officials in the Department—and that the Secretary of State will do the same for Scotland—to examine this problem carefully again to see whether there is not something that can be done.
  My only other point relates to administrative procedure under these Acts. The existing administrative procedure has been severely criticised in the Arton Wilson Report, and I should like to read a passage from that Report. It says:
  "Nevertheless, we were concerned to find that every scheme"—
  that is, every improvement scheme—
  "has to pass through at least four different offices of the Ministry (county, district A.L.S. office, provincial A.L.S. office, and Headquarters) in addition to receiving a thorough vetting by members of the C.A.E.C. As a result, delays are greatly increased, and there is a lack of clear definition of responsibility for some aspects."
  It is that last sentence that I should like to underline. It is quite clear from that sentence that the Arton Wilson Committee consider that there is unnecessary delay and blurred responsibility in dealing with proposed improvement schemes put up for consideration by farmers.
  In replying to this criticism in another place, the Minister said that a statement would "shortly" be made about action to be taken on the Report. I understand from the noble Earl opposite that there has, in fact, been a further ministerial reply to the question put in another place, but unfortunately I have been unable to trace it. Nevertheless, I think it would be most satisfactory if we could have a statement made in a debate on the Bill in Parliament, and perhaps it could be a little fuller than the reply given to the question asked in the other place. I should like to ask the noble Earl whether it might not be possible to deal with this particular stricture on administrative procedure in advance of the other recommendations of the Report, which will clearly need careful and prolonged consideration. If schemes are, in fact, being held up by clumsy administrative procedure, the sooner, this matter is put right the better. I hope—indeed, I feel sure—

  1129
  that this Bill will receive unanimous approval in all quarters of the House, and I certainly agree with the suggestion of the noble Earl that we should take it through all its stages this afternoon,
  3.15 p.m.
  LORD WISE: My Lords, before the noble Earl opposite replies, there are one or two questions I should like to ask in regard to this Bill. I endorse what my noble friend Lord Listowel has said, and I think this is a step in the right direction towards a long-term policy for agriculture. This measure will, in the ordinary course of events, extend over a period of seventeen years, which is something almost unheard of before in regard to agricultural policy. I am afraid I expected a little more information from the noble Earl opposite, because this is a report on the operation of the Act over the last ten years. There are one or two points on which he may be able to give me further information, so that they need not be raised on the Committee stage on the Question that the clause stand part.
  If it is possible, I should like to be given some information on the volume and the nature of the schemes that have been carried out: whether they are mostly schemes in regard to building operations; whether they have been improvement schemes. road schemes, schemes for ditching or draining—in other words, whether they have been schemes mainly in regard to building operations, and not so much for the improvement of land. Ten thousand schemes have already been approved and, from what has been said, I understand that the amount covered by the approved schemes is £12 million. A sum of £6 million has already been expended by the Government, and I conclude, therefore. that £6 million has been expended by the owners and occupiers who have carried out the schemes. As a matter of interest, I should like to know whether most of those carrying out the schemes have been owners or tenant-occupiers. I do not know whether it is possible to break down the information in that way, but, if so, it would be of interest to know.
  My noble friend Lord Listowel has dealt with the question of cost. It seems that Her Majesty's Government anticipate that additional cost will he incurred in the future in regard to the carrying cut of these schemes. At the moment, the
  1130
  amount approved for the schemes works out on an average at about £3,000 a scheme. The 1,000 schemes which are under consideration now will apparently cost £5 million, which is at the rate of £5.000 a scheme. I should like to know what is likely to be the additional cost of those schemes which are now in operation but which have not yet been completed. A sum of £12 million has been spent on the completion of schemes, which on an average would be 4,000 schemes, leaving another 6,000 schemes to complete; that is to say, the difference between the 10,000 schemes approved and the 4,000 completed. What is likely to be the additional cost in relation to those 6,000 schemes? And if the Government have already agreed on a fixed amount as their contribution towards those schemes, will the additional cost be borne by the occupiers or the owners concerned in carrying them out? Of the £20 million already budgeted for under the original Act, the Government are to spend apparently £14 million. Will the owners and the occupiers be called upon to pay more than £14 million, on their basis of "fifty-fifty" or by reason of the additional cost which these schemes will involve, are the Government likely to increase their original estimate of £14 million? I hope that is clear, but really it boils down to this. I am troubled as to whether extra cost will be thrown upon those who are carrying out the schemes by the additional cost of wages and materials and whether the Government will still continue to pay only the amount which they have already undertaken to pay by the approval of the scheme.
  I should like to make two other points. There are 1,000 schemes under consideration. Can the Minister say whether or not the application for schemes is slackening off; whether the Government envisage that, during the next seven years covered by this new Bill, the average number of schemes will be lower than those carried out or applied for during the last ten years'? There is a point in regard to the question of the subsidy for sheep. I understand that the subsidy for sheep was rot paid after the second year of the Bill, or thereabouts. The subsidy for sheep is still included in the present Bill which is under consideration. Do the Government anticipate that, owing to the lowering of the price of sheep, in future

  1131
  the subsidy for sheep will have to be renewed? Is it a fact that the numbers of sheep have increased as a result of the original subsidy and the original Act?
  3.22 p.m.
  LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I should like to support what the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has said about the importance of trying to get speedier machinery in regard to these hill sheep farming schemes. For quite a long time I have been associated with a small company in the Lake District which was formed for the purpose of buying these farms, running them as farms and protecting the amenities of the Lake District. This work was started before this type of scheme came into existence, but I should like to say that the Lake District Farm Estates Company is finding the scheme particularly valuable from the point of view of improving these farms. We have received the greatest assistance from the officers of the Ministry, and I should like to pay tribute to them.
  The machinery is undoubtedly rather cumbrous, however, and in a number of these cases it has taken rather a long time to get it working. The consequent repercussions may have a bad effect, because nowadays it is not easy to get tenants for these farms, especially the more remote ones. If the whole thing is held up for a substantial period of time it may well be that there is a possibility of the farm becoming derelict just because there is an intermission; and it is exceedingly difficult when a farmer has not had a tenant for some time to find somebody else. This may become a serious matter. There is also the other point which the noble Lord, Lord Wise, raised: that in the interval, prices of labour and materials may go up quite substantially, which will give rise to further complications. Therefore, if a stage can be cut out of this rather slow, cumbersome process it would be of great advantage, and I hope the Government will do their best to look at this point and remedy it.
  3.24 p.m.
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken for the welcome they have given to this Bill. I will try to deal with some of the points which have been raised. Lord Wise, asked me a large number of questions, and I will deal with as many
  1132
  of them as I can. First of all, he asked me what percentage of these schemes was instituted by owners and what percentage by tenants. It is difficult to say, because they work in together. In a scheme of this sort it is inevitable that the scheme is submitted as one, and the tenants' portion covers basically the land, whereas the landlords' portion covers the fixed equipment. It is difficult to divide it up and get the sort of figure for which the noble Lord is asking. The noble Lord also asked how the schemes were divided as regards land and fixed equipment. I think I am right in saying that about 70 per cent. of the grants goes on fixed equipment and about 30 per cent. on land improvement.
  LORD WISE: May I interrupt the noble Earl? On those figures, would it be correct to say that 70 per cent. goes to the landlords and 30 per cent. to the tenants?
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: No I am afraid it does not work out quite like that.
  The noble Lord, Lord Wise, was also worried as to what money the promoter of the scheme would, in fact, get. I presume he is visualising that an estimate is put in and that a grant is paid on the estimate. That is not so: the grant is paid on actual expenditure. Therefore, if the cost has risen between the time of the original application and the completion of the scheme then the grant will also automatically rise. On the question of the hill sheep subsidy, a basic reason for this is to guard against particularly bad winters which we have had on occasions and, no doubt, shall have again in the future. It is to assure the hill sheep producer that, in the event of bad weather, there is this machinery all ready to go into action as soon as it is required.
  The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, were worried about the procedure in dealing with these cases. As the noble Earl said, a statement was made by my right honourable friend the Minister a little earlier on, and if I may give here some of the details of that statement I think it will be useful. The Minister has accepted certain of the recommendations in the Wilson Report. including that the county agricultural committees should be relieved of the straightforward work of grants and subsidies. This will be done in the divisional executive offices set up as recommended in the Report.

  1133
  The Committee also suggested that county committees should hear appeals against decisions of officials. We think that the local knowledge and experience of the committee members might be brought to bear on these difficult cases before decisions are reached, rather than after. We have therefore decided as follows. Cases which are clearly ineligible will be rejected by officials at once, and where there is an element of discretion, selected committee members will be consulted at an early stage whenever there is doubt or difficulty, or if it is proposed to disallow claims or substantially to reduce them. After applicants have been notified of the decision, the committees will be consulted about representations which the officials are unable to settle amicably by themselves. In this way members will play a full part in the settlement of difficult cases and keep in touch with the work. In addition, the committees will be provided with regular reports summarising grants and subsidy administration by the officials. These arrangements will be applied to improvement grants and subsidies under the Hill Farming and Livestock Rearing Acts.
  THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, can the noble Earl say when these new arrangements about which he has been talking will come into force?
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give the noble Earl an exact date, but it will be reasonably soon.
  The noble Earl also raised the question of special credit for farmers. The case for a special credit agency for farmers has often been debated, and I do not propose at this moment to go in detail into the pros and cons, but I should like to say that if such an agency were to do anything which the existing agencies cannot do it would either have to take risks which they cannot take or give credit at a subsidised rate of interest. We do appreciate the difficulties of the small
  1134
  farmer who has had to use the money which he can raise to stock his farm, but there are various ways in which we try to make it easier for him to raise his share of the cost of these improvement schemes
  In the first place, he does not have to find all the money at once. He can carry out the, improvements over a period of several years and claim the grant on each improvement as soon as it is completed. Secondly, he does not have to find the money to pay the whole of his builder's or contractor's accounts before he can get part of it back from the Government. He can send the bill to the Ministry with a request to pay the grant direct to the builder or contractor. He is then faced only with finding his portion of the balance. Another source of help is the hill cow subsidy, a proportion of which usually has to be spent on improving the land. This proportion is normally available to help the promoter of the scheme to pay his share of the cost of improvements.
  On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.
  Then, Standing Order No.41 having been dispensed with (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed.

  CROWN ESTATE BILL
  3.33 p.m.
  House in Committee (according to Order); Bill reported without amendment.
  Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been dispensed with (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a and passed.

  OCCUPIERS' LIABILITY BILL [H.L.]
  The Queen's Consent signified: Bill read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

  COPYRIGHT BILL [H.L.]
  3.35 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the consideration of Commons Amendments read.
  THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (LORD MANCROFT): My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendments to the Copyright Bill be now considered.
  Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  [The references are to Bill No. 115 as first printed for the House of Commons.]
  Clause 2, page 3, line 23, at end insert—
  ("(e) causing the work to be transmitted to subscribers to a diffusion service;")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, there are, I am afraid, a formidable number of Amendments on the Order Paper for our consideration this afternoon—114 in all —but I am happy to tell your Lordships that most of them are either drafting or consequential or of minor importance. I say that because I am afraid that this List of Amendments may have reached your Lordships rather late in the day, for which I apologise but I think it was inevitable. Your Lordships may not have had time to go through the list with your customary care. There is, in fact, only one group of Amendments which has any real substance, and that is the series concerned with the relay and rediffusion broadcasts. Even they are not really concerned with a matter of the greatest possible constitutional importance.
  There are about a dozen Amendments on this subject. The first Amendment on the Order Paper, Amendment No. 1, is by way of being a paving Amendment for the rest of them. It might be of convenience to your Lordships if I were to explain now, on this first Amendment, what it is that all these relay and rediffusion Amendments are about. This series of Amendments deals with the position of the relay companies, a matter which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, and I think by the noble Lord, Lord Archibald, when they were moving Amendments to Clause 2 at the Report stage of this Bill in your Lordships' House, now many months ago. At
  1136
  that time the Bill made only one reference to relay activities, in providing that they did not constitute "performance"—a provision which has been retained in Clause 46 of the Bill. When, on Third Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, referred to the relay question again, with particular reference to the relaying of programmes broadcast from abroad, I said that the Government were still wrestling with the problem and more would no doubt be heard of it in another place. This subsequently proved to be a masterly understatement. The matter has attracted a great deal of attention in the other place, and the series of Amendments we are now about to discuss is the result.
  In brief, the Government have recognised the claim that diffusion of a broadcast programme should rank as an infringement of copyright in the material broadcast. There seems to be no argument, as far as I can understand it, about including relaying amongst the "restricted acts" in Clauses 2 and 3. That marries up with Articles 11 and 11 bis of the Brussels Text. Nor is there any argument about the liability of persons engaged in relay who also originate their programmes. Where the argument arose in another place is over the relay in one country of a broadcast from another.
  In the United Kingdom, the rediffusion companies are precluded from originating programmes under the Postmaster General's licence, and the facilities they can provide are specifically prescribed. Some of them, indeed, relay only programmes put out by the B.B.C. and I.T.A. Others transmit foreign broadcasts as well. In all cases, their subscribers must have the ordinary broadcast receiving licence. The B.B.C., deriving its main revenue through the Broadcasting Vote which is based on the proceeds of the ordinary receiving licence, makes a bargain with the Performing Right Society on the basis of all licence holders, including those serviced by the rediffusion companies. The number of licence holders is also one of the factors taken into account by the I.T.A. So far, therefore, as the home broadcasts are concerned, there is no case in equity for making the relay companies liable for further payments to the Performing Right Society and we have provided in the new clause after Clause 38 that a licence to the B.B.C. and I.T.A. to broadcast shall

  1137
  be deemed to include a permission to relay. We cannot take this line so far as foreign broadcasts are concerned since the owner of the copyright in the United Kingdom may not be the same person as the owner of the copyright abroad, and in that case the United Kingdom owner has no power to authorise or forbid: he broadcasting of the work from abroad, although relaying in the United Kingdom is properly one of the rights to be assured to him. Moreover, the payment made by the foreign broadcasting company may take no account of the relaying of the programme in another country.
  To meet this situation, the series of Amendments provides for three things: first, it provides that causing a work to be transmitted to subscribers to a diffusion service shall be one of the acts restricted to the copyright owner (Clauses 2, 3 and 13); secondly, where a sound or television broadcast is made by the B.B.C. or the I.T.A. and someone transmits the programme by cable or wire in the operation of a diffusion service, he does not thereby infringe, and the original copyright owner is deemed, in allowing broadcasting, to have permitted rediffusion—that is the new clause after Clause 38. The third point is that where a programme from a foreign station is transmitted to subscribers to a diffusion, service in the United Kingdom, the Tribunal shall have power to decide on the appropriate payment to be made by the diffusion company to such a body as the P.R.S. as owner of the copyright in the United Kingdom for the diffusion of the programme, if the Tribunal is satisfied that the payment made abroad for the right to broadcast took no account, or insufficient account, of the fact that the programme would be diffused in the United Kingdom—that is our new clause after Clause 27. This provision is important. Payment is not likely to be justified in all cases; for instance, Radio Luxembourg broadcasts programmes intended for reception in. this country, and the payment for the right to broadcast can be expected to take account of diffusion here.
  The intention of some of your Lordships is, I gather, that a relay organisation shall be free to disseminate any "authorised broadcast", by which they mean any broadcast from anywhere if the broadcasters have the licence of the owner of
  1138
  the copyright in their country. We are making provision to deal with the relaying of B.B.C. and I.T.A. programmes. In the case of advertising programmes from abroad, since the whole purpose of the broadcast is to secure the maximum audience, there is no obvious reason why the relay companies should expect any change in the present arrangements. Accordingly. the dispute narrows itself clown to the treatment of the relaying of programmes primarily intended for the local audience in the country from which it is broadcast.
  In another place, it was argued that everything should be left as it is, and this argument, as it developed, seemed to assume that the law is clear under the Act of 1911. Unfortunately, this is not so. When the Act of 1911 was passed, there was no such thing as broadcasting and the only provision of that Act which could be prayed in aid is that relating to "performance in public". Whether relaying is performance in public has never been decided by the courts in the United Kingdom, and I should be very bold indeed if I were to pontificate on the result of an action based on the Act of 1911. But it is quite clear, and indeed seems to be generally accepted, that Articles 11 and 11 bis of the Brussels text have made it necessary to treat rediffusion as a restricted act. What has been done in the clause after Clause 38 springs from this.
  The Government accepts that Article 11 bis may be open to more than one construction, but it remains quite clear that Paragraph (2) requires us to ensure that authors should get "just remuneration" for the exercise of their rights. Reference was matte in another place to a resolution passed by the International Confederation of Authors and Composers' Societies—something like 60 societies, and 32 nations—and this is at any rate an indication that internationally our proceedings are being observed and our position may be called in question. But putting this on one side, the proposal which some of your Lordships are supporting will certainly not meet the equities of the situation. A composer whose work is being broadcast by foreign wireless stations of the ordinary kind (for instance, Radio Paris) would be paid a sum based on a listening audience confined to the country in which the broadcast is made, without

