Lords Sitting of 26 February 1957

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

RATIFICATION OF GENEVA CONVENTIONS
2.35 p.m.
THE EARL OF WOOLTON: 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 in consideration of the following facts—

(1) that Her Majesty's Government signed, with one reservation, the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 (including the new Fourth Convention dealing with the protection of civilians in time of war);

(2) that Sir Anthony Eden announced in Parliament on November 1, 1956, that although certain legislation was required before Her Majesty's Government could ratify these Conventions. Her Majesty's Government accepted the Conventions and had every intention of applying their conditions should the occasion arise; and

(3) that Great Britain is one of the few great nations amongst the sixty-one who signed the 1949 Conventions that have not yet ratified then;

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when it is proposed to fulfil their undertaking given in this 1-louse to ratify the Convention.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Gosford, I have been asked to reply. Certain domestic legislation is necessary before the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 can be ratified by Her Majesty's Government. This legislation is in the course of preparation, and Her Majesty's Government hope to present it during the next Parliamentary Session. The Conventions will be ratified as soon as the legislation in question is enacted.
THE EARL OF WOOLTON: My Lords, I regret that I cannot regard that as a very satisfactory reply, in view of the considerable length of time that has elapsed since the Government signed these Conventions. Eight years seems to me just a little long, though I am bound to admit that during part of that time I was a member of the Government. I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the forthcoming International Red Cross Conference in Delhi in October, 1957, they cannot hasten ratification. I imagine that the legislation would not take a great deal of your Lordships' time. In view of what the Prime Minister said in another place, we seem to be committed to this Convention, and I would therefore ask whether it would not be possible to hasten bringing the required legislation before Parliament?
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, will willingly convey to my right

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honourable friend the Foreign Secretary the views which the noble Earl has expressed.
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, arising out of the original Question by the noble Earl, Lord Woolton, might I ask the noble Earl, Lord Munster, a question or two about the state of affairs in the interim period before ratification becomes possible? I think your Lordships' House is entitled, after all these years, to a carefully considered reply. I know that these are difficult questions; but if, as was stated in replies on this subject, both in this House last November and in another place, domestic legislation is a prerequisite to our ratification of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, may we assume that, until legislation is passed and ratification occurs, our national position falls short of the optimum in some way? And, if so, in exactly what way? If, on the other hand, we continue to use the undignified current procedure of ad hoc declarations of intention to observe these Conventions, as in the cases of Korea and Egypt, how can we implement our part in such observance if we have not passed the domestic legislation which is a prerequisite, as we are told, to full observance of these Conventions after ratification?
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I think the answer is quite clear: that of course Her Majesty's Government would be bound by legislation which would ultimately be passed. Until that time, we shall fall short of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, does that mean that in the interim the Government would not feel a moral duty to observe the conditions of the Convention which they have signed, even though they have not been ratified?
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, we should certainly have the moral duty—that is perfectly true.
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for his reply, it appears to me that this country is in a position which is not one that any of us would wish to see prolonged one minute more than necessary. Nor, I think, is it one which will be understood,
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either nationally or internationally. Therefore, as I say, while thanking the noble Earl, I should like to put it on record that I may wish to raise this matter in debate.

MARKETING OF HORTICULTURAL PRODUCE
2.42 p.m.
VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: 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 and, if so, how soon it is proposed to issue a White Paper indicating their attitude to the Report of the Runciman Committee on the Marketing of Horticultural Produce.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL ST. ALDWYN): My Lords, as my right honourable friend said in another place on January 28, the important proposals contained in this Report will need careful examination, not only by Her Majesty's Government but also by the many associations representing the interests affected. Although this is bound to take some time, my right honourable friend hopes to be able to indicate the Government's views on the principal conclusions and recommendations of the Report before the Summer Recess. Such a statement might take the form of a White Paper, but my right honourable friend would prefer not to tie himself to any particular form at this stage.
VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: My Lords, arising out of that reply, may I suggest to the noble Earl that it would be a matter of considerable convenience to fruit growers, and especially the growers of soft fruit, if the Government's attitude towards the Runciman Report could be made known before the soft fruit season is over?
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I am sure your Lordships will appreciate that it is vital that there should be full consultation with all the interests concerned before any final decision is taken by the Government. As I have said, we will press on with these consultations as best we can, but it is a matter which cannot be rushed too much.

CYPRUS EMERGENCY REGULATIONS
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL THE EARL OF LISTOWEL had given notice that he would ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have examined the drafting of three recent Emergency Regulations in Cyprus. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I should like to ask the leave of the House to withdraw my Question, as I understand that Her Majesty's Government are not quite ready with the reply.

MOTOR VEHICLES (VARIATION OF SPEED LIMIT) REGULATIONS, 1956
2.45 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF DEFENCE (LORD MANCROFT)THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF DEFENCE (LORD MANCROFT) rose to move, That the Motor Vehicles (Variation of Speed Limit) Regulations, 1956 reported from the Special Orders Committee on the 6th of February, be approved.
The noble Lord said. My Lords, I rise to ask your Lordships' apporoval of these Regulations. The primary purpose of the Regulations is, of course, to increase from 20 m.p.h. to 30 m.p.h. the speed limit for heavy goods vehicles. This, I think, is a problem with which, by now, your Lordships are tolerably familiar. There are other changes embodied in the Regulations, but they are of secondary importance and I do not propose to enter into them in any detail unless your Lordships so wish. The major effect, therefore, of these Regulations is that, with certain minor and technical exceptions, the speed limit of all goods vehicles of over 3 tons. unladen weight will be increased from 20 m.p.h. to 30 m.p.h. with effect from May I next.
What is the justification for this change? From the technical pofrigmarole as to whether they aint of view, I think your Lordships will agree that this change is long overdue. The efficiency of the braking equipment on these vehicles and their general mechanical efficiency have, without doubt, very greatly improved since 1934 when the figure was last fixed. These vehicles, these heavy lorries, I think everyone will agree, are well maintained and well driven. In fact, I think it is safe to say that the drivers of these long-distance heavy lorries are among the best, and certainly
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among the most courteous, on the road to-day. More than ten years have elapsed since a Departmental committee reported that there were no safety objections to this proposal. I am sure that manufacturers themselves will cordially welcome this proposal. The inducement to build down to a 3-ton limit will now be removed. Heavier vehicles can now be powered in a manner which is much more suitable for our overseas markets. There is hardly a country in Europe with a limit as low as ours. In the United States of America and in Canada, speeds of from 40 m.p.h. up to 60 m.p.h. are allowed for even larger and heavier vehicles, although admittedly their roads are more suitable. Even so, on our roads passenger vehicles, buses and so on, bowl along quite merrily at 30 m.p.h., with a weight of ten tons and more behind them; and I think that your Lordships will possibly agree that to see a heavy lorry travelling at 20 m.p.h. on the open road is, in point of fact, also a rarity. To see one or two drivers spending the time that they have thus saved in a roadside café is not quite so rare.
I think the operators will welcome this measure. It will improve the effective productivity of their vehicles by putting them to more economic use; and that means a degree of cheaper transport and quicker delivery.
There are the other safety objections to be considered—these are frequently raised. The first is the question of fatigue to the drivers. It has been suggested that it is an undue strain on drivers to travel at these higher speeds. I am afraid the fact is that most of them already travel at this speed of 30 m.p.h. The plain fact, however, is that the modern lorry, which is often equipped with power-assisted brakes and steering, is no harder to drive at 30 m.p.h. than the 1934 lorry was at 20 m.p.h. Most drivers who already go at 30 m.p.h., or more, say that it is easier than driving at a speed which means more frequent overtaking by other vehicles and less margin to take short gradients in top gear.
Your Lordships may have studied the accident statistics. I, too, have studied them carefully, and they are even more confusing than most statistics. Your Lordships can draw almost any conclusion you like from this set of figures.

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Only two facts emerge with any certainty from these accident statistics. The first is one that I have already mentioned, that these long-distance drivers are obviously very careful drivers indeed. The second is that heavy goods vehicles seem to get involved in fewer accidents than other vehicles, although, unfortunately, more of those accidents are fatal. This, I think, is hardly surprising, but in a high number of fatal accidents the police attribute the casualty to the victim's action, rather than to any fault on the part of the driver. We must bear in mind, again, that the driver was probably in any case going at the new, now to be authorised, speed of 30 m.p.h.
Then there is the question of roads, a question which your Lordships have discussed on many occasions and, no doubt, will discuss again. I know that it is suggested that our roads are not fit for these higher speeds, but should we wait until we have roads to get these speeds, or do we confine the increase only to the open roads? I do not think that would make sense. If we waited until we had the roads that would, for instance, meet with the approval of my noble friend Lord Howe, I am afraid that we should wait either until the cows came home or until the lorries fell to pieces.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, I should like to ask my noble friend why he singles me out personally. Every Member of your Lordships' House has urged better roads on the noble Lord. Why does he single me out?
LORD MANCROFT: Because the noble Earl has done it more vigorously than other people. One benefit we hope to get from this change is a reduction of the congestion caused by these vehicles in urban areas when observing a speed limit below that of the other traffic. I hope that I am not saying anything to minimise the importance of safety: I put the greatest possible importance upon that. But I do suggest that some of the risks that have been enumerated are not really significant. A realistic speed limit is much more likely to gain acceptance, and will be much more readily enforceable by the police. This, I think, is an important point. The enforcement of the existing speed limit of 20 m.p.h. has been made difficult because of the extent to
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which it is disregarded and because, in attempting to enforce it, the police do not receive the sympathy and support of the public, or, in some cases, of the courts. A higher speed limit will be recognised by everyone as being more realistic and more in accordance with the requirements of road safety. Because of this, infringements will, I hope, be fewer and the task of the police in enforcing the law should be simplified by the greater measure of public support they will receive.
My Lords, I must now say a word on the subject of the industrial difficulties which we have experienced. Your Lordships may well ask why this change has not been made earlier. The trouble is that it has been bedeviled for the best part of ten years by the industrial difficulties to which I have referred. Drivers and their representatives have insisted that before the limit is raised there must be suitable guarantees as to earnings and driving schedules. One can understand that. Obviously, the higher speed limit will mean less time on the road, less overnight work and less overtime. There have been many attempts to induce employers and drivers' representatives to agree on these matters. Unfortunately, no final agreement has yet been reached.
My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor promised your Lordships two years ago that there would be a renewed effort to reach some agreement. In fulfilment of his promise negotiations were shortly afterwards reopened. The result of those negotiations was sufficiently promising for Her Majesty's Government to announce, I think last May, that they would make these Regulations now, to come into force this summer. Unfortunately after nine months the parties are still not fully in agreement. Certainly, there has been no lack of acceptance of the basic principles; everybody agrees that no driver should be worse off as a result of the introduction of the 30 m.p.h. limit, and that any increased dividend resulting from higher productivity should be divided in some agreed ratio between the management and the men. It is the detailed working out of these principles that has so far proved the stumbling block. I think Her Majesty's Government have been patient in this matter. We cannot go on waiting indefinitely for a final agreement. I do not agree with those who say that these Regulations will now give unfair advantage to the

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employers in regard to these negotiations. In one sense, either decision, this way or that, whether to make or to defer making this change, can be described as favouring one side or the other. I think it is regrettable that the Government decision on a matter which ought to be judged purely on safety grounds should be confused with so many extraneous considerations.
Moreover, the parties to the industrial issue are not the only parties concerned in the raising of the speed limit. Of the 122,000-odd vehicles concerned, over 71,000 are under C licences and are not involved in the industrial issue. Without going into the details of the A and B licensed vehicles, therefore, I think it is plain that the owners of a majority of the vehicles concerned are being denied, for the sake of a dispute affecting a minority only—though I readily agree that it is an important minority—the advantages which this change would bring. In short, Her Majesty's Government hope that your Lordships will agree that it is high time that this increase from 20 to 30 m.p.h. was made. Plenty of notice has been served on the parties whose past difficulties have, held up this change. They still have two months in which to reach agreement before these Regulations become effective. I think we all cordially hope that they will yet arrive at some agreement. I can see no guarantee that, if we put off a decision once more, somebody will not be standing at this Dispatch Box in ten years' time, making the same sort of speech I am making now. From every point of view this would be intolerable. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Motor Vehicles (Variation of Speed Limit) Regulations, 1956, reported from the Special Orders Committee on February 6, be approved.—(Lord Mancroft.)
2.55 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, we on this side of the House will not oppose these Regulations. Speaking for myself, I may say they have my warmest support, because it was my right honourable friend Alfred Barnes, when he was Minister of Transport and when I had the honour of serving under him as Parliamentary Secretary, who first took steps to see that this change was brought about. As the noble Lord has said, that is ten years ago. There have been some
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delinquents since—I see one sitting almost opposite me on the other Benches, but I will not mention his name.
My support of these Regulations is born of three main considerations. First of all, that for more years than I think any of your Lordships would care to remember the law has been brought into disrepute; and that, in itself, in a law-abiding country such as this, is a bad thing. Secondly, in spite of the views of what I would call jaundiced folk, these Regulations will add to the safety of the roads. It is a first principle, and one which every other country has learned before this country, that proper traffic and safety control is born of getting all your traffic to travel at the same speed. In congested areas, the greatest contributory factor to accidents is having different types of traffic travelling at different speeds. My third reason for supporting these Regulations is that for far too long our vehicle-manufacturing industry has been handicapped by the anomaly of having to build their vehicles down to a weight for this country alone. That has added to the high cost factor in relation to the export of their vehicles.
I make no apology for being the advocate of the motor industry in this connection. They have done an outstanding job in regard to exports from this country. When a person in this country wishes to purchase a commercial vehicle to carry a 7-ton load, it is a tragedy that the manufacturer has to bring down that vehicle to 3 tons unladen weight in order to fit the design of the vehicle to a tax formula. No other country will have such a vehicle. The building of that vehicle to within such narrow limits of weight has meant a risk to safety, because robust construction has to be sacrificed for weight considerations. That applies only in this country.
My Lords, I hope that we have now turned to a more progressive outlook upon speed limits. But if any of your Lordships cares to look at the Statutory Instrument, he will see that there are still eleven types of vehicles using the roads of this country which are restricted to 5 m.p.h., and there are three which are restricted to 12 m.p.h. We in this House have discussed the subject of abnormal loads, and, in spite of the embarrassment that it might cause to the noble Lord,

