Lords Sitting of 15 July 1957

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

TAMAR BRIDGE BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed and returned to the Commons.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL
Read 3a, and passed.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, soon after 3.30 this afternoon, my noble friend Lord Hailsham is to make a statement on payments to British nationals expelled from Egypt. The House of Lords Offices Committee is due to meet at this hour, and the Lord Chairman of Committees has asked me to say that this Committee will now meet immediately after that statement has been made.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS AND LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 41 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be considered in order to its being suspended until the House adjourns for the Recess.—(The Earl of Home.)
2.35 p.m.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, I am not opposing the Motion in any form, but I thought that I might be allowed in a few minutes to comment on the trend which this Motion indicates in the Business of the House. Standing Order No. 41 is one of the oldest of our Standing Orders. It goes back (I have looked it up) to 1715, and the purpose is that every point of view should be put at every
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necessary stage. It is a sort of morality of Erskine May. It also emphasises the fact that the business in this House runs parallel with the business in the House of Commons. When Sir Charles Parry designed the Houses of Parliament he arranged the whole plan so that the Speaker and the Lord Chancellor faced one another when the doors were open. In that way the two Houses were running side by side at every stage of every Bill. That was so when I first entered Parliament fifty years ago. Many stages were bitterly contested. Between 1906 and 1910, for example, the Committee stages of our Bills were very important. In modern times all that has gone, and this is the strongest example of the abrogation of the rights of the House of Lords in parallel legislation which I remember. I may be wrong; there may be others. I have added it up and I find that the Lord Chancellor will have to put fifty-one Questions from the Woolsack on the Bills that now stand on the Order Paper and profit by this Motion. I am not complaining about that now; I am only pointing out that it certainly does not look as if the House of Lords was retaining its position of legislative parity with the House of Commons.
But there is another point; we have not any closure. Things are going very well; the House of Lords is much more interesting than it was. Many more people participate in the debates from the Chamber, and others from without the Chamber. I think I am only following the courteous practice of this House when I express the hope that Miss Vivien Leigh will make many more contributions to our debates. But we have no way of closure. Now there is a new device. I am not imputing malice in the least; I am only very much interested, and I should like to stress the point that there is no closure but something else has been devised—a Royal Commission. We are told that there will be a Royal Commission at six o'clock on Wednesday. So all these fifty-two Questions which the Lord Chancellor is going to put to us should be resolved before six-thirty on Wednesday.
I think that that is a very good thing. I think it is high time that this part of the structure of the House of Lords was dismantled; and that is what the Government are busy doing by this Motion. They are really saying that that part

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which pretends to be a parallel assembly has ceased to function for thirty or forty years and that it is high time that it was taken down. That is all that this Motion is doing. It is doing it for a very good reason: because the House of Lords in discussing Motions is extremely interesting. I was glad to note that Lord Killearn's Motion is to be preponed to other business and the Motion of Lord Silkin on the Arts on Thursday also took a precedence which was not its own. I hope that the passing of this Motion means that we are going to get more time to discuss more interesting things than a number of details of Bills which no one has examined and about which no one cares at all. If you want to know what I am thinking of, look at the pages with the names of "mute Miltons" who have Motions down for which there is "No day named." The subjects of those Motions are excellent, but there is no time to discuss them. With these remarks, which I hope are accurate in fact, I beg leave to support the Motion of the noble Earl the Leader of the House.
2.39 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, the noble Earl who moved this Motion will know that it is a Motion which has been opposed from this side of the House on many previous occasions. We have always tended to object to it. I have looked at the list of the Bills which we have to discuss to-day and I do not think that any of them is very controversial. But if we are asked at this period to dispense with this Standing Order, I think I should like to ask the noble Earl for an assurance that there is no Bill which is at all controversial and which is to be hurried up in this way.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, for a good many years in another place, I admired the vigilance of the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, in protecting and standing up for the rights of Members, and I hope that I shall never be behind him in that respect. Nobody is more determined to carry out what I take to be the first duty of the Leader of this House—that is, to protect the rights of Members. The Motion to which the noble Viscount has drawn attention has no sinister purpose at all, however, because I take it that my second duty as
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Leader of the House is to facilitate Business and meet the convenience of Members. Of course, we have not put this Motion on the Order Paper without consultation through the usual channels, and, in reply to my noble friend Lord Saltoun, I think I can say, having jointly looked at this list, that there is not room for much controversy in any of these Bills; but should it prove otherwise, of course we retain the right to adapt our procedure. So I do not think that we are really dismantling anything or setting any very dangerous precedent.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, I did not say "dangerous"; I said "excellent". I welcomed the Motion.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I could not have told that from the way in which the noble Viscount opened his speech, but I was going to say that I hope I may be allowed to join with him in the concluding part of what he had to say—namely, that we should agree to this Motion.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

COAL-MINING (SUBSIDENCE) BILL
2.44 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE MINISTER OF POWER (LORD MILLS): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill now be read a second time. The Bill deals with the problem of damage caused by coalmining subsidence. It is very technical, but I believe that it is largely uncontroversial, and I hope to have the help of noble Lords on all sides of the House in dealing with it. When a seam of coal is extracted there is some sinking of the surface. This, of itself, need not cause damage. The main source of damage is the stretching and compression of the surface which occurs as the underground workings move forward. Unfortunately, the only way of preventing this damage altogether is by leaving solid pillars of coal large enough to protect any works on the surface. But if we maintain coal production at the high level we need, preventive measures can only rarely be used, and then for protecting some particularly important surface building or installation.

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There are ways of reducing subsidence damage, but none of them is satisfactory and they are both difficult to work and too expensive for universal use. It follows that, if we are to get the coal the nation needs, we have to accept some subsidence damage on the surface. But we ought to alleviate the consequences by ensuring that properties damaged by subsidence are repaired whenever this is reasonable or economic, and that, in other cases, compensation is paid so as to relieve financial hardship both to individuals and to communities.
Under Common Law, the surface of the land has a natural right to support from the strata beneath it and to the side of it. This natural right has been modified, however, by contractual concessions going back in some cases for centuries. These concessions have been inherited by the National Coal Board from the former coal owners, and the natural right has been modified, to a lesser extent, by Statute. The result is that in mining areas there is a complex patchwork of surface rights. Some surface areas have a complete right to support. Others have no right to support but have a right to compensation if the property is damaged by subsidence. Others have a right neither to support nor to compensation.
This situation has given rise to many inequities between surface owners and has been the cause of much concern. As long ago as 1923 the then Government appointed a Royal Commission, which reported in 1927. The problem was again reviewed after the nationalisation of the coal industry by a departmental committee under Mr. Theodore Turner, Q.C., which was appointed in 1947 and reported in 1949. This Committee summed up its view of the present position as follows:
"Some of these deeds "—
that is, deeds granting the right to work minerals—
"were made over 200 years ago; in many of them the original conditions have been altered as the property passed from hand to hand and the legal evidence presented to us leaves no doubt that in a certain number of cases it is now impossible, even after the strictest investigation of title, either to trace the original deed or to determine without litigation the present rights of the parties now concerned. It is obvious that such a situation can cause even the well-to-do a considerable inconvenience and to the poor
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man who can ill afford legal expenses, let alone litigation, an intolerable hardship. It also results in an uneven patchwork of surface rights which may well give the appearance of injustice where none, in fact, exists."
The Turner Committee went on to recommend that every surface interest should be compensated for subsidence damage caused by the working of coal. Because of its financial implications this recommendation was not accepted by the Government of the day who did not think that they ought in the circumstances to impose so much additional burden on the Coal Board or the national Exchequer as the Turner proposals would involve. They did, however, start to tackle the problem in the Coal-Mining (Subsidence) Act, 1950. This Act made the National Coal Board liable for the repair of structural damage to small dwelling houses caused by coalmining subsidence. The present Bill completes the process started by the 1950 Act and removes inequities between surface owners by giving to all benefits similar to those which the general run of owners enjoy under agreement made with the Coal Board or their predecessors.
The key to the Bill is Clause 1. This clause makes the National Coal Board liable for repairing damage caused by coalmining subsidence to all land, buildings and structures, service lines and pipes. Alternatively, the National Coal Board can discharge their liability by making a payment. The clause thus goes very wide, but with some exceptions, which I shall mention later, it is limited to physical damage. This follows the precedent of the 1950 Act. The reason is that, in general, the rights which some surface owners enjoy under leases or agreements with the National Coal Board do not extend to compensation for consequential losses. To include consequential losses in the Bill, therefore, would go beyond the objective of removing inequities between surface owners and would mean giving something new to all surface owners, and this would multiply the cost of the measure several times.
During the passage of the Bill through another place, however, the Government have been able to make Amendments which cover the worst cases of personal hardship resulting from consequential losses caused by mining subsidence. Clause 1 and the First Schedule now provide that when people are rendered homeless by mining subsidence the National Coal Board must either provide or pay

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for alternative accommodation while the damaged house is being repaired or while the homeless people have an opportunity to seek a new home. In addition, Clause 11 provides that when a person is killed, or seriously and permanently disabled as the direct result of subsidence damage—fortunately these cases are very rare—and there is no claim against a third party, and the injured person has not contributed to the accident by his own negligence, the Board will be liable to pay damages to the injured person or, in the case of death, to his dependants as if the accident had been caused by their negligence.
We think these provisions cover the most difficult and hardest cases of consequential loss. If we went further it would be very difficult to draw a line, short of covering all consequential losses, and this would impose a financial burden on the National Coal Board, and consequently on the consumer, which I am afraid the Government could not contemplate.
Clause 1 also provides that the Bill, as a whole, will apply only to damage which occurs after the Royal Assent. To make the whole Bill retrospective would involve great difficulties. It would be very difficult, for example, to decide the cost, extent and cause of past damage: how much of it was due to subsidence and how much should really be the obligation of the National Coal Board. On this point too, however, the Government were able during the passage of the Bill through another place, to make a concession to meet the most difficult cases. Clause 8 now provides that in the case of damage to dwelling-houses which were not covered by the 1950 Act, because their rateable value was above the limits imposed by that Act, the present Bill shall be retrospective to 1st January, 1956.
The remaining clauses set out the detailed arrangements needed to give effect to Clause 1. I suggest that it is hardly necessary for us now to go through them in detail—there will be a later opportunity for that—but attention should be drawn to some of them.
Clause 4 is important. It will often be possible by simple preventive works, such as the strapping of buildings with steel bands, the shoring-up of walls and
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the strutting of windows and doors, either to prevent subsidence damage or to stop it getting worse. It is in the interests of both the National Coal Board and the owners and occupiers of property that this should be done. Accordingly, Clause 4 empowers the Board to execute, or pay for the execution of, these preventive works to existing buildings, and provides that if anyone unreasonably withholds his co-operation the Board will not be liable for any damage to that property which could have been avoided by the preventive works.
The clause does not extend to the incorporation of structural precautions in new buildings. This, I know, is a subject of some controversy, but the Government take the view that the incorporation of structural precautions in a building liable to be affected by mining subsidence is a matter of sound building practice and that responsibility for bearing the cost should rest with the builder. If the Board were to bear these costs, they would be involved in paying a large part of the cost of building in mining areas, and the burden on the coal consumer would be prohibitive. Various suggestions have been made for limiting this burden—for example, by providing that the Coal Board will pay only when a local planning authority requires the incorporation of structural precautions. But none of these suggestions is really satisfactory, and they would all lead to anomalies and inequities between surface owners. The Government see no satisfactory way of distinguishing between different buildings, and they have therefore decided that it is impracticable to cover this point in the Bill.
Clause 5 deals with the special problem which coal-mining subsidence creates in connection with land drainage. Not only may the subsidence damage drains, pumping stations and so on, but the mere fact of the lowering of the surface of the land may create a liability to flooding with which the existing drainage system, even though undamaged, cannot cope. It is essential that areas where this is likely to happen should be dealt with as a whole. So Clause 5, which is modelled on the successful Doncaster Area Drainage Act, 1929, provides that in England and Wales the National Coal Board must get together with the river board and internal drainage boards. They will have to agree on such measures for