  1139
  reference to the additional United Kingdom audience created by the act of relaying. In reverse, the composer would be expected to look to the B.B.C. or I.T.A. for fees sufficient to cover the relaying of their broadcasts in foreign countries. In short, what would happen would be either that the wrong authority would pay or the composer would go short.
  If the relay companies diffused programmes by re-broadcasting them to their subscribers (instead of relaying them over wires) there would be no doubt about their having to pay copyright fees. They are in business to disseminate the author's work for gain and there seems no valid reason why, in these cases in which the author cannot look elsewhere, they should be excused from paying for it. The argument that we are putting a new burden on the lower income groups served by the relay companies has not been established. It has been suggested that the provision will cost the relay companies some £50,000 a year. This figure is conjectural, but there are something like 1 million people who receive their programmes by relay, and if the figure is correct and if it is all passed on (neither of which need be accepted) the additional cost would be of the order of a farthing a week. On the Committee and the Report stages of this Bill the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, who was leading so energetically for the Opposition, frequently complained about the erosion of composers' and others' rights. I do not know what the opposite of erosion is—regurgitation or accretion. But this is the opposite of erosion; we are trying to protect the legitimate rights of composers.
  I have spoken at considerable length. This is far and away the longest speech that I shall make to-day, and I apologise humbly. But I thought your Lordships would care to know about the whole of these Amendments concerning the relay services. We now come to the first Amendment which is, as I have said, purely a paving Amendment: it paves the way for all these rediffusions and relay points. This particular Amendment which I am now asking your Lordships to consider brings relaying within the acts restricted to the copyright owner in an original literary, dramatic or musical work. My Lords, I beg to move that this
  1140
  House doth agree with the Commons in this Amendment.
  Moved, That the House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  3.49 p.m.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, before I even comment upon the speech that has just been made by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, may I draw the attention of the House to something that is continually happening in this House and about which we on this side of the House continually protest. I received this list of 114 Amendments at 4 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, and how anybody can be expected to pass intelligent comment upon 114 Amendments in this brief space of time I do not know. I think it is treating this House with less than fair consideration, and if there is any criticism (and we hear quite a lot of criticism. and in sonic cases ridicule, levelled at your Lordships' House) this is just the kind of act on the part of Her Majesty's Government which gives colour to such comment. In other words, all we are expected to be is a rubber stamp. I do not blame the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft; I blame the machinery of the Government for the fact that they have to ask your Lordships to consider 114 Amendments when those of us on this side of the House who are supposed, and always try, to put up at least a semblance of an intelligent opposition are not even given a fair chance to do so.
  Having voiced that protest may I now say that the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, need not have apologised for the length of the speech he has just made, because the one I intend to make may be just a little longer and therefore, perhaps, I shall have to apologise before I have finished. I am glad that he has deployed the whole of his argument upon what I may call the one contentious point in the whole of these 114 Amendments. Let it be said to the credit of your Lordships' House that when this Bill was first introduced it was a poor thing, but when it left this House it was a remarkably good Bill, and the other place have not seen fit to alter one thing that your Lordships did. That should, at least, be placed on the credit side of our account.
  The noble Lord has made comment upon the stand that I made, when I had

  1141
  the honour of leading for the Opposition on this Bill on Second Reading and the Committee stage, in asserting that the Bill eroded the fundamental and natural right of the composer and author. Yesterday I read the speech which I then made. This is what I said and what I should like to repeat on this aspect of the subject [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 194, col. 511]:
  "Copyright is the natural property right in the creations of the author's own mind. Whether he be an author or a composer, it is a natural right: it is his inviolate until, of his own free will and accord, he assigns it to somebody else."
  That was the principle which we on this side of the House maintained and which I am very glad the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, has underlined this afternoon.
  If the Bill had gone through in its original form there would have been serious erosion. I do not think that the noble Lord can cover Her Majesty's Government with a white sheet, as he has tried to do, because it was the introduction, by Her Majesty's Government, of a new concept of copyright in Clause 46 (3), on page 60 in the original Bill, that started all the trouble. The noble Lord then wished to say that the operation of a broadcast relay station
  "shall not be, taken to constitute performance, or to constitute causing visual images or sounds to he seen or heard."
  It was my noble friend Lord Archibald who, during the Committee stage of the Bill, drew the attention of the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack to this point. My noble friend maintained that a relay of a broadcast was a performance. Whether he was technically right in calling it a performance I do not know, but that raised the principle that it was an erosion upon the fundamental principle of copyright as laid down by the Brussels Convention. On that there cannot be the slightest argument. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, though he could not give my noble friend an answer at that time, undertook to con. suit with his experts and said that if my noble friend proved to be right, alteration would be made in the Bill at a subsequent stage, very likely in another place. Therefore, on the recital of facts now brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, about the trouble which Her Majesty's Government have had over this matter, the noble Lord should remember that it has been written that "the way of
  1142
  the transgressor is hard"; and Her Majesty's Government were the first transgressors.
  I am glad that they have managed to get back on to the right road. The reason why they got back on the right road was that they realised, after consulting their experts, that in saying that copyright did riot subsist in a rediffusion or a relay of a broadcast they were in contravention of Article 11 bis of the Brussels Convention. I will read that to your Lordships because it is very important:
  "(1) Authors of literary and artistic works shall have the exclusive right of authorising:
  "i. The radio-diffusion of their works or the communication thereof to the public by any other means of wireless diffusion of signs, sounds or images".
  That is the first point. Now though "radio-diffusion" may be a French term, it clearly means broadcasting, and that gives the author the first right in broadcasting to authorise a broadcast. The next paragraph says:
  "ii. Any communication to the public, whether over wires or not, of the radio-diffusion of the work, when this communication is made by a body other than the original one;"
  So, clearly, the case is made that a radio-diffusion relay service is caught under this Article, not because it is a broadcasting organisation but because it is an organisation which relays a broadcast. I should think that that is clear beyond any doubt.
  I hope that I shall not have to make this speech twice and that I can now deal with the other points made by the noble Lord. Lord Mancroft, because in his opening speech he has really dealt with the Amendment to Clause 40, an Amendment to Amendment No. 84, which is down on the Order Paper in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teynham. As I have said, Article 11 bis of the Brussels Convention exactly fits the circumstances in which a relay company operates to the public over wires. It specifically mentions broadcasting and other bodies. The noble Lord said that of course the law could not be left as it was. That is right, because not only did broadcasting not exist at the time the 1911 Act was passed, but relay services did not exist either. And the recommendation made by the Copyright Committee was not made in regard to copyright and relay services but in regard to the relationship between relay services and the Post Office. So the Government,

  1143
  to keep within the Brussels Convention, had to introduce into this Bill the Amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, is now moving. And to safeguard the position regarding the payment of copyright royalties they have brought into the Bill not only Clause 40 but Clause 28. And there are safeguards. I think that the noble Lord used very fair language.
  I had intended to quote the language used by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade in another place. As the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, has said, there is no circumstance in which the subscriber or the relay service has to pay twice. At the present time. as the noble Lord has also said, the B.B.C. pay one block sum to the composers' organisation, not only for the relay to the B.B.C. or I.T.A. broadcasting programmes but also for any authorised foreign broadcast programme. If Radio Paris link up with the B.B.C. and the B.B.C. broadcast some of the Radio Paris programme, that copyright is dealt with under the fee which the B.B.C. pay. But if Radio Paris broadcast a programme to their own country, and a relay organisation picks up what I might call the "seepage" into this country, and relays it, there is no one who can say, as the law is at the present time, that the composer or author should be able to collect his fee, although the products of his brain have been used to gain money by those who relay services. This is what the Parliamentary Secretary said in another place [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 558 (No. 211), col. 899]:
  "why should not the relay companies pay something to the composer? They relay the composer's work to make money. They could not operate if it were not for the fruits of his labours. This is not a social service; it is a commercial proposition, and there is no clear reason that I can see why they should not expect to have to pay a fair fee to the composer."
  The machinery of the tribunal has been altered so that the tribunal can decide whether the composers ask too much for their services. The tribunal is there to say what is a fair and proper charge. I would ask your Lordships for one moment to consider further this fact. At the present time, the B.B.C. make, as I have said and as the noble Lord has said, a block payment to the composers' and authors' organisation for all this. So
  1144
  the composers' organisation does not levy any fee upon the relay services. But suppose that in future the financial structure of the B.B.C. were altered somewhat, in conformity, let us say, with what has been advocated, I believe, by the Auditor-General. And suppose the B.B.C. were to say: "Well now, as relay services are relaying a lot of foreign programmes for which we are now paying, we are not going to pay in future," where would the author and composer then be? Of course, the argument raised by those who support the noble Lord's Amendment is that he should go and fight his case in a foreign country where the law of this country does not apply. I would not say that he stood much chance of doing that. Is it fair? Is it equity? The noble Lord has said: "Yes, I support it." When the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, put to your Lordships one of the arguments which supporters of Lord Teynharn's Amendment put—that this would increase fees which the relay subscriber has to pay—I ask: since when has it been an argument that you should not pay the wages of effort because, as a result of your so doing, the price of the commodity might be increased? Since when has it been an argument that the composers of this country should work for nothing so that the relay subscribers might save one farthing (that is the noble Lord's estimate, I do not know whether it is accurate or not) upon the fee they pay?
  There has been some specious argument about this matter. This morning I received a document from a certain relay organisation which is concerned, and never in my life have I seen such specious arguments. They do not even tell the truth. So I find myself—and I think the majority of my noble friends on this side of the House find themselves also on—the side of the Government.
  SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: All.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am told that they all do—they all find themselves on the side of the Government. Initially we took the stand that there must be protection against this kind of erosion into the legitimate reward of the composer and the author. That is why we shall support the Government in this and in their subsequent Amendments on this specific issue.
  LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, with the permission of the House, I propose to reserve my remarks until Amendment No. 84 is reached.
  LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I gather that the chief discussion is to take place on Amendment No. 84. I was wondering whether the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, could enlighten me on one point. He has made a speech of considerable force in support of the Amendment of Her Majesty's Government, and he has quoted from the speech made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade in another place last Thursday. Can he explain why, seeing that he takes the view that he does, the whole of his Party in another place voted against it?
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I do not know that I am called upon to say anything about another place. I have my own view; my colleagues have their own views; others may have their own views.
  4.10 p.m.
  LORD SOMERS: My Lords, I do not feel that I can let the discussion on this point go without saying a few words. All that I can say has been much more ably said already by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, but I should like to point out that there can hardly be any doubt that this method of rediffusion is an independent performance. It reaches a totally new audience which would not have existed without its own existence. As to whether it relays British broadcasts or foreign ones does not seem to me to be of particular importance; the great point is that it creates an entirely new audience which would not have existed otherwise. One performer giving a recital naturally has to pay his ordinary performing rights; a second performer, if he is performing the same works in a totally different place, has to pay his. It is very right and just.
  On the other hand, one must remember that each of these performers is very lucky if he is getting audiences of over 100, whereas these rediffusion services are gaining audiences of well over 1,000. Also, I might point out that the argument as to whether it will impose an extra burden on the lower income groups seems a little specious, because surely the lower income groups include the composer. I
  1146
  hardly think anybody can make a living by composing to-day; therefore that argument falls to the ground. Musicians must surely be amongst the poorest of our population.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 2, page 3, line 27, leave out ("(d)"), and insert ("(e)").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this Amendment is on the same subject. I have already deployed the whole of the argument I have to advance to your Lordships on this subject. I do not propose to say any more at this stage on any of the consequential Amendments, all of which hang together on the main one which we have just passed. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 3, page 4, line 44, leave out ("twenty-five") and insert ("fifty").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, we now move to quite a different subject. This Amendment might have been known as "Lord Archibald's benefit", because it was he who first carved the thin end of this wedge which has now developed a very thick portion at the other end. The Copyright Committee recommended a uniform period of twenty-five years for all quasi-industrial subjects of copyright protection, and the Bill originally provided accordingly. Your Lordships will recall that when the Bill was before your Lordships' House, strong pleas were made for a fifty-year period of copyright for films, and that in Committee the Government accepted an Amendment to this effect which was moved with great persuasion—I am inclined to think now, too great persuasion—by Lord Archibald.
  When the Bill was in another place a strong case was made for giving the same concession to still photographs. It was argued that the artistic contribution of the photographer was no less. Further, it was represented that anomalies would arise from having different periods of copyright for the still and the moving picture; the example was given of the explorer who takes both still and ciné

  1147
  cameras on his expedition and whose pictures are all equally entitled to copyright protection. The Government were impressed by the case and accepted this Amendment. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 3. page 5, line 5, at end insert—
  ("(d) causing a television programme which includes the work to be transmitted to subscribers to a diffusion service.")
  LORD MANCROFT: This Amendment goes back to the relay point and it is consequential. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 4, page 5, line 9, leave out from ("made") to ("shall") in line 17 and insert ("by the author in the course of his employment by the proprietor of a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical under a contract of service or apprenticeship, and is so made for the purpose of publication in a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical, the said proprietor ")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, here, again, we have quite a different point. This is our old friend, the freelance journalist, whose interest we discussed at length on Committee and Report stage. The effect of this Amendment is twofold. First, the Government were impressed by the arguments made in favour of the freelance journalist and came to the conclusion that, on balance, it would be better to follow the existing law than the recommendation of the Copyright Committee in his case. This Amendment accordingly puts the freelance journalist back in the position he now enjoys under the Act of 1911; that is to say, in the absence of anything to the contrary (let me emphasise that; it is often overlooked) he will be the owner of all copyright in what he writes, whether or not he is commissioned to write it.
  1148
  The second effect of the Amendment is, by introducing the words "employment by the proprietor of a newspaper "et cetera, to meet the point made in another place that, on the Bill as drafted, this subsection would apply to an employee of an advertising agency (or of any commercial concern other than a newspaper, et cetera), who made a work for publication in a newspaper. As a result of the present Amendment, the ownership of copyright in such cases will not now be affected by this subsection but will fall to be determined by subsection (4) of this clause—namely, the only employee who will retain any rights in his work will be a person employed by the proprietor of a newspaper. I am certain that those two Amendments are in keeping with what your Lordships said on the subject at the time. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord and the Government for sticking to their guns over this matter. It was on this point that we fought the first pitched battle on the question of erosion in your Lordships' House. We were going to erode so much that the commissioned journalist was put out of business. I am grateful to the noble Lord on that point, and I am also grateful because there has been some slight tidying up of the position of the employed journalist. I think a case could be made for not carrying the same freedom of the freelance or commissioned journalist to the employed journalist. However, I am glad the Government have conceded almost all the arguments on behalf of the employed journalist, and this should, I think, make for fairness and equity as among them all.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 6, page 7, line 16, leave out from first ("of") to ("is") in line 18 and insert "reporting current events—

  (a) in a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical, or

  (b) by means of broadcasting, or in a cinematograph film.

  and, in a case falling within paragraph (a) of this subsection,")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, we come now to Clause 6, which deals with the general exceptions from protection. This point is a very small one indeed. This Amendment makes two changes. The first is only drafting. The words "conveying news of current events" seem a little narrow. They might, for example, be held to restrict protection given to the provision of news items in papers or news bulletins on the radio. The words "reporting current events" now inserted are clearer and have also the merit that they are the words used in the Convention (Brussels text, Article 10 bis). The second change is that acknowledgement will now only have to be made when a copyright work is dealt with in a newspaper or magazine; this is as much as the Convention requires (Brussels text Article 10 (1) and (3)). The Bill, as drafted, also required acknowledgement in the case of broadcasts and films. This provision is now removed. Indeed, to comply with it would often, in practice, have been impossible. For example, a radio commentator could not be expected to break off and name tune and composer whenever a hand or a busker came within range of his microphone. That might have happened. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I am not going to fight this battle over again. This is the clause that deals with the subject of the ephemeral recording. Enough has been said, and a lot has been written. The clause now shows the slightest of slight improvements. I think the proposal forms a major erosion, and that the Government may regret it in future. It depends largely on the attitude of the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. whether or not it proves a loss, and a substantial loss, to authors and composers, inasmuch as their work can be recorded without their permission so long as the recording is destroyed within 28 days. I very much regret that the Government could net go further than this, but it is far too late a stage in the Bill to fight it. With
  1150
  one last dying protest, I shall have to acquiesce.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 6, page 8, line 9, after ("work") insert ("from a place in the United Kingdom, or in another country to which section two of this Act extends")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this Amendment is also about ephemeral recordings. I hope to put one or two crumbs in the noble Lord's way, though not, I am certain, so many as he would like. Your Lordships will remember that there was some doubt whether, as drafted, this subsection, which permitted the making of "ephemeral recordings", permitted the making of recordings in this country for the purpose of broadcasts to be made from countries overseas. To do so, we felt, would go beyond the spirit, if not the letter, of Article 11 bis (3) of the Brussels text. This Amendment accordingly makes it clear that the advantages of the Subsection can be claimed only by persons who are authorised to broadcast works from places in the United Kingdom, or, if the Bill is extended so as to become part of the law in a particular Colony, from places in that Colony. In plain language, it prevents an organisation like Radio Luxembourg from making a recording here for their use abroad. I hope that the noble Lord will think that is an accretion of a small kind to the struggling composer. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment. —(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 6, page 8, line 16, leave out ("any purpose other than") and insert ("making any further reproduction therefrom or for any other purpose except")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is another Amendment about ephemeral recordings. Fears have been expressed—I do not know whether they have been expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth—that the clause as drafted would allow the B.B.C. to take a further copy of an ephemeral recording at the end of each twenty-seven day period, thereby prolonging the period indefinitely.