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Lord Mancroft, I am not going to lose the opportunity of returning to this subject; because one of the chief causes of congestion upon our roads, ill-fitted for the traffic they have to take, is that 90-ton to 100-ton loads, 120 feet long, are still taken along main roads at a speed of 5 miles an hour. Until we do something about that matter, we shall not get rid of the congestion. Another point is that to-day we are still taxing commercial vehicles upon an unladen weight capacity, a fact which still restricts the designer. Surely if a goods-carrying vehicle is to be taxed upon its weight capacity, it should be taxed on its laden weight and not its unladen weight. I should prefer to see all commercial vehicles in this country taxed in the same way as private motorcars—on a flat rate, and a very low rate at that.
The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, has mentioned the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor. I regret that he is not here to-day, because I well remember what he had to say when he spoke from the Woolsack during the protracted debates we had in your Lordships' House upon the Road Traffic Bill. He said that while he was the head of the Judiciary of this country he would do everything he could to see that the law was not brought into disrepute. May I ask the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, in the absence of the Lord Chancellor, whether he will convey to him my earnest plea that, having now reduced this anomaly in the law, he will use his best efforts to see that in future the law of this country is enforced? I do not believe that it is altogether against public acceptance. I know I shall say something which is very unpopular, but I believe that the chief culprits in regard to the traffic laws of this country not being enforced are (a) the police and (b) the magistrates. I have said that so often that possibly it does not need repetition, but perhaps with this small step, and with the Magistrates' Courts Bill that is at present going through your Lordships' House, which will simplify the procedure of the courts, we may see a release of police power for the purpose for which police power is intended; that is, the enforcement of the law.
One last concluding remark upon this subject: I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, in his remarks
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about industrial difficulties. There are really no industrial difficulties in this matter, because, in saying that vehicles shall be able to travel at 30 m.p.h., instead of 20 m.p.h., one does not say that they shall travel at 30 m.p.h.; and in my opinion, a speed limit regulation has for too long been used for a highly improper purpose. I hope that this Regulation fulfils all your Lordships' expectations, and, so far as my noble friends and I on this side of the House are concerned, we shall not oppose it.
3.4 p.m.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot follow the noble Lord who has just spoken in his criticisms of the magistrates and of the police. I am perfectly certain that both magistrates and police do the best they can with what has been, up till now, a completely hopeless problem. One hopes that legislation embodied in these statutory instruments and in the law of the land may be realistic. The noble Lord who introduced this Motion on behalf of Her Majestys' Government said it was important that the legislation embodied should be both realistic and enforceable. Let us have a look at his Order. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth pointed out that under the Order some vehicles are still restricted to 5 m.p.h. or to 12 m.p.h., although it provides for the long-awaited extension from 20 to 30 m.p.h. in the case of heavy goods vehicles. Under this Order we shall have the limits which your Lordships see: one of 5 m.p.h.; two of 12 m.p.h.; several of 20 m.p.h.; and, of course, the 30 m.p.h. In addition, we shall have a special limit in special places, a matter which was referred to in Question and Answer in this House the other day, of 15 m.p.h. And the Minister of Transport is going further: he is going to saddle us with a 40 m.p.h. limit on certain roads.
I appeal to your Lordships. Many of you have sat in magistrates' courts, are interested in the administration of the law and know all that can be known about it. How in the world can we expect the police to be able to enforce all these varying limits of 40, 30, 20, 15, 12 and 5 m.p.h.? I submit to your Lordships that that is not really realistic. The noble Lord who introduced the Motion laid down that legislation should, as a prerequisite, be realistic. I submit

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to your Lordships that this multiplicity of speed limits is not going to do the slightest good. Take, for example, the 30 m.p.h. limit. On top of that, there is to be the 40 m.p.h. limit. Which one of your Lordships would like to get up and say where lies the dividing line, in public safety, as between 30 and 40 m.p.h.? Everybody who knows anything about it will say that it is just plain silly. It affects nothing, and it only makes more work for the policemen and makes life harder for the driver of the motor vehicle than it may be already, under certain conditions. It is not a good idea, because the driver of a motor vehicle should concentrate on his job and on what he is trying to do—that is, to drive his vehicle safely. If he has to be looking beside the road all the time for signs saying whether he is in a 30, 40, 15 or 20 m.p.h. limit area, then he cannot concentrate on the roads or on the traffic on them.
Everybody has known for years that this increase in speed limit for heavy commercial vehicles from 20 to 30 m.p.h. is an absolute necessity. It is perfectly ridiculous, in these days, to limit heavy commercial vehicles to 20 m.p.h., for we all know perfectly well that many drivers (I will not say all) find that their schedules are worked out on the basis of a speed of 20 m.p.h. and that they have only to travel at 40 m.p.h. to have a much longer time to spend in a roadside café. Here I should like to pay one very humble tribute to the drivers of these heavy commercial vehicles. I am sure that those of your Lordships with far greater experience than mine will agree that it is impossible to pay an adequate tribute to the extraordinarily efficient, indeed magnificent, way in which the great hulk of drivers of heavy commercial vehicles handle those vehicles. The conditions on our roads, as we know them to-day, are bad enough, but they would be infinitely worse were it not for the splendid way in which these drivers handle their vehicles. In my humble judgment, it is definitely an example to all road users, of any class.
The Road Research Board (as it was) have told us that 94 per cent. of the heavy vehicles affected by the 20 m.p.h. limit which has existed—and which I imagine still exists at the moment—completely ignore it. I am sure that your Lordships on both sides of the House will agree
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that, when we find a law subject to such wholesale disregard as this, there is only one thing to do; that is, to change the law to make it, as the Minister has said, more realistic. I am perfectly certain that this Order will in no way vary the conditions as we know them on the roads to-day. The vehicles will still go at apparently the same speed as to-day. It does not mean that, because the limit has risen from 20 to 30 m.p.h. they will all go at least ten miles an hour faster. It does not mean that at all.
There is one point that I must bring to the notice of the Minister—he may find eventually that there will be complaints arising about it. I refer to the question of smoke from the exhausts of heavy commercial vehicles. There has been a good deal of complaint about dense clouds of black smoke which are occasionally emitted from the exhausts of heavy commercial vehicles, not only in this country but in every other country as well. It usually arises from over-rich combustion, bad maintenance, improper adjustment of the injectors or, possibly, from improper use of the choke. If heavy commercial vehicles are to be allowed to go faster, it is just possible that the drivers of such vehicles will, on occasions, when they come to a hill, try to open out in order to get up the hill without the necessity for changing into a lower gear. So there may be more complaints about exhaust smoke in the future than there have been in the past. That is, I think, almost the only likely reaction to all this. We are going to ask the police—who were rather criticised on this matter, I thought, by the noble Lord who spoke last—to try to enforce these laws. By so doing we shall place an extra burden upon them, especially if there are more cases of emission of black smoke—which, of course, is contrary to the law. The police are short-handed but I believe that they try to do their best, subject, as they are, to very difficult conditions and to crosscurrents of public opinion.
I hope that this statutory instrument will go through, but I beg the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, and Her Majesty's Government seriously to consider this speed limit question. It is no use having a multiplicity of speed limits if you want to have them observed and the law enforced. Let us have the fewest possible complications on our crowded roads. Incidentally, the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, rather

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pilloried me on the subject of roads and my possible views upon them. But my views on roads, I think, are in no way different from those held by the majority of noble Lords in this House. The Government, I believe, are in a minority on this question of better roads. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, will impress on the Minister of Transport, now that he is in the Cabinet, the fact that he now has a glorious opportunity—an opportunity never before vouchsafed to a Minister of Transport—to talk directly to the Cabinet on the subject of better roads. If the Government really mean business, and want to reduce road casualties, then better roads provide the best short cut to take—indeed, it is the only thing that can be done. I beg the noble Lord to try, if he can, to "ginger up" his chief and to induce him really to get to grips with this question, which is of such vital importance to all of us.
3.14 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I think that someone ought to put the other side in regard to this matter. The noble Earl who has just spoken is such a passionate enthusiast for speed that he does not seem to realise that there are other citizens whose passion for speed is not quite so great as his own. It seems to me that the only implication one can draw from his remarks is that there ought to be no sort of speed limit whatever on any sort of motor vehicle that travels on our roads. He seems to be deploring that the Government wish to maintain a speed limit of 30 m.p.h.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord, but I am sure he does not want to misrepresent me. I was arguing against a multiplicity of speed limits. I say let us have as few speed limits as possible, but let us have them enforced.
LORD CHORLEY: I entirely agree that we ought to have them enforced. But the noble Earl indicated that these heavy goods vehicles would in fact continue, as at present, to travel at 40 m.p.h. I did not find it in any part of his speech that he deplored that they should do so. In my view, for many of these vehicles, on the roads on which they travel, a speed of over 20 m.p.h. is undoubtedly dangerous. The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft,
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has pointed out that there have been a number of cases in which these heavy vehicles have been involved in accidents resulting in death. On certain types of road, such as those which exist in the county in which I have the honour to be chairman of the county quarter sessions (we have very difficult roads—hilly, twisty and rather narrow), these vehicles are, at the present time, a menace to the safety of other road users. As everyone agrees, drivers are already guilty of continually breaking the law; criminal offences are committed practically every hour of the day—almost, one might say, every minute of the day.
I entirely agree with Lord Lucas of Chilworth that it is deplorable that no sort of attempt has been made by the police to get convictions. It is all very well to say it is difficult for them: in my experience they never try. I do not sit very often in petty sessions, but I have never had a case brought before me in any in which I sat; nor, so far as my experience of quarter sessions goes, are cases of this sort brought. Nor does one hear appeals from such cases. It is generally known that, at any rate since the beginning of the war, no sort of effort has been made to enforce the existing speed limit. Before the war, there was an admirable system of police patrols, but at the present time this has practically, if not entirely, ceased. Before the war, it was brought to the notice of these drivers in many parts of the country that on many roads it was not safe to travel at this sort of speed.
I do not deny for a moment that, on certain roads, this type of vehicle can travel without danger at 30 m.p.h., or even 40 m.p.h. It can do so on dual carriageways, or on comparatively wide and very straight roads, on which, it may be, the majority of the work of the vehicle is done. As Lord Lucas of Chilworth points out, on the Continent these vehicles are allowed to go at higher speeds. But on the Continent, on the whole, roads are very much straighter and very much wider than the roads of this country. I have had experience of driving on the roads in most countries in Western Europe, and am sure that, wherever commercial traffic is at all heavy, the roads are very much better adapted to these higher speeds than are our roads here in this country.
In spite of what the noble Earl, Lord Howe, says about this. I wish that the

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Government had been prepared to schedule roads, on the basis of those on which it is safe to drive a commercial vehicle at 30 m.p.h. or so, and those on which it is not. Because I have not the Slightest doubt that the result of this Order will be that, in many parts of the country, the accident rate will increase, and there will be more deaths; for, as Lord Mancroft says, when this type of vehicle is involved in accidents it is very likely that deaths result. After all, pedestrians still use the roads to-day. It may be that we are reaching a stage when the pedestrian is entitled to use the Queen's highway only at the risk of his life.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? Can he explain how the accident rate will increase if lorries are allowed to travel at 30 m.p.h. legally—exactly the same speed they have been going at illegally?
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, if the noble Lord would give an undertaking that no lorry will go at over 30 m.p.h., I should be grateful to him, but I think that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, is more likely to be right when he says that they will probably go at 40 m.p.h. That brings me to my last point, which is the essential need for enforcement. I hope that the Government are now determined that they will be unable to carry out this change without reviving police patrols and making a genuine effort to see that this new speed limit is enforced. I wish that I could believe that they are going to do that. I see a slight look of determination in the noble Lord's face. I wish that I could take it that he was going to "bite" his colleagues in the Government, and, more particularly the chief Constables up and down the country, so that at last we shall have a limit which will be enforced. Even if that were so, however, I believe that there would still be accidents produced by this new state of the law.
3.22 p.m.
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, the extremely convincing manner with which the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, argued the case for this Order may have the result that your Lordships may forget for a moment how very recently it was that Her Majesty's Government found it entirely impossible to do what they are
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now proposing to do. The alacrity with which the Government have changed their minds in this respect gives great encouragement to those Members of your Lordships' House who would like them to change their minds about one or two other matters—I have in view other matters connected with the liberty of the subject. After all, this Order slightly increases the liberty of the subject. I need not remind your Lordships that the passing of this Order does not necessarily mean the slightest increase in speed. We are rather apt to forget that all we are doing is to ensure that it is no longer a criminal offence to drive at 21 m.p.h. I have never been able to understand the close connection between the altering of this criminal law and what some people refer to darkly as the "industrial trouble" connected with it. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, said that there was no industrial trouble but he said it with his tongue in his cheek, as everybody at once detected.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord detected something of which I was not physically aware.
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, there are some things of which the audience is aware and the speaker is not. The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, was being very conservative this afternoon. He said—and I have no doubt that there is something to be said for it—that sometimes a heavy vehicle is driven at more than 20 m.p.h. and this results in danger. I ant sure that in those circumstances it would be far better to charge the driver with an offence under Section 11 of the Road Traffic Act—say, driving at a speed which is dangerous to the public. That would be far more effective than sticking to this entirely outmoded and out-dated limit of 20 m.p.h. Several noble Lords have said that there has been little or no effort to enforce the present law. To my mind, that is in no way surprising. It is not easy for the police, or anyone else, to enforce a law which has long since ceased to have any merit whatsoever. I welcome the Order and hope that it will be passed this afternoon.
3.25 p.m.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, after listening to the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, I feel that I must not lose the