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remedying, mitigating or preventing deterioration in the land drainage system through coal-mining subsidence which has occurred, or is likely to occur, as are reasonably necessary and are not unjustifiable on economic grounds. There is provision for arbitration if the various boards cannot reach agreement. This clause, in its present form, is the result of detailed discussions in another place and with the River Boards Association and the Association of Drainage Authorities. The Government have made substantial concessions to the views that have been expressed, and I suggest that the clause as it now stands provides a really sound basis for dealing with the land drainage problem.
Clause 6 provides that a person who has rights under the Bill, and also other rights arising from his agreements in respect of subsidence damage, cannot, in respect of the same damage, obtain benefits both under the Bill and under those other rights. It is up to the person concerned to decide which rights to pursue, and the Bill in no way detracts from existing rights. Moreover, if a person should choose to proceed either under the Bill or under existing rights, and then finds that he has no claim, he will have another chance of proceeding under the alternative remedy. All the clause does is to say that a person shall not benefit twice over for the same damage and that is, of course, fair.
That, my Lords, covers the main, provisions of the Bill, but there are two points on which the Government are departing from the recommendations of the Turner Committee which should be mentioned. The first is the question of an Exchequer grant to the National Coal Board towards the cost of this measure. The Turner Committee thought that it would be right for the Exchequer to bear the Board's additional costs. The 1950 Act did not go so far as that; it was a compromise under which the Exchequer contributed half the additional costs caused by the Act. The Government have given a lot of thought to this point, but they believe that since subsidence damage is part of the cost of winning coal, the cost should in future be reflected in the price of coal and borne by the nation as coal consumers rather than as taxpayers. A Treasury Grant towards the expenses of the new measure would, in effect, be a subsidy, and despite the precedent of
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the 1950 Act would run counter to the general principle that the nationalised industries should be rum on commercial lines and cover their costs out of revenues. The cost of the measure will be about £5 million a year, equivalent to 6d. per ton of coal mined. Any addition to the price of coal is unfortunate, but in relation to a retail price of about £7 a ton this is comparatively small. I hope the House will agree that it is not too high a price to pay for the sake of remedying these longstanding grievances and hardships.
The second point in the Turner Report not covered by the Bill is the law of support. The Turner Committee took the view that this law needed drastic amendment, and they proposed that existing rights to support should be swept away and that in future protection should be given only to properties included in a schedule of key points drawn up by Ministry officials, subject to appeal to a judicial tribunal. When the Turner Report was written, experience of the working of the new Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, was limited. Experience since then has shown that this machinery is, in fact, a satisfactory means of protecting key points from undermining. While the local planning authorities naturally have been reluctant to sterilise large quantities of coal, they have not hesitated to use their powers in those cases where it has been really necessary to protect vital surface interests.
The National Coal Board's Regional officials have established close contact with the local planning authorities, and we understand that in most cases the authorities have a good knowledge of the Board's proposed workings for twelve months ahead, and a broader indication of their plans for five years ahead. The Government think that these arrangements have, in fact, achieved the objective of the Turner Committee's proposals for protecting key points. Moreover, the implementation of these recommendations would involve substantial difficulty. For example, under the Turner proposals existing rights of support, perhaps purchased at great expense, could be swept away without compensation.
My Lords, in some respects, this Bill may not go quite so far as some of the surface interests would have wished, but it goes far enough to remove the anomalies and injustices caused by the present

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state of the law and to deal with cases of real hardship. As the result of the debate on Report stage in another place, the Government will be putting down a few Amendments of their own for your Lordships' consideration. I suggest that the Bill provides the basis for a final settlement of this problem of coal-mining subsidence which has caused so much trouble for so many years. I am glad to be able to commend such a constructive measure to your Lordships' House, and I now beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Mills.)
3.12 p.m.
LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: My Lords, my first pleasant duty is to express our appreciation of the very thorough manner in which, as we have learnt to expect from the noble Lord, Lord Mills, he has done his job. Those of us who were not well versed in the Bill before it was moved for Second Reading in this House certainly understand it far better as a result of his introduction of it. If he were a less experienced man, I would warn him not to look in the papers tomorrow morning for big headlines about the Bill which he has just introduced. This Bill will not get much attention from the general Press; it may not get any mention at all. I shall not be surprised if To-day in Parliament on the wireless at 10.45 tonight omits reference to it, and if The Week in Westminster makes no mention of it. But I do not want the noble Lord to think, because of all those things, that he has not introduced a very important Bill. He has.
There are thousands of miners and their families in this country, a section of the nation which has rendered great service to the country, who will be pleased with this Bill. For generations now they have lived in those drab and dreary dwellings. Some of them ventured out of their sparse earnings of the pre-First World War period to buy their own houses. The houses they bought were subject to mining subsidence, which can not only damage but destroy houses. Therefore they were very much concerned as to whether something could be done to safeguard their interests.
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There are those in your Lordships' House this afternoon who have been critics of the nationalisation of the mines. In my opinion, this Bill would not be here were it not for their nationalisation. On many occasions we tried to get something done under private enterprise in this direction, but we failed miserably. The reason was that there were so many coal-owners in different circumstances: some who could have afforded it (and landowners who could have afforded it) and some who could not. The unification of the industry has enabled practical steps to be taken. I would extend to the noble Lord the Minister our thanks that the Government have gone as far as they have gone. They could have gone further, but I am not surprised that they have not; I think they have gone as far as we expected them to go.
As regards the recent discussions in another place, may I say that I have seen a number of Bills pass through another place, but I have never known a Bill dealt with in a better atmosphere than this Bill was dealt with during the Committee stage there. They had thirteen separate Committee Sittings, and in all except two some Amendment or another was accepted by the Government. That is a good indication of the right attitude on the part of the Government. But what I was most impressed with was not only the readiness of the Government to accept Amendments but also the readiness of the Opposition to amend Amendments to fit in with the wishes of the Government. That is, as a rule, how one gets a good Bill coming from another place. I looked at the Bill when it was before another place for Second Reading in January last. The Bill has had rather a leisurely passage, and it is now vastly different; and the difference represents a vast improvement in the Bill.
I am not going to refer to the separate clauses as did the Minister—as he should do, being the Minister—but I may say that I well remember introducing in this House the 1950 Bill and having to apologise almost at the outset for its smallness, for the little it was doing. I remember that a noble Lord who intervened from the other side—he is not present here to-day—chastised us for not going far enough, and said it was an inadequate Bill. Therefore we can depend not only on our side of the House but also on

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those sitting behind the noble Lord supporting this Bill. I was a little disturbed at the Minister's lukewarm reference to the reduction of subsidence damage. I agree that it is not easy to prevent it, especially over the years. You take a seam out: you take a second seam out, and you take a third seam out, and the whole time subsidence is taking place. To find an effective remedy, a way to prevent it, is not easy, but I hope the noble Lord's remarks did not mean that the National Coal Board have no intention of trying to take steps to prevent subsidence, so far as they can. Here is a case where prevention is certainly better than cure, and I think it is possible in some cases, though not, I agree, in all. I do hope that it is the intention of the National Coal Board, in their own interests, to try to avoid subsidence and not only to deal with it after it has been caused.
There were one or two references I wanted to make regarding the clauses. I welcome the clause which provides some retrospective payments: I think that was a good Amendment to accept. I do not want to press the Minister to-day, but I think we might try to press him to go a little further back. I do not know whether the noble Viscount, Lord Hall, intends to refer to the possibility, but if that can be done, it will be well accepted, not only here but generally throughout the mining community. I want to refer briefly to questions on Clauses 8, 9 and 11. I am not going into them in any detail, but these are the clauses of which the Minister, in another place, promised further consideration. All I am going to ask is this that, in drafting the Amendments for the Committee stage in your Lordships' House, the Minister should take consultation with those who discussed these Amendments in another place, because, after all, they put the Amendments forward and we are anxious to avoid unnecessary discussion here. We are quite satisfied that there can be some accommodation on the suggested Amendments, and if, before being placed on the Marshalled List, they are discussed in detail with those responsible in another place, we feel sure that this will facilitate the passing of the Bill through your Lordships' House.
With regard to the method of payment, we regret that the Government have decided to relieve the Exchequer of all
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responsibility regarding the payments for subsidence. It is not because we are not impressed with the arguments. I am not going to press alternative arguments today. In these days, nearly all coal consumers are taxpayers and all taxpayers are coal consumers, so that in a sense it does not matter much—the same people carry the burden in the long run. But what we are concerned about is loading the burden on the National Coal Board too much. The limit is expected to be one of £5 million. I hope it will be less, but I think it will be more than that. Even if it is not, it means £5 million to be borne by the National Coal Board. If we cannot avoid it, I would ask that it be shown as a separate item in the accounts, so that the country may know that this sum represents the cost of mining subsidence.
I do not think I need say much more about the Bill. I think it is a good Bill. I am pleased that the Government have gone as far as they have done. All I would say to those who do not understand and do not know much about mining subsidence is to suggest that they go through the mining areas and see what it means to those who, for generation after generation, have lived under terrible conditions. When we criticise the miner of to-day for demanding better pay and conditions, I think we have to realise that for generations past the mining communities have lived under difficult conditions. Part of the price they have had to pay is rot only running the risk of mining underground but also the danger to the houses in which the miners live. This Bill attempts, in a definite manner, to deal with those dangers, and I extend to it the warmest welcome.
3.23 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF DERBY: My Lords, two years ago I had the privilege of introducing in your Lordships' House a discussion on mining subsidence. I asked that the proposals of the Turner Report might be implemented. To-day, I rise to say "Thank you" to the Government, both on behalf of the mining areas in my diocese and also, I am convinced, on behalf of mining areas throughout the country, for bringing in this Bill. I myself should have preferred that the undermining of buildings had been made illegal. We are told that in the necessity of getting out the coal that