  1151
  The present Amendment makes it quite clear that the making of any such reproduction is not allowable under the clause. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 6, page 8, line 30, at end insert—
  ("(9) The provisions of this section shall apply where a work, or adaptation of a work, is caused to be transmitted to subscribers to a diffusion service as they apply where a work or adaptation is broadcast.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this Amendment is consequential. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 7, page 9, line 24, leave out from second ("the") to end of line 26 and insert ("librarian knows the name and address of a person entitled to authorise the making of the copy, or could by reasonable inquiry ascertain the name and address of such a person.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Amendments 10 and 11 go together. These Amendments are really moved for the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, and I am sorry that he is not in his place to take a little credit. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, will be kind enough to pass it on to him when next he sees the noble Lord. These provisions about the making of copies by librarians have been the subject of a good deal of discussion during the passage of the Bill, notably by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley. Your Lordships will remember that he moved an Amendment to permit copying when the address of the copyright owner could not be ascertained, even if his identity was known. We looked at this point carefully.
  It is not easy to find an arrangement which is fair to both sides. On the one hand, the copyright owner is entitled to protection against copying by librarians as well as by anyone else; it would be
  1152
  the negation of his rights to assume his consent to such copying. On the other hand, a librarian is in a quandary if he cannot find the place to which to direct his inquiries. In most cases no difficulty need be expected, but there may be exceptional instances where the name of the author is known but where no-one knows his address. I have made a few inquiries into this point, since the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, first raised it, and I have found that there is more force in his argument than I thought at the time. The number of authors who contribute some fine work and then disappear into the wilds of Tahiti or Walthamstow and cannot be found is much larger than I originally thought.
  It may be suggested that the consent of the publisher should suffice, but this is open to the objection that the publisher may not himself be the copyright owner, and that, accordingly. no consent from him ought to be regarded as giving the cover the librarians want. Indeed, a reference simply to "the publisher" would itself open up other questions. An author does not necessarily have one publisher, and one publisher only, even during his lifetime, and it would be necessary to specify the publisher as being either the publisher of the edition of the work which it is desired to copy (who might no longer have any interest in the work or in its author), or the author's current publisher, who might not be known to the librarian and whose nomination might bring in the reprint houses.
  The Amendments have been drafted without specific reference to either copyright owner or author but to "a person entitled to authorise the making of the copy," thereby bringing in an exclusive licensee. As a practical matter, the librarian knows the name of the author, and must know the name and, presumably, the address of the publisher of the edition in his library. If he makes inquiry from these two sources, he ought to be able to ascertain without undue delay who can authorise the copying. But if, after reasonable inquiry, he still finds himself unable to trace anyone able to give the necessary permission, he will be free to copy. I think that that strikes a fairly just bargain among all the people concerned. I beg to move that this House

  1153
  doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question. Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 7. page 9, line 42, leave out from beginning to ("and") in line 45 and insert—
  ("(b) at the time when the copy is made, the librarian by or on whose behalf it is supplied does not know the name and address of any person entitled to authorise the making of the copy, and could not by reasonable inquiry ascertain the name and address of such a person;")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this Amendment is consequential. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question. Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 7, page 10, line 45, at end insert—
  ("(8) In so far as the publication of a work, or of part of a work, is, by virtue of the last preceding subsection, not to be treated as an infringement of the copyright in the work, a person who subsequently broadcasts the work, or that part thereof, as the case may be, or causes it to be transmitted to subscribers to a diffusion service, or performs it in public, or makes a record of it, does not thereby infringe the copyright in the work.")
  LORD M.ANCROFT: My Lords, this Amendment deals with a small point. It extends the concession given by subsections (6) and (7) of Clause 7. Once an old work has been published under the safeguards provided in subsection (7) it seems reasonable, particularly in the case of a musical or dramatic work, to allow it to be broadcast, relayed. performed in public or recorded. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree, with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 8, page 11, line 27, at end insert "in the United Kingdom").
  4.29 p.m.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, we now pass on to a completely different subject. Clause 8 deals with special exception in respect of records of musical works. If I may. I will discuss Amendments Nos. 13, 14, 15, 17, 18 and 19 together. The principle of Clause 8—the right, once the copyright owner has permitted the recording of a work. for others to record it on payment of a prescribed royalty—was discussed frequently during the consideration of the Bill in both places. It was not without controversy in its time and roused the displeasure of both the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth. These Amend are concerned not with any change of principle. but with making more precise the details of the provision for how the system is to work. They are designed to meet two basic points. First, the owners of the copyright in a work is entitled to exploit his rights territory by territory, and, indeed, the rights for different territories to which the Act extends may be in different hands the exploitation of the rights in one territory ought not to prejudice their subsequent exploitation in another. To meet this point, the Amendments make the clause operate territory by territory.
  The total effect of these Amendments, with the second part of Amendment No. 20, is that: either making in or importation into a territory, with consent, will give rise to a right to make in that territory, but that neither making nor importation will give rise to a right to import. This generally gives some further help to the composer, and I am certain that it will meet with your Lordships' approval. I beg to move that the House doth agree with the Commons in the first of these six Amendments.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of your Lordships if I make any comments I have to make on Clause 8 on the first Amendment. Again, I do not want to weary your Lordships by going over the old battleground, but I was against this principle when the Bill was first introduced into your Lordships' House; and the passage of time has hardened, not

  1155
  softened, my view. To my mind, the principle in this clause is a complete breach of the fundamental principle that the author and the composer shall have full and sole authority to authorise the reproduction of the creations of their minds. What happens? The noble Lord has said that once a composer has given his consent to the reproduction of one of his works on a gramophone record, anybody, without his consent—he does not have to ask permission: all he has to do is to tell the composer that he is going to do it—can reproduce that work. Admittedly, royalty has to be paid—when it can be collected.
  This goes along quite smoothly when the big recording companies are concerned, where they catalogue their products. In 1911, there were only one or two recording companies, but now there are hundreds—"mushroom" concerns, concerns of no stability, who live by pirating the work of the author. The clause in the Bill does not prohibit the manufacture of these spurious records—and spurious they are; it prohibits only their sale; and as they are never put on the market for sale, it is very difficult to trace them. These small manufacturers bring a matrix into this country from a foreign country and make thousands of records, on the same basis as some of the library societies sell books. I have been told—I cannot bring proof to bear so your Lordships will have to take this statement at its face value—of the manufacture of records up to 10,000 for which not a penny has been paid in royalties. because the sale of the records could never be traced and proved. That is what happens when erosion goes too far.
  The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, and all your Lordships, will have read a letter in The Times on this subject. The argument in favour of this clause, and against my argument, is that of monopoly. But, as The Times said, that argument has been carried a little too far; because, while you allow an author to give a monopoly to a publisher, and you allow a journalist to give a monopoly on his writings to a newspaper, you do not allow a composer to give a monopoly of the reproduction of his work to a record company. Perhaps the composer does not want it. I should think that
  1156
  he would be foolish to try, because the more records he can have made of his work, so long as they are legitimate, and he gets his fees for them, the better for him. His fee is 6¼per cent. per record, a matter of small change per record. I agree, but, taken as a whole, one of the main sources of the composer's income. And, as I say. he can have his work pirated, because the recording companies need not ask for consent, but need only tell him they are going to do it, and then it is up to the composer, through the highways and byways, to try and ferret out where these records have been sold.
  I was hoping that at this late hour the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, would give us some explanation, after all the arguments that have been waged upon this subject, as to why the Government want to stick to this exception—and it is an exception. It is against the fundamental principle running right through the Brussels Convention. and now right through this Bill. which is that the author and composer shall have the sole right to authorise. If it is monopoly, will the noble Lord say so? I know that his reply to me may be that the Brussels Convention allows the covenanting countries to introduce legislation in their own Legislatures to prevent monopoly. I should have thought this was something that the natural sequence of events would have prevented: in other words. the composer's desire that his work. so long as it was a credit to him in its reproduction. should be reproduced as often as it could be.
  I have tried to state the case as fairly as I can. I can only repeat the protest that I have uttered, that we of the Opposition were given these 114 Amendments on Saturday afternoon. If I could have had them earlier, I might have put down an Amendment here: but with our lack of experts on this subject, I could not do it in the time available. The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, may not be able to speak again on this Amendment, but perhaps the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack will say something to placate those who feel strongly on this point. This is the last opportunity before this Bill gets on to the Statute Book (possibly it is the last opportunity for another fifty years, because I doubt whether we shall be able to amend the Copyright Bill in this country for another fifty years—it is fifty I years ago since the last) for anything to

  1157
  be said that may give some comfort to these people. Men of the calibre of those in the composing world in this country do not make the statements as those made in the letter to The Times, and to the Press in general, unless they feel sincerely about this. This is not a Party matter but, in my view one of ethics, and I hope the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack will respond to my invitation and at least say something to those folk to make them feel that they have been given a better deal and that the Government have not quite gone right away from the principle that I have enunciated.
  EARL JOWITT: My Lords, may I add one wore, with the proviso that I have not followed this matter since the last discussions, and, therefore, may be entirely inappropriate in what I say? If I am, if the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, would indicate it, I will at once sit clown. I understand—and I am quite satisfied in this—that there are many distinguished musicians in this country who, in considering whether they will allow their works to be performed, do not consider merely the money they are going to get but also the method, style and quality of the person who is to perform their works. I do not profess to have the musical knowledge to deal with this subject adequately, but there are many eminent musicians in this country to-day, and there are musicians who, perhaps, are not quite so eminent. Into which category you would place these various people I do not know. There are, for instance, Moiseiwitsch, Rubinstein and Liberace. I can conceive that a distinguished musician might be willing to have his work performed by one of those three, yet not wiling to have it performed by another.
  Do I understand that, if an eminent composer—I will not mention names; we can all think of eminent composers in this country—decided to allow one of these people to perform his work, no doubt taking the greatest interest and trouble about it, it follows that thereafter, having allowed a particular pianist to perform his work, he is bound to allow any other pianist to perform his work? If so, that does seem to me—and this is not a Party matter at all—a monstrous injustice. If I am talking to the point on this thing at all. and if that is the effect of this clause, I do beg the Government not to do it,
  1158
  because there is nothing to be said for it and there is not a single person in this House, on whatever side of the House he may sit. who would desire that to be so. If I am talking "in order," as it were, on this clause, and if that is the effect, I beg the Government, even though it be the last hour, to think again and prevent that being done. Surely, there should be some exception to deal with cases of this sort. For that reason I hope the Government will do something to prevent what regard as a grave injustice.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, how far would the noble and learned Earl carry that? He has talked of musicians. and certainly there is a slightly different interpretation by one pianist as against another. But, after all, can you deal with musical authorship separately from other authorship? Of course one might have a distinguished person in other ranks of life playing a tune which might give great popularity to it. But I want to ask the noble and learned Earl: is it possible to distinguish musical works from other works? The noble and learned Earl himself is an author of no mean merit, and presumably the same rule would have to be applied to literary authorship as to musical authorship. Anybody from Thackeray to the late Lord Chancellor—or, should I say, from the late Lord Chancellor to Thackeray—writes something which a large number of people want to read in public. More and more people seem to react less and less, and to look at television more and more. It is rather a good thing that there should be these readings, and quite a number of good classical authors, both modern and ancient, are now read upon the B.B.C If you were to lay down that a musical composer may say, "Only so-and-so can play my music for broadcasting," are you going to say also, "only so-and-so shall read the works of an author in whom there is still a copyright"? I can see a good deal of difficulty in carrying this quite as far as the noble and learned Earl wishes.
  EARL JOWITT: I suppose you can reserve copyright when you write a play. or anything of that sort. I should have thought that, without prejudicing your copyright, you ought to be able to allow some particular person, if you like on some particular occasion, to perform the

  1159
  work without giving the corresponding right to all persons on all occasions to perform the work.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: I see.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I am sorry to be a spoil-sport, but this discussion has nothing whatever to do with the Amendment. The noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, and my noble friend Lord Swinton are talking about a matter which we discussed at great length on other stages of the Bill, and which I know is a matter of violent controversy, upon which people feel strongly, and about which I myself happen to feel strongly. But I will not give my view at great length again, because it has nothing whatever to do with the Amendment. At this stage of the Bill, when we are trying to deal with the Commons Amendments, we cannot go charging up that battlefield again, and I hope your Lordships will allow this simple Amendment to go through.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, this was my only chance of speaking on this matter. because there is no Amendment down which alters the principle. I thought it was such an important matter, charged with such public interest, that, although, as I said at the outset, I could do nothing to alter it. or nothing to stop it. I expressed the hope that the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack would give reasons that might satisfy the eminent composers of this country, who have protested publicly about the principle, so that they may be able to rest assured for the next fifty years at least that there is some justice in what the Government want to do. If I have been out of order in all this, I apologise, but I thought it was worth trying.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, I do not wish to detain your Lordships for more than a moment. I am afraid that it would be wide of the purpose of this Amendment, and. indeed, would be difficult for us, to add much to what was said before. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, got near the kernel of the matter when he mentioned the monopoly which he and I discussed at length in another context. Therefore, I am afraid I cannot help him, enjoyable though it
  1160
  might be for him and me, if not for the remainder of your Lordships. There is only one sentence of the noble Lord's to which I take grave exception. He said that he was not an expert in this matter. Anyone who says that the noble Lord is not an expert in copyright will receive an emphatic denial from the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, and myself.
  On Question. Motion agreed to.

  THE ISRAEL-EGYPTIAN CONFLICT
  4.48 p.m.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, with the permission of the House, I will intervene at this moment to make a statement which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister is now making in another place. As the House will know, for some time past the tension on the frontiers of Israel has been increasing. The growing military strength of Egypt has given rise to renewed apprehension, which the statements and actions of the Egyptian Government have further aggravated. The establishment of a Joint Military Command between Egypt, Jordan and Syria, the renewed raids by guerillas, culminating in the incursion of Egyptian commandos on Sunday night, had all produced a very dangerous situation.
  Five days ago, news was received that the Israel Government were taking certain measures of mobilisation. Her Majesty's Government at once instructed Her Majesty's Ambassador at Tel Aviv to make inquiries of the Israel Minister for Foreign Affairs and to urge restraint. Meanwhile, President Eisenhower called for an immediate tripartite discussion between representatives of the United Kingdom, France and the United States. A meeting was held on October 28 in Washington, and a second meeting took place on October 29.
  While these discussions were proceeding, news was received last night that Israel forces had crossed the frontier and had penetrated deep into Egyptian territory. Later, further reports were received indicating that paratroops had been dropped. It appeared that the Israel spearhead was not far from the banks of the Suez Canal. From recent reports it

  1161
  also appeared that air forces are in action in the neighbourhood of the Canal.
  During the last few weeks Her Majesty's Government have thought it their duty, having regard to their obligations under the Anglo-Jordan Treaty, to give assurances, both public and private, of their intention to honour these obligations. Her Majesty's Ambassador in Tel Aviv yesterday received an assurance that Israel would not attack Jordan.
  My right honourable and learned friend the Foreign Secretary discussed the situation with the United States Ambassador early this morning. The French Prime Minister and Foreign Minister have come over to London at short notice, at the invitation of Her Majesty's Government, to deliberate with us on these events.
  I must tell the House that very grave issues are at stake and, unless hostilities can quickly be stopped, free passage through the Canal will he jeopardised Moreover, any fighting on the banks of the Canal would endanger the ships actually on passage. The number of crews and passengers involved totals many hundreds, and the value of the ships which are likely to be on passage to-clay is about £50 million, excluding the value of the cargoes. Her Majesty's Government and the French Government have accordingly agreed that everything possible should be done to bring hostilities to an end as soon as possible. Their representatives in New York have therefore been instructed to join the United States representative in seeking an immediate meeting of the Security Council. This began at 4 p.m.
  In the meantime, as a result of the consultations held in London this morning, the United Kingdom and French Governments have addressed urgent communications to the Governments of Egypt and Israel. In these we have called upon both sides to stop all warlike action by land, sea and air forthwith and to withdraw their military forces to a distance of ten miles from the Canal. Further, in order to separate the belligerents and to guarantee freedom of transit through the Canal by the ships of all nations we have asked the Egyptian Government to agree that Anglo-French forces should move temporarily into key positions at Port Said, Ismailia and Suez. The Governments of Egypt and Israel have been
  1162
  asked to answer this communication within twelve hours. It has been made clear to them that if, at the expiration of that time, one or both have not undertaken to comply with these requirements, British and French forces will intervene in whatever strength may be necessary to secure compliance. I will continue to keep the House informed of the situation as it develops.
  4.52 p.m.
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, this is obviously a very grave statement indeed and one on which it would be, I think, unwise on the part of any of us to comment at such short notice. We appreciate that the situation is in a state of constant change and that the position may look very different to-morrow. In those circumstances, I take it that the noble Earl, as he has indicated, will make a further statement. I imagine that if really grave action has to be taken, Parliament will wish to discuss the matter. In that case, no doubt, arrangements could be made through the usual channels.
  THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord. I think the situation is so fluid, as he says, that it might be well to wait and see whether I can make a further statement to-morrow, which I shall certainly do if it is at all possible to do so. In those circumstances, we can consider afresh whether it might be necessary to alter our Business on Thursday in any way to meet the convenience of the House
  LORD REA: My Lords, I have nothing to add except that your Lordships have heard from the two major Parties and I think it would be the wish of all your Lordships that in this situation, which the noble Earl has described properly as "very grave indeed", it would be most unwise to press the matter further.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I entirely agree with what has been said from both quarters of the House. There is, however. one thing upon which I was not quite clear and which perhaps the Deputy Leader of the House could elucidate. It is this "twelve hours" to which he referred for the moving in of British and French troops. Could the noble Earl tell us exactly what the timetable is and as at what date those troops might move in?
  THE EARL OF HOME: I am afraid I have not that information. I have only just received this statement from another place.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: I quite understand.
  THE EARL OF HOME: I have not the actual time-table with me. If it will help the noble Earl, I will discover that and perhaps in a short intervention give the House the information.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: I was not criticising in any way. It is just a question of keeping the House informed of whether something would have happened before the House met to-morrow. I take it that is not so.
  THE EARL OF HOME: No.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: As I understood the statement, a Note has been delivered to both the Egyptian and Israeli Governments and an answer has been requested within twelve hours, and, in default of a satisfactory answer from either or both, one or the other—I was not quite clear which—then we and the French Government hold ourselves at liberty to take certain action. It is only that it is very important to know just when these critical hours expire.
  LORD SILKIN: Before the noble Earl answers, is it not a fact that the Governments of Egypt and Israel have already been asked to answer within twelve hours?
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: Yes, that is so.
  LORD SILKIN: So the twelve hours will expire at the latest some time in the early morning. Then, I take it from the answer, both Governments, British and French, will feel themselves free, if the answer is unsatisfactory, to take immediate action. Am I right? Is that the purport of the statement?
  THE EARL OF HOME: Yes, that is correct; but I think I will read the words from the statement again:
  "The Governments of Egypt and Israel have been asked to answer this communication within twelve hours. It has been made clear to them that if, at the expiration of that time, one or both have not undertaken to comply with these requirements, British and French forces will intervene in whatever strength may be necessary to secure compliance."
  1164
  So, after the twelve hours, it would be for the British and French Governments, if there were an unsatisfactory answer from either, to decide on what strength might be necessary to be used to achieve the objects. But that twelve hours will expire, of course, before the House meets again to-morrow.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: Yes.
  THE EARL OF HOME: I cannot exactly say the hour, but I will discover that for your Lordships. It has been asked for.