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opportunity to lay this ghost of the increasing of safety by means of speed limits. All statistics which we have examined on this question prove that speed is not the primary source of accidents. It is just as easy to drive dangerously at 5 m.p.h. as it is at 30 m.p.h. or even 60 m.p.h. As regards the increasing danger from legalising what lorry drivers already do, I cannot feel that lack of confidence in lorry drivers which the noble Lord seems to feel. I would join other noble Lords who have expressed complete confidence in their capability and have praised their extreme courtesy, which I have noticed unfailingly, and I do a good deal of driving behind them.
I heartily support this Order, but I would go a step further than the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft. I should like to see the abolition of speed limits the infringement of which is a criminal offence and the introduction at certain places of speed limits which would be merely advisory. One cannot find any stretch of road on which it is safe to drive at 20 m.p.h. and unsafe to drive at 21 m.p.h., nor any stretch of road which is safe or, shall I say, dangerous at the same speed at all times of the day and under all conditions. The only thing that can be settled is the good judgment of the driver. To my mind, the judgment of lorry drivers is unfailing, and I hope that the judgment of car drivers will soon become more so. I heartily support what the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft has said.
3.27 p.m.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, this is a subject upon which I have spoken to your Lordships on many occasions. I do not think there is any doubt whatever that the great bulk of accidents that take place are due to the driving of whatever vehicle it is at too fast a speed at a particular place. That is, if I may use the term, the guts of the thing. We are going to increase the speed of heavy vehicles from 20 to 30 m.p.h. I should like to tell your Lordships of what happened to me this morning. I was waiting to get on to the main road and a heavy lorry came by. I pursued it. What engine he had installed in his vehicle I do not know, but he went up the hill at 40 to 50 m.p.h. at least, passed a bus and then went down the hill into my local town, certainly I should think at 40 to 50 m.p.h. We are
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going to say that these heavy lorries can go at 30 m.p.h.; then what will they do? If they have engines like the vehicle I have mentioned, they will drive at 40 to 50 m.p.h. and go on doing it.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Chorley—I do not often agree with him but I do on this—that the higher the speed, the more accidents will take place. My view of it is this—and I think the noble Lord who has just sat down touched on it. We all want a speed limit at certain places near where we live; but we cannot get it. Where there is a narrow road or a road that is pinched in, there accidents take place. There is a place near where I live where several people have been killed in the last twenty years. I have applied for a speed limit to be set there, but no, they will not do it. A noble Lord here whispers, "I wish you had been one of them." I do not know how it is, but if you are anywhere near the Whip, you find someone saying, "For God's sake! don't spoil the debate."
At any rate, I should like to see a speed limit set throughout the whole country and severe punishment for those who do not obey that speed limit. To my mind, that is the only way in which we shall do away with the appalling list of casualties. I agree with what was said by my noble friend Lord Howe: that we should not have speed limit variation. We should allow driving at 30 m.p.h., 40 m.p.h. or whatever it is, but let it be the same, so that the police may know as soon as the car passes whether it is observing the limit. I hope that the Government will pursue this matter and spend money in putting up more notices showing the speed at which all vehicles can travel within the area. I thank the Whips for their kind support in allowing me to speak.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I am sure we shall all readily agree that the intervention of my noble friend Lord Teviot has in no way spoilt our debate. I must confess, though, that I have some sympathy with the lorry driver whom he met this morning on the road: if I knew my noble friend Lord Teviot were behind me I should drive at 40 or 50 m.p.h. too. But I agree with my noble friend when he expresses some alarm at this variety of speed limits, the point with which my noble friend Lord Howe opened his remarks. I think it is the desire of all

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of us to have as much uniformity as we possibly can, but it is not always possible. If your Lordships look at the list, you will realise that we cannot have a traction engine with two trucks behind it bowling along at 30 m.p.h. There must be some restriction. But we are trying to get the variations down to a minimum because, as the noble Lord said, it does not make for ease of enforceability. That is a point that all noble Lords who have spoken have made.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I quite agree. But I think the Government might consider whether the time has not arrived when no traction engine with two support trailers should be on the roads at all, but should be split up into three separate vehicles. That would lessen the congestion.
LORD MANCROFT: That, of course, is covering a different field, and one as to which I know the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, feels strongly, and he knows that I sympathise with a good many of his views. But what we are trying to do now is to make the law enforceable. It has not been enforced in the past because it has fallen into disrepute. The police have been unwilling to prosecute, although they have on many occasions done their best to keep lorry drivers within the legal limits. Now I think the situation will be improved. The law will now be clear and the police will know that they are trying to enforce a law which has popular approval. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, knows that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor cannot give instructions to magistrates, but a somewhat broad hint is implicit in these Regulations; and there is a pretty broad hint to the chief constables, in whose hands, after all, the execution of this law chiefly lies. I am sure that the police will welcome this measure and do their best, within its limitations to see that it is carried out. But in the end, it must rest with the lorry drivers themselves.
I hope that this ten year argument has now been cleared up as far as possible, and that we shall now have a great improvement in the state of affairs on the roads. I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, who looks forward with foreboding to a great increase in the number of accidents on the road as the result of these Regulations. I am certain
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that that will not happen, and if we had thought that there was any chance of its happening we should not have brought the Regulations forward.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SHOPS BILL [H.L.]
3.35 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be again in Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Viscount Hail-sham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD AILWYN in the Chair.]
Clause 40:
Special exceptions as respects persons engaged in the catering trade
40.—(1) The occupier of a shop about the business of which shop assistants are employed to work wholly or mainly in connection with the sale, for consumption on the premises, of meals or refreshments, or intoxicating liquor may give notice (in this subsection referred to as a "notice of election") that he elects that the provisions of this subsection shall apply to all such assistants for the time being employed about the business of that shop to work as aforesaid, and when a notice of election with respect to the shop assistants for the time being employed about the business of a shop to work as aforesaid has taken effect, then, until another notice withdrawing the notice of election takes effect,—

(a) section thirty-seven of this Act shall not apply to any such assistants employed about the business of that shop to work as aforesaid; but

so, however, that the taking effect of a notice of election shall not operate to deprive an assistant to whom it relates of any holiday which heat the time when the notice takes effect entitled by virtue of subsection (2) of the said section thirty-seven to be allowed.
LORD WISE LORD WISE moved, in subsection (1), after the first word "may," to insert:
" after agreement with representatives of a substantial body of employees ".
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name. Clause 40 deals essentially with the catering trade, and so far as I can see, is a substitute, in some degree, for Section 21 of the Shops Act, 1950. I think noble Lords will agree after I have spoken that this Amendment is both important

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and reasonable. Clause 40 provides that an occupier or an employer may opt out of certain provisions in the Bill. For example, he can dispense with the half-holiday each week and substitute four half-days over a period in every twenty-eight days. He can therefore, to a considerable extent, alter the conditions of the employees. Under the existing Act, there are certain half-holidays and days off which are left to the employee; but this clause alters that Act. There is no provision in this clause for any consultation between the employer and the employees. The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Hailsham, in some of his earlier remarks on this Bill, said that it affected not only the employer but the employee and the customer as well. In this clause, while the customer does not come into it, the employee certainly does.
What I seek to do is to bring into operation some sort of consultation between the employer and the employee as to what arrangements should be made in carrying out the provisions of this clause. I do not think it is desirable that it should be left entirely in the hands of the employer. It may be that the noble and learned Viscount may not agree with the wording of the Amendment, but if the reason for the alteration is accepted by the Government, if he would suggest other words at a later date, I should be quite satisfied. I suggest that the agreement can be brought into operation in small establishments by personal representation to the employer by the employees, or in larger establishments by representation by trade union officials connected with the particular union of which the employees are members.
The point I am making is not entirely a new one. I understand that in 1954 some representation was made to the Home Office that consultation between the employers and employees on this particular point should be brought into operation. I assume that the Bill was then in drafting form, and what happened to the representation made at that time I am not aware. In the Report of the Gowers Committee the point was not touched upon, but the Report did suggest that, when orders were made by the local authority, consultation should take place between the employer and the employee. I appeal to the noble Viscount
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to accept this Amendment. In the first two days' discussion of the Bill he has viewed in a favourable light many points which have arisen. If I may refer to his broadcast on Saturday night, to which I listened with considerable interest, he was fully in favour of co-operation in every way between employer and employed, both in production and distribution. I hope, therefore, with all respect, that what he said on Saturday night he will put into operation on Tuesday afternoon, and that he will agree to this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 34, line 46, after (" may ") insert (" after agreement with representatives of a substantial body of employees ").—(Lord Wise.)
THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): The noble Lord who moved this Amendment has made it difficult for me to say, "No"; but I am afraid that that is exactly what I am going to say. Nor am I prepared to concede in the least that there is any application here of any of the principles which I enunciated on Saturday night. On behalf of the Government, I was very firm with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, on our last sitting, when he tried to make it possible for employees to exempt themselves from the statutory minima provided in the Bill by virtue of an agreement with the employees or their representatives. That is really an a fortiori case to this, and, although it is in the opposite direction, it is equally inappropriate.
The object of these provisions is to provide certain statutory restrictions on employers, and the object here is to provide employees with adequate periods of rest. The purpose of this clause is to provide for the special conditions of the catering trade; but, in order to provide greater flexibility, employers are enabled to opt out of Clause 37, which relates to half-holidays, by invoking Clause 40, the clause we are discussing, which allows them the option of giving compensatory half-holidays, at the rate, I think, of four half-holidays a month, instead of the statutory half-holidays for the trade. That is done because the Government consider it is reasonable for catering authorities to have that degree of flexibility, just as, in the ordinary case, the Government have put forward the other clauses of the Bill because they think it reasonable

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that the employers should be bound, in principle, to give half-holidays. In other words, it is a statutory code of minimum performance by employers.
It is inappropriate to allow the employers to escape if they can persuade the trade unions to let them off, and it is unreasonable to deprive the employers of such liberties as the Bill gives them and to render it subject to trade union veto. In both cases, what is a minimum performance of his minimum duty by an employer is a question for Parliament to decide. I am afraid that I cannot depart from that principle at all here. Of course, it is part of the Government's policy that there should, in fact, be throughout the maximum consultation between employers and trade unions. If the trade unions succeeded in negotiating with an employer a higher degree of performance than the law demands, the Government would bless it. It is part of the ordinary custom of our Realm that such agreements should be made. But to make the performance of the minimum conditional upon trade union agreement is not part of this Bill in either direction, and I could not consent to make it part of this Bill in either direction.
Moreover, I am bound to say that I consider that, in its present form, the Amendment would be wholly unworkable. How, for instance, could one ascertain, in relation to a catering establishment, whether the particular organisation with which a particular employer in a small cafe was negotiating, was representative "of a substantial body of employees"? And what would happen if he made the agreement with all his employees but with no representatives? These problems are really insoluble. Negotiations between employers and trade unions are intended to have effect as a contract. What we are discussing in this legislation is something which is intended to have effect as a Statute. Both have their purposes and advantages as part of our industrial system. The Statute is the floor, if I may put it in that way, and the superstructure is the matter of the agreement in which the trade unions play their indispensable part. But it is the greatest possible mistake, either in the sense proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, on the last occasion, or in the present sense, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Wise, to confuse
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the two functions, because they are different.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF LLSBOROUGH: I must say that the noble Viscount has made an excellent argument for retaining a rigid attitude that the law itself shall always contain the basis which is to be observed. I do not quarrel with him at all in general principle. There is always some danger, however, of having a rigidity in a general enactment of this kind which may not work in the case of certain individual occupations. The catering trade, as I am sure the noble Viscount knows from his study of the law, has been a trade with many ups and downs in regard to conditions of employment. It is a trade which has been abused by certain classes of employers in the past, a fact which led to Governmental action to bring it within the trade boards legislation, which, as the noble Viscount knows even better than I do, was a series of pieces of legislation to prevent "sweating" in the industry. Of course, there is now the much more respectable organisation of the more or less permanent Board, which I think was set up during the time the late Mr. Bevin was at the Ministry of Labour. This is a very good organisation indeed.
When it comes to variation of practice in a case like this, surely it is not unreasonable, having regard to the history of the trade and the way in which this sort of thing can be easily confused, if, before advantage is taken, say, of a provision of Clause 40 in substitution of Clause 37, there should be accurate consultation, if not with the actual trade union, at least with the Catering Wages Board, in accordance with the principle the noble Viscount has expressed. Why cannot we do that? The form of words which my noble friend has suggested might be difficult to apply, but in view of the history of this trade, and the way in which it could be abused, I think it should be put in the Statute somewhere that there is some place for consultation, either between the particular employer or occupier and the organisations speaking for the class of employees represented, or with the existing Catering Wages Board, which was set up to decide questions of wages and conditions. I should have thought that that would be quite reasonable.
3.50 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I am afraid that I cannot give way at all on this point. I am not going to plead guilty to rigidity. On the contrary, the Bill as it stands is flexible. The Amendment would introduce rigidity into it. I am not prepared to say that the degree of freedom which Parliament thinks reasonable should be made dependent upon negotiations with the trade union. This is not because I or the Government deprecate in any way the right of the trade union, and indeed its indispensable duty, to intervene and to negotiate with employers in cases precisely of this kind. They can still do so under the clause as drafted. What is objected to is making consultation part of the statutory restriction imposed upon the employer. The trade unions are free to negotiate, and so are the employers. It is not the business of Parliament, with respect, to interfere with those negotiations on either side. If they interfere on the one side, they will certainly start interfering on the other side, because what is sauce for the goose in such matters is sauce for the gander. We are discussing here what are reasonable conditions to impose as a minimum on employers. That is something for Parliament to decide, and that is what we are deciding this afternoon.
LORD WISE: I am disappointed that the noble Viscount is unable to meet us on this particular point. I thought possibly the drafting might have been amended to cover not only the small but the large concerns as well. That was really the intention of the Amendment. I thought, also, that it was a rather different point from that raised by my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth a few days ago. However, as the noble Viscount is unable to meet us, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "until another notice withdrawing the notice of election takes effect." The noble Lord said: May I have your Lordships' permission to discuss Amendments Nos. 70 and 71 together, as they run together? The reason I put down these Amendments is because I just do not understand the Bill as it is written at the present time. I want to ask the noble Viscount what is his view about this
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clause, because I do not understand it and I want him to tell me. I expect he knows far more about it than I do. At the present time, special exceptions are made as regards conditions of work, weekly half-days, Sunday employment and mealtimes, for persons engaged in the catering trade. Under the present Statute, the employer is given the option of taking advantage of these exceptions, and all he has to do is to exhibit in his shop a notice in the prescribed form, which cannot be withdrawn until the expiration of a year from the date when it was exhibited. These provisions have worked very well since about 1913.
Under the Bill, if an employer wishes to take advantage of the exceptions in a catering establishment, he must give notice of election in writing to the local authority. He must also give to the local authority notice of any withdrawal of that election. The Bill contains complicated provisions which I cannot understand as to when the notice of withdrawal takes effect. I have heard no good reason why notice has to be given to the local authority if the employer exhibits this other notice. My Amendments, Nos. 70 and 71, give my understanding of what the Government mean.
I want to ask the noble Viscount in charge of the Bill if he will explain what the following passage means—I am quoting from line 22, page 35, of the Bill:
" A notice of election and a notice withdrawing such a notice shall be given in writing to the local authority within whose area is situate the shop about the business of which are employed the assistants to whom the notice relates, and shall take effect at the beginning of the week next after that in which it is given, but a notice withdrawing a notice of election shall be of no effect if given before the expiration of a period of fifty-one weeks beginning with the day on which the notice of election took effect or unless it is so given as to take effect at the expiration of a period beginning with that day in which the number of days is a multiple of twenty-eight; and in paragraph (b) of this subsection "relevant period" means, in relation to the time during which a notice of election is in force, the period of twenty-eight days beginning with the day on which the notice took effect and each of the successive periods of twenty-eight days."
I spent about four or five hours trying to think out precisely what that meant, and I am forced to admit that I failed, but I have got to put what I think it means in language that the small keeper of a catering establishment who has to put this