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is an impracticable policy; but, at any rate, in this Bill provision is made that monetary compensation to the full value of the damage done; will be payable in all cases. That seems an elementary act of justice. It is strange that the country should have tolerated the present state of things so long. However, here, at last, is the Bill, and, like the noble Lord who has spoken for Her Majesty's Opposition, I am grateful for it.
I am grateful, too, on behalf of the Church of England, and the other religious denominations in the country, for the provisions in Clause 10, the ecclesiastical clause, which deals with damage to ecclesiastical property and provides that the compensation money should be paid to the central authorities of the denomination concerned. The one point on which I should like, if I may, to put some pressure upon the Government, is the point to which the noble Lord who introduced the Bill made reference as being controversial. It concerns the question of compensation for the necessity of structural precautions in new buildings. I understand that it was raised in another place.
It can happen that when new buildings are in prospect—it may be the case of a religious denomination desiring to erect a place of worship—the planning authorities, in the interests of security, if there be a risk of the building being undermined, may require reinforced and correspondingly expensive foundations as a condition of the grant of planning permission. I respectfully submit to Her Majesty's Government that the ends of justice would be more fully served if it could be found possible in this Bill to make provision for meeting that point. The noble Lord, Lord Mills, did refer to it, but said that, after careful consideration the Government had come to the conclusion, I gather with some reluctance, that it was impracticable. I still wonder whether it might not be possible for the point to be reconsidered, and I appeal to Her Majesty's Government to do their best in the matter, although it is not my personal intention to go to the length of moving an Amendment when the Bill is in Committee.
3.28 p.m.
VISCOUNT HALL: My Lords, I shall take up but a short time, because my
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noble friend Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor has dealt fully with the Opposition case. I welcome this Bill as a real effort further to deal with a grievance which many of the people living in the mining areas have suffered for generations. The extraction of so much coal from the earth of this country is bound to bring about subsidence. In the colliery in which I worked for some time, we had nine seams of coal, varying in thickness from two feet to nine feet. The total amount of coal, or the width or depth of coal which was taken out of that mine was something like 33 feet. Of course, when taking out 33 feet there is bound to be subsidence, and there is no real cure for it.
It should be remembered that for hundreds of years this extraction of coal has been going on in this country. Some time ago I made a statement in your Lordships' House that no less than 22,000 million tons of saleable coal have been taken out from under or in the coal-field areas, which represent a very small part of the total area of the country. As a result of this subsidence, the mining communities and populations have suffered great hardships. It has been ironical sometimes for a miner to know that he is digging out coal from under the very house which he himself has purchased, and that probably he is helping to let down his house by subsidence. This Bill goes a long way to deal with this problem.
I purchased my own house some years ago and had to take a risk over this question of subsidence. Fortunately, there was no subsidence which let down my house sufficiently to damage it, but the strange thing is that a reservoir only a mile away was so damaged, in relation to its capacity for holding the water which was necessary for the population, that it was beyond repair; and for some forty years that reservoir has not been used. I see the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, in his place. It is said that the house originally owned by the late Lord Aberdare had sunk, not through the earth but with the level of the earth, some seven or eight feet. That gives some idea of the subsidence and of the difficulties which the mining population and the mining communities have had to contend with over a very long period.
The noble Lord who introduced this Bill referred to the fact that the cost of

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the operation of this Bill is likely to amount to £5 million a year. That is an indication of the sort of cost which the mining population had to meet themselves—and they had to meet it over a number of years. The coal owners, and indeed the royalty owners, protected themselves in regard to the leases of property and the building of houses and doing other work; they escaped any liability, which fell mainly upon the miners and the local authorities. I should add, however, in fairness to some coal owners, some colliery owners, that it was possible to get them to recognise some part of the responsibility, and in many cases we were able to get some contribution, from them to assist in the repair of the property.
I should like to deal for a moment with the question of endeavouring to prevent, though not fully preventing, subsidence—that just cannot be done. Nevertheless, much more can be done than is being done at the present time. I am sure the mining engineers could tell the Coal Board of the practice that has been in operation in the coalfields of Germany almost from the commencement of the extraction of coal there—I refer to the tight stowing of rubbish in the waist after the coal has been brought out. That practice was followed for many years in some collieries in this country. Then a new idea came in, that there should be controlled falling of the roof, so that it was found much cheaper to convey the rubbish out and put it on the mountainside than to pack it in tight after the coal had been extracted.
I well remember, as a boy, seeing the officials coming round to test, in various parts of the face, whether the tight packing had been successful. But for some twenty or thirty years now, simply because it is cheaper to do it another way, and with an utter disregard of the consequences, a new method has been adopted. The new method not only let down a good deal of the surface but, at the same time, created those ugly pitheaps on the mountainsides of South Wales and in the fields of the Midlands and Scotland. When we consider the real value of coal, and, the fact that it was then being given away at something like 10s. or 12s. per ton, and the way the mining population
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suffered, I hope that the Minister of Power will discuss with the Coal Board every possible way of reducing the amount of subsidence, and particularly this question of the tight packing of the coal faces.
I am very pleased the noble Lord has dealt with the clause dealing with alternative accommodation. I hope that the Amendment proposed will be pretty wide, because some of us have seen houses literally falling down, and people staying on and living under conditions involving a good deal of risk of injury and sometimes death. The other clause with regard to which I was hoping he would introduce some Amendment is Clause 11, dealing with payments in respect of death or disablement caused as a result of this damage. I hope that the payments will be something like the compensation which a person would receive had his death been caused as a result of an accident in the pits. I should also like the noble Lord not to close his mind to the question of extending retrospective payments. It is true that in respect of some of the dwellinghouses the operation of the Bill will cover a period of eighteen months in retrospection. I entirely agree with him with regard to the inadequacy of the 1950 Act. That was just an experiment. I should like to see this Bill go back to 1950. I think it should go back at least, say, three years, instead of the eighteen months which is provided for in the Bill as it stands.
The Bill will be welcomed by the mining communities of this country: not only by the miners and other householders but also by the traders and the local authorities who hitherto have had no protection at all. I think that the Bill is a practical attempt to deal with a difficult and complicated situation. Its success will depend upon the manner in which it is administered, and the National Coal Board, which is now undertaking a great responsibility, should see that two things, in particular, are done. First, its technicians and engineers should apply their minds to the prevention of subsidence; and secondly, this legislation, when in operation, should be administered with understanding and great sympathy.

EGYPT: LOSSES OF BRITISH SUBJECTS
3.40 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, with permission, I will make a statement on I payments to British nationals expelled from Egypt similar to one being made in another place, in answer to a Question, by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
As the House will be aware, the Anglo-Egyptian Resettlement Board was set up earlier this year to deal with those British subjects who were arriving in this country from Egypt, who were in need. Her Majesty's Government have been considering whether the definition of hardship under which the Board at present operates should be drawn somewhat wider to include those concerned who are suffering hardship through being deprived of access to their assets. It has been decided that this can best be achieved by a scheme of ex gratia loans as a measure of interim assistance. These payments will be calculated on the basis of the declarations of assets registered with the Foreign Office. The scale runs from a figure of 70 per cent. for reckonable assets of £2,000 or less up to £5,000 where reckonable assets to the value of over £20,000 have been declared. Particulars of this scheme will be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
Following are the particulars referred to:
1. Applications
Applications for loans should be made to the Anglo-Egyptian Resettlement Board, 3, Sanctuary Buildings, Great Smith Street, S.W.1. The Board will consult the Foreign Office who will, in accordance with the declarations of individual assets registered with it, determine the amount of each applicant's reckonable assets. The Board will then make payment in accordance with the scale in paragraph 3 below.
2. Basis of payments
The assets reckonable for the purpose of the scheme will be the following tangible items:—

Land,

Buildings,

Furniture and Personal Effects,

Vehicles, Boats and Livestock,

Bank Balances, Cash Deposits and Securities in Egypt,

Articles deposited for safe keeping,

Indemnities,

Water, Gas, Electricity and Customs Deposits,

Securities on deposit in the United Kingdom.

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Where declarations already made do not include assets held in banks in this country to which access cannot be obtained, applicants for loans should, when applying to the Resettlement Board, send a statement of these assets, substantiated where possible by a Banker's statement.
3. Scale
The scale of payments will be as follows:—
Reckonable assets declared and Amount of Loan

Up to £2,000 70 per cent.

£1,400 max.

£2,001–£2,500 £1,400 (70 per cent. of first £2,000) plus

£100=£1,500

£2,501–£3,000 £1,400 (70 per cent. of first £2,000) plus

£200=£1,600

£3,001–£5,000 £1,400 (70 per cent. of first £2,000) plus

£600=£2,000

£5,001–£10,000 £1,400 (70 per cent. of first £2,000) plus

£1,300=£2,700

£10,001–£15,000 £1,400 (70 per cent. of first £2,000) plus

£2,000=£3,400

£15,001–£20,000 £1,400 (70 per cent. of first £2,000) plus

£2,700=£4,100

£20,001 and over

=£5,000

4. Persons eligible
Persons eligible for payments under the scheme are all British nationals who left Egypt as a result of the events of last year, and who have, before July 15, 1957, registered declarations of assets with the Foreign Office.
5. Relationship to previous loans from Resettlement Board
In making payment under this scheme, no account will be taken of the grants made previously by the Resettlement Board, nor of advances against Egyptian pensions. But loans which have been made by the Board will be taken into account in calculating the amount to be loaned under the scheme. It will be for the individual to decide whether he is eligible in respect of hardship for the scheme and, if so, whether he wishes to take advantage of it. But once he has done so, he will not normally be eligible for further help from the Resettlement Board.
6. Duration of scheme
Applications for loans should be lodged within three months, but refugees now in, the care of the Board who have not by that date been able to resettle themselves here, or whose emigration arrangements have been delayed, may defer their application with the consent of the Board.
7. Repayment
The Board when making payment will ask each individual to sign an undertaking to repay. But no one will be asked to make any repayment until he can receive a return from the Egyptian Government in respect of his individual claim.
3.42 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, we are grateful for this statement. It is a little belated, in view of the debate that is to take place on this subject to-morrow, particularly as part of it will only be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I imagine that it was impossible to have made an earlier statement, but it will somewhat restrict those who intend to take part in the debate to-morrow. Subject to that, I have no comments to make at this stage.
LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, I have also listened with great interest to the statement made by the noble Viscount. As your Lordships know, this is a subject in which the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, and other noble Lords have taken great interest. The statement discloses some advance on previous offers to help these people which have been made by Her Majesty's Government. It is a matter which we shall have to study between now and to-morrow when deciding on the course of the debate. Lord Killearn particularly asked me to express his apologies for not being here to-day. He was in the country when he received news of this statement at about one o'clock, and he could not possibly get up here in time for it. He will, I know, wish to study this, statement most carefully between now and to-morrow.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount one question? I think he said that this was to be a scheme of ex gratia loans. I do not quite understand what that means. May I ask at this stage whether these loans, being ex gratia, are interest free?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: These loans, I believe I am right in saying, are interest free.