  COPYRIGHT BILL
  4.58 p.m.
  Consideration of Commons Amendments resumed.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 8, page 11 line 30, after ("made") insert ("in or imported into, the United Kingdom").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Amendment No. 14 is consequential. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 8, page 11, line 31, after ("made") insert ("or imported").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Amendment No. 15 is consequential also. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 8, page 12, line 29, leave out from beginning to ("was") in line 32 and insert—
  ("(b) where an order comprising a class of records (that is to say, either a general order or an order relating specifically to that class, or to that class together with one or more other classes of records) has been made under this subsection, no further order comprising that class of records shall be made thereunder less than five years after the date on which the previous order comprising that class (or, if more than one, the last previous order comprising that class)").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment. —(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  Clause 8, page 13, line 11, after ("made") insert ("or imported").
  Clause 8, page 13, line 35, after ("made") insert ("or imported").
  Clause 8, page 13, line 39, after ("made") insert ("or imported as the case may be").
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the noble Lord indicated that Amendments Nos. 17, 18 and 19 are consequential on Amendment No. 13. With the permission of the House, I will put them together. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments. —(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 8, page 14, line 14, at end insert—
  ("Provided that this subsection shall not extend the operation of subsection (5) of this section to a record in respect of which the condition specified in paragraph (b) of that subsection is not fulfilled, unless the words comprised in the record (as well as the musical work) were published before the first day of July, nineteen. hundred and twelve, and were so published as words to be sung to. or spoken incidentally to or in association with. the music.
  (10) Nothing in this section shall be construed as authorising the importation of records which could not lawfully be imported apart from this section; and accordingly, for the purposes of any provision of this Act relating to imported articles, where the question arises whether the making of a record made outside the United Kingdom would have constituted an infringement of copyright if the record had been made in the United Kingdom, that question shall he determined as if subsection (l) of this section had not been enacted.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Amendment No. 20 is in two parts. The first is drafting, the second consequential. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 9, page 15, line 26, leave out from ("if") to ("or") and insert ("in making the subsequent work the author does not repeat")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 9, page 15, line 35. at end insert—
  ("(11) The provisions of this section shall apply in relation to a television programme which is caused to be transmitted to subscribers to a diffusion service as they apply in relation to a television broadcast.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this Amendment is consequential. It is a relaying and rediffusion point. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 10, page 15, line 37, leave out from ("design") to ("is") in line 38.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, now we are on a completely different subject. the subject of industrial design. These three Amendments arc little more than drafting. The first Amendment is put down in order to tidy up certain criticisms made by the noble Lord, Lord Cawley, and which we think had some point. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  Clause 10. page 15, line 40, leave out from ("1949") to ("it") in line 41.
  page 16, line 5, at end insert—
  ("Provided that this subsection shall have effect subject to the provisions of the Schedule (False Registration of Industrial Designs) to this Act in cases falling within that Schedule.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 24 and 25 both go with Amendment No 23. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 10, page 16, line 10, leave out ("produced by so applying the design") and insert ("to which the design has been so applied").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 10, page 16, line 13, leave out ("the design has not") and insert ("they are not articles in respect of which the design has"),
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this Amendment is still on industrial designs. Subsection (2) of this clause, as drafted, had the effect that, if a design is registered in respect of one class of article, its use, even without registration, elsewhere in the field of industry will not prejudice the artistic copyright it enjoys in those other fields. This is not, however, our intention. What we are striving to do is to ensure that the only protection available to a person who applies his design industrially in any particular field is that available to him by registration under the Registered Designs Act, 1949. This Amendment and the next provide accordingly. If the proprietor does not register his design in respect of each and every article to which he applies it industrially, he loses protection for it under the Copyright Bill in respect of those articles to which he so applies it.
  It is, however, a fundamental principle of the clause that an artistic work which is applied industrially shall not enjoy an industrial design protection for longer than the maximum —that is, fifteen years —obtainable by registration, and that thereafter the design as industrially applied becomes public property. Amendment No. 28 therefore also provides that fifteen years after the first occasion on which the design is used industrially copyright protection is lost throughout the whole industrial field.
  1168
  This corresponds with subsection (1) of this clause in which at the expiry of the period of registration the same thing happens. I am afraid that this industrial design point is a technical one, but I understand that it is an uncontroversial point and is generally required. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment. (Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 10, page 16. line 15, leave out from beginning to "by" in line 24 and insert ("the following provisions of this section shall apply.
  (3) Subject to the next following sub-section—

  (a) during the relevant period of fifteen years, it shall not be an infringement of the copyright in the work to do anything which, at the time when it is done, would have been within the scope of the copyright in the design if the design had, immediately before that time, been registered in respect of all relevant articles; and

  (b) after the end of the relevant period of fifteen years, it shall not be an infringement of the copyright in the work to do anything which, at the time when it is done, would, if the design had been registered immediately before that time, have been within the scope of the copyright in the design as extended to all associated designs and articles.

  In this subsection 'the relevant period of fifteen years' means the period of fifteen years beginning with the date on which articles, such as are mentioned in paragraph (b) of the last preceding subsection, were first sold, let for hire, or offered for sale or hire in the circumstances mentioned in paragraph (c) of that subsection; and 'all relevant articles', in relation to any time within that period means all articles falling within the said paragraph (b) which had before that time been sold, let for hire, or offered for sale or hire in those circumstances.
  (4) For the purposes of subsections (2) and (3) of this section, no account shall be taken of any articles in respect of which, at the time when they were sold, let for hire, or offered for sale or hire, the design in question was excluded from registration under the Act of 1949").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Amendment No. 28 is consequential. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  Clause 10, page 16, line 26, after ("designs") insert ("for articles")
  line 29, leave out from beginning to end of line 44 and insert—

  "(a) before the commencement of those proceedings, an application for the registration of the design under the Act of 1949 in respect of those articles had been refused;

  (b) the reason or one of the reasons stated for the refusal was that the design was excluded from such registration by rules made under the said subsection (4); and

  (c) no appeal against that refusal had been allowed before the date of the commencement of the proceedings or was pending on that date.")

  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 29 and 30 are both drafting Amendments. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 12, page 18, line 6, leave out ("twenty-five") and insert ("fifty")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Amendment No. 31 is about Clause 12, which, of course, deals with quite a different matter—namely, copyright in sound recordings. In view of the decisions to give a 50-year period of copyright protection to films and photographs, the Government considered that it would be invidious to maintain the Copyright Committee's recommendation of a 25-year period in relation to such quasi-industrial subjects of copyright as remain—namely, sound recordings, television broadcasts and sound broadcasts. This Amendment restores to sound recordings the 50-year period of protection which records enjoy under the Act of 1911. I shall be moving a similar Amendment in relation to television broadcasts and sound broadcasts. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved. That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I think the Government are wise in this provision. It makes for uniformity, and it is one of the things that we pressed for during the time of the passage of this Bill through this House. We on this side support the Amendment.
  On Ouestion, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 10, page 18, line 10, at end insert—
  ("Provided that where a person commissions the making of a sound recording, and pays or agrees to pay for it in money or money's worth, and the recording is made in pursuance of that commission, that person, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, shall, subject to the provisions of Part VI of this Act, be entitled to any copyright subsisting in the recording by virtue of this section.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a different point. The effect of this Amendment is to vest the ownership of a commissioned recording in the commissioner. Under subsection (3) of the clause as it stands, the ownership of the copyright in recordings vests in the maker of the recording (although of course it would be possible by contract to produce different results). In another place it was argued that this was not the right result when a person goes into a recording studio and specifically commissioned the recording, whether for a private message, for the private recording of a song or whether the recording was commissioned for commercial purposes, for example, as an advertisement. Certainly, in the case of commissioned private recordings (and possibly in the case of commercial ones), questions of copyright are unlikely to be in the mind of the commissioner; but it would certainly not be his wish to leave the copyright in someone else's hands. We have seen recently what has happened in Germany when things get into unexpected hands. The case is similar in principle to that where the copyright vests in the commissioner. I think this is a reasonable provision and I hope your Lordships will see fit to agree to this Amendment. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment. —(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 12, page 18, line 18, after ("acts") insert ("in the United Kingdom").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this Amendment is subsequential. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  Clause 12, page 18, line 23, leave out ("they did not bear") and insert ("neither the records nor the containers in which they were so issued bore")
  line 31, leave out ("bearing")
  line 32, at end insert ("either on the records themselves or on their containers")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Amendments 34, 35 and 36 all go together and they are on the subject that we have been discussing. Subsection (6) of the clause, as drafted, carries out the recommendation of the Copyright Committee that the year from which copyright begins to run should be shown on any record for which copyright protection is claimed, so that the user may know where he stands. The Committee did not accept the contention of the gramophone industry that there was not room on the label for this extra matter. However, the industry have since represented to us, first, that long-playing records are now issued each comprising several recordings which have already been issued as shorter records, so that several dates might have to be stated in relation to one long-player, and secondly, that magnetic tapes and wires are not capable of bearing labels in the way that the conventional discs do.
  Again, the situation has altered since the introduction of the Bill, because copyright in a recording now subsists for 50 and not 25 years. The original object of the subsection (to let the user know which records are out of copyright) is hence now of less importance. It is unlikely that people will wish to give public performances of 50-year-old recordings. On balance, we feel that the user will be reasonably protected if the dates appear on the container which is sold with the record—for example, the sleeve of the long-playing record. The first of these Amendments provides accordingly; the second and third are consequential. beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 13, page 20, line 16, leave out from beginning, to end of line 23.
  5.9 p.m.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, we now pass to Clause 13, which is about copyright in cinematograph films. In another place, it was pointed out that the orders for most advertising films are, in fact, placed by an advertising agent, contracting as a principal, and not. as is assumed in the proviso in the Bill, by the manufacturer of the goods or the purveyor of the services to be advertised. It was generally accepted that the ownership of the copyright in advertising films ought not to be vested in the maker, though whether it should vest in the advertiser or the advertising agent seemed a more open question. The probability is that conditions vary in particular cases. In all the circumstances. Her Majesty's Government thought it best that the proviso should be omitted. There can be little doubt that, in general, advertising agents are likely to have the copyright issue in mind and will be sufficiently well advised to see that the intentions of the parties are properly described in contracts. Accordingly, it seems preferable to Her Majesty's Government to leave this matter to be settled in this way, rather than by inventing presumptions which may not be correct. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question. Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 13, page 20, line 30, at end insert—
  ("(d) causing the film to be transmitted to subscribers to a diffusion service.
  (6) The copyright in a cinematograph film is not infringed by making a copy of it for the purposes of a judicial proceeding, or by causing it to be seen or heard in public for the purposes of such a proceeding.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this Amendment is in two parts. The first is consequential and the second is little more than drafting. It is purely a tidying Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question. Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  Clause 13, page 21, line 8, leave out ("production") and insert ("sequence of visual images")
  line 10, leave out from ("capable") to end of line and insert ("by the use of that material,—

  (a) of being shown as a moving picture, or

  (b) of being recorded on other material (whether translucent or not), by the use of which it can be so shown:")

  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 39 and 40 are also both drafting Amendments. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  Clause 14, page 22, line 2, leave out ("twenty five") and insert ("fifty").
  line 12, leave out ("twenty-five") and insert ("fifty").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 41 and 42 are both concerned with the conversion of the 25-year period to the 50-year period and are purely consequential Amendments on matters which we have already discussed. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question. Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 14, page 22, line 38. leave out from beginning to end of line 4 on page 23 and insert ("by the reception of the broadcast or by making use of any record, print, negative, tape or other article on which the broadcast has been recorded.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment. —(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 14, page 23, line 46, at end insert—
  "(9) The copyright in a television broadcast or sound broadcast is not infringed by anything done in relation to the broadcast for the purposes of a judicial proceeding.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move that this House cloth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree. with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Leave out Clause 15.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is also a drafting Amendment, again linked with Government Amendments connected with rediffusion. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House cloth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 16, page 25, line 32, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
  ("(4) The copyright Ender this section in a published edition is rot infringed by the making by or on behalf of a librarian of a reproduction of the typographical arrangement of the edition, if he is the librarian of a library of a class prescribed by regulations made under this subsection by the Board of Trade, and the conditions prescribed by those regulations are complied with.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is quite a different matter. Clause 16 deals with the subject of copyright in published editions, and here again we are getting on the territory of the noble Lord, Lord Chorley. The Amendment gives the Board of Trade power to make regulations dealing with the special case of a librarian who is requested to supply, for example, a copy of a book which is the subject of the typographical copyright given by this particular clause. The provisions of Clause 7, which we have discussed earlier this afternoon and which specify the conditions on which the librarian may be protected from an action for infringement of copyright in the literary, dramatic or musical work incorporated in a book, are not altogether appropriate in the present content. In particular, it seems unnecessary to make it a condition of protection that the librarian does not know, and cannot by reasonable inquiry ascertain, the identity of the owner of the copyright in the book,. for example, in its typographical layout.

  1175
  It also seems desirable to deal with this case separately, since librarians, having complied with the requirements imposed under Clause 7, might overlook the need to respect the rights of the owner of the typographical copyright conferred by Clause 16. So this Amendment is designed to prevent librarians falling into a trap which they otherwise might not have noticed.
  A further reason for this Amendment is that the work itself may be out of copyright under Part I of the Bill, so that the librarian has no reason to think that he need comply with any requirements under the Bill, but it so happens that the particular edition which he is copying is still subject to copyright under Clause 16. This is a further safeguard to assist librarians, and I hope that it will meet with the approval of your Lordships. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 18, page 27, line 6, leave out ("every infringement") and insert ("infringements").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 47, 48, 52 and 53 all march together, and are concerned with Clauses 18 and 19—that is, the action taken by the owner of copyright for infringement and the rights of the owner of copyright in respect of infringement of copyright. The four Amendments which go together give effect to the decision of Her Majesty's Government, taken whilst the Bill was in another place, that the period of limitation of actions in respect of infringement of copyright should be the period of limitation fixed by the ordinary law for actions in tort, which in England, as your Lordships will know, is six years, under Section 2 of the Limitation Act, 1939. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  Clause 18, page 27, line 13, leave out subsection (2)
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  Clause 18, page 28, line 7, after ("interdict") insert ("and interlocutory injunction' means an interim interdict")
  line 10, leave out ("and")
  at end insert ("and 'costs' means expenses.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, these Amendments also are all consequential. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  Clause 19, page 28, line 17, at end insert—
  ("Provided that if, by virtue of subsection (2) of section three of the Limitation Act, 1939 (which relates to successive conversions or detentions), or of any corresponding provision which may be enacted by the Parliament of Northern Ireland, the title of the owner of the copyright to such a copy or plate would (if he had then been the owner of the copy or plate) have been extinguished at the end of the period mentioned in that subsection or corresponding provision, he shall not be entitled to any rights or remedies under this subsection in respect of anything done in relation to that copy or plate after the end of that period.")
  line 18, leave out subsection (2).
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, these Amendments, again, are consequential. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 19, page 28, line 22, leave out from second ("to") to end of line and insert ("any other pecuniary remedy (except costs").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  After Clause 19, insert the following new clause—
  Proceedings in case of copyright subject to exclusive licence
  (".—(1) The provisions of this section shall have effect as to proceedings in the case of any copyright in respect of which an exclusive licence has been granted and is in force at the time of the events to which the proceedings relate.
  (2)Subject to the following provisions of this section—

  (a) the exclusive licensee shall (except against the owner of the copyright) have the same rights of action, and be entitled to the same remedies, tinder section eighteen of this Act as if the licence had been an assignment, and those rights and remedies shall be concurrent with the rights and remedies of the owner of the copyright under that section;

  (b) the exclusive licensee shall (except against the owner of the copyright) have the same rights of action, and he entitled to the same remedies, by virtue of the last preceding section as if the licence had been an assignment: and

  (c) the owner of the copyright shall not have any rights of action, or be entitled to any remedies, by virtue of the last preceding section which he would not have had or been entitled to if the licence had been an assignment.

  (3)Where an action is brought either by the owner of the copyright or by the exclusive licensee, and the action, in so far as it is brought tinder section eighteen of this Act, relates (wholly or partly) to an infringement in respect of which they have concurrent right; of action under that section, the owner or licensee. as the case may be, shall not be entitled, except with the leave of the court, to proceed with the action, in so far as it is brought under that section and relates to that infringement, unless the other party is either joined as a plaintiff in the action or added as a defendant:
  Provided that this subsection shall not affect the granting of an interlocutory injunction on the application of either of them.
  (4)In any action brought by the exclusive licensee by virtue of this section, any defence which would have been available to a defendant in the action, if this section had not been enacted and the action had been brought by the owner of the copyright, shall be available to that defendant as against the exclusive licensee.
  (5)Where an action is brought in the circumstances mentioned in subsection (3) of this section, and the owner of the copyright and the exclusive licensee are not both plaintiffs in the action, the court, in assessing damages in respect of any such infringement as is mentioned in that subsection,—

  (a) if the plaintiff is the exclusive licensee, shall take into account any liabilities (in respect of royalties or otherwise) to which the licence is subject, and

  1178

  (b) whether the plaintiff is the owner of the copyright or the exclusive licensee, shall take into account any pecuniary remedy already awarded to the other party under section eighteen of this Act in respect of that infringement, or. as the case may require, any right of action exercisable by the other party under that section in respect thereof.

  (6) Where an action, in so far as it is brought under section eighteen of this Act, relates (wholly or partly) to an infringement in respect of which the owner of the copyright, and the exclusive licensee have concurrent rights of action under that section, and in that action (whether they are both parties to it or not) an account of profits is directed to be taken in respect of that infringement, then, subject to any agreement of which the court is aware, whereby the application of those profits is determined as between the owner of the copyright and the exclusive licensee, the court shall apportion the profits between them as the court may consider just, and shall give such directions as the court may consider appropriate for giving effect to that apportionment.
  (7) In an action brought either by the owner of the copyright or by the exclusive licensee,—

  (a) no judgment or order for the payment of damages in respect of an infringement of copyright shall he given or made under section eighteen of this Act, if a final judgment or order has 'peen given or made awarding an account of profits to the other party under that section in respect of the same infringement; and

  (b) no judgment or order for an account of profits in respect of an infringement of copyright shall be given or made tinder that section, if a final judgment or order has been given or made awarding either damages or an account of profits to the other party under that section in respect of the same infringement.