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into force would understand. What I have tried to do in my Amendment, quite simply, is to re-enact in this Bill the existing law, because all that this jargon does, so far as I can see—I speak subject to correction—is to lay down when the notice has to be given to the local authority. I ask, why has it to be given to the local authority? The present arrangement has worked extremely well for from ten to fifteen years. Why can it not go on? I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 35, line 5, leave out from (" then ") to end of line 6.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: When I was studying logic at the university, there was a book that I found very difficult to understand which was called Appearances and Reality, by F. H. Bradley, who referred to the ultimate essence behind things as
" a fantastic ballet of ghostly characters ".
My difficulty in understanding that was brought forcibly back to my mind both by the noble Lord's labours in trying to understand the subsection and by the strange and fluid character of the Front Bench opposite in the type of Amendments they propose. Earlier in the Bill—in Clause 3, to be precise—I was patiently resisting an attempt by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, to substitute for the notice which under that clause the shopkeeper had to exhibit in order to exercise his option of early closing, a notice in writing to the authorities. I explained on that occasion, patiently and courteously I hope, that the Government thought that a notice displayed in a shop window provided adequate means of enforcement. I am not sure that the noble Earl was persuaded by my eloquence, but he very graciously withdrew his Amendment. Now, in this "fantastic ballet", our positions are reversed, for here I am explaining to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, that in this particular case the Government want notice in writing to the authorities, whereas the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, is pressing us to put up a notice in the shop.
Ultimately, the explanation is a perfectly simple one. The policy of the Gov rnment is to select the method of ercising an option in both cases which, he view of the Government, imposes urden upon the shopkeeper, con with reasonable enforcement. In
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the case of the early closing day, the Government came to the conclusion that it would be reasonably sufficient to have a notice in the shop and it would not be necessary to send notices in writing to the local authorities. But in the case of this rather complicated option in relation to the half-holiday of employees in the catering trade, it was thought necessary, as I conceded with, I hope, perfect frankness to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that the method of easier enforcement was the one for which we should go; and, with respect, I think that that is right.
One has to put oneself in the position of the local authority which has the duty of enforcing these provisions. The difficulties are quite considerable, because first one has to find out in relation to a catering establishment which of two options the owner of an establishment is taking. If he is pursuing what I may call the "table d'hôte" method (to take a metaphor from his own trade) he comes under Clause 37 and must give the employee a half-holiday every week. But if he chooses instead to go under Clause 40, he has to exercise a positive option, and he then gives his employees compensatory half-holidays in the shape of half-holidays on business days during each successive period of four weeks, which I think can be taken, by virtue of the special provisions, in the form of two whole holidays instead of four half-holidays. The result is that a local authority is surely entitled to know where it is. If the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, will have a word with his noble friend, I am sure he would explain to him all the arguments which he explained so amicably and persuasively to the Committee on the previous occasion, that local authorities find the process of notices in writing to be the easier and more convenient method of enforcement. If they wanted it under Clause 3, they will emphatically insist upon it under Clause 40. On this occasion we are going to give them what they want.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, found great difficulty—I do not blame him—in understanding the words of the last paragraph of Clause 40. I think that the words are plain but extremely elaborate. The need for their elaboration arises from the fact, first, that the option given to the owner of the establishment consists in giving a certain number of half-holidays during successive

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periods of four weeks; secondly, that it is desired to avoid the changing of that option by the owner of the shop at a point of time which would entitle him to deprive his employees of the benefit of one of the Christmas periods of ordinary holidays, thus to kill two birds with one stone and ultimately swindle his employees out of something to which they would be entitled if he had stuck to the original option.
As I see it, the effect is that if a shopkeeper wishes to adopt the special arrangements provided by Clause 40 he must give notice in writing to the local authority and the arrangements take effect at the beginning of the next week. That is the first option. If this happens to be during the first two weeks of the year, an assistant cannot be deprived of any half-holiday deferred from the Christmas and New Year period, under the provisions of Clause 37 (2)—that is the accrued value of his half-holidays under Clause 37, to which I have referred as the "table d'hôte" method. The special arrangements must, therefore, remain in operation for at least one year, and can only be then withdrawn at the end of one of the periods of four weeks.
Where the special arrangements are adopted they apply to all the shop assistants employed on the catering work in the establishment. The point is that this last paragraph is drafted, admittedly in an elaborate fashion, but still I think no more elaborately than is necessary for the purpose, to ensure that when the owner of the establishment changes his option after having exercised it once or more than once, he cannot operate it in such a way as to deprive his employees of an accrued right. It is to be done in this way partly because of the accrued right which may exist under Clause 37 (2), and partly so that he cannot thereby deprive his employees of the accrued right they may have acquired under the operation of the special arrangements so long as they were in force. I hope that with that explanation the noble Lord will be satisfied.
VISCOUNT GAGE: I hope I may appeal to my noble friend to reconsider this matter, and to see whether it would not be possible, if not to re-draft the language, to produce some simpler procedure. As I understand it, the ultimate
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intention is that enforcement under this Bill would, or may be, entrusted to small boroughs and district councils. It puts a great strain on the legal advisers of those councils if they are confronted with a clause which even gives food for thought to my noble friend Lord Hailsham, who is himself such a great master of English.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: May I support what the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, has said? The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, gave a perfectly lucid explanation. He was an ornament to the Bar of this country and he enjoyed the advantages of a university education. But, as the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, has said, one has to think of the local inspector of a rural district council or the keeper of the local cookshop which is a catering establishment. Neither advantage would accrue to either of those people. Can the noble Viscount tell me how they are going to understand this language about a number of days being a multiple of twenty-eight? If it is as simple as the noble Viscount made it sound, why cannot it be put simply in the Bill? That is something that defeats me. This Bill has to be understood by simple people. Even if I did not argue the point to the last ditch, I suspect that some local authorities will be so short-staffed that the sending of a notice in regard to the alteration of an option would, be a pure waste of paper. Let us see that the law can be understood by those who have to understand it.
If the noble Viscount accepted my wording in this Amendment, the clause would then at least be intelligible. I am certain that the other wording is not intelligible unless the noble Viscount will come round and give a daily explanation to those who have to put this law into effect. Surely some more simple language than this can be found. If the noble Viscount does not like my Amendment I am perfectly willing to withdraw the wording, to which I am not at all wedded. But let us have something that will be understood by every little cookshop owner in this country who will be affected by it—even the little place in the village that serves a poached egg on toast will come under it. Have we to go through all th rigmarole as to whether they are ge to cheat the one little female assistant who comes in now and

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give then a hand on a busy day? We are not dealing there only with the Savoy Grill—that is what the Government draftsman does not seem to understand. We have to make this law intelligible not only to the local authority inspectorate who have to enforce it but to those upon whom it is enforceable. Would the noble and learned Viscount not take this back and see whether he cannot put it into the more intelligible language that he has used?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I am very sympathetic to what the noble Lord has said, but I am not sure that I can help him very much. There are really two separate points here. The points which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, and my noble friend, Lord Gage, have just raised, have nothing whatever to do with the Amendment. The only principle of the Amendment is whether a notice is displayed in the shop when the option is exercised or whether you send a notice to the local authorities. On this particular occasion I opted for notice to the local authorities and that is the only point in the Amendment; although quite admit not only that this is a subject about which opinions can differ but that Her Majesty's Government have taken a different view in Clause 3 from that which they take in Clause 40. I would therefore be the last man to dogmatise about it. There is no more to say, because it is a short, simple and intelligible point. No amount of redrafting of the Amendment is going to make the smallest difference to the point under discussion, for it has nothing whatever to do with it.
In the course of advocating his Amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, asked me to explain the substantive point underlying the clause, and I said that it arose because there were limits to the speed at which an option of this kind, once exercised, could be changed. That was because there were a number of accrued rights of employees, and it followed that in order to safeguard one set of rights one had to wait a year and in order to safeguard another' set of rights one had to wait for a multiple of twenty-eight days, inasmuch as the rights accrue in arrear for periods of twenty-eight days. That is a simple conception which I think can be simply understood. I have acted in that way, arid have done so in what the noble Lord conceded was intelligible language.
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But in order to draft it into the Bill one has to use a form of words which gives not merely adequate direction how to find out the principle on which one is acting, but has to provide a formula which is watertight when recited in a police court when somebody is being Prosecuted for infringement. What has been said will be most carefully scrutinised—I gladly give that undertaking. We all want to make this Bill intelligible and easy to understand. But I do not think that in order to satisfy the second of those two requirements one could choose a formula, much less elaborate than that.
I said at the beginning that it did not think this clause is difficult to understand. I think it is extremely elaborate, and for that reason one is apt, in the course of calculation, to lose track. I believe that that is what is wrong with it, but having regard to the subject matter I do not think that it can he further simplified. I would respectfully say that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, is probably exaggerating the difficulty in practice of understanding what it means. Once the kind of explanation I have given is put forward, as it will be, we have to find a formula which, I agree, is applicable to the village catering establishment no less than to the Savoy. But, of course, the formula must be water-tight, so as to cover the large London, restaurant as well as that village establishment, and enforcement in the case of the London restaurant may be more important than in the case of the village establishment where much goes by good will and little by the letter of the law. For those reasons, although I gladly give the undertaking that what has been said by my noble friend and the noble Lord opposite will be most carefully scrutinised (and I confess at once that I have a great deal of sympathy with them because I have always been very bad at these things), I do not believe I shall be able, when the day is done, to do very much about it.
LORD LUCAS OF CIELWORTH: After this argument, can we narrow the question down to this question: why have notice to the local authority at all? I agree with the noble and learned Viscount that this provision sets out how and when notice is to be sent to the local authority. But the local authority has not had notice before, and that: arrangement appears, from my information, to

35
have worked very well for thirteen years. Why bring in all this complication to do something which apparently has worked very well without any complaint and without, to my knowledge, the raising by any union or employee of any argument? There has not been the cheating which the noble and learned Viscount wants, quite rightly, to guard against. So why suddenly bring in this whole rigmarole of jargon, making it necessary, as well as putting a notice on the wall to inform the employee of any variation on his half-holiday, at the same time to send notice to the local authority? When the noble and learned Viscount is considering this matter, would he consider whether all this is really worth while?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I think the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, must be persuaded by me that his Amendment does not come into this matter. Perhaps he will look back, for instance, to Clause 3, which is a very much simpler clause because it does not involve the multiple of twenty-eight days. There we have chosen the very method of procedure which he advocates in this clause: notice procedure, rather than advising local authorities. He will see that even there, which is a very much more simple matter, there is an option procedure which is almost as complicated. Because, supposing I accepted his advice, and abolished entirely the giving of notice to the local authority and substituted the display of a notice in the shop, I should still have to devise a formula, which would be rendered just as elaborate by the nature of the case, in order to tell the shopkeeper how often he can change his mind.
The difficulty of the paragraph which the noble Lord has drawn to my attention arises not by reason of the fact that I have selected the procedure of notice to the local authority but by reason of the fact that I have had to tell the owner of the shop how often and at what intervals he is entitled to change his mind. That is where the difficulty comes in; and it would arise whichever of the two methods was adopted. For that reason I do not think one can get over the difficulty by accepting the noble Lord's Amendment, or any variant of it. One has to admit that by giving the catering establishment the flexibility we have and allowing them
36
to invoke Clause 40 in place of Clause 37, we have cast upon ourselves the burden of devising a form of words which will tell him, once he has exercised his option, how soon he can go back, and vice versa.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am quite prepared to leave it with the noble and learned Viscount. I shall certainly be bitterly disappointed in him if he cannot find more simple language in which to say to the local café proprietor: "You can change your employees' half holiday then, then and then; and when you have done it, you must write on a certain dale to the local authority." I shall be very surprised if the noble and learned Lord cannot put that instruction in much more simple language than appears here. Secure in my belief in the ability of the noble and learned Viscount, I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.20 p.m.
LORD JESSEL LORD JESSEL moved, after subsection (1) to insert:
" (2) For the purposes of subsection (1) of this section ' half-holiday ' means either—

(a) a day on which the employment of an assistant ceases not later than three o'clock in the afternoon and on which he is not employed for more than six hours including a period for meals of not less than three-quarters of an hour; or

(b) a day on which the employment of an assistant ceases after three o'clock in the afternoon and on which he is not employed for more than four and a half hours."