COAL-MINING (SUBSIDENCE) BILL
3.46 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD LAWSON: My Lords, I should like to take this opportunity of joining with my two noble friends in giving a welcome to this Bill. It gives me peculiar pleasure to do so, because I think that this is the first time I have had the chance of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Mills, upon any Bill or suggestion which
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he has put forward up to the present time. It is true that the Committee stages of this Bill in another place have been almost unparalleled in the spirit that was shown in the discussions on the many occasions upon which the Committee sat. I have read a good deal of the Report of the Committee, and as one who has now been in Parliament for getting on for forty years, I must say that it was an exhilarating experience to read such a Report. It would have been exhilarating with a Committee dealing with any subject, but it was still more so with a Committee dealing with this subject—the undermining of houses and buildings generally. But it must be said that that spirit would have been quite impossible had it not been for the fact that the mines are nationalised.
Those of us who have known this problem over our lifetime have seen woeful cases. Over the last century or two there must have been a great mass of people who have had to submit quietly to conditions which, very often, ruined their homes and houses which they owned and for which they could obtain no redress because they had not sufficient money to take the matter into the courts, and because it was almost impossible to get legislation dealing with the subject. I remember particularly one case in which the business premises of a great company were undermined. I was working in the mines at the time. The company, as I have said, was a great one. It had money and it was in an organisation which included others in the same position. They were, of course, in a position to go into court. They did so, and they got such handsome redress that those of us who had to produce were not quite so happy as we are going to be about the results of this Bill. I know of no instance in which it could be said more appositely, in the words of the old text:
"For unto everyone that hath shall be given;…but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."
I know of no instance where that could be said so appositely as in relation to the subject we are discussing to-day.
It is a good thing to know that there has been unanimity on this matter—in fact there has been almost rivalry amongst the various representatives of the Parties represented on the Committee in the other place to do justice to those who have suffered. In recent years, I have lived in

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a very old coalfield which had been worked for something like two centuries, and I am not sure that, in some parts, the Coal Board may not have to pay the price for what has already been done. Coal has been taken out in the past, and there has been undermining. The Coal Board may start operation some distance off, and no-one knows anything about the roof and the make-up of the rock generally. I am not at all sure but that the Coal Board may have to pay for something that happened many years ago and in relation to which there are no plans. Plans were not allowed voluntarily until 1870, and they were not made compulsory until 1921. So sometimes it happens that there is an old coalfield or a working in an area in which the Coal Board operates, and once the Board reopens one of these areas it may well start something for which it will have to pay, even though it is not directly responsible for what has happened.
One other point I want to deal with is the part which the planning authority have to play, as they have to be considered now in connection with this matter. The older coalfields were those chiefly hit by subsidence, because originally the shallow seams nearest the surface were worked first. It is just in these older coalfields that it was found necessary to establish the light industries, because, as is fairly well known, they were the first to be hit by the depression, because they relied on coal, steel and heavy industries and there were no light industries and factories in their areas. I hope that, when the planning authorities and the National Coal Board are negotiating on questions of subsidence, their conclusions will not interfere with the establishment of light industries in the coalfields. The decision to provide for negotiations is well meant and right, but delicate handling by the planning authorities and the National Coal Board will be needed if light industries are to be attracted to the area.
My noble friend Lord Hall referred to the fact that the material which was brought to the surface might be used to support the roof in coal mines, particularly in the shallower seams. Those who go by road or rail from King's Cross to the North and to Scotland will have observed that we have our own "Himalayas" up there, which have
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grown no less in recent days. It is said right and left by the people in these areas that something should be done to use the material in these heaps for shoring up roofs, particularly where there is undermining of the surface and damage to homes and business premises. I am glad that my noble friends Lord Hall and Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor have dealt with this matter, because I believe that no opportunity should be missed of emphasising the fact that this material could be useful below and should be used for shoring up the roofs, instead of being sent to the surface to be piled into innumerable heaps which grow greater and greater until they become little mountains of rock reaching to the heavens.
That is all I want to say, but I am pleased indeed that at last there has been found some solution of this problem which has affected the homes of good people, and sometimes damaged and ruined their property, for which they have had little opportunity of getting relief. I am glad that all Parties have come to a definite agreement upon this matter; and although some problems remain—problems which will test the good will of those concerned—at last justice is to be done, and there is a fundamental settlement of this serious problem.
3.56 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I should like to join with those noble Lords who have already spoken in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Mills, upon the clarity with which he has introduced this rather complex Bill and upon introducing a measure which has received so warm a welcome. I do not propose to destroy the harmony of the proceedings by being critical of this Bill, though it has not solved one problem with which I had been confronted when dealing with this matter as a Minister—that is, the exact pronunciation of "subsidence". The noble Lord who introduced the Bill said "subsidence" and my noble friend Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor called it subsidence," while my noble friend Lord Hall used both pronunciations. I propose to stick to subsidence", which is the pronunciation we arrived at in the Ministry after a very exhausive examination.

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I want to emphasise as strongly as I can the importance of the proposal which my noble friends Lord Hall and Lord Lawson made on the prevention of subsidence. I hope that the passing of this Bill will not merely give the National Coal Board freedom to go ahead and deal with this matter simply by way of compensation. In other countries subsidence is dealt with by putting back the rubbish into the old seams, and although there is bound to be a fail in the level of the land, it can be so dealt with that the fall is even, in which case no great harm will result. It would remove a great deal of the cause of damage if it were possible, in some cases at any rate, to restore the rubbish to the land.
My own interest in this matter goes back to the time when we decided to build a new town at Peterlee, in County Durham. Peterlee was an ideal area in which to build a new town, from the point of view of the convenience of the people who were going to live in it, but unfortunately it was subject to heavy subsidence. There was a great deal of discussion between the National Coal Board and the Development Corporation on the best way of dealing with it. At one time it was thought that the National Coal Board should dictate the plan of the new town, stating where the main buildings should be and where the housing should be, but that was regarded as most unsatisfactory and as likely to result in an uneconomic town. In the end, an estimate was arrived at that by means of taking certain precautions the cost of the new town would be increased by about 5 per cent. but that it should go forward in the same way as a normal new town. However, it was a serious problem at the time, and I certainly thought it quite wrong that the planning of a whole area should be dictated by this question of subsidence. If this were to happen today, I imagine that the Coal Board would be responsible for at any rate a great deal of any damage that might be caused, but that it would still be incumbent on the planning authority and the developers to take reasonable steps to minimise the damage, so far as they possibly could—and I think that is right.
The noble Lord, Lord Mills, dealt with the question of retrospection. I think it is reasonable that there should be a certain amount of retrospection, although I
1106
should have liked to see it go a little wider. My difficulty is to know where the evidence of subsidence begins. It is going to be exceedingly difficult for anyone to prove that on a certain day subsidence begins. The onus of proof will be on the small man. It will mean calling expert evidence to establish whether a particular piece of damage is due to subsidence or to, say, settlement—and, after all, they are very much the same thing, certainly in their effects. Generally, it is going to be difficult to establish that damage in its early stages is due to subsidence rather than to ordinary settlement, of which we all have experience. Much will depend on the spirit with which this Bill, when it becomes an Act, is administered by the Coal Board. I hope that it will be administered in a generous spirit, and that any doubt will be given to the claimant rather than to the Coal Board; because the claimant will usually be a small person, and it will be extremely costly for him to have to establish a claim. This Bill can be rendered quite nugatory if it is administered in an ungenerous and niggardly spirit, and I hope that the Minister, so far as he can, will see that the Coal Board are impressed with the idea of dealing with this matter in a generous way.
I feel that I must complain about the complexity of the language of this Bill. I find it the most difficult Bill to follow in its language since the Town and Country Planning Act of 1954. That really was a "teaser," and I find this almost equally difficult. I tried to understand Clause 9 of this Bill all the way from Horsham to Victoria, but I am afraid that I was no wiser when I got to Victoria than I was at Horsham. I do not suggest for a moment that the obscurity is deliberate, but obscurity in a measure can mask a good deal of injustice which is discovered only at a later stage, when the Act has to be implemented. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Mills, when introducing his Amendment (I think he mentioned an Amendment to Clause 9) will see whether the language cannot be simplified. In addition, there is in this clause an enormous amount of legislation by reference: all kinds of Acts of Parliament and sections are prayed in aid with no explanation of what they are. They might or might not be of great importance, but the claimant can hardly be expected to have

1107
available all these various Acts of Parliament in order to see what his rights are; and even his legal advisers may find themselves in some difficulty. Therefore, I hope that some effort will be made—and I know it can be—to simplify the language of this Bill.
Finally, I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he has in mind to do anything about other forms of subsidence. This Bill relates only to subsidence caused by coal-mining, but he will know that there are serious forms of subsidence in the county of Cheshire, where salt mining is carried on. If he will only go to Nantwich he will see some shocking examples of subsidence caused as a result of this salt mining. It seems to me anomalous that we have reached the stage of requiring the nationalised coal industry to pay compensation, but that those who mine for salt are still free to inflict damage on their neighbours with impunity, and that no action is taken on that point. In one part of Cheshire an enormous lake has been brought about by subsidence. I hope that during the Long Recess the noble Lord will try to make it convenient to go to Nantwich (I do not suggest it would be a holiday trip, but he would find it interesting) to see the evidence of subsidence that is going on all round there, and to see whether something cannot be done for those people, who are suffering as seriously from this type of subsidence as those for whom this Bill is being provided as a remedy. There are one or two Amendments that we shall wish to put down on the Committee stage, but in principle we welcome the Bill and we shall do everything we can to give it a smooth and rapid passage.
4.8 p.m.
LORD MILLS: My Lords, when I started to address your Lordships I said I hoped to have the help of noble Lords in dealing with this technical and somewhat complicated Bill. I am encouraged by the speeches of noble Lords to think that I have got that help and that this Bill is welcomed. Perhaps your Lordships would permit me to deal with the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, as to whether it is "subsidence" or "subsi'dence". I think the noble Viscount, Lord Hall, is right—he used both forms of pronunciation. I am told
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that there are two Latin words, one "subsĪdo" and the other "subsideo", and that, therefore, "sub'sidence" or "subsi'dence" is right, whichever you prefer.
I was encouraged by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor. I should like to thank him for his support and deal with one or two matters he raised which were also raised by other noble Lords. He said he thought I was not enthusiastic about the possibilities of methods being found of reducing subsidence damage. I am quite prepared to be very enthusiastic. I am sure the National Coal Board are not lukewarm in this matter, and if they were ever—and I do not believe it—inclined to neglect that side of the problem, they certainly now have some urge to solve it because it is going to cost them a lot of money if they do not. That, added to the natural inclination to consider the human aspects of this matter, should ensure that the matter is pressed forward.
The question of retrospection was dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, the noble Viscount, Lord Hall, and the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. This question of retrospection is always a difficult matter. It is never very easy, even when the facts are more apparent than they are in this case, and the further back you put the period, the more you add to your difficulties. The Government have tried to deal with this question of payment in respect of house property on a realistic basis. As I said, there will be certain Government Amendments to put forward, and noble Lords have told me that there may be Amendments from the other side. I shall be only too happy to consult with those who have put forward Amendments in another place and those who wish to put them forward here, in order that we can expedite the passing of this Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, also regretted the fact that we wished to relieve the Exchequer and to put the burden on the Coal Board. He advanced the argument that the taxpayer and the coal consumer were the same people, That is, of course, largely true. But they are not the same people so far as amounts are concerned. It does not follow that the people who consume the most coal are the people who pay the most taxes and vice versa. I am anxious