  (8) Where, n an action brought in the circumstances mentioned in subsection (3) of this section, whether by the owner of the copyright or by the exclusive licensee, the other party is not joined as a plaintiff (either at the commencement of the action or subsequently), but is added as a defendant, he shall not be liable for any costs in the action unless he enters an appearance and takes part in the proceedings.
  (9) In this section "exclusive licence" means a licence in writing, signed by or on behalf of an owner or prospective owner of copyright, authorising the licensee, to the exclusion of all other persons, including the grantor of the licence, to exercise a right which by virtue of this Act would (apart from the licence) be exercisable exclusively by the owner of the copyright, and "exclusive licensee" shall be construed accordingly; "the other party", in relation to the owner of the copyright, means the exclusive; licensee, and, in relation to the exclusive licensee, means the owner of the copyright; and "if the licence had been an assignment" means if, instead of the licence, there had been granted (subject to terms and conditions corresponding as nearly as may be with those subject to which the licence was

  1179
  granted) an assignment of the copyright in respect of its application to the doing, at the places and times authorised by the licence, of the acts so authorised.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is an awful business and I apologise for it. If the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, had been in his place I should have gone into it in elaborate detail.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am glad he is not.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, the observation of 'the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, which perhaps was not intended for any ears except mine, encourages me to think that your Lordships need no explanation on this new clause. It is a highly technical matter, on which the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, made a most learned and eloquent speech which, only after I had read it very carefully four times, with a wet towel round my head, did I begin to understand. We came to the conclusion that the noble Lord had a good point on this highly technical matter and this is our attempt to meet it. Since the noble Lord is not here to pick holes in our draftsmanship (and I am quite certain he is the only person in this House who would have the slightest chance of understanding what this Amendment is about), I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved. That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 20, page 29, line 28, after ("if") insert ("he claims to be the owner of the copyright and").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 20, page 29, line 36, after ("shall") insert ("in any action brought by virtue of this Part of this Act").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a small technical point on Clause 20 relating to proof of facts, and this Amendment
  1180
  is necessary in order to ensure that the presumption in favour of the plaintiff. which is set out in paragraph (b), and which is new, shall not be made in proceedings brought under the old Act of 1911. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 20, page 30, line 45, at end insert—
  "(7) In any action brought by virtue of this Part of this Act with respect to copyright in a sound recording, if records embodying that recording or part thereof have been issued to the public, and, at the time when those records were so issued, they bore a label or other mark comprising any one or more of the following statements, that is to say—

  (a) that a person named on the label or mark was the maker of the sound recording;

  (b) that the recording was first published in a year specified on the label or mark;

  (c) that the recording was first published in a country specified on the label or mark,

  that label or mark shall be sufficient evidence of the facts so stated except in so far as the contrary is proved.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, we are still on the question of proof of facts under Clause 20. While the position of gramophone record manufacturers is not, I suppose, a quite precise parallel with that of an author, it seems reasonable to raise in the manufacturer's favour the presumptions which are specified in the Amendment—I will not bother to read them out. They are merely that statements made on the record are true unless the contrary is proved. That is thought to be reasonable, and I trust that your Lordships will agree with this Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 23, page 34, line 3, at end insert—
  ("(3) A person shall be disqualified for being appointed, or being, a member of the tribunal so long as he is a member of the Commons House of Parliament, or of the Senate or House of Commons of Northern Ireland.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is quite an important small point—we are now talking of the establishment of the

  1181
  tribunal. This Amendment is necessary because membership of the tribunal constitutes the holding of an office of profit under the Crown, being an office of a judicial character which should not be held by an elected Member of Parliament. This is a subject on which I have frequently read out Bills from this Dispatch Box. and the subject may even be familiar to your Lordships. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 24, page 34, line 35, at end insert ("or to cause the work or an adaptation thereof to be transmitted to subscribers to a diffusion service;")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, we are again touching on relaying and re-diffusion. Now that relaying has been brought within range of infringement, and licences from copyright owners may in some circumstances be required. it is only right that the rediffusion companies should have the same opportunities as other would-be licensees to have the conditions of the licence brought before the Tribunal. If this were not to be done, it could well happen that British rediffusion companies would be at the mercy of collecting societies acting on behalf of copyright owners, some of whom may be foreigners, a position which could not be justified. Accordingly, this Amendment is proposed to deal with this rather peculiar situation. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 24, page 35, line 10, leave out from ("means") to ("and") in line 17 and insert ("any owner or prospective owner of copyright in sound recordings, or any person or body of persons acting as agent for any owners or prospective owners of copyright in sound recordings in relation to the negotiation or granting of such licences;")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 25, page 36, line 16, leave out from ("other") to end of line 18, and insert organisations or persons (if any) as apply to the tribunal to be made parties to the reference and in accordance with the next following subsection, are made parties thereto.
  (3) Where an organisation (whether claiming to be representative of persons requiring licences or not) or a person (whether requiring a licence or not) applies to the tribunal to he made a party to a reference, and the tribunal is satisfied that the organisation or person has a substantial interest in the matter in dispute, the tribunal may, if it thinks fit, make that organisation or person a party to the reference.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 62 to 68 are concerned with Clauses 25, 26 and 27, which are all tribunal clauses. In another place the Opposition urged that organisations claiming to be representative of persons interested by reason of their profession or employment should be given a right of access to the tribunal. The tribunal is essentially a body for settling disputes between people who wanted licences and people who did not wish to grant them; it has a limited and defined jurisdiction, and the Government consider that it would be wrong and inapposite to write into the Bill a provision which would, in effect, convert the tribunal into an ineffective and anomalous additional industrial court. After a close examination of the relevant provisions of the Bill, we have come to the conclusion that the right course is to write into the Bill a discretion for the tribunal to make any organisation or person a party to a reference or application, if they are satisfied that that organisation or person has a substantial interest in the dispute.
  These Amendments give effect to the decision by making the necessary changes in the clauses I have mentioned. Three things happen under these Amendments: first, the position is maintained that only parties to the actual dispute have an unconditional right to be heard; second, that none the less organisations or persons having a substantial interest in the dispute may ask to be heard and at the discretion of the tribunal may be joined as parties: third, being joined as parties, they will have all the rights and liabilities of the

  1183
  other parties, as, for example, the right to appeal on a point of law and the liability for costs. This is a compromise and I think it is a satisfactory one. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I think the Government have here found a very wise way out of a difficulty. Those who have an interest in copyright matters will always be caught by the repercussions of that ill-starred Clause 11 in the original Bill. I am very glad about this Amendment. I think it must be agreed by everyone that a Bill of this description should not be used for the purpose of enforcing wages and conditions of employment agreements. There is adequate and well-tested machinery for that, and when you once start to try to use a Copyright Bill—as the 1911 Copyright Bill was used—in order to enforce conditions of employment I think you are opening up a field of irreparable damage to those whom you set out to protect—that is, the copyright holders. This Amendment therefore has my support.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  Clause 26, page 37, line 30, leave out from ("other") to end of line 32, and insert ("organisations or persons (if any) as apply to the tribunal to be made parties to the reference and, in accordance with the provisions applicable in that behalf by virtue of subsection (5) of this section, arc made parties thereto.")
  line 41, leave out ("(5) and (6)") and insert ("(4), (6) and (7)")
  Clause 27, page 38, line 36, at end insert—
  ("(4) Where an organisation (whether claiming to be representative of persons requiring licences or not) or a person (whether requiring a licence or not) applies to the tribunal to be made a party to an application under the preceding provisions of this section, and the tribunal is satisfied that the organisation or person has a substantial interest in the matter in dispute, the tribunal may, if it thinks fit. make that organisation or person a party to the application.")
  line 37, after ("under"). insert ("subsection (2) or subsection (3) of")
  line 38, after ("question") insert ("and to every other party (if any) to the application")
  page 39, line 6, leave out ("the last preceding subsection") and insert ("subsection (3) of this section")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, these Amendments are consequential and with the permission of the House I will put them all together. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  After Clause 27, insert the following new Clause:
  Exercise of jurisdiction of tribunal in relation to diffusion of foreign broadcasts
  (".—(1) Where, on a reference to the tribunal under this Part of this Act relating to licences to cause works to be transmitted to subscribers to a diffusion service in the United Kingdom, the tribunal is satisfied—

  (a) that the licences are required wholly or partly for the purpose of distributing programmes broadcast, from a place outside the United Kingdom, by an organisation other than the Corporation and the Authority, and

  (b) that, under the arrangements in accordance with which the programmes are broadcast by that organisation, charges are payable by or on behalf of the organisation to another body, as being the body entitled under the relevant copyright law to authorise the broadcasting of those works from that place,

  the tribunal shall, subject to the next following subsection, exercise its powers under this Part of this Act as the tribunal may consider appropriate for securing that the persons requiring the licences are exempted from the payment of any charges for them in so far as the licences are required for the purpose of distributing those programmes.
  (2) If on such a reference as is mentioned in the last preceding subsection the tribunal is satisfied as to the matters mentioned in paragraphs (a) and (b) of that subsection, but it is shown to the satisfaction of the tribunal that the charges payable by or on behalf of the organisation as mentioned in paragraph (b) of that subsection, —

  (a) make no allowance for the fact that, in consequence of the broadcasting of the works in question by that organisation, the persons requiring the licences may be enabled to cause those works to be transmitted to subscribers to diffusion services in the United Kingdom, or

  (b) do not adequately reflect the extent to which it is likely that those persons will cause those works to be so transmitted in consequence of their being so broadcast.

  the last preceding subsection shall not apply, but the tribunal shall exercise its powers under this Part of this Act so as to secure that the charges payable for the licences, in so far as the licences are required for the purpose mentioned in the last preceding

  1185
  subsection, are on a scale not exceeding that appearing to the tribunal to be requisite for making good the deficiency (as mentioned in paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of this subsection, as the case may be) in the charges payable by or on behalf of the organisation broadcasting the works.
  (3) Thu preceding provisions of this section shall have effect, with the necessary modifications, in relation to applications under this Part of this Act as they have effect in relation to references thereunder.
  (4) In this section "the relevant copyright law", in relation to works broadcast from a place outside the United Kingdom, means so much of the laws of the country in which that place is situated as confers rights similar to copyright under this Act or as otherwise relates to such rights; and any reference to works includes a reference to adaptations thereof.")
  5.27 p.m.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this Amendment is concerned with the exercise of the jurisdiction of the tribunal in relation to diffusion of foreign broadcasts. It is a new clause, and it is designed to protect relay companies from paying copyright fees in respect of foreign programmes picked up and relayed to their subscribers in cases where the foreign broadcasting authority have paid a copyright fee which covers the United Kingdom relay audience. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment— (Lord Mancroft.)
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, has stopped short in his explanation because. if I read this clause correctly—and let me say here and now that I support it; I think it is very necessary—the latter part of subsection (2) is expressly designed to overcome some of the fears that have been expressed by the relay associations, fears that there will be double payment. Perhaps your Lordships would not mind looking at it. It means this. If the composers are being paid a percentage by one organisation—let us say the B.B.C.—they will not be able to demand a second payment. They will have to come under the jurisdiction of the tribunal who can authorise the making up of any deficiency. If there is no deficiency, there will be no payment. I think that is a very wise provision, arid if I read this clause correctly it has been put in to safeguard the relay companies
  1186
  against those things about which they have expressed fears —for example, that the composer and author may get two royalties, or more than the fair royalty that he would otherwise receive. I think that my explanation is right. That is my reading of this clause.
  May I say one word upon the whole subject of this tribunal? The idea of introducing a tribunal into copyright law originated, as your Lordships will remember, from this side of the House. When we discussed television copyright some few years ago (Lord Mancroft will remember this), we had many disputes in the House, even before the Copyright Committee's Report was before your Lordships for discussion. I have always thought that this tribunal provided the correct method for giving some court of appeal to those who thought they were being charged too much and also to those who thought they should not pay anything at all.
  May I ask the noble Lord this question? I want to go back to this matter of the licence with regard to the right of reproduction of a gramophone record where the author or composer is paid a statutory royalty. He is paid 6¼ percent. of the retail price. That is laid down in the Statute: it is in this Bill. Why did not the Government bring the Tribunal into that matter—the Tribunal to have the power to fix the fees or to be the arbitrator to hear appeals against fees —instead of setting up the cumbersome machinery there is in the Bill of a public inquiry if the composer wants to increase his royalties, and then an Affirmative Resolution after a statutory instrument has been placed before both Houses of Parliament by the President of the Board of Trade? It appears to me that the Government want to find a sledge hammer or a huge machine to deal with what should be a matter of commercial sense. There has to be an Affirmative Resolution—not even a Negative Resolution, which I understand the Government do not like at all.
  I wonder whether the noble Lord can give me an answer. I should have thought the Tribunal would be the ideal body to decide this point, because, after all, what is a royalty on a recording but a fee for a copyright that is going to enable a performance to be given? What is the difference between a copyright fee on a recording and a copyright

  1187
  fee for a broadcast? I hope at some time the Government will consider that that aspect of this Bill might conic in for amendment. if there is a very good reason why this matter is kept separate and not included in a like clause, perhaps the noble Lord will be kind enough to tell me.
  LORD MANCROFT: On the first point the noble Lord raised, he is quite right about the avoiding of double payment. I did touch on this matter in my opening remarks about Clause 2 and I did not want to reiterate it. On the point about the 64 per cent. I will be quite frank with the noble Lord. I do remember that we discussed it a long time ago, either on the original Bill or on the Committee stage. It is so long ago that I have forgotten what the reason was. I know that there was a good reason and I was wholly convinced at the time. I think we considered that the Tribunal was not technically equipped to do the calculation on the 61 per cent. and it would be confusing their terms of reference and their purpose. I have to check my memory as to what it was.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I think the noble Lord will recollect that when the Government became converted to the idea of the Tribunal it had a rather narrower conception of its duties, and perhaps that was the reason. But, of course, the duties of the Tribunal have been considerably widened from those which were first conceived. Perhaps the noble Lord is right.
  LORD MANCROFT: We are now going off on a wrong tack. What the noble Lord is saying is perfectly true. but he will remember the 61 per cent. was fixed by Parliament. I wonder whether the idea may have been that it was a had thing to put before the Tribunal something which was as a figure statutorily fixed. The rates they will be discussing in their proper role now as a Tribunal will not have been fixed by Parliament. The 6¼percent. was. I think that was the reason.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: The bad thing was that Parliament put up the machinery of Parliament to fix 61 per cent. on the price of a gramophone record. I should have thought that that
  1188
  matter would be the subject of negotiation between the gramophone record manufacturer and the composer, with a Tribunal to arbitrate if they could not agree. However, I am grateful for the noble Lord's reply.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 30, page 43, line 6, at end insert—
  ("(4) For the purposes of any proceedings under this Act in the United Kingdom, where the proceedings relate to an act done in a country to which any provisions of this Act extend subject to exceptions, modifications or additions, —

  (a) the procedure applicable to the proceedings, including the time within which they may be brought, and the remedies available therein, shall be in accordance with this Act in its operation as part of the law of the United Kingdom; but

  (b) if the act in question does not constitute an infringement of copyright under this Act in its operation as part of the law of the country where the act was done, it shall (notwithstanding anything in this Act) be treated as not constituting an infringement of copyright under this Act in its operation as part of the law of the United Kingdom.")

  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a very technical point. Unless your Lordships want a long explanation. I think I can reassure you that the principles underlying it are consistent with the accepted principles of private international law, as laid down by our courts in relation to Common Law rights, and it seems to me we should cone into line. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  Clause 35, page 47, line 11, leave out from beginning to ("a") in line 17.
  line 27, leave out subsections (6) and (7).
  Clause 36, page 48, line 11, leave out subsection (3).
  line 25, leave out sub-section (5).
  line 37, leave out "or subsection (3)".
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords. Amendments Nos. 71, 72, 73, 74 and 75 all march together and they are consequential on the new clause about proceedings in the case of copyright subject to

  1189
  exclusive licence. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  Clause 38, page 49, line 1, leave out from beginning to ("made") in line 2 and insert ("In the case of every original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work")
  line 7, leave out from ("case") to end of line 8 and insert ("Her Majesty shall, subject to the provisions of this Part of this Act, he entitled to the copyright in the work.")
  line 9, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
  ("(2) Her Majesty shall, subject to the provisions of this Part of this Act, be entitled

  (a) to the copyright in every original literary, dramatic or musical work first published in the United Kingdom, or in another country to which section two of this Act extends, if first published by or under the direction or control of Her Majesty or a Government department;

  (b) to the copyright in every original artistic work first published in the United Kingdom or in another country to which section three of this Act extends, if first published by or under such direction or control.")

  line 16, leave out ("which vests in the Crown") and insert ("to which Her Majesty is entitled")
  line 27, leave out (" which vests in the Crown") and insert ("to which Her Majesty is entitled")
  line 39, leave out from beginning to ("made") and insert "In the case of every sound recording or cinematograph film")
  page 50, line 1, leave out from ("case") to ("shall") in line 2 and insert ("Her Majesty shall, subject to the provisions of this Part of this Act, be entitled to the copyright in the recording or film, and it")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 76, 77, 78, 79 and 80 go together and they are concerned with rather a technical point: provisions as to the Crown and Government Departments. The clause as drafted provides that in the various circumstances specified copyright shall vest in the Crown; the wording of the Act of 1911 provides that the copyright belongs to "His Majesty". Further consideration has led to the conclusion that the wording of the Act of 1911 in this respect is preferable. The clause as drafted would cause difficulty over work originating from the Duchy
  1190
  of Lancaster, since the Duchy is not the same thing as "the Crown" in the accepted sense. There is nothing I wish to do to cause any difficulty to my noble friend the Earl of Selkirk. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.
  Moved. That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 38, page 49, leave out lines 35 and 36 and insert ("of fifty years").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is also consequential, but it is a different sort of consequence. I beg to move that this House cloth agree with. the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  Clause 38, page 49, line 39, leave out from beginning to ("made") and insert ("In the case of every sound recording or cinematograph film")
  page 50, line 1, leave out from ("case") to ("shall") in line 2 and insert ("Her Majesty shall, subject to the provisions of this Part of this Act, be entitled to the copyright in the recording or film, and it").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, these two Amendments are consequential. I beg to move that this House cloth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments. —(Lord Mancroft.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  After Clause 38 insert the following new clause—
  Broadcasts of sound recordings and cinematograph films, and diffusion of broadcast programmes
  (".—(1) Where a sound broadcast or television broadcast is made by the Corporation or the Authority, and a person, by the reception of that broadcast. causes a sound recording to be heard in public, he does not thereby infringe the copyright (if any) in that recording under section twelve of this Act.
  (2) Where a television broadcast or sound broadcast is made by the Corporation or the Authority, and the broadcast is an authorised broadcast, any person who, by the reception

  1191
  of the broadcast, causes a cinematograph film to be seen or head in public, shall be in the like position, in any proceedings for infringement of the copyright (if any) in the film under section thirteen of this Act, as if he had been the holder of a licence granted by the owner of that copyright to cause the film to be seen or heard in public by the reception of the broadcast.
  (3) Where a television broadcast or sound broadcast is made by the Corporation or the Authority, and the broadcast is an authorised broadcast, any person who, by the reception of the broadcast, causes a programme to be transmitted to subscribers to a diffusion service, being a programme comprising a literary, dramatic or musical work. or an adaptation of such a work or an artistic work, or a cinematograph film, shall be in the like position, in any proceedings for infringement of the copyright (if any) in the work or film, as if he had been the holder of a licence granted by the owner of that copyright to include the work, adaptation or film in any programme caused to be transmitted by him to subscribers to that service by the reception of the broadcast.
  (4) If. in the circumstances mentioned in either of the two last preceding subsections, the person causing the cinematograph film to be seen or heard, or the programme to be transmitted, as the case may be, infringed the copyright in question, by reason that the broadcast was not an authorised broadcast, —

  (a) no proceedings shall be brought against that person under this Act in respect of his infringement of that copyright, but

  (b) it shall he taken into account in assessing damages in any proceedings against the Corporation or the Authority, as the case may be, in respect of that copyright, in so far as that copyright was infringed by them in making the broadcast.