The noble Lord said: Under the special scheme for caterers provided by existing legislation—Section 21 (6) of the Shops Act, 1950—the weekly half-holiday for stall is on a day in which the worker does not work later than 3 p.m. or for more than six hours. In this present Bill this is changed, and the new proposal under Clause 43 (1) (a) is that the proposed half-holiday shall be a day on which the worker does not work after 1.30 p.m. or for more than 4½ hours.
The catering trade, I understand, feel very strongly that this will cause difficulty in their establishments. I am sure your Lordships will realise that the hour of 1.30 p.m. is right in the middle of the period of serving lunch. Therefore, it is important that the present hour of 3.30 p.m. up to which staff are allowed to work should be retained, especially in licensed premises. The 4½ hour alternative of employment would not, I think,

37
help very much, because, under this arrangement, in order to continue work after 3 p.m. the worker would have to start after 10.30 a.m., which is not early enough. There is a great shortage of labour in the catering industry which makes it even more important that staff should be available during the lunch hour after 1.30 p.m. The object of this Amendment is to amend the Bill, by an addition to Clause 40 (which, I would remind your Lordships, is applicable to the catering trade only), so that the present definition of half-day is retained and reinstated in the Bill with the addition of the alternative arrangement whereby a worker could continue to work after 3 p.m. provided that the total hours of employment on that day did not exceed 4½ hours.
Amendment moved—
Page 35, line 37, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord jessel.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I am unlucky this afternoon, because this is another Amendment which I fear I must resist. The Bill, as it stands, already makes new concessions to the employers in this trade by allowing a day to count as an assistant's half-holiday if he is released 4½ hours after he begins work. That can be seen from Clause 43 (1). Under this provision, an employer can, for example, employ an assistant in the evening of his half-holiday to serve dinners, whereas under Section 21 of the 1950 Act the employer cannot do this. I could not help noticing that there is an Amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wise, to remove even this concession. My noble friend Lord Jessel would have a bigger concession altogether.
I should have thought that it could not seriously be pretended that an assistant has a reasonable half-holiday on a day in which he works six hours up to 3 p.m. or, alternatively, works two hours around midday and another 2½ hours in the evening. I should have thought that was not a reasonable half-holiday. Yet the effect of the Amendment would be to make it possible for the employer to employ his assistant in that way and so deprive him, week after week, of what I should personally regard as a fair half-holiday. My own feeling is that that is going too far. It is quite true that under the old Section 21 of the Shops Act something
38
of the sort obtained, but these provisions had a very definite history. They were in the nature of a bargain whereby, in return for concessions to employers, the assistants were entitled to certain compensations. They became law in 1913. At the time when they became law, the compensation offered to assistants was no doubt real and valuable, but in this respect they have been overtaken by the progress of things, and although assistants were given these concessions without being required to make compensating concessions to the employers, it is not thought that they are now of any serious value to the employees.
The effect of the Amendment would he to give to the employer the advantage of the bargain at a time when the value of the compensating concession had disappeared. It would, as I say, he open to the employer to work his employee six hours up to 3 p.m. and call it a half-holiday, or two hours before 1 p.m. and another 2½ hours in the evening and call that a half-holiday. In these circumstances, my feeling is that the Government have been right to fix the limit as it is in Clause 43 (1).
LORD JESSEL: I must admit that I am convinced by the noble Viscount that these hours after 3 p.m. would not be much of a half-holiday, and there is the other alternative of 4½ hours which should go a long way to meet the case. I have much pleasure in asking leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD WISE LORD WISE had an Amendment on the Marshalled List to leave out Clause 40. The noble Lord said: In view of what the noble Viscount said with regard to my first Amendment, I am not anxious to press this particular Amendment, but I thought that if I moved it some other noble Lords might wish to speak upon it. I understand now that that is not likely to be the case; therefore with your Lordships' leave, I will not move this Amendment.
Clause 40 agreed to.
Clause 41:
Special exception Os respects employment of certain pharmacists on Sunday
41. Paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of section thirty-nine of this Act shall not apply to the employment of a registered pharmaceutical

39
chemist to work on a Sunday about the business of a shop which, in fulfilment of a requirement in that behalf contained in arrangements made in pursuance of section thirty-eight of the National Health Service Act, 1946, by or on behalf of an executive council constituted under section thirty-one of that Act, is opened on that day for the sale or supply of drugs or medicines or medical or surgical appliances if—
(d) in consideration of his being employed to work about the business of the shop on the first-mentioned Sunday his working hours on a business day either in the week beginning with that Sunday or in the immediately preceding week (other than a day on which, by virtue of subsection (1) or (2) of section thirty-seven of this Act or subsection (1) of section thirty-nine thereof, he falls, or fell, to be allowed a half-holiday) either do not include any period before eleven o'clock in the morning or do not include any period after five o'clock in the afternoon.
4.29 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS BOROUGH VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS BOROUGH moved to leave out paragraph (d). The noble Viscount said: I am quite sure that the reason for this Amendment will be apparent to the noble Viscount. Clause 41 permits the employment of a registered pharmaceutical chemist on Sunday about the business of a shop which is open on that day for the supply of drugs or medicine under the requirements of the National Health Service Act. But it is laid down that such employment may not exceed a single period of two hours on alternate Sundays, and that the pharmacist shall be given time off in lieu, either in the week beginning with that Sunday or in the immediately preceding week, either before 11 in the morning or after 5 in the evening. In those pharmacies where only one qualified man is employed, it would be impossible to secure the service of a locum tenens for a short period of two hours in the morning or in the afternoon while the pharmacist is having time off in lieu of duty performed on Sunday. The result would be that the pharmacy would have to close for this period and thus break the terms of contract under the National Health Service Act. Pharmacists are thus likely to be placed in a quandary.
I think that I can say that I speak for all pharmacists, though I am not specially briefed on behalf of anybody except my personal friends who have a large number of co-operative pharmacies. Though not speaking for them, I am speaking inline
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with the conclusions that have been arrived at by the Pharmaceutical Society and the National Pharmaceutical Union. Again, I come up against the rigidity—after the noble Viscount's speech just now, I almost said "fearful rigidity"—of the noble Viscount. We want to improve the situation of every class of person working in shops, but in the case of pharmacies we want to have Sunday arrangements in order to give an urgently required national service; and if we are going to do that, we must somehow make the arrangement possible.
The matter would be easy if we had an addition to the present number of pharmaceutical chemists, but they are not there to be obtained. That is one of the reasons why the noble Viscount should be less rigid in this matter and accept this Amendment, so that there could be some resolution of the matter, following the request of both the pharmaceutical societies that compensation for the hours worked should be a matter of agreement between the chemists and the pharmaceutical associations. There are pharmacists who argue that their work on Sunday is much more of a professional duty, in line with the professional work of the doctor, than the work of a shop assistant. It is a special arrangement under which professional dispensing of the prescriptions of doctors is carried out, as the doctor himself has to do in his own dispensary at times. We need have only a reasonable control of this so as to keep up a regular service for public requirements.
What happens in practice is this—and I dare say the noble Viscount has looked into details and will know what I am going to say. The pharmacists in a district arrange between themselves a rôta under which a certain chemist's shop keeps open on Sunday while others close, so as not to have too many successive Sundays on duty. Apart from payment made under the Government scheme, which I think is a minimum payment of 7s. 6d. an hour and 12s. 6d. in certain cases, the question always arises, because of the shortage of pharmaceutical chemists, how the compensatory periods of rest which are added to the pharmacist's period of holiday can be provided for, as the additional holidays mean fewer pharmacists available to be employed as locum tenens. If we were to try to obtain locum tenens for chemists for two hours on their half-day, it would

41
be impossible with the present supply of chemists. Therefore, I think that the noble Viscount might do well to accept this Amendment and in the meantime consider whether there is any other special provision he would like to have considered by the professional associations concerned. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 36, line 29, leave out paragraph (d).—(Viscount Alexander of Hillsborough.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: This is another rather quaint reversal of rôle. The noble Viscount and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, are representing the views of the employers—that is to say, the employers of chemists and the cooperative societies who have chemists' departments. I am representing the known views of the trade unions. Fax from the trade unions being satisfied with this amendment, they regard the provisions of paragraph (d) as quite inadequate, and I am told that they would strongly oppose its deletion as a result of which there would be no statutory compensation at all. I think that there is a good deal to be said for their point of view. The Government recognise that chemists are in a special position and they are given a special exception under the provisions of Clause 41. They are given Sunday opening on condition that certain compensatory provisions are afforded to the qualified chemists who have to be there on Sundays while the shop is open.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: The noble Viscount used the expression, "They are given Sunday opening"—will he elaborate that? Does he mean that the owners of the shops are given Sunday opening?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: As the noble Lord knows, the clause says that it is the shop which may be open on Sunday.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: The point I am making is that the chemist's shop has to be open. It is a life and death service. It is like the fire brigade. The shop is not open because of a whim of the owner: it is a necessity because the public demand it.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I think the noble Lord is not quite right. Nobody would call it a whim, but I do not think that I am compelling chemists to open
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on Sunday; I am only leaving it permissive. As his noble friend pointed out, chemists often operate, and reasonably operate, a rôta service, which means that most of them are shut. They are given the right to open on Sunday, and this clause provides that adequate compensation is given to the employees, not only in money but also in terms of service. The three main conditions are, as the noble Lord will see, that the pharmacist's
"…employment is wholly or mainly in connection with the sale or supply of drugs or medicines or medical or surgical appliances;"—
which, of course, does not seriously improve his lot. Secondly,
" his employment is for a single period not exceeding two hours in length;"
And thirdly,
" he was not employed to work about the business of that shop on the immediately preceding Sunday; "
None of these things gives him any compensation for his work on Sunday; they merely limit the conditions under which he may work on the Sunday. The compensation provision is paragraph (d), which the noble Viscount would omit. This paragraph says that if an employee works on Sunday in a chemist's shop, then in consideration of his being employed on Sunday, either in the week beginning on that Sunday or in the immediately preceding week—that is to say, the week before or the week after the Sunday on which he works—he is to have either a late starting day or an early stopping day; either stop at five or start at eleven. That is the only compensation he gets. The view of the trade union is that it is wholly inadequate.
I agree that this does put limited companies and co-operative societies, and sometimes individual employers who have only one assistant, in something of a difficulty, because the sale of these drugs has to be done at a time when in the shop there is a qualified pharmacist, of which there must be one, otherwise it does not open at all. That, I realise, does create a difficulty. But I should have thought that the difficulty could be got over by a suitable arrangement between employers. My present attitude, and that of my right honourable friend, is this. This is a matter upon which there is a direct divergence of opinion between the employers' organisation and the trade union concerned.