1109
that we should look to the Coal Board to take into account the whole of this expenditure. But I welcome the noble Lord's suggestion that there should be a separate item in their accounts, and I will certainly put that forward.
The right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Derby, raised the difficult question, to which I had referred, of structural precautions in new buildings. This is a matter to which we have given earnest thought, because obviously if it is desired to put a new place of worship in a mining community it is a little hard that the members of that place of worship might have to bear the cost of reinforcing their building. But, unfortunately, that is not the only case. It might not even be the only case so far as the Church Commissioners are concerned. There are all kinds of buildings which make up a mining community, and, as I have said, it would place an intolerable burden upon the Coal Board if we tried to legislate that they should bear the cost of strengthening all new buildings. Therefore I am afraid that I cannot hold out any hope that we can legislate in this respect, and I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for saying that he did not propose to put down an Amendment concerning it.
The noble Lord, Lord Lawson, referred to the question of the establishment of light industries in mining areas. I am grateful to him for reminding me of that matter, and we will certainly give it every thought, to see how light industries can still be attracted to where they should go. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, referred to the complexity of the language. I suppose, as the Minister responsible for the Bill, I am also responsible for the complexity of the language. But I can assure the noble Lord that I was not responsible for putting down the language, although I take the responsibility for it. I think the matter will probably best be met—it is a highly technical Bill, and the legal language is
1110
not easy in this respect—if we decide to issue a leaflet in popular terms describing the, Bill and what it does. The noble Lord also referred to other forms of mining, and invited me to spend any vacation I might take in Nantwich. I am informed that there is already a statutory scheme for subsidence damage caused by brine pumping in the Brine Pumping Subsidence Act, 1952. I have so far seen no evidence that subsidence damage caused by the working of other minerals has given rise to serious hardship in the way that coal mining subsidence has. But I will be watchful about it, and will certainly give the matter every consideration.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

LEGITIMATION (RE- REGISTRATION OF BIRTH) BILL
4.19 p.m.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed.

THERMAL INSULATION (INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS) BILL
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed.

ADVERTISEMENTS (HIRE-PURCHASE) BILL
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed

REGISTRATION OF BIRTHS, DEATHS AND MARRIAGES (NAVY, MARINES AND SERVICE CIVILIANS) (OVERSEAS) BILL
4.21 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD AILWYN in the Chair]
Clause 1 [Application of principal Act to Navy and Royal Marines and certain civilians]:
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE EARL OF SELKIRK)THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE EARL OF SELKIRK) moved to leave out Clause 1 and insert the following new clause:
Records of deaths, births and marriages among armed forces and service civilians and their families overseas
".—(1) Her Majesty may by Order in Council provide for the keeping of records of deaths and births occurring, and marriages solemnised, outside the United Kingdom among, or among the families of—

(a) members of Her Majesty's naval, military or air forces, or

(b) persons serving Her Majesty in, or otherwise employed in any capacity connected with, Her Majesty's naval, military or air forces, or persons belonging to or employed by any organisation concerned with the welfare of members of those forces.

(2) An Order in Council under this section may provide—

(a) for the transmission of certified copies of any such records to the Registrar General for England and Wales, and

(b) for the transmission by the said Registrar General in such cases as may be specified in the Order of extracts from such certified copies to the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Scotland or the Registrar General for Northern Ireland.

(3) An entry in a record kept under an Order in Council under this section which relates to, or to the family of, a person of any description specified in paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section shall not be questioned on the ground that that person did not fall within any more particular description contained in the Order.
(4) After the commencement of this Act no further entry shall be made under the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Army) Act, 1879 (which, as amended under the Air Force (Constitution) Act, 1917, provides for the recording of deaths, births and
1112
marriages of members of Her Majesty's military or air forces or their families overseas), in any register kept under that Act and an Order in Council under this section may provide for the transmission of any such registers to the Registrar General for England and Wales and for the transmission by him of certified copies of entries in such registers to the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Scotland or the Registrar General for Northern Ireland.
(5) In this section references to a person's family shall include references to any relative, dependant or servant ordinarily living with him.
The noble Earl said: I feel I should perhaps apologise for the somewhat drastic number of Amendments standing in my name on quite a small Bill, but I think your Lordships would agree that it would be foolish to let a simple Bill of this sort go forward unless we had put it in its best possible form. These Amendments are only to clarify and simplify administration. I feel sure that those of your Lordships who dislike legislation by reference will approve of the first Amendment, which re-writes Section 2 of the Act of 1879 as amended in the Bill in a form which we think is better. The clause is now brought into operation by an Order in Council instead of by regulation for the three Services. As it covers the Registrars General in the United Kingdom, I think that is desirable. It also covers, of course, a certain number of civilians, and I think it is more important that a matter affecting them should be done by Order in Council rather than by a Service regulation. A further small point is that in future the information will be transmitted to the Registrar General by means of certified copies of entries instead of the original register being transmitted. I am sure that that is more convenient and, apart from anything else, it avoids the possibility of losing the register itself.
The only other point is that we have slightly extended the category of persons affected by this arrangement, and that, your Lordships will observe, is in the proposed Amendment at subsection (1) (b), where we have included persons
"employed by any organisation concerned with the welfare of members of those forces."
The primary persons concerned in that would be N.A.A.F.I. representatives. I do not think there is any other point I need mention on this clause. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 1 and insert the said new clause.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
LORD GIFFORD: I welcome the new clause moved by the noble Earl. I think it does everything that was done by the original clause and, if I may say so, it extends it and makes it much tidier. I think that on Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, said he did not consider that much inconvenience had been suffered by Service personnel. I am assured that there has often been great inconvenience, where perhaps a birth certificate has had to be brought from, say, Hong Kong. It is most desirable that this Amendment should go through.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK THE EARL OF SELKIRK moved to insert the following new clause:
Records of deaths and births on board Her Majesty's ships and Service aircraft
.—(1) Her Majesty may by Order in Council provide for the keeping of records—

(a) of deaths and births occurring in any part of the world on board ships belonging to Her Majesty, and

(b) of deaths and births occurring in any part of the world on aircraft belonging to Her Majesty, or any other aircraft not registered in the United Kingdom but for the time being employed for the purposes of Her Majesty's forces, and

(c) of the death outside the United Kingdom of any person who, being a traveller on such an aircraft, is killed on the journey in consequence of an accident.

(2) An Order in Council under this section may provide—

(a)for the transmission of certified copies of any such records to the Registrar General for England and Wales, and

(b)for the transmission by the said Registrar General in such cases as may be specified in the Order of extracts from such certified copies to the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Scotland or the Registrar General for Northern Ireland.

(3) After the commencement of this Act no further entry shall be made under subsection (1) of section thirty-seven of the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1874 (which provides for the registration of deaths and births on board Her Majesty's ships), and an Order in Council under this section may provide for the transmission of certified copies of entries made under that subsection to any of the said Registrars General.
The noble Earl said: This is a new clause to which I made reference on Second Reading. It deals with deaths and births in Crown ships and Crown aircraft. So far as ships are concerned, the proposals are fully complementary to the registration provisions in the Merchant Shipping Act: that is to say, they cover all ships belonging to the Crown which
1114
are not registered. If they are registered, they fall under the Merchant Shipping Act. Previously there were a few ships, such as dredgers, boom defence vessels, salvage vessels and Admiralty cable ships, which fell between the two.
So far as aircraft are concerned, this Bill is equally complementary to the registration provisions of the Civil Aviation Act, 1949: that is to say, all aircraft not registered in the United Kingdom, whether they belong to the Crown or are chartered abroad under foreign registration or Commonwealth registration, will come under the Act for the purposes contained therein. Again, transmission will be made by certified copies. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Insert the said new clause.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
LORD GIFFORD: I welcome this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK THE EARL OF SELKIRK moved to insert the following new clause:
General provisions as to Service Departments records
.—(1) All such registers and copies of entries in registers or records as have been duly transmitted to the Registrar General for England and Wales, the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Scotland or the Registrar General for Northern Ireland in pursuance of this Act, or of section two of the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Army) Act, 1879, or of section thirty-seven of the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1874, shall be known as "the Service Departments Registers".
(2) The enactments relating to the registration of births and deaths and marriages in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, which contain provisions authorising the admission in evidence of, and of extracts from, certified copies of registers and duplicate registers) shall have effect as if the Service Departments Registers were certified copies or duplicate registers transmitted to the Registrar General in accordance with those enactments.
(3) An error of fact or substance in any register or other record kept in pursuance of this Act or of section two of the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Army) Act, 1879, or of section thirty-seven of the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1874, may be corrected by an entry in the margin (without any alteration of the original entry) by such officer as may be specified in an Order in Council under this Act upon production to him of a statutory declaration setting forth the nature of the error and the true facts of the case made

1115
by two credible persons having knowledge of the truth of the case, and Her Majesty may by Order in Council provide for the correction of clerical errors in any such register or other record.
The noble Earl said: This is a small administrative arrangement. It changes the names of the Registers to Service Departments Registers. It is necessary to do this because the names of the Registers have already stood in the previous Acts. Subsection (2) makes provision for all certified copies made in the Service Departments Register to have the same validity in law as if the original registration were made in the United Kingdom. Subsection (3) provides the same facilities for correcting errors in regard to registrations as those made in the first place in the United Kingdom under the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1953. No such provision existed in the old Act. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Insert the new clause.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
EARL JOWITT: May I ask a question on this new clause? Suppose an error has been made and two credible witnesses, on affidavit, come before the officer who, under the Order in Council, has to be satisfied, and accordingly he makes an alteration in the margin—that I think, is the scheme of the thing; he does not alter the original register; he makes an alteration in the margin—it may well turn out that the information which, in perfectly good faith, he believed to be correct to justify the alteration in the margin, was not in fact correct at all. What happens then? Is there any machinery for correcting the marginal alteration? There does not appear to be. It seems that rather an odd situation may result. What the arrangement under the existing law is I frankly do not know, but I am quite confident that the noble Earl knows all about it. Will he tell us what the position is under the existing law in this regard; and if there is no provision, how you would cope with the position supposing the situation which I suggest arose?
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: As I have said, the situation is really identical with the position in this country. I must confess to the noble Earl that I am not familiar with the law as it exists at present. But what I would suggest, as
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did the noble Earl, is that this is a presumption in law which can be rebutted. I may be quite wrong in that and I will certainly let the noble Earl know. If I can, I will make a statement on the Report stage, but I should guess that that is the situation.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2 [Validation of certain entries in marine register books and in registers kept by Army and Royal Air Force]:
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: This clause relates to the registration of children legitimated by the subsequent marriage of their parents. It has been drafted substantially in line with the existing law for such registrations within the United Kingdom. At the present time certificates cannot be issued in respect of such a legitimated person unless the birth was originally registered in the United Kingdom. Illegitimate children of Service personnel and those associated with the Services as shown in Clause 1 (1) (b) may be registered at birth locally, but there is at present no means of re-registering the child as legitimate should the mother and father marry at a late date. The clause seeks to remedy this so that in such cases the Registrars General may authorise the registration or re-registration of the birth, and the manner in which this shall be done will be laid down in Order in Council. They are entitled to do this in cases where a decision on paternity or legitimacy has been established by a court of law or information is provided by both parents. I understand that this puts it on all fours with what happens in this country at the present time. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 37, leave out (" Registration of ").—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
LORD GIFFORD: I welcome this Amendment, which I think fills a gap in the Bill.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I beg to move this drafting Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 38, leave out from ("Deaths") to ("a") in line 39 and insert (" Registration Act, 1874 ").—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: This also is drafting. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 1, leave out ("subsection (2)") and insert ("paragraph (b) of subsection (1)").—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 2, leave out ("apply and").—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: This, too, is drafting. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3 line 11, leave out ("shall apply and").—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
4.34 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I made a powerful speech on this question of legitimation on an earlier Amendment. I am sorry that I made it in the wrong place. May I make that speech again now? I beg to move.
Moved—
After Clause 2 insert the following new clause:
(" Registration of births of legitimated persons in the Service Departments Registers
.—(1) Where in the case of—