  (5) For the purposes of this section, a broadcast shall be taken, in relation to a work or cinematograph film, to be an authorised broadcast if, but only if, it is made by, or with the licence of. the owner of the copyright in the work or film.")
  5.37 p.m.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, we now come to something of considerably more importance. Amendment 84 deals with two distinct matters. First, it brings back the provisions of the deleted Clause 15, under which, as your Lordships will remember, a person who receives broadcast programmes and causes them to be seen or heard in public is relieved from the need to obtain licences from record and film copyright owners (but not from the need to obtain licences from the owners of copyright in "works" under Clause 2 or Clause 3 of the Bill). This is done in order to protect people, showing these programmes in public, from having to obtain a multiplicity of licences, but the rights of owners of head copyright in
  1192
  works under Clause 2 or Clause 3 are not overridden in these two subsections because to do this would be contrary to the Brussels Convention.
  Secondly, this clause deals with the position of rediffusion companies. Subsection (3) deals with the relaying of a programme (either sound or television) broadcast by the B.B.C. or I.T.A. (but only by those authorities). In so far as rediffusion companies only transmit to their subscribers programmes broadcast by these two authorities. (a) they do not infringe the head copyright in any "works" or films comprised in the programme in so far as the B.B.C. or 1.T.A. is the owner of that copyright, and (b) in so far as some other person is the owner of that copyright, the licence given by him to the B.B.C. or 1.T.A. to give the broadcast shall be deemed to include permission to relay their works or films. The background to this provision is that the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. settle with the head copyright owners on the basis of broadcast receiving licence holders, including subscribers to relay companies as well as users of sets which receive the programmes over the air. Thus the head copyright owners are in effect paid for the relaying of their works in the United Kingdom when they receive payment from the B.B.C. or I.T.A. for the licences which they give to the B.B.C. or I.T.A. to broadcast their works. It is for this reason that, by virtue of subsection (3), it will not be necessary for the relay companies to obtain separate licences to relay from the head copyright owners. The case where the head copyright owner has not given a licence to broadcast to the B.B.C. or I.T.A. is dealt with in subsection (4).
  My noble friend Lord Teynham has on the Order Paper an Amendment to this Amendment. I think that he was in his place when I spoke on the first Amendment on the Order Paper and I am not going to waste time in delivering again the arguments which I advanced then, as did the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth. I am certain that the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, has followed what has been said, and I will merely say that what I offered to your Lordships then by way of explanation should be regarded as being written into the observations I have just made, and I hope that my noble friend Lord Teynham will move his Amendment to the Amendment on that

  1193
  basis. I beg to move that the House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment. —(Lord Mancroft.)
  5.41 p.m.
  LORD TEYNHAM LORD TEYNHAM had given Notice of two Amendments to the Commons Amendment, the first being in subsection (3), line 2, to leave out "by the Corporation or the Authority". The noble Lord said: My Lords, with the permission of the House, I should like to speak to my two Amendments together. In the first place, I thiik I should make it clear that the two Amendments, taken together, would restore this new clause to the form in which it left the Standing Committee in another place, except, of course, for some minor Amendments which were inserted by Her Majesty's Government. The whole background of this clause is an extremely interesting one, and certainly very complicated, and I ask your Lordships to hear with me for a short time while I try to unravel it. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has partly dealt with it, but I do not think that he has fully covered the matter.
  I would remind your Lordships that during the Report stage of this Bill in your Lordships' House the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack gave an undertaking to consider a further question. What was this further question? It was one which appears to have arisen after some 300 Amendments had already been debated: the question of whether the relay services should be brought into the field of copyright. After the Bill left your Lordships' House, it received a Second Reading in another place, but no indication was then given by Her Majesty's Goverment that they might seek to amend the Bill in this particular. It was not until the Bill reached the Standing Committee in another place that Her Majesty's Government proposed sweeping Amendments which would have had the effect of making the relay of programmes an act restricted by copyright.
  These Government Amendments were set down in spite of the fact that the Copyright Committee had dismissed the subject in one sentence. What did they say? They said:
  1194
  "We do not suggest any alteration in the present relationship between the Postmaster General, the B.B.C. and the relay services."
  It is clear that here we have a statement with no qualification whatever, and in the clause it was quite clear what they in-mended. Then we heard the astonishing statement made by the Assistant Postmaster General in another place, which I quote:
  "It seems to me perfectly logical and proper that when a Bill is first presented, as this was, in another place," —
  of course, he referred to your Lordships' House—
  "it should follow closely the recommendations of that Committee," —
  presumably, he meant the Copyright Committee,"—
  "and that it should be the responsibility of this House "—
  that is, another place—
  "to decide when any additions or subtractions should be made to some of the general principles recommended by the Copyright Committee."
  I very much deprecate these remarks, which I venture to suggest must have been made without realisation of the constitutional position and which are almost an insult to your Lordships' House. A great deal of time was spent on this Bill, and we in your Lordships' House are certainly under no obligation whatever to follow closely the recommendations of the Copyright Committee—or, in fact, of any other committee.
  As I have said before, the Government Amendments put before the Standing Committee in another place proposed to make the relay of programmes an act restricted by copyright, in spite of the Report by the Copyright Committee. The whole question was debated at considerable length by the Standing Committee, and finally a compromise Amendment was agreed. which laid down that the principle of copyright which was to apply to the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. should apply equally to any foreign broadcast, subject to the safeguard, from the point of view of the author, that it would be a breach of copyright by the relay company if a programme relayed by them had, in fact. been broadcast in breach of copyright. On Report stage in another place, Her Majesty's Government introduced Amendments which, in fact, have negated the decision of the Standing Committee. I think that it is true to

  1195
  say that during a three hours' debate in another place not a single speaker spoke in favour of the Government's Amendments, yet eventually they were inserted in the Bill.
  What have the Government's Amendments, which are before your Lordships to-day, done? Their effect is that relay companies must obtain and pay for a licence to relay a foreign—I repeat, foreign—broadcast, unless they can prove that the broadcaster has paid a fee not only in respect of broadcasting but also in respect of the relaying of that broadcast. I suggest that this provision would be most unfair to the relay services, because it would penalise the relay companies instead of the guilty party—the foreign broadcasting authority. At the time of the passage of the Bill through your Lordships' House, I would say that this appeared to be the view of the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack, but it would seem that he has changed his mind.
  I submit that my Amendments fully cover the interests of authors and composers. The position is that authors and composers already receive from the broadcasting authority fees in relation to the broadcast of their works, whether by relay or by ordinary licence. The new clause, as it stands, would result in the payment by the British relay companies of those fees for which the foreign broadcasting stations have hitherto accepted responsibility. They always have done in the past why not in the future? It would certainly not involve further remuneration to authors, but would transfer to the British relay companies a liability which is properly that of the broadcaster. Only recently—I think it was on October 26 a letter appeared in The Times,
  under the signature of the chief executive officer of the Performing Right Society, which said:
  "Our members would be quite happy if the provision of the existing law was left unchanged."
  I can assure your Lordships that that proposition would certainly be acceptable to the relay services, though, on the other hand, they are quite prepared to accept the new clause with the Amendments, the first of which I now beg to move.
  Amendment to the Commons Amendment moved—
  Subsection (3), line 2, leave out ("by the Corporation or the Authority").—(Lord Teynham.)
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, would the noble Lord be kind enough to answer one question? Under his Amendments, where would the composer or author obtain his redress, if his work were relayed in this country via a foreign broadcast and not by the B.B.C. or I.T.A.?
  5.50 p.m.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, before I say a few words to your Lordships on this subject, I wish to make it quite plain that I have a modest personal interest in this matter. I happen to be a director of a relay company, but fortunately that company has a good many other interests and a certain number of resources and is, therefore, I think, able to sustain assaults, however invidious, perhaps more adequately than some others can. I should not have intervened to take part in this debate on that account alone. I should not take part were I not convinced that the decisions which your Lordships took in the long debates in this House when the Bill was introduced were entirely right, and that now a grave injustice is being proposed. not merely or chiefly to some 300 relay companies, but what to me, and I think to your Lordships, and, as it appeared. to many in another place, is much more important. to 1 million or more families who use this service. From the long debates we had some months ago your Lordships are probably familiar with the relay system, and some of you who are more fortunately situated may take advantage of it in your apartments. This relay system is, in fact and in law, an alternative receiving system to the ordinary radio sets which most people have. There are upwards of 1 million subscribers to this service in all parts of the country, mostly people in modest circumstances, who like to make weekly payments and who value the service which is given, and particularly value it in those regions where the reception of ordinary sets is not wholly satisfactory.
  The Bill, as it was introduced here and as it was passed on to another place after long debate, left the law with regard to relay companies, whether they relay something originated at home or overseas, as it has stood for thirty years. It was

  1197
  explained to us when the Bill was before us previously that its primary object was to ratify—I do not know whether I 'use the correct legal term—or to make effective in our domestic legislation in this country the Brussels or Berne Copyright Convention. This Convention is now some years old, and in order to make sure that the Bill should properly represent the findings and the terms of the Convention, Her Majesty's Government, quite rightly, appointed an expert Copyright Committee, the Gregory Committee, to consider the matter. As was explained to us in this House, that Committee was composed of, among others, high legal authority, including Mr. James, a well-known author on copyright law, who I am told is one of the leading authorities on copyright in this country. That Committee, who did not use unnecessary verbiage in their Report (that I highly commend, and I wish their example was more universally followed), heard full legal evidence on the whole position of relay companies, and heard the present President of the Law Society, and reported that no change was required in the law. That was accepted, as one would expect, as good law in this House when the Bill was introduced.
  I would ask your Lordships to observe this. As this Amendment comes to us from another place, it does not come as an Amendment which is proposed in order to give effect to the Copyright Convention. On the contrary, those of your Lordships who have read the debate in another place will have seen that, for the purposes of the debate, the House was invited to assume that the Convention was fully satisfied by the Bill as it left Committee. But they were asked—and it was not unreasonable—to decide on its merits and in equity, and not on legal grounds, what ought to be done. This issue, which was discussed in this House, was debated fully in Committee in another place, and the Standing Committee in another place sustained the view which your Lordships had expressed when you sent the Bill down.
  That decision of the Standing Committee of the House has now been reversed by a narrow majority on Report in another place. As my noble friend Lord Teynham said, it is noticeable, not only that the whole Labour Party took one view (it is interesting to find that when the Labour Party have become united in another place disunion appears
  1198
  to be breaking out in their ranks here; my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth will have to be careful about whether he gets nominated as Minister of Transport in the next Labour Administration) but that in that long debate which took place on the Report stage in another place no speaker from any quarter of the House, except the two Under-Secretaries of State who were put up to state the Government's case, supported the Amendment which my noble friend Lord Man-croft is now commending to your Lordships. I know that I may he told by the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack that when you want to get Business through the other place the Whips do not encourage Back Benchers to make speeches. But he and I were Ministers in another place for quite a long time, and we both know well that when a Minister is batting on a sticky wicket—and this was a peculiarly sticky wicket—one is extremely anxious to secure some vocal support from the Benches behind one.
  To-day this House is asked to reconsider and change its previous decision on the merits. I would ask your Lordships to observe certain facts. This Amendment does not in any way affect relays in the United Kingdom made from broadcasts from the B.B.C. or I.T.A. In the second place, it does not concern broadcasts originated by British relay companies in the Commonwealth or elsewhere—they are not allowed to originate in this country. Where these relay companies originate programmes they have always paid, and paid in full, for any copyright they use, and I have never heard that there was any dispute or objection by any author or any copyright society.
  Let us be quite clear what this Amendment does. It imposes, and imposes only on relay companies in the United Kingdom, and, therefore, on their subscribers, an. obligation which is not imposed on any owners of ordinary radio sets, who can quite easily pick up a programme—an obligation to pay an extra fee which they do not pay to-day when they pick up and relay a foreign broadcast. Your Lordships will observe whom it is to benefit. It is not the British author, because in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a British composer broadcasts in this country. What are picked up and

  1199
  relayed are foreign broadcasts. Therefore, this particular obligation is to be imposed for the benefit of a foreign station, and, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, in favour of a foreign broadcaster. But it is certainly the British listener who is going to be made to pay. Now is that fair? That is the only thing we have to decide.
  It is common ground that an author should be paid for his copyright. It is equally common ground that an author should not he paid twice. There are performing right societies in every civilised country to protect the author, and for thirty years the broadcasting authority and the author have always known that the broadcast can be picked up by any individual receiving set of any relay service. This relay business. I understand, has been going on for twenty years or more. Now, under this proposal, the relay services are to be made to pay an extra fee for broadcasts in foreign countries, but not in the United Kingdom. There is no international obligation to do this. That was not contended here or in another place. If there is any question about the rights of Radio Diffusion or anybody else, they are going to meet again next July, and they can talk about it then. But this has not come to us as something we ought to do by international agreement. This is something which we are asked to do as fair and right. Everybody wants to do what is fair and right, but is it really fair or right to impose this new and invidious discrimination upon one million relay subscribers—and I say advisedly "subscribers"?
  One of two things will happen—and here I agree with so many of the speeches which were made, not from my side of the House, in another place. Sooner or later the charge will be passed on. My noble friend Lord Mancroft said, "It is only a trifle; a farthing a week." Well, I do not know. I would not challenge, but I certainly would not guarantee, his calculation. Appetite grows with eating. It may be a farthing, or it may be a halfpenny. But do not let my noble friend think that farthings and halfpennies do not count. After all, in working class budgets—and these families are nearly all people in modest circumstances—halfpennies or farthings a week add up, whether it is in radio service, milk or in
  1200
  bread. Either that will be passed on or the service will be less good. I do not think that is right, and that is the only reason why I have intervened. Apart from two interventions by Government Under-Secretaries I think every single speech made in another place was opposed to this proposal. I think your Lordships, if you reject this Amendment, and adhere to the position you took when you sent the Bill down to another place, will be doing what is fair and just by a great many humble people.
  6.5 p.m.
  THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON: My Lords, I have a similar confession to make as the last speaker. For many years I have had an interest in a company which is sometimes in competition with that of my noble friend Lord Swinton. I rise to-day to support this Amendment only because I think the present position, as it left another place, is so very unfair. I make a hid for the support of the Lord Chancellor. for in February of this year he stated in the debate [OFFICIAL REPORT. Vol. 195. col. 1192]:
  "The true answer is that, in any case. the foreign broadcasting authority, certainly if it is in a Berne Convention country, will already have made a payment for the composer's benefit for permission to broadcast the work. That, I think, is the real answer."
  Further, I make a bid for the help of the Assistant Postmaster General. On June 19, in another place, he said:
  "All that the rediffusion and relay companies arc doing is to provide their listeners with a means of listening to a broadcast programme. Therefore we think it would be wrong to regard the action undertaken by the relay services as providing a second performance of the work and therefore entitling the head copyright owner to a second royalty in respect of it."
  LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I shall not detain the House for more than two minutes. I rise only to ask my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor if he would be good enough to answer two questions which I shall put to him. The first is a purely legal question which I put to him as the great legal authority in this House, and that is whether in his view the new Government Amendment before this House—the Amendment the Commons made which is now before the House, and which my noble friend is seeking in his turn to amend—is required by Article 11 bis of the Brussels Convention. I agree with my noble friend

  1201
  Lord Swinton that in another place the House was invited to assume that that question did not arise and to treat the Amendment simply on its merits. Nevertheless, I should greatly value my noble and learned friend's view on the question whether what the Government are now proposing is, or is not, required by Article 11 bis of the Brussels Convention. The second question which I put to him, and which I do not knew whether he is in a position to answer, is whether other countries which are parties to the Berne Convention either have made or are making a similar provision in their law to that which is intended here.
  LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, before anybody replies on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, I think it proper to refer to the quotation which was perfectly properly made by my noble friend Lord Teynham of the words of the Assistant Postmaster General, speaking for the Government in another place. and to ask whether they ought to be qualified in any way, or whether they embody the views of Her Majesty's Government towards this House. If they do, they are contrary to those expressed by all other previous Governments and to the doctrine that was always laid down with the common assent of both Parties in the House by the late Lord Donoughmore. I think that this is much more important than the fate of this Amendment.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, there is one observation I should like to make—I do not intend to repeat anything I said previously. One of. the two statements made by the noble Earl. Lord Swinton, was that what your Lordships are being asked to do by this Amendment is to reverse what you did when the Bill in its original form was before your Lordships' House. I say that that is not a correct statement. The reason your Lordships were not asked to express an opinion, which would very likely have gone to the Division Lobby after debate, was because of the undertakings given by the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack. My noble friend Lord Archibald raised at the Committee stage this matter of the relay services and the effect of relay services upon copyright. He was speaking on subsection (3) (a) of Clause 42. It was the fact that the Government put that in the Bill that was the cause of all the trouble.
  1202
  That brought a new concept of copyright into copyright law.
  My noble friend raised this matter, as I said when I spoke to your Lordships upon the first Amendment, and it was because of the assurance which the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack gave my friend that the matter was not pursued at that time. My noble friend Lord Archibald put down a series of Amendments upon the same subject on Report stage. Unfortunately, my noble friend was ill —
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: It was quite open to somebody else to move them.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I will come to that, if the noble Earl will possess himself in patience. They were moved by the noble Lords, Lord Silkin and Lord Douglas of Barloch. Again, there was the noble and learned Viscount's assurance that this matter was receiving the very close attention of Her Majesty's Government, but that it was a very difficult matter; and he asked my noble friend to withdraw the Amendment on the assurance that it was under active consideration and that it would be dealt with in another place. It was also referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, in his Third Reading speech as the one remaining controversial matter that had not been decided.
  Those are the facts. Nobody, least of all the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, can say that the matter was not raised in your Lordships' House. If it had not been for the assurances we had received from the noble and learned Viscount, it would have had, shall I say, stricter consideration, because we on this side of the House have always felt that it was incumbent upon Her Majesty's Government to bring in the clause they had brought in with the first Amendment because of the Brussels Convention. The Brussels Convention has always said that the author and/or composer has this right. It says:
  "The author of a literary or artistic work shall have the exclusive right of authorising any communication to the public, whether over wires or riot, on the radio diffusion of the work"—
  The English translation of radio diffusion is "broadcasting"—
  "when this communication is made by a body other than the original one."