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My right honourable friend and I have listened with a good deal of sympathy to the difficulty I have just tried to describe in order to show that I have it in mind, and it was also quite rightly described by the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough. We should prefer to leave this matter in this House as it is. It will be discussed again in another place, where both points of view will be adequately represented. The views put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, will be taken into account, as well. It will then be possible to arrive at a conclusion. Therefore, although formerly I adopted a rigid attitude, I think it might be described as semi-rigid in this case. I hope that with that explanation and that undertaking the noble Viscount will withdraw the Amendment. I am far from saying that we will not make a concession later.
4.43 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS BOROUGH: I have nothing to quarrel with in the spirit of the reply of the noble and learned Viscount, but perhaps I was a little inadequate in presenting the particular pinpoints of the difficulty. I want him, if he is going to reconsider the matter, to have them in mind. The one I want specially to stress is this. The organisation for which I speak, at any rate, has the general principle that it employs only members of trade unions or of the appropriate professional organisations. So there is not the slightest wish to depart from the proper stand to be taken in this matter. On the other hand, if it is impossible to obtain the number of professionally qualified pharmacists for the extra duties, then there is grave danger either of having to give up a specially necessary service to the public, or of seeing it fall into a poor service.
We have referred to the rôta, and the noble and learned Viscount knows about that. In some of our largest co-operative societies there may be in the chain of their area something like seven, eight or ten pharmaceutical branches. If paragraph (d) is adopted, it may well be that, in some districts, some branches will have to retire altogether from the rôta system. That means that in many cases the public will have to go miles in order to obtain the Sunday service of the pharmacist.
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That would be a great pity. On the other hand, we recognise that the people who are so employed have a right to human consideration. If we could get more pharmacists, we could deal with it; but we cannot. Every week one can see advertisements in our particular trade paper, but still we cannot get the people. What we do is to make the best arrangements we can with the trade union and the professional organisation concerned, in order that we may not have to slip out of the rôta system in certain districts and interrupt the continuous service which is at present available, and was always clearly available under the provisions of Section 22 of the 1950 Act. We have managed that quite well, and we have met the chemists on every possible occasion by ensuring that they have the necessary compensation for their work in such circumstances.
I am grateful to the noble and learned Viscount for saying that, although he does not want to amend it now, he will have another look at this point. But I hope that the Minister, whom Lord Hailsham will advise as to your Lordships' views on the matter, when he has it under consideration will have regard to what is, after all, the main objective—that is, to see that the urgent, essential human needs are met under the National Health Service Act, and that those who are worried and distressed by attendance on their own sick folk will not have to go two, three or four times the present distance in order to get the service on Sundays.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Before my noble friend withdraws the Amendment, I should like to put one or two points to the noble and learned Viscount. Right the way through this Bill, until we come to this vital point, there seems to have been in his mind that he must weigh the balance between what is in the trade union interest and what is in the employers' interest. With great respect, although those two interests have to be looked after, there is, of course, the public interest. And I submit that that, in this context we are discussing now, is absolutely vital. That is why I was rude enough to interrupt the noble Viscount to ask what he meant by the phrase, "they are allowed to open." No chemist can ever make a profit out of opening on a half-day or

45
a Sunday, when he may dispense only one prescription. But that one prescription may, as my noble friend has said, save the life of one person. Opening out of hours by a chemist is not an amenity service; it is a life-and-death service. I suggest to the noble and learned Viscount that we must remove this matter out of the context of just a rigid kind of mathematical calculation of one twenty-eighth of some indivisible number.
The plain fact is, as my noble friend has said, that there are not enough skilled dispensers in the country. That is what we have to balance, when we come to this stage, with what is in the public interest. It may shock the noble Viscount to know that, in some of our rural districts, one may have to travel twenty-five miles to get a dispenser on a Sunday. Chemists are not open by the half-dozen. And even in some of our medium-size provincial towns there may be only one chemist open. I hope that the noble Viscount will take notice of what my noble friend has said, and of the points which I have put to him. I thought my noble friend was quite right: in the last analysis, this comes down to a question of proper discussion between the professional bodies concerned as to what they can do to increase the number of skilled dispensers, because unless the number in existence to-day is increased, the National Health Service will break down. That, I feel certain, the noble Viscount does not want; and neither do we. Therefore, I hope that he will make representations to his right honourable friend with all the force he can.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: Of course I will make representations. I think that both the noble Lord and the noble Viscount, in his second speech, tended to over-state what was essentially a reasonable case. I quite agree that there is a shortage of qualified dispensers. I do not think that there is any danger whatever of the Health Service breaking down—I think that is putting the matter a great deal too high. Secondly, I would say this. We still are not compelling these shops to open on Sunday. A great many of them do not and, indeed,
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the noble Viscount, in the hearing of the noble Lord, said that there might be a danger that Co-operative chemist departments would not. Therefore, I do not think there is the smallest basis whatever for accusing the Government of a failure to appreciate the public interest in this matter. Nor, in my view, at any rate, is the public interest in this matter involved at all. The proposal is not concerned with the ability of the shop to open on Sunday, but the amount of compensatory hours which the employee who is sent there on Sunday must be given on weekdays.
I must say, frankly, to the noble Viscount who represents the Co-operative Movement so persuasively and well, that I feel certain that, should it turn out (I hope it will not) on consideration of the matter, that this is the best compromise that can be worked, they would rather have their chemist department shut for two hours one weekday in every four weeks than drop out of the rôta, and never open on Sunday, and so play their part in benefiting and service to the public, a point so adequately and eloquently put forward by the noble Lord. However, I will put this matter forward. I am far from saying that this is an easy point, and I do not want to appear either dogmatic or unregenerate.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS BOROUGH: I do not want to argue much more about this matter. I will say only that a superintendent who serves a large number of branches in different areas could argue the point; and he would put it more forcibly than I can. At any rate, we have the noble Viscount's interest in the matter, and in those circumstances I will withdraw the Amendment here. I am quite certain, however, that my friends in another place will raise it again.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 41 agreed to.
Clause 42 agreed to.
House resumed.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.
ROYAL COMMISSION
5.0 p.m.
The following Bills received Royal Assent:

Consolidated Fund,

Commonwealth Settlement,

Transport (Railway Finances).

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed by The LORD CHANCELLOR.

SHOPS BILL [H.L.]
5.12 p.m.
House again in Committee.
Clause 43:
Construction of references to allowance of half-holidays and whole holidays
43.—(1) For the purposes of this Part of this Act, a person employed to work about the business of a shop—

(a) shall be deemed to be allowed by the occupier of that shop a half-holiday on a day if on that day that person is not employed to work about the business of that shop after half-past one o'clock in the afternoon or the expiration of four and a half hours from the time when he begins to be so employed on that day, whichever is the later;

LORD MILVERTON LORD MILVERTON moved in paragraph (a) of subsection (1), after "work" to insert "by that occupier". The noble Lord said: With the permission of the Committee, I should like to deal with Amendments Nos. 74, 75, 78 and 79 together, as they deal with the same point, which is a drafting point. As subsection (1) is drafted, it appears that the half-holiday requirements may be escaped if the employer operates more than one shop. The expression "that shop" is used referring back to the shop in which the person is employed to work. I understand it is argued that this part of the Bill as a whole, coupled with certain decisions in case law, will prevent an employer from employing an assistant at another shop on a day on which he is required to give him a holiday from the shop in which he normally works. It seems desirable, then, that the opportunity should be taken in this Bill to make the statute law stand by itself without any reliance upon case law. These Amendments have been drafted with that end. From the wording of the clause alone, it seems doubtful whether the words "that
48
shop" include any other shop of the same employer, and from the point of view of enforcement it seems desirable that the law should say exactly what it means and that it should not be necessary to rely upon any extraneous matter. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 37, line 8, after (" work ") insert (" by that occupier ").—(Lord Milverton.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My noble friend who moved this Amendment anticipated what I had to say. It has been established now for thirty-five years that the owner of multiple shops cannot escape in this way, and it is thought that the phraseology employed is fairly plain, even apart from the decided case. Perhaps I should give the reference—it is the case of the London County Council v. Weltmann and it is reported in 1922 1 King's Bench at page 151. It was held in that case that where an employer carries on the same business in several shops, a person employed in one of them is "employed about the business" of all of them, because the business is the same. If noble Lords will look at the phraseology, for example, in subsection (1) (a), they will see that the test is whether the person is, or is not, employed to work "about the business of that shop"—not "in that shop "—and it is thought that it is reasonably plain. Even if it were not reasonably plain, it has been established for more than thirty-five years that where the law says "the business of that shop" it does not mean the same thing as "in that shop"; it means in any business which is the same business as the business carried on in the shop in question. I think it is plain, and I respectfully submit that the Amendment is, for that reason alone, unnecessary.
LORD BURDEN: I am bound to say that I am not satisfied with the explanation of the noble and learned Viscount. It is true that this decision was given about twenty-five or thirty years ago; but here a piece of legislation is being put on the Statute Book twenty-five years after that decision. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I am not learned in the law, but I can visualise a case's being fought out up to the House of Lords, and its being held that the decision given twenty-five years ago did not in any way necessarily bind the Law Lords, because of this

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fresh legislation dealing again with the provision. They would look at it in the light of this fresh legislation. That being so, it seems to me that we ought now to take the opportunity of making clear beyond peradventure, that the man is to have his half-holiday even if it is argued that it is the same business. Many people owning several shops may own shops doing different kinds of retail business. The retail business conducted in one shop from which a man gets his half-holiday may be entirely different from the business to which the owner of two, three or more shops may send this man to work on another afternoon. There are more opportunities now, with the staggering of the hours.
I put it to the noble and learned Viscount that to rely on a decision which is twenty-five years old when we are putting fresh legislation on the Statute Book, is rather a weak defence. In the interests of those who have to administer this legislation. I beg of him to get the thing right for the future. It would be quite easy for a shop inspector to ask for the man's insurance cards. They will bear the name and address of the place where he is normally employed. They would not show that he is normally employed in a second shop. That would enable the shop inspector, or whoever does the checking, to bring the man up short. Therefore I ask the noble and learned Viscount to look at this matter again.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I do not think I am deeply impressed with that argument, for two reasons. In the first place, I must try to reassure the noble Lord that the fact that a decision, when it is plain enough, is thirty-five years old, is not a reason for thinking that it will be reversed in the House of Lords.
LORD BURDEN: Not with fresh legislation?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I was about to say, nor is the fact that there is a decision on legislation dealing with the same subject matter in identical words a reason for supposing that the courts will come to a different conclusion. There was a gentleman who said, "The law is ' a hass'". His name was Bumble and he said the law was "a hass" because he found that it was not such "a hass" as he had expected it to be; and I can assure the noble Lord that he can rest
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his mind about that matter. My own feeling is very much against changing the language of Statutes where the decision is on the old language and where the decision is right and desirable. If one does so one sometimes finds that the new language introduces new possibilities of confusion. I suspect that that is the case with this Amendment, although I have not taken advice on the point. I notice that my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Burden, are pinning their faith to the words "that occupier". If I were asked to advise on the subject, I could reasonably get out of the whole restriction by a series of holding and associated companies, which are not: all that uncommon to-day. So I think we had better leave it as it is.
LORD MILVERTON: In view of the reassurances of the noble and learned Viscount, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD WISE LORD WISE moved in subsection (1) (a) to leave out all words from "afternoon" to the end of the paragraph. The noble Lord said: The noble and learned Viscount has already twice referred to this particular clause in acceptable language. He mentioned it last Monday in these words [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 201 (No. 34), Col. 980]:
" The Bill was intended to make reasonable and flexible provision for part-timers. To give a striking example, the 4½ hours provision in Clause 43 (1) (a) is a new provision which has been specially designed for part-timers…"
The noble and learned Viscount has also referred to it this afternoon in more or less similar words, so that I am afraid tiny Amendment seems doomed to failure before I start. However, I want just to explain its purpose. Subsection (1) (b) is unambiguous and clear about what is meant by a whole holiday, but I seek in subsection (1) (a) to protect the employee (though it may be that it does protect him) by providing that his half holiday should commence not later than half past one. Personally, I would have an earlier time.
According to the noble arid learned Viscount, the second part of subsection (1) (a) refers to the part-timer. Is it in any way possible for the full-timer to be hit by this particular reference to 4½ hours? Is it possible that he would have

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to work longer than 3 o'clock, or whatever is his time? The noble Lord, Lord Jessel, has referred to the old Act in which 3 o'clock is stated, but according to this particular subsection the employee may have to work beyond 3 o'clock. I seek only to protect the employee, and I suggest that, if the latter part of the subsection is not quite clear, it would perhaps be better to draft a further subsection dealing entirely with part-timers. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 37, line 9, leave out from ("afternoon ") to end of line 12.—(Lord Wise.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: The noble Lord has rather anticipated my remarks, and I believe that, as usual, he has anticipated them correctly. Her Majesty's Government do attach importance to the words proposed to be omitted, since, in their view, they provide the degree of flexibility that is needed. As the law stands at present, and without the Amendment, an assistant starting work at, say, 11 o'clock, or even later, must be released at 1.30 p.m.; and part-timers working afternoons only cannot be employed at all on one weekday in each week. The new provision cures the absurdity by allowing the employer adopting it to release his assistants 4½ hours after they have started work. That is the effect of the words proposed to be omitted.
The noble Lord asks, pertinently: Can anyone be made to suffer from that? The view of Her Majesty's Government is that they cannot, because the words, in the way in which they are drafted, do not permit broken periods. The release must be after the expiration of 4½ hours from the time when the employee starts to be employed on that day. The result is that he cannot be required to work a total of 4½ hours in broken periods and that he must genuinely have a half-day. I believe that that is the object of all of us.
LORD WISE: In view of the remarks of the noble and learned Viscount, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD JESSEL: With your Lordships' permission I will move this Amendment, standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Derwent. It seeks to define and classify the position of the night worker
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in regard to his half-holiday. I am advised that the case of the full-time night worker is not really dealt with under this Bill, and there are a considerable number of full-time night workers. For instance, many factories work round the clock, and staff are employed in canteens throughout the night. Under the clause as it stands, if the night worker who finishes work at 12 o'clock is given a half-holiday, it starts next morning and must not end later than 1.30, which is not very much use to him. I think the practice of night workers when they come off work varies. Some of them like to sleep in the morning, while others like to sleep in the afternoon and then go straight from bed to work. I should like to get from the noble and learned Viscount in charge of the Bill, even if he does not accept my Amendment, same indication of what Her Majesty's Government are going to do about half-holidays for night workers. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 37, line 12, at end insert (" or, as respects employment at night, that it may commence at midnight provided that person is not employed to work about the business of that shop before half-past one o'clock in the afternoon: ").—(Lord Jessel.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: There have been complaints at some stages of this Bill that some phrases in the Bill are difficult to understand. On this point I propose to turn the tables. I have tried very hard to understand the effect of this Amendment, but I have not succeeded in doing so. Had my noble friend Lord Derwent been here to move his Amendment I was going to ask him what he meant by it. I can only repeat the advice that I have received about the Amendment: that it is difficult to see what its effect would be, and that it will certainly not do whatever its object is. Not only is the Amendment defective in drafting, but a night employee is not defined, and the Amendment is so inconsistent with the remainder of Clause 43 (1) (a) that its general intention is far from clear. Even if it means anything, it would either be unfair or would not change the effect of the clause as it stands. If an assistant began work at 6 p.m., under the terms of this Amendment he would be deemed to get a half-holiday even though he had worked six hours out of, say, an eight-hour shift. If, however, he began at 8 p.m. he would be deemed, as the clause