(a) a person whose birth is recorded in the Service Departments Registers, or

(b) a person borne outside the United Kingdom whose father at the time of the birth was a member of Her Majesty's naval, military or air forces or a person of a description falling within paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of section one of this Act,

evidence is produced to the appropriate Registrar General which appears to him to be satisfactory that that person was, whether before or after the commencement of this Act, legitimated by the subsequent marriage of his parents, the said Registrar General may authorise at any time the re-registration or, as the case may be, the registration of that person's birth, and the re-registration or registration shall be effected in such manner and at such place as may be provided by an Order in Council under this Act:
Provided that, except where—

(i) the paternity of the legitimated person has been established by an affiliation order or otherwise by a decree of a court of competent jurisdiction, or

(ii) a declaration of the legitimacy of the legitimated person has been made by a court of competent jurisdiction in the United Kingdom,

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the said Registrar General shall not authorise re-registration or registration unless information with a view to obtaining it is furnished by both parents.
(2) In this section "the appropriate Registrar General" means, in relation to a person whose father was at the time of the marriage domiciled in Scotland, the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Scotland, in relation to a person whose father was at the time of the marriage domiciled in Northern Ireland, the Registrar General for Northern Ireland, and in any other case the Registrar General for England and Wales.")—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: This is a drafting Amendment. It enables the Order in Council to be varied or revoked. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 2 insert the following new clause:
(" Provisions as to Orders in Council
.—(1) Any power of making an Order in Council under this Act shall include a power of varying or revoking such an Order.
(2) An Order in Council under section one or section two of this Act may include provisions with respect to deaths or births occurring, and marriages solemnised, before the commencement of this Act.
(3) Any power conferred by this Act to make provision by Order in Council shall include power to make that provision for specified classes of cases and to make different provision for different classes of cases.")—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3 [Short title, etc.]:
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: These Amendments to Clause 3 are drafting. I beg to move the first Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 15, leave out from ("Marriages") to end of line 19 and insert ("(Special Provisions) Act, 1957.
(2) Section two of the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Army) Act, 1879, and section thirty-seven of the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1874, are hereby repealed.").—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: This also is drafting. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 23, leave out from ("force") to end of line 24 and insert ("on such date as Her Majesty may by Order in Council appoint").—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
In the Title:
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: This is consequential on the new matter which has been brought into the Bill. Perhaps I may now say one word on the question which the noble Earl asked me just now. I am given to understand that if a correction is made in error—I am referring to the provision which relates to the Service Departments Registers—another correction can be made in the same way, if it is so proved to be an error. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Line 2, leave out from ("marriages") to end and insert ("occurring out of the United Kingdom among members of the armed forces and certain other persons, or occurring on board certain ships or aircraft; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid.")—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
LORD GIFFORD: This makes the Title even more complicated, but I think it is comprehensive, and I have pleasure in agreeing to the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
The Title, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed.

NAVAL DISCIPLINE BILL
4.40 p.m.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed and returned to the Commons.

AFFILIATION PROCEEDINGS BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

HOUSING BILL [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).
Clause 193 [Short title, commencement and extent]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, as your Lordships will see, there is one Amendment to this Bill, and that is to substitute
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"September" for "August" on page 113. I am told that that is a more convenient date for the commencement of the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 113, line 44, leave out ("August") and insert ("September").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

HOUSING AND TOWN DEVELOPMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, I regret to say that the Minister of State has been detained in Scotland, and it has therefore been agreed that we shall take this Bill to-morrow, instead of to-day. That will suit the convenience of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, who wishes to make a speech, I understand.

EXCHEQUER AND AUDIT DEPARTMENTS BILL
4.44 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD MANCROFT): My Lords, the purpose of this Bill, a short one of three clauses, is to increase the salary of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The opportunity is also being taken to deal with some minor and consequential matters. The Comptroller and Auditor General, as your Lordships know, is the permanent head of the Exchequer and Audit Department, an office independent of the Executive, and the servant of Parliament.
Since the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Department was reorganised on a modern basis, the Comptroller and Auditor General's salary has been equal to that of the Permanent Secretaries of other major Government Departments. Last year, as a result of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service, the salary of permanent heads of Departments was raised from £4,500 a year to £6,000, with effect from April 1, 1956. It is therefore, I suggest to your Lordships, right and

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proper that the Comptroller and Auditor General's salary, now standing at £4,500 a year, should be increased to the same extent and from the same date.
This cannot, however, be done simply by administrative action. Under Section 3 of the Exchequer and Audit Departments Act, 1866, the Comptroller and Auditor General is appointed by the Crown by Letters Patent. His salary is prescribed by Statute (and subsequently in the Letters Patent) as a charge on the Consolidated Fund. These provisions have been carried forward in intervening enactments, and it is necessary to take legislative action now to increase his salary on this occasion to conform with that of other departmental heads. The first clause of this Bill therefore provides that his salary may be £6,000 per annum from April 1, 1956. The change will be made by Letters Patent, as heretofore; and the increased salary will, or coarse, be payable to the present incumbent and to future incumbents of the office.
Your Lordships will appreciate that in modern times the introduction of legislation such as this is a cumbersome method of increasing the salary of this post The Bill therefore proposes that by Resolution in another place the salary of this post may be increased from any given date. In practice, this will be such occasions as the present, when other departmental heads benefit from salary increases. Your Lordships will see that this change applies to an increase in salary and it will not be possible to decrease the salary by this means. Because of the Comptroller's status, it is right to safeguard his independent position by requiring that any reduction (if one has ever to be made) should be effected not by Resolution but by a new Act of Parliament. It is proper that any Resolution to increase this salary which is a charge on the Consolidated Fund should be dealt with in another place.
In Clause 2 of the Bill the opportunity has been taken to cover certain eventualities which, under the present law, could cause inconvenience. First, under the present law the certifying and reporting of statutory accounts to both Houses may be performed only by the Comptroller and Auditor General himself, and if he were laid low for any considerable period there could be serious delay in public
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business. I am glad to say that the present holder of this office is held in widespread respect and also enjoys excellent health, but other circumstances might at times prevail. Subsection (2) of Clause 2 therefore permits delegation of this duty to other departmental officers, but only after a certificate has been given by the Speaker of another place, and, in appropriate cases, where accounts have to be presented to both Houses, by my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack as well. This power of delegation lapses in the event of a vacancy in the office of Comptroller and Auditor General. Subsection (2) also provides for the countersigning of warrants for the issue of Treasury Bills or Exchequer Bonds by a principal officer of his department at all times. These minor procedural changes are designed entirely to guard against the impediment of public business. If the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, were in his place I should assure him that this is not a controversial Bill which should cause him any alarm; and, further, it is one that I can cordially commend to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Mancroft.)
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, I should like to express my concurrence, and I believe that of those who sit on this side, in these proposals brought forward by the noble Lord. As I was Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in another place for several years, I am fully aware of the great importance to the democratic government of this country of the personality of the successive Comptrollers and Auditors General. I am glad that the noble Lord has introduced this Bill himself, because, if I am not mistaken, it was his father who preceded me for several years in the position of Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. The fact is that it is the Comptroller and Auditor General who is the watchdog, first of all of the House of Commons, and through them of the whole nation, in seeing that the expenditure of the Government is confined to the appropriations actually made by the House of Commons. If he were absent the most improper practices would, theoretically, be possible, and there would be no check whatever upon them. Therefore, if any man deserves to have a salary comparable with the figures

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here, I think the Comptroller and Auditor General is that man.
On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived.
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed.

JUDICIAL OFFICES (SALARIES AND PENSIONS) BILL
4.51 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this Bill, the Second Reading of which I now have the honour to move, deals, as your Lordships will see, with the salaries of the Recorders of Liverpool and Manchester, county court judges and metropolitan magistrates. It is a subject upon which I have been under considerable pressure from many parts of your Lordships' House since the passing of the Bill which increased the jurisdiction of the county courts some two years ago. If I may, I will first deal with the position of the Recorders of Liverpool and Manchester.
Your Lordships will remember that the Criminal Justice Administration Act of least year, which set up the new Crown Courts at Liverpool and Manchester, on the lines of the Central Criminal Court in London, provided that the Recorders of those two great cities were to be full-time judicial officers comparable in status and dignity with the Recorder of London. The Act of 1956 fixed their salaries at £4,000 a year, because that was then the salary of the Recorder of London. The salaries of the Judges of the City of London, however, as well as those of the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of London Sessions, have recently been increased, and the Government consider that the time is now ripe for some small increase in the salaries of the Recorders of Liverpool and Manchester. Your Lordships will see that, by Clause 1 (1) (a) of the Bill, these salaries are increased from £4,000 to £4,500 a year. This necessitates an Amendment in the pensions provisions of the Act of 1956 dealing with the pensions of these two Recorders which are at present expressed in terms
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applicable to £4,000 a year. Clause 2 of the Bill accordingly relates the Recorders' pensions to whatever their salaries may be from time to time. Your Lordships will see that the pension scale set out in the First Schedule to the Bill is calculated on exactly the same basis as the existing pension rates, but, being expressed as a fraction of the Recorder's last annual salary, the new scale will enable account to be taken of any future changes in the salary.
I now come to the county court judges. I think your Lordships are well aware of the excellence of the work performed by the county court judges and of the very heavy burdens they carry—burdens which have recently been added to, as I have mentioned, by the increase in the jurisdiction of the county courts as a result of the Act passed in 1955. Quite apart from the increase in jurisdiction, Parliament is constantly laying fresh burdens on the judges of the county courts, and it has been evident for some time that, if the Lord Chancellor of the day is to continue to be able to attract men of the necessary calibre for this extremely important and responsible work, their salaries ought to be increased above the figure of £2,800, which was fixed in 1951. I hope your Lordships will agree that the new salary of £3,750 a year proposed by the Bill represents a substantial increase, and one which is broadly satisfactory.
I now come to the metropolitan magistrates. It needs no words from me to commend to your Lordships the admirable work which is done by the metropolitan magistrates who sit in London from day to day in the full glare of publicity. This Bill proposes that the salary of the Chief Magistrate should be increased from £2,800 to £3,750 a year, and that the salaries of the other magistrates should be increased from £2,500 to £3,400 a year. Broadly speaking, these figures preserve the existing relation between the salaries of the metropolitan magistrates and those of the county court judges. Your Lordships will see that it is proposed to make these increases of salary retrospective to April 18 this year, that being the date on which the Government's intention to introduce legislation was announced in another place by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