  1203
  That is the wording of the Brussels Convention. The Government were bound —they had no option, if they wanted to keep within the Brussels Convention—to put the Amendment into this Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, moved as the first Amendment. The other clauses, 28 and 40, were really put into this Bill only to amplify that and to give wide safeguards to the relay companies to see that they did not pay twice for the same thing. That is putting the point in colloquial language.
  The point I put to the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, is this. If his Amendment is agreed to, it will mean that the British author and composer will be thrown on the mercy of the courts of another country to obtain his rightful fees, his rightful remuneration, because the law of this country will not give him any protection.
  LORD TEYNHAM: I am not quite sure that the point is correct. It is a very difficult legal one, and I may be wrong. As I take it, the clause, if amended according to my Amendments, would mean that the author would have recourse to the British relay service if the relay service had relayed a broadcast from a foreign station and the foreign station had made the broadcast in breach of copyright. That is as I understand it.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am not going to argue law with the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor but that is not my interpretation. The interpretation of those who advise me upon these matters is this: that once you have brought in this provision there will be only one form of redress for the British composer; that is, to seek it in the courts of the country of the station concerned, because he will not have any redress in this country. That is the only thing I should like to record, because I shall not take any notice of the other comments that have been made. They are for the Government. I hope your Lordships will not mind my adding this. There is only one interest I have to disclose, and that is my interest for the composer and the author, that he should get the just return for the work of his brains. I have no financial interest of my own to safeguard; his is the only one that I am thinking of. Noble Lords on this side of the House will join with me in that. I ask your Lordships to reject the Amendment to
  1204
  the Amendment. I can assure the noble Lord that, if this matter goes to a Division, we shall support the Government on the Commons Amendment as it stands.
  LORD SOMERS: My Lords, with all due respect to the noble Lord, Lord Teynham—and I say those words with all seriousness, because I have a very great respect for him—I think that, if his Amendment is carried, it will be an act of gross injustice. I should like to make it clear that I am not speaking in my own interest as a composer, because I am not an eminent enough one for my performing rights to make any difference to my income: I am speaking in the interests of composers in general. They are very hard-working people, more hard working. I think one might say, than the average manual worker, since the mental strain is so terrific that it takes a pretty sound frame to bear up to it.
  One has to remember, too, that it is about the least remunerative, as I have said before—I do not want to repeat myself too often—of all occupations. Any steps that we can take to encourage the composer in producing his works are surely worth while. If they are not worthwhile works, then they will die by themselves. If they are worth while, surely it is worth while encouraging them to be produced. Presumably, the rediffusion stations are companies with an adequate financial background. I hardly think they are going to lose a great deal by paying for these extra rights. After all, the composer's performing rights are very minute at the best of times, and one cannot get away, as I said before, from the fact that it is a dual or extra performance.
  The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, said that it was an alternative to the original. On the other hand, one can say the same of two concerts in different places, yet both have to pay their dues. This is definitely a new performance, creating a new audience. Of course, the performing rights paid to the foreign composer by his foreign station may or may not include the possibility of the rediffusion of the work in this country—one cannot say about that. In any case, the noble Earl said that foreign composers and not British composers would benefit by this. But we are all in the greatest favour of that; we do not merely want British composers to get their dues. In all

  1205
  justice, surely the composer who gets what really amounts to two separate performances of his work should be paid for those two performances.
  6.22 p.m.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the arguments in regard to this Amendment have extended over a wide field and I shall do my best to cover them. I hope that any noble Lord who feels that I have left anything untouched will not hesitate to remind me of it, because it is my intention to deal with the important points that have been raised. The first argument in point of time that has been advanced is in regard to the procedure in your Lordships' House when this Bill was previously before the House. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has gone over that carefully and I will not repeat it. I simply add the footnote, to remind your Lordships that after the matter had been discussed on Committee stage and on Report, and after the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, had raised it on Third Reading, my noble friend, Lord Mancroft, said that the Government were still wrestling with the problem, and prophesied, with complete accuracy, that more would be heard of it in another place.
  With regard to the very interesting constitutional point raised by my noble friend Lord Saltoun, let me make my position completely clear. I do not think that it is material at all in which House a Bill starts; the legislative functions remain quite clearly a duty on Members of both Houses. Legislative functions are always two in number. The first is to give effect to the general policy of which the House approves—that is generally the policy of the Government of the day in the House of Commons; it may, or may not be, in your Lordships' House. That is the first general legislative function: to put into legislative effect a line of policy. The second legislative function is so to adjust the provisions of the Bill that they fit the lives and ordinary daily round of people in this country as a whole.
  In so far as my honourable friend the Assistant Postmaster General said that it is a normal process to start fairly close to your governing Report and then to find on examination that certain portions of it do not fit the circumstances at the time when the Bill is introduced as well as
  1206
  they appeared to the authors, that is, I should submit, a perfectly reasonable approach. I cannot understand why my honourable friend should have thought that there was any difference in the situation according to in which House the Bill was introduced. At any rate, I have given your Lordships my view, which I state without any equivocation.
  LORD SALTOUN: May I interrupt the noble and learned Viscount? Would he agree with me that both Houses are completely independently empowered to deal with my Bill according to how they see fit?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Certainly; that is absolutely right. The noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, would agree with me from his great experience that, having asserted that right, there is a wide field of co-operation between the Houses to get the best result. I am glad that my noble friend agrees. That is the position. I should like to come back to the point that my noble friend Lord Willingdon raised in his quotation from myself. I think that when I do come back to it, he will see that the point that I made, that I hoped at that time might be covered by the existing law, is put beyond doubt in the Amendment. I have dealt with these matters because they concern the first point, which is the history of this legislation.
  Now, as to the position under the Bill. I think it is important to remember that in all the earlier Amendments my noble friend Lord Mancroft put forward the argument for including relaying among the restricted acts in Clauses 2 and 3. There has been no dispute on that point. Therefore. the House must approach this difficulty on the basis that they are certainly starting from the fact that they are restricted acts within Clauses 2 and 3. I do not think that anyone who reads Articles 11 and 11 bis of the Brussels Text would seriously question that point —at any rate, nobody has questioned that point, and that is our starting point today. There is also no argument—my noble friend Lord Swinton emphasised this point—about the liability of persons engaged in relay who also originate their programme. The noble Earl accepted that they must be dealt with as parties who must pay. Therefore, the argument that arose in another place and

  1207
  which is repeated to-day is over a relay in one country of a broadcast from another. With all respect to my noble friend Lord Swinton, I do not think it is highly profitable to speculate on why or why not speakers did or did not speak from the Government Benches in another place. The noble Earl, Lord Swinton. as all your Lordships would expect. had his brilliance early recognised, and if my memory is right sat on the Back Benches of another place only from January, 1919. until April, 1920.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: But I made quite a lot of speeches.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: As one who sat many more years before ministerial office came his way, I should simply say to your Lordships that the argument which my noble friend anticipated is a very strong one—that when you have got a long Bill, Government Whips always come round and say, "Cannot you restrain your argumentative and rhetorical powers and let us get on with the business?" I only say to your Lordships. do not draw too serious a conclusion from that point.
  The position in the United Kingdom is that rediffusion companies are precluded from originating programmes under the Postmaster General's licence. and the facilities they provide are prescribed some of them relay only programmes put out by the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. and others transmit foreign broadcasts as well. So far as the B.B.C. is concerned, owing to the way in which it receives its income it can, and does. contract with the Performing Right Society on the basis of all licence holders. including those who hold the licence owing to their having the rediffusion service. That point is therefore quite clearly dealt with, and the new clause after Clause 38, which we are discussing, provides that a licence by the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. to broadcast shall be deemed to include a permission to relay.
  But the real difficulty we find is that we cannot take this line so far as foreign broadcasts are concerned, since the owner of the copyright in the United Kingdom need not be the same as the owner of the copyright abroad; and the relaying in the United Kingdom is properly one of the rights to be assured to the owner
  1208
  of the copyright in the United Kingdom. That is the difficulty. It is a fair one which we must face and, as your Lordships have heard from my noble friend, we have dealt with it on the three broad lines of, first, making the transmitting to subscribers by a diffusion service one of the acts restricted (that is under Clauses 2, 3 and 13), and secondly, by saying that when a sound or television broadcast is made by the B.B.C. or I.T.A. and someone transmits a programme by cable or wire in the operation of a diffusion service, he does not thereby infringe; and the original copyright owner is deemed, in allowing broadcasting, to be permitting rediffusion. That is obviously right in the case of the B.B.C. and the I.T.A.
  So we come to the third point. Where a programme from a foreign station is transmitted to subscribers by a diffusion service in the United Kingdom, we suggest that the Tribunal shall have power to decide on the appropriate payment to be made by the diffusion company to the owner of the copyright in the United Kingdom for the diffusion of the programme, if the Tribunal is satisfied that the payment made abroad for the right to broadcast took no account, or insufficient account, of the fact that the programme would be diffused in the United Kingdom. That is the new clause, after Clause 27. That covers the point made by my noble friend Lord Willingdon, because it makes quite clear that in the case where the copyright owner has not been paid a fee appropriate to the rediffusion, or has been paid an insufficient fee, he can go to the Tribunal and get it. In essence, that is the solution, and surely it must be the right one, that we should try and do equity between the people concerned.
  I am not making any animadversions at all to the fact that my noble friends Lord Swinton and Lord Willingdon have come here and told your Lordships where the interests of their shareholders lie, for that is something which must be considered. One must be equitable between those who are carrying on the service with their money. But, on the other hand, as my noble friend Lord Somers has said, equity does not mean looking at one side; it means also looking at the author and seeing whether lie is getting a square deal. That is what we have tried to do.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I declared my interest perfectly plainly. Had I been considering merely my shareholders I should not have intervened in this debate at all. What I am concerned about is the fact that there are many small companies who cannot afford this. I am concerned, as was every speaker in another place, with one million poor people who are the subscribers. I will make the noble and learned Viscount a present of the capitalists and the shareholders. I am concerned with the little people.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will deal with that point.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, the noble and learned Viscount said I was speaking for the shareholders, a remark which I disliked.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, it is not a matter on which the noble Earl need get annoyed. I am saying that it is the duty of the House to hold the balance fairly between capital invested in carrying on this service and authors who are concerned in getting a fair reward. Surely that is the way to look at it. As I made perfectly clear, I am not animadverting against the shareholders being considered. Why should they not be considered? All I am asking your Lordships to do is to find a balance between their interests and the interests of the author. That is what it comes down to in the end.
  I want to come to the point put to me by my noble friend Lord Conesford on the position under the Brussels Text. I would put it in this way. I believe Article 11 bis is difficult to construe and I should not like to give a final opinion until I had heard at any rate two possible meanings argued fully before me, because that is my approach to a question of law; but I think the noble Lord will agree that there are at least two very arguable meanings that can be given. One school of thought says that paragraph I gives three totally independent and distinguishable rights and that the author is entitled, subject only to what escape is given by paragraph 2, to three separate fees. The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, will notice that in paragraph 2 "rights" is in the plural. The other school holds that the words "radio-diffusion and communication to the public"
  1210
  are not, in the original French, apt to describe broadcasting and relay services. I am, of course, always completely frank with your Lordships on questions of law. for that is what you look to me to be; but if that is the position and there is a difficulty and an ambiguity which only considered argument and a decision thereon would solve, then surely it is our duty to do cur utmost to conform with the Convention. I should say, therefore, that if it is arguable—I have tried to put two views which might be put to your Lordships—that one view does conform with the Convention and if the other view is taken it may be found that that is wrong and we are in breach of the Convention, then we ought to comply with the Convention in this regard.
  My noble friend asked me about other countries. I am sorry that I am not in a position to give him a specific answer, but I did not know that the point was to be raised, But I would remind the noble Lord of what my noble friend Lord Mancroft said, because I think it has some bearing on this. Lord Mancroft said that a resolution was passed by the International Confederation of Authors and Composers' Societies, and that this involved sixty societies and thirty-two nations. I think that is an indication that internationally our proceedings are being observed and may be called in question. Again, I do not put it any higher but I think it is a fair point that if you have sixty societies in thirty-two countries calling attention to this point they are likely to raise it if we take a view of the Convention that does not appear to them to put it into operation.
  I have dealt with that point because I wanted to answer the arguments that have been put up, but I think we come down in the end, as I said, to what is just and equitable between the parties concerned. The composer whose work was being broadcast by a foreign wireless station of the ordinary kind—I think some one of your Lordships mentioned Radio Paris—would be paid on a basis of a listening audience confined to the country to which the broadcast was made, without reference to the additional United Kingdom audience created by the act of relay. In reverse the composer would be expected to look to the B.B.C. or I.T.A. for fees sufficient to cover the relaying of their broadcasts in foreign countries. What

  1211
  would happen would be either that the wrong authority would pay or the composer would go short.
  That is really the position, and now I come to what the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, said about the effect on other people. The position there is that, so far as I know (I do not think anyone has suggested that it is any higher), the highest figure that has been suggested is £50.000; and, as we have heard from the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, it covered one million subscribers, or however you describe them. Lord Swinton questioned the figures. I did my own arithmetic. I took it at £50,000 a year, and I put it in favour of Lord Swinton that that was broadly £1,000 a week. Now £1,000, if my arithmetic is right (your Lordships will check it) is 960,000 farthings—that is, one farthing per person per week. The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, has very eloquently described the terrible effect on his companies if they should have to pass on this charge; they cannot deal with it themselves; it will mean an extra farthing a week for one million people. I really think that an attempt to get tears out of your Lordships over a matter of a farthing a week is not a very conclusive argument. I personally am not terribly hard-hearted, but my withers were completely unwrung. One goes through the country and one sees these people. I think my memory is right (if not I shall be corrected) and that the number of television sets has increased from 3 million to 6 million in the last five years. I do not think that your Lordships ought to come to a decision on a matter of a farthing a week.
  My Lords, I have tried to cover this point. What we have tried to do throughout
  out this Bill is to take a fair and equitable line between the composer and those who are otherwise concerned—and by the composer, in this case, I mean the owner of the copyright. We must do that. I think every one of your Lordships agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, that we do not want any more erosion of these rights than can possibly be helped. On the other hand. we have to fit it to new services. I say that, after very careful consideration—for that we have had at every stage in the Bill—we have come to a fair conclusion. I hope that after the full explanation which has been given—it has been given twice, I am afraid—to your Lordships to-day, Lord Teynham will not desire to press his Amendment.
  LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, I much appreciate the arguments which have been put forward by the noble and learned Viscount, but I am afraid that I am not entirely convinced that Her Majesty's Government are quite holding a balance in this matter. I still feel that a rather unnecessarily onerous position is being put upon the relay companies, especially the smaller ones. With regard to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Smilers, he is, of course, aware that his own organisation, the Performing Right Society, has made it known that they are quite satisfied that no change in the law should take place. For those reasons and for others which I have mentioned, I feel that I must press this Amendment.
  On Question, Whether the said Amendment to the Commons Amendment shall be agreed to?
  Their Lordships divided: —
  Contents 5, Not-Contents 43.

  CONTENTS

  Willingdon, M. [Teller.]

  Swinton, E.

  Teynham, L. [Teller.]

  Waleran, L.

  Soulbury, V.

  NOT CONTENTS

  Kilmuir, V. (L. Chancellor.]

  Onslow, E. [Teller.]

  Blackford, L.

  St. Aldwyn, E.

  Chesham, L.

  Cholmondeley, M.

  Selkirk, E.

  Denham, L.

  Fairfax of Cameron, L

  Buckinghamshire, E.

  Bridgeman, V.

  Freyberg, L.

  Fortescue, E. [Teller.]

  Goschen, V.

  Gifford, L.

  Gosford, E.

  Stonehaven, V.

  Gridley, L.

  Home, E.

  Hawke, L.

  Lindsay, E.

  Amherst of Hackney, L.

  Henderson, L.

  Lucan, E

  Archibald, L.

  Jeffreys, L.

  Lucas of Chilworth, L.

  Salter, L.

  Strathclyde, L.

  McCorquodale of Newton, L.

  Saltoun, L.

  Strathcona and Mount Royal. L

  Mancroft, L.

  Sandys, L.

  Mathers, L.

  Silkin, L.

  Thurlow, L.

  Raglan, L.

  Somers, L.

  Tweedsmuir, L.

  Rennell, L.

  Strang, L.

  Wolverlon, L.