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stands, to get a half-holiday on that day, since he would not be employed for more than 4½ hours on that day.
When we return to Clause 43 (1) (a) we get into the comparative light of day, because under the provisions of that clause a man is deemed to be allowed by the occupier of the shop a half-holiday on a day he is not employed working about the business of the shop after half past one in the afternoon or the expiration of 4½ hours from the time when he begins to be so employed on the day. That seems to me to be pretty plain. So on this occasion I think I can stand in a white sheet levelling an indictment of obscurity against my noble friend.
LORD JESSEL: I stand in a white sheet—or a grey sheet—because it is not my Amendment. I did not draft it, and with your Lordships' permission I will withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 43 agreed to.
Clause 44 agreed to.
Clause 45:
Application of foregoing provisions of Part V to persons employed in connection with retail trade or business otherwise than in shops
(2) The foregoing subsection shall not apply to a person employed to work about the business of a warehouse occupied for the purposes of his trade or business by a person carrying on a retail trade or business or to work wholly or mainly as a milk roundsman.
5.30 p.m.
LORD JESSEL LORD JESSEL moved to add to subsection (2):
" or to persons engaged in the sale of meals or refreshments at places otherwise than in shops."
The noble Lord said: These are provisions in Part V of this Bill which relate to conditions of employment which are to apply to persons employed in the retail trade or business elsewhere than in the shop. This would mean that they would apply to workers employed in public or private outside catering—that is, catering at public or private functions away from the caterers' premises; for instance, at such functions as agricultural shows or race meetings, or private functions such as weddings. The provisions of the 1950 Act apply only to such workers so far as Sunday employment is concerned. I am
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sure we all appreciate that catering of this kind requires the keeping of rather special hours. I suggest it is only reasonable that workers engaged by the day should be excluded from the requirement of weekly half-days and intervals for meals. Catering Wages regulations provide adequate safeguards against the exploitation of workers who volunteer for this kind of work. The people who take part in this kind of catering know that it is going to be hard work. They probably work all day for three days and then have a couple of days off. To give them normal meal-times at an agricultural show or a race meeting would, I think, make things very difficult. Nor would they expect it. So I suggest that in relation to this very special kind of work this Amendment makes sense. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 39, line 11, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Jessel.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: This is not altogether an easy matter, but it is hard to suppose that the difficulties in the way of outside caterers are such as to justify depriving the assistants concerned of the protection enjoyed by those who work in shops. I think there would he a great deal of difficulty in enforcement, but I am not sure that I can go the whole way with my noble friend in thinking that the difficulties are so great that the assistants concerned should be deprived of the advantages of the Bill. The principal objection to this Amendment is that it reintroduces the whole difficulty of the present law as to whether or not assistants such as those employed in selling ice-cream or fruit from barrows are exempted from the provisions of the Bill. One of the subordinate purposes of the Bill is to remove the doubt created by the decision in the well known Eldorado Ice-cream case in 1938, the effect of which is widely thought to be that the legislation applies to static street traders but not to mobile ones. That was an effect which was never intended but which this Amendment would perpetuate. Therefore, on the whole, I feel that I must resist this Amendment. Should my noble friend have further thoughts on a way of giving effect to his feeling with regard to outside caterers which does not reintroduce the whole problem of the Eldorado Ice-cream case, then I think my right honourable friend would

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certainly be willing to consider it. I do not want at this stage to shut the door to any possible concession.
LORD JESSEL: I thank the noble Viscount for his sympathetic attitude. I am glad that he appreciates that there is a case for special consideration for these workers in outside catering. In view of what he has said, I will ask my friends also to reconsider the matter in the same way as he is going to ask his right honourable friend to do. I now beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 45 agreed to.
Clauses 46 and 47 agreed to.
Clause 48:
Offences under Part V
(2) A person who contravenes any provision of this Part of this Act with respect to the making or preservation of records shall he guilty of an offence.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, in subsection (2), after "records" to insert "or display of notices". The noble Lord said: I move this Amendment on behalf of my noble friend the Earl of Listowel, in whose name it stands. It is consequential upon Amendment 61. As I did not happen to be in the Chamber when that Amendment was discussed, I can only assume that the noble Viscount who is in charge of the Bill gave my noble friend the Earl of Listowel a favourable answer to it. Perhaps he will tell me whether he did or not, and also whether he can accept this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 41, line 24, after ("records") insert ("or display of notices ").—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: Unfortunately I have lost my old Marshalled List of Amendments; therefore I may be making a mistake of recollection in what I am about to say. The present Marshalled List does not go back as far as Amendment 61. My recollection is that this was the old problem of notices in writing. I was not favourable to the noble Earl who moved the Amendment, and he withdrew it, having regard to the fact that I assured him that the object of the Bill was to provide the simplest
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method of performance to the shopkeeper consistent with adequacy of enforcement. In that connection—unless my recollection plays me false—the noble Earl was saying that it was necessary, in order to achieve enforceability, to send notice in writing to the local authority, and I was sticking to the notice in the shop—which is the reverse of the rôles we were playing this afternoon.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I hope that my noble friend will be satisfied with the way in which the noble Viscount and I have dealt with his interest in this matter. In case he should not be, in withdrawing this Amendment I would reserve the right to him to return to it at another stage of the Bill. I now beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 48 agreed to.
Clause 49:
Local authorities for purposes of this Act
49.—(1) The local authority for the purposes of this Act as respects England and Wales, other than the administrative county of London, shall be the council of the borough, urban district or rural district.
5.40 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, in subsection (1), after "Act" to insert "and the Shops Act, 1950,". The noble Lord said: We now come to a different stage of the Bill. We are entering into Part VI, which deals with administration. When we embarked on the Committee stage of this Bill—it seems a long time ago now—and the noble Viscount had moved "That the House do now resolve itself into Committee," I asked him what I thought was a very friendly question, though he regarded it as a hostile one. I asked him whether or not it was correct that the Government did not propose to bring the Bill into force until 1959. I can assure him that that was a friendly question. I thought that your Lordships should know if that was the case before we embarked upon what I forecast would be a long and tortuous road through this Bill, and that is what it is proving to be—how long, I do not know: I cannot yet see the end. The noble Viscount was not forthcoming, and said that if I wanted any further information, I had better put down a Question. The question is about to be asked.
The administration of this Bill will be complicated and, I think, rather stupid. Under the Shops Act, 1950, county councils are the enforcement authorities for all urban districts with a population of under 20,000 and all rural districts. The only exceptions are under Section 38 (1) and (2), which makes the rural district councils responsible, as sanitary authorities, for ensuring the maintenance of adequate ventilation, temperatures and sanitary conveniences. This Bill repeals most of the provisions of the 1950 Act and replaces them with fresh provisions, the enforcement of which will be the responsibility of the county district councils, but the unrepealed provisions of the 1950 Act will remain the responsibility of the county councils. The effect will be that the same shops will be visited by two separate sets of enforcement officers operating two separate sets of enforcement machinery. That seems an absurd thing. Tweedledum and Tweedledee will arrive at the same village shop at different times, to see that slightly different amenities are there for the same employee. I should have thought that all the functions in connection with the Shops Acts, whether the Act of 1950 or the Ad of 1957, 1958, 1959 or 1960, or whatever year it may be when this Bill comes into force, should be operated by the same authority.
Perhaps I should have said that Amendment No. 84 goes together with the present Amendment. The "ham" in this "sandwich" is an alternative about which I shall speak later. I should have thought that the right thing to do would be to make the administration of this Bill, when it becomes an Act, the responsibility of the county district councils; and that is the simple proposition in this Amendment. I will not say much more at the present time, because I have something more to say of how this may turn into farce. The Bill, as drafted, takes no regard whatsoever of any reorientation of local authority boundaries, duties or responsibilities. The Bill puts responsibilities on to local district authorities who may not be in existence when the Bill conies into force, or who may have their boundaries altered. This Amendment tries to do something to clean up what I can see will be an unholy mess by trying to get all the functions under the Bill into one set of hands. It makes a start by preventing the duplication which
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is bound to ensue under the Bill as drafted. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 41, line 32, after (" Act ") insert ("and the Shops Act, 1950,").—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)
VISCOUNT GAGE: The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has painted a lurid picture of what life may be like under the Bill we are considering. I hope that it will not be so bad as that, but I am bound to say that the question of administration is causing a great deal of anxiety to the County Councils Association. I do not pose as an expert on this question, but I understand that the whole of the Government scheme for the administration of the Bill cannot be brought completely into force until two other events have happened: first, until further legislation is brought forward to deal with the second part of the Gowers Report; and secondly, until there is the reform of local government which, at long last, has been foreshadowed. I think that county councils must face the fact that for some time there must be some duplication. It is the modest and, I think, reasonable hope of the County Councils Association that this duplication will be reduced to the minimum. They seek to ensure that by asking for a certain flexibility to be brought into the procedure, and also by trying to make sure that the same sort of inspection is carried out by the same inspectors. I think it will be generally agreed that until the reform of local government boundaries has taken place, there is bound to be a great deal of difference in conditions in different parts of the country. That in itself is an argument for flexibility.
I agree that these points are, perhaps, small compared with many of the issues that we have discussed, but they are points which excite the maximum of irritability. They are small pettifogging irritabilities, no doubt, but this is out of all proportion to the intention of the Bill, and if it is possible to avoid such things happening, surely some effort should be made to do that. I have followed the example of the noble Lord in dealing rather generally with this group of Amendments, and no doubt by so doing I have been technically out of order, but I did not want to inflict more than one speech on your Lordships in this connection.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I think we are dealing with Amendments Nos. 82, 83 and 84.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: It is really Nos. 82 and 84.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: Then I will confine myself to those two. I confess at once that on questions of local government, which are of extreme and almost notorious complexity, I speak with a great deal of trepidation, and the more so as I now learn that I speak in the presence of my noble friend Lord Gage, whose knowledge of this subject is as profound as his experience has been prolonged. I must say that I would defer to his opinion on almost any matter connected with the subject. However, I think I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, about what he claims will be an "unholy mess" if the present Amendment is not carried. I was not convinced with that case at all.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I used that rather in the general sense. I did not mean it only on this particular Amendment, but on the whole series of Amendments dealing with administration.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I do not think the noble Lord has applied his mind to the "unholy mess" which would follow if the Amendment were carried. As the Bill stands, the county council's inspectors will have to visit shops and other places where retail trade is carried on, for the purpose of enforcing the remaining unrepealed provisions of the Shops Act, 1950; and the district council's inspectors will have to visit shops and other places where trade is carried on, for the purpose of enforcing the provisions of the present Bill. Then, says the noble Lord: "If this Amendment is passed, it will only be necessary for the district council's inspectors to visit shops and other places, both to enforce the unrepealed provision of the Shops Act, 1950, and for the purpose of enforcing the provisions of this Bill. How much neater and simpler to have one group of inspectors instead of two!"
If the matter rested there, I should, of course, agree with the noble Lord. But, unhappily, it does not. The crux of the matter is young persons' hours. The responsibility for enforcing the almost identical provisions contained in the
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Young Persons (Employment) Act, 1938, is, and must remain, with the county councils—I say "must remain", because an arrangement designed to transfer it from the county councils would be outside the scope of this Bill and, therefore, out of order. The result, therefore, would be that, while the Amendment would shift the responsibility for enforcing the provisions in the Shops Act about young persons' hours to the smaller county district councils, the responsibility for the almost identical provisions would remain with the county councils. I agree with what my noble friend Lord Gage said about the necessity of clearing up all these points when one comes to deal with the reorganisation of local government, but as matters stand now, and dealing with the Shops Bill at this stage, I think probably the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, will agree that the balance of advantage would be to leave the matter as it is. There is a small anomaly, to which the noble Lord has drawn attention, but we think that a greater anomaly would be created, and there would still be the two groups of inspectors.
Moreover, the Amendment would have the effect of transferring to all non-county borough, urban and rural district councils the enforcement of the provisions of the Shops Act, 1950, as to the hours of employment of young persons, in so far as these provisions affect employment in street trading. By Section 72 (1) of the Act of 1950 it appears to be recognised that it is proper for the responsibility for enforcing these street trading provisions to rest with the authority responsible for enforcing the provisions of Section 20 of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933—that is, again, the county council. So that, by passing this Amendment, we should not get rid of an anomaly, but should have an anomaly of a different kind, and it would not get rid of two sets of inspectors, but would only shift the burden as between the two sets of inspectors. We can get rid of overlap, to some extent, by delegation by the county councils to the county districts under the Act of 1950.
The underlying attitude of the Government is that they have under consideration the whole complicated and controversial subject of the hours of employment of young persons in a wide range of non-industrial work places, and

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we do not want to change the responsibility for enforcing all the existing provisions in relation to young persons while that consideration remains outstanding. For that reason, although I am far from saying that the noble Lord is not on to what is fundamentally a good point, I would, on the whole, ask him not to press the Amendment.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am grateful to the noble and learned Viscount for what he has said, which is rather what I anticipated would be his argument. It is a good argument. There will be an anomaly, when we pass this Bill, and there will be duplication. There may still be more duplication, or duplication of another kind, because, as he said, the Government do not appear to be ready yet to implement the Second Gowers Report upon the employment of young persons. With your Lordships' permission, I will withdraw this Amendment and then move the next one which seeks to assist the noble Viscount over the stile in the interim.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: Before we leave this Amendment, I should like to ask the noble and learned Viscount (incidentally, it is the first opportunity I have had of welcoming him back from the sea, which I do cordially) whether he is satisfied that the Bill in its present form is as good as it can be made from the point of view that the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, put forward. It is a nuisance not only to the local authorities but to the shopkeepers to have a number of inspectors coming in from different authorities about different points. The Government have this in mind, and I should like to know whether the Bill, as it is, is the best they can do.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I do not complain that that question should have been asked me. The Bill represents the best we can do at present. We are carrying along, with the assistance of this House of Parliament, and later we shall have the assistance of another place. It may be that in the course of our discussions we shall discover something better; but at present it is the best we can do.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I beg to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved to add to subsection (1):
" save that for the purposes of Part V of this Act the local authority shall be—

as respects any municipal borough, the council of the borough;

as respects any urban district with a population according to the returns of the last published census for the time being of twenty thousand or upward, the district council;

elsewhere the county council, and a county council may, with the approval of the Secretary of State, make arrangements with the council of an urban district in the county with a population of less than twenty thousand, or with the council of a rural district, for the exercise by the council of the district as agents for the county council, on such terms and subject to such conditions as may be agreed on, of any powers of the county council under Part V of this Act within the district, and the council of the district may, as part of the agreement, undertake to pay the whole or any part of the expenses incurred in connection with the exercise of the powers delegated to them,"
The noble Lord said: Perhaps the noble Viscount will give consideration to this, my alternative Amendment. This is, I think, the only practical alternative to the one proposed, and it takes care of the difficulties which the noble Viscount has quite rightly pointed out. This Amendment provides that the employment provisions of this Bill—that is, Part V of the Bill—should be the responsibility of county councils, because they are already, and will continue to be, responsible for the unrepealed employment provisions of the 1950 Act. What I am trying to get at in simple language is this: that one authority, the county council, should be concerned with enforcing all the employment provisions under the Shops Act. Then the transfer of the whole of these functions to the county district councils can take place when, as the noble Viscount has hinted, the Government are ready at some time in the future, when they consider the second Gowers Report which deals with the employment of young persons in all its aspects.
This will not do away with all the anomalies, but what it will do is to take care that related functions of employment shall be the responsibility of the county councils—who have now so many employment functions to take care of the unrepealed ones of the 1950 Act—and then, at some date when the Government are ready, the whole lot will be

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transferred to the district councils. That, I suggest to the noble Viscount, is a practical alternative that will not in any way trespass upon the ground that he does not want trespassed upon at the present time, but will make for a far smoother administrative job than is evident at the present time. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 41, line 35, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: Again I stress the fact that I enter upon this thorny subject with fear and trepidation. As I understand the case for the Amendment, it is that, without the Amendment, county councils would be left with responsibility in rural districts and the smaller urban districts for the unrepealed provisions of the 1950 Act about the hours of employment of young persons in shops and the Young Persons' Employment Act, 1938, which prescribes hours of employment. On the other hand, the county district councils, the rural district councils and the smaller urban district councils would be responsible for the employment provisions in Part V of the Bill, which relates to young persons as well as to adults. I would not deny that there is something to be said on those lines, and that it is a perfectly sensible case to make. If it meant that only one instead of two inspectors visited a shop it would, I think, be a desirable Amendment, even though rural district councils and urban district councils might have some opposition to offer.
But I am advised that it would not mean that. It would mean that the district council inspector would visit a shop for the purpose of enforcing the closing hour provisions of the Bill, and the county council inspector would visit it to enforce the employment provisions. As the Bill stands, the district council inspector would be responsible for all the provisions of the Bill, and the county council inspector for the separate law about young persons' hours. That was the point I was making on the last Amendment. It would be conceded that adult assistants greatly outnumber young persons, and therefore the district council inspector, having both the employment provisions of the Bill and its closing provisions to enforce, would have much more to do with the
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shop than the county council inspector. If, however, the Amendment were accepted, the responsibility would be fairly evenly divided between the two inspectors, and it is thought that this would lead to a consequent loss of efficiency. Moreover, there are a great number of shops which have no juvenile assistants at all. Under the Bill as it stands, in these shops at least, only one, mainly the county district inspector, would be concerned, whereas if the Amendment were accepted both sets of inspectors would be involved.
That is the case against the Amendment. As I said in answer to the earlier Amendment, if it is thought by the county councils that even the small overlap which will occur under the Bill is undesirable, they can, if they please, delegate their responsibilities to the district councils. I quite agree that in principle the easiest solution to the whole problem would be to transfer responsibility for the law about young persons also to the smaller councils, and I am far from saying that that will not be the ultimate target. It might well be the solution. But this will, of course, affect not only shops, but a wide variety of non-industrial places of work, including offices as well. As I said in the conclusion of my remarks to the last Amendment, the Government have this subject, which is both complicated and controversial, under consideration, but they are reluctant to change responsibility for young persons in relation to shops before dealing with the subject of young persons as a whole, in which case the simpler solution might be the one we ultimately take. Having made that explanation, I would suggest to the noble Lord that although there is a perfectly valid case to be made for the Amendment, the balance of advantage still lies against it, because it is, on the whole, desirable to leave the young persons' provisions untouched for the present. That involves leaving them with the county councils, and the balance of advantage lies in leaving the responsibility with the smaller councils to the degree in the Bill as drafted. I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising this subject, and I hope that my explanation has done something to clear matters up.
VISCOUNT GAGE: The noble Viscount attributed to me a knowledge of this Bill which I expressly disclaim; I find

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myself easily confused by this matter. I should like to consider what the noble Viscount has said without prejudice to further action at another stage of the Bill. Possibly further negotiations could take place, as I rather gathered that the Government were not too happy themselves about the present possibility of unwanted duplication. It is a question of machinery rather than principle.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am grateful to the noble Viscount for expressing gratitude to me for raising this subject. As in his case, this is not a subject upon which I pose as an expert. I have applied my mind to the problem as best I am able, and, while the Amendment about which I am speaking at the present time does not clear up the anomalies, it does at least obliterate one or two. I am, therefore, sorry that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, does not look upon it with any more favour. Not being an expert, I shall have to plead that I want time to study what he has said, which I promise him I will do. Then I know he will accept it in the most friendly spirit if I come back to this subject at a later stage of the Bill, because there is nothing between us on this matter. We both want to do what we think is right in the period of interval, which will be very confusing for many other people besides ourselves. If the noble Viscount will allow me to do that, I will ask your Lordships' leave at the present moment to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.12 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved to add to the clause:
" (5) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (1) of this section, as respects any administrative county in England and Wales, other than the administrative county of London, the council of a borough, urban district or rural district may at any time, by agreement with the council of the county in which the borough or district is situate relinquish in favour of, and transfer to, the council of the county any of their functions under this Act for such period and upon such terms and subject to such conditions, if any, including terms and conditions as to the transfer of property and liabilities, as may be specified in the agreement."
The noble Lord said: This is the other leg of this three-legged stool. I cannot blind myself, and if the noble Viscount will allow me to say so with respect, I do not think he should blind himself, to
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the fact that at about the same time as this Bill becomes law the Government may well have to make up their mind what they are going to do about the reorganisation of local authorities. It may well be that some of the rural district councils will go out of existence. It may be that some small urban district councils will be absorbed by others. There may be many changes. What this Bill does is to put responsibilities upon small local authorities, such as the rural and urban district councils, which they may not wish to undertake. The condemned man, or the man who thinks lie is going to have his life suddenly ended, does not take on a lot of expensive responsibilities. There is no provision in this Bill for them to relieve themselves of them, Is it right to say to a rural district council, "Here is this Bill, which may come into force in two or three years' time "—I should not think it stands a chance of coming into force until 1959—" You have got to set up an organisation. You have got to employ inspectors to carry out the functions of this Act."? Almost before those people are there, arid before they have been employed there and the organisation is set up, a Bill may be presented to Parliament to abolish the council. That is the danger.
I have sought in some way to get over this difficulty by this Amendment, which your Lordships will see really means that a district council can elect to opt out. A district council cart say to a county council, "That is all very nice, but we do not want to take over these functions from you; we should prefer you to carry on." That may be a very sensible thing to do if the county council is willing to undertake them. I think that there might be a mutual agreement if a small local authority did not wish to incur the expense. And do not forget this point—I ask the noble Viscount to consider it. I am not an expert upon local authority administration; there are noble Lords on this side of the House who have forgotten more than I shall ever know about it. But what about the officers who are engaged and then are surplus to requirements when a district council is either done away with or amalgamated with another authority? If, in their wisdom, a district council want to opt out, and if a mutual arrangement can be arrived at, I think there should be something in this

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Bill to allow the county councils to take over these functions. That is the purpose of this Amendment. It is completely helpful.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: The noble Lord does not move Amendment No. 84?
LORD LUCAS OI CHILWORTH: No; that went with No. 82. I have just spoken to Amendment No. 85. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 42, line 6, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: The purpose of this Amendment is to enable county district councils to relinquish to county councils any of their responsibilities under the Bill. This is another interesting and thorny topic. Broadly speaking, the Government's attitude towards the matter is that we are not at this stage prepared to accept that relinquishment is a principle which ought to be applied in the field of shops legislation. It forms, of course, part of the complex subject of local government reorganisation. There is no power of relinquishment at present under the 1950 Act, and it is very doubtful whether or to what extent such a power is desirable over the whole field of local government responsibilities. It is perfectly true, of course, that we are contemplating local government reorganisation, but it would be quite premature for me to speculate about what form that may take. I should very much doubt whether it was even conceivable that subordinate authorities beneath the county council level would not continue to exist. Therefore I cannot go the whole way with the noble Lord in accepting the analogy of a condemned man simply because some smaller authorities may be merged with others.
I do not think that local authorities can be condemned in that sense: they simply fade away; they are merged; they are translated. But their functions still continue to exist. Very largely, in practice, the new bodies, or the amalgamated bodies which come into existence, are composed of precisely the same people, employing almost exactly the same staff. It is a question of organisation rather than of entity. In practice,
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therefore, I do not think the difficulty will arise very much. Our view, as I have indicated, is that any overlap that may exist in the period of interval is best dealt with by delegation of the county council to the county district council, and not by the county district council's relinquishment Ito the county council of their responsibilities. On the whole, we feel that if we were to accept this interesting Amendment we should compromise the whole issue of relinquishment in this field, which at the moment we do not regard as particularly applicable.
VISCOUNT GAGE: Again, I am rather sorry that my noble friend has been so adamant in regard to this series of Amendments, which was designed. I think simply for the purposes of flexibility. I am reminded that during this interim period there will be a number of very small authorities which may or may not be in operation before they are amalgamated. But if a district council is in operation before the amalgamations take place. I should have thought that it was a sensible arrangement for that council to be willing to relinquish to the larger authority. I quite appreciate what has been said about the principle of the relinquishment generally, but this is a difficult time and one wants to make the period as easy as possible. Again, I hope that we may be allowed to consider what the noble Viscount has said, and possibly return to the charge. I know that what my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth has been saying represents the feeling of the County Councils Association in regard to a matter over which they have spent considerable time.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am sorry that on this Amendment Lord Hailsham has not been a little more accommodating. Let me tell him, quite frankly, that I have no authority—I should not pretend to have—to speak on behalf of the county councils of the country. But I think I have sensed the position aright, as I said in moving a previous Amendment, that, far from absorbing the rights or the duties or responsibilities of local district councils in respect of this Bill, it would be their desire to transfer the whole lot to them. It would perhaps be only as a temporary measure that the county councils would

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accept the responsibility, until the reorganisation is nearer in prospect.
I think that where the Government are foolish in this is that they put the cart before the horse. I have puzzled my head as to why, suddenly, after ten years of brooding, they have decided to bring in this Shops Bill. I think that this doubt will be expressed even mere forcefully if this Bill—I make this proviso—ever reaches another place. Surely to pass this Bill for administration and, before the print is dry upon the paper, to then turn topsy-turvy all whose who are being asked to administer it, seems to be quite a wrong thing to do. Perhaps it had been lying on the dusty shelves of the Home Office for so long that it was thought that it had better be given the light of day.
I can assure the noble Viscount, that there are a number of small district councils who are looking at their next door neighbours, the boroughs, with the thought that they are going to be devoured. I should have thought that it was common sense to speculate that one of the ideas behind any reorientation of local government was to save money. I should have thought that one of the main objects of reorganising local authorities was that the staffs of the smaller ones that were absorbed would be completely redundant. I should have thought that that would be one of the first principles of, and reasons for, more economic working.
I am not going to weary the Committee any further this evening, but I think I shall come back to this Amendment at a later stage because it is something which I think the Government are rather foolish not to accept. What is going to be done with a small district council which says, "We do not want these functions. We have no machinery and we are not going to set up the machinery
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to operate these functions in the sparsely populated area in which we operate "? The functions have to be carried out by somebody. Why not give them the option of making arrangements with the county council? As the noble Viscount says, the county council can delegate some of its functions to a district council. Why not say that, by arrangement, a district council can transfer some of its functions to the county council?
I will consult with my colleagues and with those who perhaps know something more about this than I do, to see what we shall do at a later stage of the Bill. I think that if we accede to the noble Viscount's request upon the former matter, we shall prove a little more obstinate on this one. We will consider what the noble Viscount has said. It may be that we can read into it something that I have not been able to follow. In the meantime, if the Committee is in agreement, I will withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 49 agreed to.
Clause 50 agreed to.
House resumed.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, before the House adjourns, I should like to direct your Lordships' attention to the fact that we shall continue with the Committee stage of the Shops Bill on Tuesday next, March 5.
HASTINGS TRAMWAYS BILL [H.L.]
Referred to a Select Committee.
House adjourned at twenty-seven minutes pact six o'clock.