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That follows broadly what was done after the decision to increase the salaries in 1951.
I ought specially to draw your Lordships' attention to Clause 1 (4) of the Bill, which provides that if it becomes necessary to make any further increases in the salaries of the recorders, the county court judges or the metropolitan magistrates, this may be done by order of the Lord Chancellor without the need for further legislation. Your Lordships are well aware, and have commented on the point many times, that the need to wait for a Bill before the salaries of these Judicial Officers can be increased has already led to much delay—and, indeed, much greater delay than I personally should have wished—in giving them the increases which I consider are their due. If your Lordships agree to what is proposed by subsection (4) it will be possible to avoid delay of this kind in future. At the same time (this should be noted; and I am sure your Lordships have noted it) a full measure of Parliamentary control will be preserved by the fact that any order made by the Lord Chancellor, with the consent of the Treasury, will require the approval of both Houses of Parliament before it becomes effective. Your Lordships will see that what I may call, in Parliamentary language, the strongest Affirmative Resolution method is being adopted. In this connection, I should perhaps remind your Lordships that it is already the case that no legislation is required for increases in the salaries of the lower Judiciary in Scotland or, indeed, of the official referees of the Supreme Court in England, who are, in effect, assistant High Court Judges and who have recently had a well-deserved increase in salary.
My Lords, no-one is more aware than I am of the dangers presented by the mournful spectacle of one increase after another in salaries and wages after increases in prices, but I ask your Lordships to believe that I have considered these increases most carefully. In one case, when a deputation of the persons concerned came to see me, they told me that some of their number were getting a smaller net sum—that is, after the deduction of tax—than they were getting before the war. In these circumstances, I hope that your Lordships will think it right that I should suggest these increases. I hope that the increases proposed in the
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Bill, which I now commend to your Lordships, will be recognised as no more than are properly due to those on whom the high standard of English justice depends just as much as it does on the Judges of the High Court. I hope that I may rely on your Lordships to give this Bill an early passage into law. I beg to move that it be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.).
5.2 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I should like to give a welcome to this Bill which, in my opinion, is very much overdue. The noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor referred to the pressure to which he had been subjected from different parts of your Lordships' House, and I plead guilty to having exercised a certain amount of that pressure, particularly in connection with the salaries of county court judges—not that I am suggesting that the other members of the Judiciary dealt with in this Bill are in any way less deserving. I should like to say a word about county court judges, partly because they are the most numerous of the classes dealt with in the Bill and partly because I happen to know most about them, and I think that they are typical.
The salary of county court judges was first fixed when the county courts were set up, in 1888, at £1,500 a year. It remained at that figure until 1937, when it became £2,000. In 1888, a salary of £1,500 was not an unreasonable one. It enabled people to live in a fair amount of comfort and to educate their children in the way in which they desired. It attracted the right type of person to the Bench, and there was no complaint. In 1937, their salary was increased to £2,000, and even then it was still possible to attract a very good class of person to the county court Bench. There was no further increase until 1951 when, as the noble and learned Viscount has explained, the salary was increased to £2,800. In my view, that was a wholly inadequate increase. I do not know whether it was the Government formed by my own Party or the present Government who were responsible, and I do not care: I made my views heard at that time. I said that it was wholly inadequate and a good many others said so, too.

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Now, in 1957, there is this belated act of justice—and only bare justice—in increasing their remuneration to £3,750 a year. Whether or not this figure is adequate only time will show. Whether it is capable of attracting the right kind of person to the Bench, I am not sure. It is vitally important that in this matter of getting the right people on the Bench, both as magistrates and as county court judges, we should not be cheeseparing. We should render a very ill-service to British justice if we tried to save a few pounds and, as a result, got the wrong quality of persons on the Bench. Yesterday I happened to meet a lawyer from New York who occupies the position of a county court judge. Without my cross-examining him about his salary, he volunteered the information that he gets the equivalent of £10,000 a year. Of course, I recognise that the cost of living in New York is higher than it is here, but, even making every allowance for that, £10,000 a year enables a much higher standard of living to be secured in New York than £3,750 does in this country.
I feel that we ought to keep this matter under review, and if the noble and learned Viscount, or his successor, at any time finds that he is not able to secure the right kind of person for the Bench or the magistracy, I hope that he will have no hesitation in making use of the new regulation which is incorporated in this Bill and will come to the House and ask for a review. And I hope that your Lordships will be very ready to review the remuneration in these circumstances. The only other comment I would make is that we are not being very generous in making the increase retrospective only to last April, when the proposal was announced. The injustice has continued over a far longer period. The noble and learned Viscount will remember that, as he himself said, he has been under pressure for two years. Therefore, it would not have been unreasonable or unfair to date this increase back to the same date as was adopted in the Bill just before your Lordships' House—namely, to 1956. It may be a little too late in the day to do that, but if it were at all possible, I am sure that we should be doing the right thing in treating county court judges and magistrates, and the other people dealt with in this Bill, in the same way as we dealt with the Comptroller
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and Auditor General in the previous Bill. Subject to these remarks, I welcome the Bill and assure the noble and learned Viscount that we shall put no difficulties in the way of its passage into law.
5.9 p.m.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, I should like to add a few words, because I was concerned with the history of this matter. I say at once that I am entirely in favour of this Bill. I agree with the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor that this is not a particularly auspicious moment in which to introduce it. It is rather unpleasant that we have to increase all these salaries, in view of the undoubted fact that there is a rise in the cost of living; but I believe, with my noble friend Lord Silkin, that, altogether apart from the cost of living, the county court judges are getting too little.
The fixation of their salary at £2,800 was done in our time, and I had a battle—I think I may say a battle royal—with my Chancellor of the Exchequer to get that increase, as I have no doubt the noble and learned Viscount has had. After all, it is the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to put up a resistance to every form of claim made upon him. My complaint was that he did not always differentiate and was apt to put up strong resistance where judicial salaries were concerned. However, there it was; I was able to get only £2,800 for the county court judges, and I confess that I was disappointed. I agree with all that Lord Silkin has said. I thought then, and I have thought ever since, that the salary of £2,800 was too little to attract the right class of man.
I understand (I shall be corrected if I am wrong), that the increase of salary now proposed does count for pension, and that supposing the county court judge has done twelve, thirteen or fourteen years (I think he has to do fifteen years for the full time) on the old salary, and retires on the new salary, his pension will be calcultaed on the new salary. If that is so, I think it is a wise step. I think we have made a mistake in regard to the salaries of High Court Judges. We have increased the salary of the High Court Judge from the £5,000, which it had been for a very long time, up to £8,000 but we have not increased the pension. From the public point of view, I believe that to be a most undesirable state of affairs. It is bound

1129
to have the tendency of inducing people to stay on and not to retire, because if they do retire they will get a wholly inadequate pension having regard to the salary which they enjoy. I do not think that is in the public interest—I will not say more about it than that. I rejoice, therefore, to find that under this Bill county court judges wil be able from now on to calculate their pension on the appropriate rate based on the new salary. In that way we differentiate them from High Court Judges.
I speak with some diffidence about this next matter, because it concerns me personally, but if the day ever comes (for many reasons I hope that it will not come for a long time, but for other reasons I should not mind if it came earlier) when the present Lord Chancellor himself is going to live on his pension, he will find that his pension was fixed in the year 1834 by an Act of King William IV: it was then expressed to be the sum of £5,000, which was to be "free of any tax or deduction whatsoever". In 1834 a pound was a pound; it was a golden sovereign. And it was thought, and I am sure all your Lordships will agree quite properly thought, that a man who had held the position of Lord Chancellor should be able to retire in relative affluence.
When the day comes that the present Lord Chancellor seeks to get his pension, he will find that an Act of Parliament of the year 1919 (I think it was) laid it down that, whereas the Act of 1834 said the pension was to be "free of any tax or deduction whatsoever", that did not mean free of income tax or surtax. That was the first blow, which occurred in the year 1919; and successive blows have come ever since. So the poor old ex-Lord Chancellor has to manage on what remains of the very handsome pension provided by the Act of His Majesty King William IV in the year 1834. The Lord Chancellor's salary has now, very properly, having regard to the work he has to do and the entertaining he has to do, been increased, but not his pension. There again, I believe that to be a wrong principle, though I forbear saying more about it because it concerns me personally.
I think it is right that the county court judges' salaries should be increased and that the pensions which they have should
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be based on the increased salary. That has been done. I confess that I do not think the increase in salary has been at all excessive. Indeed, if £2,800 was right in the year 1951—and I think it was too small—I doubt whether £3,750 can be right to-day. However, I am not a mathematician, and I should have to consult my noble friend Lord Pethick-Lawrence to find out what the equivalent of £2,800 in 1951 would be to-day. Having had battles about this in the past, I rejoice that the Lord Chancellor has been able to bring this about. Quite seriously, I believe it is foolish of us to think that we can get the right men to administer justice unless we pay them an appropriate and proper salary, which makes a man with a practice at the Bar willing to abandon that practice and take on judicial work. I welcome this Bill, and congratulate the Lord Chancellor on it.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I think all I need do is to thank the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, for the welcome they have given to the Bill. In order to preserve the perfect amity which has hitherto prevailed, I would just add a footnote to what the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt said. It is true that his Government arrived at the determination of the salaries in July, 1951, but the succeeding Government, of which I was a member, brought in the Bill. So we are in equal credit, or otherwise, according to the view that one takes.
I am glad that both noble Lords have stressed the need for securing really good men to do the difficult tasks that we set them, and I hope that this Bill will have that result. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, raised the question of the retrospectivity of the Bill. As I said, that goes back to the announcement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It follows the precedent of a few years ago, when the date was put back to the announcement made by the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, at that time. It is difficult if one makes retrospectivity go further back. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has in mind the position of the Comptroller and Auditor General when he was being brought into line with the Civil Service, who had already had their increases fixed at that earlier date; but the Judiciary are in a different position.

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Apart from that, I do not think there is anything between us on the Bill. I once again thank your Lordships for your reception of the Bill and hope that you will now help it on its way.
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed.

MINISTERIAL SALARIES BILL
5.20 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Bill had been endorsed with the Certificate of the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill, within the meaning of the Parliament Act, 1911.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, my noble friend the Leader of the House has asked me to convey his apologies to your Lordships, but a very urgent engagement has taken him away, and in these circumstances he has asked me to move the Second Reading of this Bill. The statement made in both Houses of Parliament, by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in another place and by my noble friend Lord Home in your Lordships' House on Thursday week last, July 4, will be fresh in your Lordships' memories, and I think in commending this Bill to your Lordships this afternoon I need say little more than that it contains the legislation required to carry into effect the proposals in regard to Ministerial salaries under £3,000 per annum contained in that statement which, so far as I am aware, was then received with approval by your Lordships.
Ministers of the ranks affected have, I think, had a rather hard deal hitherto. Their salaries have remained unchanged for several years, and I am sure your Lordships will not forget that while these Ministers are justly proud to serve their country and to give of their best in their positions of varying responsibilities, many of them have made sacrifices to do so because of the operation of rules which impose, and rightly impose, a prohibition as to the holding of directorships and the
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like on the holders of Ministerial office. These observations are particularly appropriate in the case of the younger members of the Administration who, naturally, hold the lesser offices with lower salaries.
There are two further points to which I might draw your Lordships' attention. First, the Leader of the Opposition in another place receives an increase in his salary, which is raised to £3,000 a year; and, secondly, Clause 3 brings Ministers within the scope of the Injury Warrant. They are now covered in the event of death or injury on duty in the same way as are civil servants and others employed in a civil capacity in the service of the Government. As your Lordships heard the statement a few days ago, I do not think I need occupy more time to-day. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
5.23 p.m.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, we have now reached the fifteenth item in the varied bill of fare which the Government have set before your Lordships this afternoon. A lady friend of mine once told me that one day a week she had an "eke" day, because she said that on that occasion all the little bits that were left over from all the other meals eked out the economy on that particular day. I am glad to think that the Government have eked out our business for this particular day with all these little bits left over from other days' discussion in this House.
With regard to the substance of this Bill, I am in full support of the measure, and I think most of those who sit with me on these Benches would agree with me. There are two or three points in connection with this matter which seem to demand separate treatment. In the first place, there is the question of the rise in the cost of living and all the expenses to which Ministers, like other human beings living in this country, are put, which calls for some increase in their salaries over a period of time. That is perfectly easily understood by everybody, and does not raise any special consideration except the question of whether we think the principle is right or wrong.
The second point is rather a subtle one. When I was Financial Secretary to the

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Treasury some twenty or more years ago, there was the specially hard case of Junior Ministers of the Crown. Whereas an ordinary Member of Parliament could put against his salary the cost of being a Member of Parliament and the expenses attaching thereto it was held by the Treasury at the time that a Minister could not put the expenses which he incurred as a Member of Parliament against his salary at all. I never quite agreed with that view, but that was the view which was taken, and from which I could not escape. The result was that a Junior Minister at that time, perhaps receiving only as much as £700 a year, and who was subject to quite considerable expense in so doing, and who might often hold his office for only a portion of the year, was really much worse off than an ordinary Member of the House of Commons. Nevertheless, that was the position at that time.
That principle prevailed until fairly recently—I do not remember the precise year—when a Minister of the Crown was allowed to treat £500 of the money he received as being due to his membership of the House of Commons, and, therefore, towards that sum expenses could be attached, with the result that he received relief for his expenditure which he had not been able to get hitherto. I am not perfectly clear with regard to this Bill, and I do not know whether the Lord Chancellor is in a position to inform me to-day. If not, perhaps he would do it on a later occasion. But if he is able to answer me I shall be glad. I have read the Explanatory Memorandum at the beginning of the Bill, and I am still not quite clear. The man who has been getting £3,000 a year as a Minister is now to get £3,750. Does anything more than that arise from the fact that he might also be a Member of the House of Commons? I rather gather not. I think it is correct that £3,750 is the total emolument he receives, and that whole or part of it may be chargeable with expenses. Is the £3,750 the maximum? I think it is, but if it is not, I should like to know. Can expenses be charged on part of it, at any rate?
In the second place, we come to the question of the Leader of the Opposition in another place. A good deal of badinage passed between the Front Bench leaders there on this matter when it was being discussed the other day. Each suggested
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that the other had the greater interest in the raising of the salary owing to the possibility that a General Election might come and alter the balance of the Parties. The salary of the Leader of the Opposition has been put up, and I should like here again to be quite clear whether the Leader of the Opposition draws any sum as a Member of Parliament in addition to his salary, or whether the salary of £3,000 includes the whole £1,750 which an ordinary Member of Parliament is entitled to draw. That is the second point on which I should like to be quite clear.
Another interesting feature with regard to the position of the salary drawn by the Leader of the Opposition is, if I am not mistaken—it certainly was so at the beginning—that it is not voted by Parliament; it is on the Consolidated Fund. The reason for that is obvious; it is that the Leader of the Opposition is there largely to oppose the Government, and obviously, therefore, nearly all, or a great many, of his speeches are in direct opposition to the wishes of the Government. If the House of Commons, the majority of which is on the side of the Government, were to feel disposed to reduce the salary of the Leader of the Opposition because of his opposition, then, if it were not for this provision, they could do so. The salary has to be on the Consolidated Fund from the beginning; then that power to alter it is not open either to the Government or to the House of Commons because that salary is beyond their control.
I presume that that position still stands, but I am a little puzzled by the use of the word "maximum" in Clause 1 (3) which speaks of
"The maximum amount of the annual salary authorised…to be paid to the Leader of the Opposition".
I am not quite clear what the word "maximum" means there. Does that mean inclusive of any Parliamentary salary; or precisely what is the effect? If the Lord Chancellor is in a position to tell me, first of all on the point with regard to ordinary Junior Ministers, secondly, with regard to the Leader of the Opposition and, thirdly, the precise meaning of "maximum", I shall be very glad for his elucidation. With those general remarks, I will conclude as I began, by saying that noble Lords sitting with me, or most of them at any rate,

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wish to support the Bill. They think it is fully due and right to be introduced.
5.32 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence. I think I can make the position perfectly clear. It arises from the complication which he will recall, that for certain matters legislation is necessary and for certain other matters only a Resolution of the House of Commons is necessary. Therefore, the Bill increases the salary of the Ministers concerned from £3,000 to £3,750—to take the case of the Ministers of State. But, in addition to that, the Resolution of the House of Commons gives the Minister in the House of Commons £750 of the Parliamentary salary, and he can charge Parliamentary expenses against this £750 for tax purposes.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: So that the total really is £4,500?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The total is £4,500, but made up in two ways: as to £3,750 under the Bill and as to £750 under a Resolution of the House of Commons. He can set his expenses against the £750. May I remind the noble Lord why? When I was in another place, there was a Select Committee on Members' Expenses. I am speaking from memory, but I am almost sure I am accurate. The Select Committee found that the average expenses of Members as a whole in another place were £750. So that they do get the money. The same applies to the Leader of the Opposition. His salary under the Bill is increased from £2,000 to £3,000. Under a Resolution of the House of Commons he gets £750, being a Member of the House of Commons. So that all the people included in the Bill who are Members of the House of Commons will be entitled to draw £750 of their Parliamentary remuneration and put expenses against it.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, may I interrupt, just to clarify the position further, so that there is no misunderstanding? Before this new proposal, the Junior Minister received £3,000 and, in addition, £500 of the Parliamentary salary; so he received £3,500. Therefore, you are putting it up by £1,000 from £3,500 up to £4,500; and at the same time the amount that he can
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charge against expenses has gone up from £500 to £750. I think that is correct, is it not?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: That is perfectly right. But in the old days in the case of the smaller Ministerial salaries the Minister was allowed to draw £500 of his Parliamentary salary and put expenses against it. The noble Lord was right as to his total originally. I think it will be useful if I go through the list, so that the noble Lord may look at it in Hansard. The Paymaster General, the Ministers of State, the Minister without Portfolio, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury and the Solicitor General for Scotland go up from £3,000 to £3,750. If they are Members of the House of Commons they get the extra £750.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: That is an extra £750, as against £500?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: An extra £750 which previously was £500. I think that is perfectly right now. The next group is the Finacial Secretary to the Treasury and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury—their salaries were £2,000 and they now go up to £3,750; and they get £750 instead of £500 out of the Parliamentary salary. The Parliamentary Secretaries, the Civil Lord of the Admiralty and the Assistant Postmaster General received formerly £1,500 and now go up to £2,500; and, if they are in the House of Commons, they get £750 instead of £500. The Captain, Gentleman-at-Arms, the Captain, Yeoman of the Guard, and the Junior Lord of the Treasury (Deputy Chief Whip) go up from £1,200 to £2,200, and they also get the £750 if they are in the House of Commons. Then, the Lords in Waiting, the Treasurer of the Household, the Comptroller of the Household, the Vice-Chamberlain of the Household and the Junior Lords of the Treasury go up from £1,000 to £2,000 and also get £750 instead of £500 if they are in the House of Commons. The salary of the Leader of the Opposition goes up from £2,000 to £3,000, and he gets the £750—I am not sure whether he got anything before; but he certainly gets £750 now. I am sorry that that is the only point on which I am not certain.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I take it that he still remains on the Consolidated Fund.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: So far as I know, he does. I think I have now given the noble Lord every office and every increase, and I hope that that information will be useful. There is one point I want to make, in order to have it on record. It is extraordinary what ideas people get about ministerial salaries. Many people in this country think that ministerial salaries are untaxed—why, I do not know. As any of us who have been Ministers know only too well, the contrary is the case. But it is one of these odd ideas that creep round, and I think this is a good occasion to make it perfectly clear that these salaries are subject to tax, and the only relaxation that is allowed is for Members of another place who get that £750. They can use it for expenses, which have been found, for the whole of the House of Commons, to average £750.
If I may end on a slightly lighter note, I would refer to the utterance of certainty the best known, if not the greatest, of my predecessors, namely, the Lord Chancellor in lolanthe. Noble Lords will remember he finished a very good song by saying:
"With one for him—and one for he—
With one for you—and one for ye—
And one for thou—and one for thee—
But never, or never, a one for me!"
The same applies to the present increases
5.40 p.m.
LORD MCCORQUODALE OF NEWTON: My Lords, before we leave this matter I wonder whether I might express one view which I hold very strongly—it follows on what the Lord Chancellor has said. I much regret that the senior Ministers are left out of this whole scheme. Of all the people in this country who are underpaid, our Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of Cabinet rank are the ones who are most underpaid. I do hope that the time will come soon when their salaries, as well as the others, can be assessed on a more realistic note. I presume, however, that the senior Ministers will benefit to the tune of the £750, which
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may help them a little. But the amount that we pay our Ministers, especially those in the Cabinet, with the responsibility they bear for the country, is at present quite derisory.
5.43 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I can speak again only with the leave of your Lordships, and I think that you will agree that, for anyone in this position, one should not do more than to thank my noble friend Lord McCorquodale of Newton for what he has said. But he will realise that there are other considerations which Ministers may take into account at a situation like this. I am none the less grateful for what he has said. I am sure that all of us who have been Cabinet Ministers will realise the motive for which he said it. I cannot say more.
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed.

GREENOCK PORT AND HARBOURS ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.
TYNE IMPROVEMENT BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.

CROYDON CORPORATION BILL
Returned from the Commons with the Amendment agreed to.
House adjourned at sixteen minutes before six o'clock.