  On Question, Motion agreed to

  Resolved in the negative, and Amendment to the Commons Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 41, page 53, line 31, leave cut ("the") and insert ("any")
  6.53 p.m.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, we now pass into calmer waters, and this is a purely drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 42. page 54, line 37, after ("unless") insert ("(a)").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords. this Amendment merely tidies up some of the provisions arising out of the Registered Designs Act, 1949. There is no point of controversy here. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Agreement.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lard Mancroft.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 42, page 54, line 39, leave out ("produced by applying the design") and insert ("to which the design in question (or a design differing from it only as mentioned in subsection (2) of section one of this Act) had been applied").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 42, page, 54, line 41, at end insert ("and (b) that previous use was made by, or with the consent of the owner of the copyright in the artistic work").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a consequential Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the commons in the said Amendment—(Lord Mancroft)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 42, page 55. line 38, leave out from ("and") to end of line 39 and insert ("the registrar may make such order on the application as he thinks fit").
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this again is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  After Clause. 42. insert the following new clause—
  Amendment of Dramatic and Musical Performers' Protection Act, 1925
  ("In the Dramatic and Musical Performers' Protection Act. 1925, —

  (a) after section one there shall be inserted the two sections set out in Part I of the Schedule (Amendment of Dramatic and Musical Performers' Protection Act, 1925) to this Act; and

  (b) after section three there shall be inserted the two sections set out in Part II of that Schedule;

  and the provisions of hat Act specified in Part III of that Schedule shall have effect subject to the amendments set out in relation thereto in the second column of the said Part III (being minor amendments of that Act and amendments consequential upon the insertion therein of the sections referred to in paragraphs (a) and (h) of this section).")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this new clause is about the Amendment of the Dramatic and Musical Performers' Protection Act, 1925, and it is really a paving clause. It simply gives effect to the new schedule "Amendment of Dramatic and Performers' Protection Act, 1925". I beg to move that this House cloth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Leave out Clause 43.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is another drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 45. page 57, line 24, leave out from ("any") to end of line 27 and insert ("rules made by the Lord Chancellor under the Third Schedule to this Act")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Clause 45 deals with general provisions as to Orders in Council, regulations, rules and orders, and so on. This Amendment requires the Lord Chancellor's Rules (regulating the procedure, etc., of the tribunal) under the Third Schedule to be laid before Parliament. and makes them subject to Negative Resolution procedure. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 46, page 58, line 16, leave out lines 16 and 17.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a consequential Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment. (Lord Mancroft.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 46, page 60, line 8, at end insert—
  ("(3) References in this Act to the transmission of a work or other subject-matter to subscribers to a diffusion service are references to the transmission thereof in the course of a service of distributing broadcast programmes, or other programmes (whether provided by the person operating the service or other persons), over wires, or other paths provided by a material substance, to the premises of subscribers to the service; and for the purposes of this Act, where a work or other subject-matter is so transmitted, —

  (a) the person operating the service (that is to say, the person who, in the agreements with subscribers to the service, undertakes to provide them with the service, whether
  1216
  he is the person who transmits the programmes or not) shall be taken to be the person causing the work or other subject-matter to be so transmitted, and

  (b) no person, other than the person operating the service, shall be taken to be causing it to be so transmitted, notwithstanding that he provides any facilities for the transmission of the programmes:

  Provided that, for the purposes of this subsection. and of references to which this subsection applies, no account shall be taken of a service of distributing broadcast or other programmes, where the service is only incidental to a business of keeping or letting premises where persons reside or sleep, and is operated as part of the amenities provided exclusively or mainly for residents or inmates therein.
  (4) References in this Act to the doing of any act by the reception of a television broadcast or sound broadcast made by the Corporation or the Authority are references to the doing of that act by means of receiving the broadcast either—

  (a) from the transmission whereby the broadcast is made by the Corporation or the Authority, as the case may be, or

  (b) from a transmission made by the Corporation or the Authority, as the case may be, otherwise than by way of broadcasting, but simultaneously with the transmission mentioned in the preceding paragraph,

  whether (in either case) the reception of the broadcast is directly from thes transmission in question or from a retransmission thereof made by any person from any place, whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere; and in this subsection "retransmission" means any retransmission, whether over paths provided by a material substance or not, including any retransmission made by making use of any record, print, negative, tape or other article on which the broadcast in question has been recorded."
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords. this Amendment is concerned with Clause 46. the interpretation clause. The Amendment has two distinct parts. The new subsection (3) contains the new definition of what is included in the terms "transmitting to subscribers to diffusion services" and provides, first, that the transmission must be over wires or other paths provided by material substance (to differentiate this service from broadcasting). Secondly, it provides that the person causing the work to be transmitted is the person who, in agreements with his subscribers, undertakes to provide them with a service, and relieves from liability other persons who merely provide, for example, the wires over which the programme is relayed, from liability. But for

  1217
  this last provision, the Postmaster General might find himself alleged to be running a relay service. The proviso to the clause is to remove from the mischief of relaying hotel keepers and others whose premises are so wired that in private rooms there can be radio reception for the benefit of guests. It would not relieve the hotel keeper front liabilities in respect of performance in public if he provided a loud speaker in his lounge. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, would the noble Lord be kind enough to answer this question? I am a little puzzled. I expect there is a simple answer to it, but I cannot fathom it. The cause of all the mischief I have spoken about this afternoon was the inclusion in the original Bill by the Government of Clause 46, subsection (3). There it says:
  "For the purposes of this Act
  (a) the operation of a broadcast relay station,…
  shall not be taken to constitute performance, or to constitute causing visual images or sounds to be seen or heard."
  I should have thought that, having put in the first Amendment on the Order Paper. that to Clause 2, the Government would have moved to delete this subsection from. the Bill. Is there not an inconsistency in saying that the relay service is subject to copyright and also in saying that for the purpose of this Act the operation of a broadcasting relay station is not to be. taken to constitute a performance? My noble friend Lord Archibald first drew attention to this offending clause on the Committee stage of the Bill, and it was upon that Amendment that the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor said that he would look at this matter again. It must be a performance in order to have a breach of copyright. Is the act of relaying not a performance? Is the performance the act? Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, or the noble and learned Viscount would tell me whether leaving this subsection in the Bill does not form an escape clause.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I quite see the noble Lord's difficulty, at which
  1218
  we have already hinted. The real difficulty is that we are not quite certain whether this is a performance or not. Frankly, that is the position, as I have already told the noble Lord. I have said that I should not be prepared to guess what an English court of law would do with that decision. In view of the fact that we are not quite clear, we have made this distinction. I think there is a marked distinction and that we must make it clear at the moment, as we have done in this clause, that the operation of a broadcast, relay station is not to be taken to constitute a performance. The noble Lord must distinguish between the performance and the restricted act. He will remember that we discussed this in some detail on the first Amendment to Clause 2.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, frankly my mind is not clear on the matter. If I can have the noble Lord's assurance that this is not an escape clause, and that what we have already done by the first Amendment—that is, to place "causing the work to be transmitted to subscribers to a diffusion service" among acts restricted by the copyright—has been done without any equivocation. I shall be happy. But after all the trouble we have been to, I should not like to see an escape clause put in by which a relay by a relay station was not taken to constitute a performance.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, there is nothing inconsistent in the scheme of the Bill. By the Amendment to Clause 2 relaying has been made a restricted act in its own right. I will look at this again to make quite certain. but I am pretty certain that the Bill is completely consistent on those two points.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, with that assurance, of course, I do not object, but I am sure I have the noble Lord's sympathy in my dilemma. I think that anybody reading this Bill, even a lawyer, who has not had the opportunity of the expert advice that the Board of Trade has. would be in some confusion.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 46, page 60, leave out lines 10 to 15 and insert ("broadcasting, or the causing of a work or other subject-matter to be transmitted to subscribers to a diffusion service, shall not

  1219
  be taken to constitute performance, or to constitute causing visual images or sounds to be seen or heard: and where visual images or sounds are displayed or emitted by any receiving apparatus, to which they are conveyed by the transmission of electromagnetic signals (whether over paths provided by a material substance or not), —

  (a) the operation of any apparatus whereby the signals are transmitted, directly or indirectly, to the receiving apparatus shall not be taken to constitute performance or to constitute causing the visual images or sounds to be seen or heard; but

  (b) in so far as the display or emission of the images or sounds constitutes a performance, or causes them to be seen or heard, the performance, or the causing of the images or sounds to be seen or heard, as the case may be, shall be taken to be effected by the operation of the receiving apparatus.

  (4) Without prejudice to the last preceding subsection, where a work or an adaptation of a work is performed, or visual images or sounds are caused to he seen or heard, by the operation of any apparatus to which this subsection applies, being apparatus provided by or with the consent of the occupier of the premises where the apparatus is situated, the occupier of those premises shall, for the purposes of this Act, be taken to be the person giving the performance. or causing the images or sounds to be seen or heard, whether he is the person operating the apparatus or not.
  This subsection applies to any such receiving apparatus as is mentioned in the last preceding subsection, and to any apparatus fell-reproducing sounds by the use of a record.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this Amendment is again on an interpretation point. It is in two parts; the first is drafting and the second merely sets out who will be giving a performance for the purpose of the Act. If you put a shilling in a juke box in a saloon or pub, the Amendment makes it clear that you, who actually put the shilling in the box, are not giving the performance for the purposes of this Act. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 47, page 60, line 25, after ("work") insert ("or a record embodying a sound recording.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 47, page 60, line 26, at end insert ("or a record embodying a substantial part of the sound recording, as the case may be:")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 47, page 60, line 31. leave out from ("thirty-eight") to second ("this") in line 32.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 47, page 61, line 16, at end insert ("and in determining, for the purposes of paragraph (c) of this subsection, whether reproduction of a work or edition have been issued to the public, the preceding subsection shall not apply.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 47, page 62. line 15, at end insert—
  ("(6) Without prejudice to the generality of the last preceding subsection, where under any provision of this Act a question arises whether an article of any description has been imported or sold, or otherwise dealt with, without the licence of the owner of any copyright, the owner of the copyright, for the purpose of determining that question, shall be taken to be the person entitled to the copyright in respect of its application to the making of articles of that description in the country into which the article was imported, or, as the case may be. in which it was sold or otherwise dealt with.")
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment. —(Lord Mancroft.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords I do not know whether your Lordships would approve of this question but I was going to ask if the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, and his friends had any points on the Amendments to the Schedules. If they have not arty points, I would put the Amendments to the Schedules en bloc, but I do not wait to hurry your Lordships at all.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, if the noble and learned Viscount is going to put the Amendments to the Schedules together, this is my last chance of addressing your Lordships and I would rise only to offer a respectful word of congratulation to the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, in getting through 140 Amendments in less than three hours. I should like to thank him for the painstaking way in which he has dealt with them. Though he has done it with considerable rapidity, I do not think any of your Lordships can grumble about the explanations we have had. In thanking the noble Lord, I should like, also, to thank the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack for the consideration he has given and the patience with which he has dealt with some of us amateur lawyers on an intricate Bill. I do not suppose in our lifetimes there will be another Copyright Bill, for which some of us are devoutly thankful.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, in view of the noble Lord's acquiescence, perhaps my noble friend Lord Mancroft would move the Amendment to the Schedules, Nos. 101 to 114, en bloc.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  In the Schedules, at beginning insert the following new Schedule:

  SCHEDULE
  FALSE REGISTRATION OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGNS
  1. The provisions of this Schedule shall have effect wher—

  (a) copyright subsists in an artistic work, and proceedings are brought under this Act relating to that work;

  (b) a corresponding design has been registered under the Act of 1949, and the copyright in the design subsisting by virtue of that registration has not expired by effluxion of time before the commencement of those proceedings; and

  (c) It is proved or admitted in the proceedings that the person registered as, the proprietor of the design was not the proprietor thereof for the purposes of the Act
  1222
  of 1949. and was so registered without the knowledge of the owner of the copyright in the artistic work.

  2. For the purposes of those proceedings (but subject to the next following paragraph) the registration shall be treated as never having been effected, and accordingly, in relation to that registration, subsection (1) of section ten of this Act shall not apply, and nothing in section seven of the Act of 1949 shall be construed as affording any defence in those proceedings.
  3. Notwithstanding anything in the last preceding paragraph, if in the proceedings it is proved or admitted that any act to which the proceedings relate—

  (a) was done in pursuance of an assignment or licence made or granted by the person registered as proprietor of the design, and

  (b) was so done in good faith in reliance upon the registration, and without notice of any proceedings for the cancellation of the registration or for rectifying the entry in the register of designs relating thereto,

  subsection (1) of section ten of this Act shall apply in relation to that act for the purposes of the first-mentioned proceedings.
  4. In this Schedule "the Act of 1949" means the Registered Designs Act, 1949. and "corresponding design" has the meaning assigned to it by subsection (6) of section ten of this Act.")
  Page 64, line 5, leave out ("musical or artistic work") and insert ("or musical work, or of an artistic work other than a photograph.")
  After the Fourth Schedule, insert the following new Schedule:

  SCHEDULE
  AMENDMENT OF DRAMATIC AND MUSICAL PERFORMERS' PROTECTION ACT, 1925

  PART I
  NEW SECTIONS 1A AND 1B
  Penalties for making, cinematograph films without consent of performers
  1A. Subject to the provisions of this Act, if any person knowingly—

  (a) makes a cinematograph film, directly or indirectly, from or by means of the performance of any dramatic or musical work without the consent in writing of the performers, or

  (b) sells or lets for hire. or distributes for the purposes of trade, or by way of trade exposes or offers for sale or hire, a cinematograph film made in contravention of this Act, or

  (c) uses for the purposes of exhibition to the public a cinematograph film made in contravention of this Act,

  he shall be guilty of an offence under this Act, and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds:
  Provided that, where a person is charged with an offence under paragraph (a) of this section, it shall be a defence to prove that the cinematograph film was made for his private and domestic use only.
  Penalties for broadcasting without consent of performers
  1B. Subject to the provisions of this Act, any person who otherwise than by the use of a record or a cinematograph film, knowingly broadcasts a performance of any dramatic or musical work, or any part of such a performance, without the consent in writing of the performers shall be guilty of an offence under this Act, and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds.

  PART II
  NEW SECTIONS 3A AND 3B
  Special defences
  3A. Notwithstanding anything in the preceding provisions of this Act, it shall be a defence to any proceedings under this Act to prove—

  (a) that the record, cinematograph film or broadcast to which the proceedings relate was made only for the purpose of reporting current events, or

  (b) that the inclusion of the performance in question in the record cinematograph film or broadcast to which the proceedings relate was only by way of background or was otherwise only incidental to the principal matters comprised or represented in the record, film or broadcast.

  Consent on behalf of performers
  3B. Where in any proceedings under this Act it is proved

  (a) that the record, cinematograph film or broadcast to which the proceedings relate was made with the consent in writing of a person who, at the time of giving the consent, represented that he was authorised by the performers to give it on their behalf. and

  (b) that the person making the record, film or broadcast had no reasonable grounds for believing that the person giving the consent was not so authorised.

  the provisions of this Act shall apply as if it had been proved that the performers had themselves consented in writing to the making of the record, film or broadcast.

  PART III
  MINOR AND CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS

  Provision amended

  Amendment

  Section one.

  At the beginning of the section there shall be inserted the words "Subject to the provisions of this Act"; and at the end of the section, for the words "not made for purposes of trade" there shall be substituted the words "made for his private and domestic use only".

  Section three.

  For the words "records or" there shall be substituted the words "records, cinematograph films".

  Provision amended

  Amendment

  Section four.

  At the end of the definition of the expression "record" there shall be inserted the words "including the soundtrack of a cinematograph film" and at the end of the section there shall be inserted the following definitions: —

  ("The expression 'cinematograph film' means any print, negative, tape or other article on which a performance of a dramatic or musical work or part thereof is recorded for the purposes of visual reproduction, and any reference to the making of a cinematograph film is a reference to the carrying out of any process whereby such a performance or part thereof is so recorded:

  The expression 'broadcast' means broadcast by wireless telegraphy (within the meaning of the Wireless Telegraphy Act. 1949), whether by way of sound broadcasting or of television".)

  Fifth Schedule, page 69, line 19, leave out from ("in") to ("subsection") in line 20 and insert ("subsection (2) or")
  line 23, leave out from ("in") to ("subsection") in line 24.
  page 70, line 19, leave out ("does") and insert ("and the Schedule (False Registration of Industrial Designs) to this Act do")
  page 71, line 20, leave out from ("made") to end of line 30.
  page 72, line 26, leave out from ("shall") to end of line 27 and insert ("apply to any infringement of copyright under the Act of 1911, or shall affect any proceedings under that Act, whether begun before or after the commencement of that section")
  line 36. at end insert—
  ("22. Section (Proceedings in case of copyright subject to exclusive licence) shall not apply to any licence granted before the commencement of that section, and shall not affect any proceedings under the Act of 1911. whether begun before or after the commencement of that section")
  line 38, leave out ("the") and insert ("any".)
  page 73, line 44, leave out from ("subsection") to ("of") in line 45 and insert ("(1)")
  page 74, line 32, leave out ("made") and insert ("taken")
  page 75, line 43, leave out from ("including") to end of line 44, and insert ("those specified in sub-paragraph (3) of this paragraph")
  page 76, line 2, leave out from first ("of") to end of line 3. and insert ("those specified in sub-paragraph (3) of this paragraph".
  (3) The said acts are—

  (a) performing the work or an adaptation thereof in public;

  (b) broadcasting the work or an adaptation thereof;

  (c) causing the work or an adaptation thereof to be transmitted to subscribers to a diffusion service")

  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I will certainly move Amendments Nos. 101 to 114 en bloc. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, for his friendly remarks. To some of us it will riot seem the same not to have the Copyright Bill somewhere around your Lordships' House. We have had most interesting debates on the Bill, and to those debates I he noble Lord, Lord Lucas of. Chilworth. has been one of the most frequent and welcome contributors. I beg to move that the House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.
  Moved, That the House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I should not like this occasion to pass without saying just one word. My noble friend Lord Mancroft has paid a well-merited tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth. I think your Lordships will have in mind that this is only one of three major Bills—I refer to the Restrictive Practices Bill, the Road Traffic Bill and this Copyright Bill—with which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has dealt in this Session, as well as performing other duties. I feel sure that I speak for the whole House, irrespective of Party, when I say that we appreciate immensely the service the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has done to your Lordships' House in the unstinting care arid work he has put into these Bills. I hope the noble Lord will take what my noble friend Lord Mancroft
  1226
  and I have said as the most genuine tributes to hard and unselfish work.

  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
  Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: the said Amendments to be printed.
  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords. I have to inform your Lordships that the House will meet on Thursday at 12 noon. The first Business will be the consideration of the Commons Amendments to the Education (Scotland) Bill, and after that there will be a debate on the Egypt-Israel situation, on an Opposition Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin.