Lords Sitting of 5 March 1957

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

REPLENISHMENT OF UNDERGROUND WATER
2.35 p.m.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government if they will indicate what methods are being applied to recharge some underground sources of water supply, having regard to the depth to which the water tables have sunk owing to extractions (a) below Nottingham, and (b) below Grimsby—Scunthorpe and London Basin, and further, whether experience in these matters in U.S.A., Holland and Germany does not supply guidance.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): My Lords, artificial replenishment of underground water is being successfully practised in the countries mentioned in the Question and elsewhere. The results are being studied here to see whether the methods used are applicable to geological conditions in this country. No large-scale recharge is at present being undertaken here, but information is being collected from certain small-scale operations in various parts of the country. Although the chalk is the formation which has suffered greatest over-development, the Bunter sandstone appears to be the most promising geological formation for recharge purposes. Following an engineering and geological survey, preliminary studies are being made of the practicability of recharge in the Nottingham area. The success of the operation is likely to depend largely on how far a suitable charging water can be obtained.
Quite apart from engineering problems, there are administrative, financial and legal difficulties which need careful examination before any large scheme
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can be undertaken in this country. A sub-committee of the Central Advisory Water Committee is at present inquiring into the growing demand for water and possible means of meeting the demand. Its findings will no doubt suggest how far it is necessary to pursue this and other special measures for maintaining the country's water stocks.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE:. May I thank the noble Earl for his Answer and for the trouble he has taken. Will he allow me to return to the charge at some future date?
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: Certainly.

NEW SEVERN BRIDGE
2.37 p.m.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government the estimated cost of the Severn Bridge.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF DEFENCE (LORD MANCROFT): My Lords, the estimated cost of the Severn Bridge, together with the immediate approach roads necessary to link it to the existing trunk road system at Almondsbury and Crick, on the Gloucester-Bristol and Gloucester-Newport roads respectively, is about £15½ million. This in itself would bring great traffic benefits, but to get full value from the bridge it would also be necessary to build additional new roads in the area.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his reply, and I note the figure of £15½ million, with which I am largely in agreement. But may I ask him where the discrepancy occurs between the statement he has just made and the statement made by my right honourable friend the Minister for Welsh Affairs in another place on February 11 [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 564 (No. 49), col. 1036], when my right honourable friend said:
"The point about the Severn Bridge is that it is an extremely costly project. It will cost at least £30 million with all the works involved…"
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I think my right honourable friend was referring to a more complex system of roads than I was referring to in my reply. For instance, I have seen even the figure of £40 million mentioned, but this includes road improvements in South Wales which are either being done now or can be done in the future. The figure I gave to my noble friend Lord Derwent applies only to the bridge and the more or less immediate road system.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I am not clear about this figure of £30 million. May I ask my noble friend whether that figure includes the cost of the new trunk road to Birmingham and another one to London, or what does it include? It has never been made clear.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I think I am right in saying that the figure of £30 million or £35 million to which the noble Lord refers does contain the cost of a new portion of the Birmingham-Bristol motorway and possibly a new road from Newport to Crick. But I will look into that figure and will let him know exactly what it contains. It certainly contains a great deal more than the figure I gave him.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, it would help if we could be told what is the actual estimated cost of the bridge. Then we shall know what is really intended by all those items for roads.
LORD MANCROFT: I can appreciate my noble friend's point. I think the actual cost of the Severn and the Wye Bridges is between £11 million and £12 million.
EARL HOWE: Could we be told about the Severn Bridge? That £12 million is for the Severn and the Wye Bridges. The Question deals with the estimated cost of the Severn Bridge. Can we be told what is the estimated cost of that bridge?
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I will certainly try to find out the actual figure for the noble Earl. But, as he will appreciate, to give the cost of the bridge without the cost of the work on the immediate road system is quite unrealistic.
EARL HOWE: Surely the Question is perfectly plain—namely, what is the
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estimated cost of the Severn Bridge. We can find out the rest of the cost from various statements made by Ministers. But can we now be told the actual cost of the bridge?
LORD MANCROFT: Yes, my Lords, with a little notice I will try to give the noble Earl exactly the sort of Answer that he wants.

FATSTOCK (GUARANTEE PAYMENTS) ORDER, 1957
2.42 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL ST. ALDWYN): My Lords, your Lordships will recall that last October we debated an amendment to the current Fatstock (Guarantee Payments) Order when the authority of this House was sought to the making of supplementary payments to producers of fat cattle during the 1956–57 fatstock year. At that time I said we should be introducing a new system in the fatstock year beginning 25th March this year which would make supplementary payments unnecessary in future. The purpose of the Order which is now before the House is to give effect to these new arrangements. Like the Fatstock (Guarantee Payments) Order, 1955, which it replaces, it is entirely procedural. It covers fat sheep and fat pigs as well as fat cattle but it does not state the price guarantees or define the different classes of fatstock. These are matters which are determined following the Annual Review, and they will be announced separately in a White Paper which will be presented to the House when the Review has been concluded.
Before I set out the main details of the new proposals, I think it might be helpful if I were to remind your Lordships of the considerations which led up to this change of system. The present system of calculation, which is based on a 52-week rolling average, has been used since the decontrol of meat and livestock in July, 1954, and by and large it has worked reasonably well. Last year, however, the sharp and sustained decline in cattle prices showed up one of its main defects, namely, that the rates of guarantee did not reflect sufficiently quickly current changes in market prices. This had the result that many producers

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in the early part of the year lost money, and the whole prosperity of this very important part of the farming industry was at stake. It was for that reason that supplementary payments were made to cattle producers last year, and in order to avoid similar difficulties in future I said that we should be introducing a new Scheme under which the rates of guarantee would respond much more quickly to fluctuations in market prices. Because of this greater responsiveness, the rate of guarantee under the new Scheme will fluctuate from week to week to a much greater extent than hitherto, but producers' returns over the year as a whole will approximate much more closely to the standard price.
The Order which is now before the House embodies the new arrangements which will come into effect on March 25. Briefly, the changes are as follows. The standard prices for cattle and sheep will vary seasonally, thus reflecting variations in costs and marketings. The standard price for pigs will not vary seasonally but will continue to be subject to adjustment for changes in feed costs, which account for over 75 per cent. of total pig production costs. Under the present system, the rate of guarantee is announced in advance for periods of four weeks. Under the new system it will be announced in advance, but as a weekly rate for each class of fatstock; and in order that the guarantee payment shall reflect as nearly as possible current marketing experience, it will be calculated each week by reference to forward market trends, as well as to recent market prices.
The calculation will be as follows: the guarantee will be related to an 8-week period, and the rate for any week will be the difference between, on the one hand, the average of four weeks actual plus four weeks estimated market prices, and, on the other, the standard prices averaged over this same 8-week period. The stabilising limits, which have proved their value in the present Scheme, will be retained in order to guard against sudden and unexpected short-term price movements. This will mean that the returns received by producers cannot fall below a prescribed limit from the weekly standard prices. The stabilising limits, which will be closer to the standard price than at present, will be determined after the Annual Review and will be announced
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in the White Paper with the seasonal standard prices.
Last October I said that my right honourable friend and I had had very helpful and amicable discussions with the producers' representatives about possible new schemes. I am glad to say that the scheme which is to be introduced in a few weeks' time, and for which authority is sought in the Order now before the House, was the outcome of these very helpful discussions, and it has the fullest support of the National Farmers' Unions of the United Kingdom. I feel confident, therefore, that this new system will be as well received by the industry as a whole as it has by its leaders, and that it will provide a sound basis on which to build an expanding and prosperous livestock industry in this country. I beg to move
Moved, That the Fatstock (Guarantee Payments) Order, 1957, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Wednesday last, he approved.—(Earl St. Aldwyn.)
2.47 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, we are very glad to know that the Order has been produced and that the producers' associations which have been consulted are largely in agreement. The noble Earl, however, in his explanation, raised one or two points which make me wonder. I gather from him that there are to be wider fluctuations than would actually be the case at the present time but that the system would work under a formula. It seems to me, from the figures quoted, that the ordinary farmer will not understand the formula very clearly. Using that formula, with four weeks included in the consideration, the ultimate guaranteed price will be announced weekly—that is, in the week after the known average sales have come to hand. I suspect that that system will certainly be very much better than was: the case twenty-one months ago, a period which provided a shocking experience for farmers, who then lost, on their fatstock cattle, money which has never been recouped.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: Oh, yes.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, not really—or perhaps I do not know the right fatstock farmers. But what strikes me—and it is a matter to which I hope the Minister will

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still give consideration, to see what pressure can be brought to bear on the Treasury—is that it would be far better for the country, in the cost of guaranteed prices, and also in guaranteeing prices to all fatstock farmers, and not merely to the large producers, if there were a steady guarantee. The large fatstock producer who can send six large batches of cattle to market in the course of a year is easily able to adjust the low price with the high price, subject to guarantee; whereas the small man, sending in an odd animal at a time, is hit if he sends it in the wrong week. He is not going to be too well off, although he will certainly be better off than he was under the previous Scheme. A steady guarantee, which is what is really needed, would cost the Government less in subsidy, and would possibly lead to a lower average price to the producer; but it would be fair and known and would be a type of price at which a farmer could plan to produce. That is my only quarrel with the Scheme. I welcome the fact that Her Majesty's Government have been trying to repair the situation which arose before, but even now this Scheme does not satisfy my idea of what ought to be done.
2.50 p.m.
LORD WISE: My Lords, may I add a few words to what my noble Leader has said in regard to this particular Order? I am afraid that I am quite unrepentant, as I was in October, on the question of marketing and the provisions of this particular Order. The Order is highly complicated, and I think it will be found difficult of understanding by the farmer or anyone else who reads it. But I must say that the arrangement now proposed seems to be better than the one we had last year. I hope that when the Review of prices comes out—as I expect it will do in a few weeks time—the standard prices and the prices which will be paid under this Order will be more satisfactory to the farmers.
The noble Earl said that this Scheme had the approval of the whole of the farming community. I am not quite sure that that is so. My noble Leader has referred to the ins and outs of the marketing system which undoubtedly hit the small farmer, particularly the man who cannot send cattle to market week by
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week. I am certain that the farming community as a whole would prefer a fixed guaranteed price, on a live weight basis if necessary. The system of marketing, the system of disposing of cattle, as it affects people who are producers and others, is extremely difficult and uncertain at the present time. I hope that in my short lifetime I may be able to see a different system once again coming into the farming industry in regard to marketing. This one is far too uncertain. As my noble Leader has said, we producers are likely to lose money, even though we receive money from the deficiency payments and the stabilising payments and all the rest of it. What I want to see is certainty once again brought into the farming industry.
2.52 p.m.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I am grateful to the two noble Lords who have spoken, and who, I think, have welcomed this Order, in spite of some mild criticism. I think perhaps it may be well if I explain in a little more detail how the calculation will work. It will operate like this. On the Wednesday of each week the rate of guarantee for the following week will be calculated and will be announced on that same day. In other words, every producer will know on the Wednesday before the week in which he is proposing to sell what the rate of guarantee will be—that is, subject to any alteration which may be necessary as the result of the average return to producers in the following week being above or below the margin we have set each side of the standard price. That limitation on each side we have found has been of great value up to now, and we shall, as I said, be reducing the margin quite considerably, so that the variation suffered by the average seller will be very much less than has been the case in the past. I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Wise, will always stick to his desire for a flat guaranteed price, regardless of market requirements, consumer desires or anything else. I am afraid that we believe that the consumer should have a reasonable chance of expressing his desires to the farmer, and not just to the Government, so that the farmer will be encouraged to produce what is required by the consumer.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

NORTHERN IRELAND (COMPENSATION FOR COMPULSORY PURCHASE) BILL
2.55 p.m.
House in Committee (according to Order); Bill reported without amendment.

RATING AND VALUATION BILL
2.58 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Noble Lords may well recall that my right honourable friend the former Minister of Housing and Local Government gage a pledge in December, 1954, that when the results of revaluation of all property could be fully measured he would consider whether any changes were necessary. The preliminary results of the revaluation were published last March, but even now the full picture is not really available. Nevertheless, my right honourable friend has sufficient information to show beyond any doubt whatever that the recent increases which have occurred in assessments have placed an unduly heavy burden upon the occupiers of shops and other commercial properties.
In these circumstances, Her Majesty's Government feel that it would not be equitable to leave matters as they stand, and accordingly this Bill seeks to remedy the position. Under the Bill the rateable value of shops and other commercial properties will be reduced by one-fifth, or, where a part of the hereditament is used as a private dwelling, by one-seventh. The reduction will take place from April 1 this year, and will last for the period of the existing valuation lists. The Bill also deals with two other matters. First, the contributions which are paid by the State-owned public utilities are to be adjusted secondly, the method of calculating the Exchequer equalisation grant is to be amended to take account of rating relief to charities.
Noble Lords will remember that dwelling-houses are to-day assessed at 1939 values, whilst all other properties are assessed at current values. The average increase in the assessments of houses is about 40 per cent., but a very
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much bigger increase has fallen on shops, offices, and other miscellaneous properties. Their average increase is about 125 per cent., so I think that it will be conceded on all sides of the House that this group of ratepayers has been, saddled with an excessive burden. The alterations contemplated by the Bill are of a temporary nature and will cease at the next revaluation in 1961 when, as the law stands at present, dwelling-houses are due to be assessed at current values.
Let me turn to the Bill. Clause 1 makes the alteration to winch I have referred, but it cannot be made retrospective and will, therefore, operate from April 1 this year. Clause 2 deals with payments in lieu of rates which are made by the British Transport Commission and the Central Electricity Authority. Part V of the Local Government Act, 1948, took out of rating almost all the railway and canal properties which are owned by the British Transport Commission. The Act substituted a system of payments based on a standard amount. This standard amount was based upon the aggregate of rates which were paid by the railway companies in 1947–48, and, after certain adjustments, was fixed by the Act of 1948 at £1,810,000. The payment which is due in any one year is calculated by adjusting the standard amount by a very intricate and complicated formula, with which I need not weary the House, except to point out that the amount is proportionately related to the average rate poundage for the previous year.
As a result of the revaluation of all other properties, the average poundage for 1956–57 has shown an abnormal decrease, and in consequence the estimated payment by the British Transport Commission of about £2¼ million for 1956–57 would fall to £1½ million for 1957–58. Under this clause, the payment to be made by the British Transport Commission for next year will be almost the same as that for this year. This is achieved by an amendment of the standard amount in the 1948 Act.
The arrangements for payments in lieu of rates by the Central Electricity Authority, and the effect of revaluation on the amounts they should pay, are similar. In this case, the Authority will pay as much in 1957–58, subject to minor adjustments, as they would have done if there had been no revaluation. Their standard

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amount will therefore be increased from £11¼ million under the 1948 Act, to £18,280,000. I do not think that the House would wish me to delve any deeper into this complicated scheme.
Clause 3 deals with the rating liability of Gas Boards. As your Lordships will be aware, the rateable values upon which Gas Boards are rated are calculated in accordance with a formula laid down in the Rating and Valuation Act, 1955. The Gas Boards differ from the other State-owned industries in that they pay their rates direct to the rating authority in the area where the Board manufactures or sells gas. I do not wish to weary the House with a large number of figures but to appreciate the purpose and intention of this clause, some figures are essential. Under the 1955 Act, the rates payable in 1955–56 by the Gas Boards were about £3½ million, but although in 1956–57 the rateable values of their properties increased slightly, the rates actually paid amounted to about £2½ million because of the abnormal fall in rate poundages to which I have already referred. This clause has the effect of increasing the Gas Boards' assessments by 70 per cent. from the year 1957 onwards. This increase is roughly equal to the average increase upon revaluation in the rateable values of properties assessed in the normal way. Here let me point out that the treatment accorded to the Gas Boards is equivalent to that accorded to the Central Electricity Authority.
I turn finally to Clause 4 of the Bill, which deals with the effect of the relief of charities on the Exchequer equalisation grant. The effect of Section 8 of the 1955 Act is that charitable bodies do not pay rates in full on the rateable value of their properties. Thus the local authority suffers a loss of rate income, although the rateable values in the valuation list are not reduced. Exchequer equalisation grants depend on the rateable value per head in such a way that the lower the rateable value per head the greater the grant which is received. Since the assessments on charitable bodies are not reduced under Section 8 of the 1955 Act, any local authority receiving an Exchequer equalisation grant gets no extra grant to compensate for the loss of rate income. This, I am advised, has had a serious effect in Cambridgeshire,
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Cardiganshire and Caernarvonshire. Accordingly, Clause 4 of the Bill provides for the scaling down of rateable values, for the purpose of calculating the grants, in proportion to the reduction in the rates chargeable.
Those are all the points to which I think I need call the attention of your Lordships in this Bill. I have tried to deal with the more important clauses, and I commend the whole Bill to your Lordships. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Monster.)

NUCLEAR POWER PROGRAMME
3.10 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF POWER (LORD MILLS): My Lords, perhaps it will be convenient to your Lordships if, with the permission of the House, I make a statement about the nuclear power programme.
The Government, in conjunction with the English and Scottish Electricity Authorities and the Atomic Energy Authority, have now completed their re-examination of the nuclear power programme outlined in the White Paper of February, 1955, which set a target of some 1,500 to 2,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity in operation in the country by the end of 1965. Since we already spend some £250 million per annum on importing fuel, chiefly oil, and this burden on our balance of payments will continue to grow, the importance of our need to develop nuclear power as a source of energy cannot be in doubt. Our task has therefore been to consider the extent to which the 1955 programme can be accelerated in view of technical advances within the last two years.
It is the considered opinion of our expert advisers that in the light of present knowledge the English and Scottish Electricity Authorities can reasonably aim at having at least 5,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity in operation by the end of 1965, and that if technological development continues to be favourable and the necessary physical and financial resources can be found, a figure of 6,000 megawatts could be achieved by that date.

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The Government have accordingly decided, with the full agreement of the Electricity Authorities and the Atomic Energy Authority, to adopt as the basis for present planning a range of 5,000 to 6,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity in operation by the end of 1965. This means that the supply of raw materials for nuclear generation, the acquisition of sites and the planning of the transmission network will be on a scale sufficient to bring 6,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity into operation by the end of 1965. The actual amount of nuclear capacity to be installed by that date will be subject to technical experience and development as planning progresses, including the trend of capital costs, and to the availability of physical and financial resources. I am authorised to say that the Government of Northern Ireland are to-day announcing that the Electricity Board for Northern Ireland intend, at the instance of the Government, to bring into commission a 150 megawatts nuclear station in 1963 or 1964.
The execution of this nuclear programme would make a major contribution to our energy resources: a full year's operation of 6,000 megawatts generating capacity would save some 18 million tons of coal. But it would also mean a large increase in the annual investment programme of the Electricity Authorities during the early 'sixties and this would represent a very heavy burden on the nation's capital resources during a period when those resources are likely in any event to be seriously strained.
The programme will moreover involve the erection of new power stations and of overhead transmission lines in parts of the country which have not hitherto felt the impact of the nation's requirements for electricity. This is unfortunately inevitable because nuclear stations raise special siting problems. Her Majesty's Government and the Electricity Authorities are determined to carry through the programme with the least possible interference with the amenities of our countryside or with the rights of individuals. But we believe that this can be done and at the same time some provision be made for that acceleration of the present procedure which is essential if the programme is not to be seriously delayed. My right honourable friend the Paymaster General will accordingly be tabling amendments to existing legislation for inclusion in the Electricity Bill which
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is at present being considered in another place.
I would only add that nothing said about the prospects of the nuclear power programme in any way affects the importance of the coal industry. However rapidly we develop nuclear energy, coal will remain the basis of our economy and the need to exploit to the full our national coal resources remains as urgent as ever.
3.16 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, we are obliged to the noble Lord for making this statement. It contains a certain amount of information and it certainly paints a picture of a proposed vast expansion going up from the existing 1,000 to 2,000 megawatts to 6,000 megawatts. That is, indeed, a large programme. It is comforting to think that the noble Lord has warned the public in the statement about the heavy burdens upon the nation which may have to be met, both financial and physical. I am wondering whether his reference to "physical" is confined to interference with amenities, of whether he has in mind also that there may be some difficulty in getting the raw material for the actual development of the nuclear energy. The phrase is rather cryptic, and I should like to be clear about it.
The general picture that I have from the statement, a copy of which the noble Lord so courteously let me have to read before he made it, brings some doubts to my mind. The last paragraph, which says that there is not likely to be very much impairment of the prospects of the coal industry, is comforting. Apparently, according to the statement, the programme is to relieve the burden on the country from the heavy import of fuel oil, to some extent, and is going to save 18 million tons of coal. The prospect there, put together, is quite stupendous, when one comes to look at it. But it would be much more comforting if, against the actual cost saved in those two classes of importation, we could know something of the kind of financial burden that the noble Lord referred to in the statement.
As to procedure, I thought that, in general, with a project of this kind, so large, so important and with such impact on the national economy, it would be reasonable to ask for a White Paper. I

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see from the statement that the Government propose to have Amendments inserted to the Electricity Bill which is now before the other place. I should have thought that this project being so vast, it would have been much more reasonable, before that is done, for the Government to submit a White Paper for debate in Parliament upon the financial and physical resources available to undertake this programme. Unless a Paper giving that detail can be prepared, I do not think Parliament is really in a position to meet, with proper debating thought, the kind of Amendment which it is proposed to put into a Bill already before the other place. I should be very much encouraged if the noble Lord, no doubt with the cooperation of the noble Marquess who leads the House and who knows so much about the nuclear side of this matter, could tell us that he will produce a White Paper giving something like the estimated cost, in stages, of the proposed programme and of any other interference likely to take place in the national economy. I hope he may be able to do that.
3.20 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, I should like to support the noble Viscount in expressing our thanks to the noble Lord the Minister of Power for his clear indication of the new, or rather the expanded, programme proposals of Her Majesty's Government in the field of nuclear power. I do not wish to anticipate the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, who next week is to call attention to the matter of siting of atomic power stations, but I should like to ask the Minister whether he can give an assurance that full attention is being given to the possibility, or perhaps even the likelihood, that, within about a generation or so, the production of nuclear power may be achieved within a small laboratory, or even within a small box no bigger than the Dispatch Box from which the noble Lord spoke a few moments ago. With this in mind, will Her Majesty's Government press on with all urgency the development of more modern and compact methods of power production, before the remaining amenities and beauties of our more remote and invaluable countryside become totally engulfed and for ever spoilt by vast and
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rapidly obsolescent power stations? On asking a similar question on a previous occasion, I was rather curtly told that the steam engine became obsolescent as soon as Stephenson had invented it. I hope that on this occasion the noble Lord will perhaps be able to give me a rather more helpful reply.
EARL ATTLEE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he can give us any round figure for this expenditure? We are told that it is very vast, but at the moment I do not know what is the Government's conception of "vast."
3.22 p.m.
LORD LAWSON: My Lords, I think it is a good thing that we have had a statement upon this matter in general, but I am wondering why at this particular moment your Lordships' House is being "jumped" with a statement of this kind, especially in view of the fact that there is down a Motion on this matter. This is no Party question; not a single glint of Party indications is involved. Yet certain clear questions are raised. In view of the obvious apprehension that we saw when Questions were put a week or two ago in your Lordships' House, I am wondering why this statement has been so hurriedly made to-day without having an opportunity of debating either a Motion from the Opposition or my own particular Motion.
It is said, of course, that these are simply nuclear stations for the supply of electricity. It is said that that does not imply anything more than electricity going into the Grid. That is a very childlike assumption, because, when the opportunity is given, I shall show that the nuclear stations may well precipitate industrial reorganisation by the very provisions industry will need to make. If that is so, then I say that, from the electricity point of view alone, the whole course of what will perhaps be a greater industrial revolution than we have had is being decided before Parliament has been consulted. I want also to make the point that members of this House must be aware of the great disturbance felt on grounds of amenity in reference to the siting of these stations. I can raise that matter, because I am not now on the National Parks Commission. I have known what has been going on and it is no good discussing—
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, I do not wish to intervene unduly early, but the practice of this House is that, after a statement, it is possible to make a brief comment, but not a speech. I think the noble Lord is really embarking upon a speech. I am quite certain that my noble friend Lord Mills will agree when I say that the Government will be happy to have a debate, when we shall welcome any remarks which the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, may wish to make. But I hardly think that this is an appropriate occasion for such remarks, because it is not one upon which the Government can properly reply to the points he is making.
LORD LAWSON: My Lords, I did not wish to enter into a long speech. I was making what I thought were comments that were made necessary by the precipitation of this programme upon your Lordships' House. All I will say about the question of amenities is that it looks to me as though the National Parks Act is being torn up. We shall have some questions to ask upon that when the opportunity arises for debate.
3.27 p.m.
VISCOUNT HALL: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for the last paragraph in the statement, in which he refers to the coal industry. All the talk we hear about the amount of coal which is to be saved by the application of nuclear power to electrical generation has led to a feeling that the coal industry is becoming decadent, so I am pleased that that paragraph was put in.
There are two questions which I should like to ask the noble Lord, one of which has been referred to by my noble friend Lord Attlee. In the last two statements we have had upon the development of nuclear power for electricity, we were told the number of stations which the programme set out to build, and also the cost of the programme. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether we can have that information this afternoon, because the Government must have some knowledge as to what this programme is going to cost. In view of the fact that we have made more progress than any other country in the production of electricity through nuclear power, and as there is no doubt that there are many other nations in the world who would like to build nuclear
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power stations, I should also like to ask whether, in the programme which the noble Lord has outlined, the Government have kept in mind the need for export trade. It seems to me that one of our exports ought to be nuclear power stations. I notice that America has already received orders for nuclear power stations from various countries of the world, and I should like to ask the noble Lord whether the Government have that aspect in mind.
One other question which is important is the economic side. Can the noble Lord give some idea about the cost of generation of electricity under this new system, taking into consideration the capital cost of the programme, and also the fact that the raw material required, uranium, has to be imported into this country. That in itself is an expensive commodity, and I should like to ask whether the noble Lord can give us some idea as to the difference in the cost of generating a unit of electricity by nuclear power and by the modern conventional process?
3.29 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, would the noble Lord accept from me that the brusque interrogation he has received from this side of the House is only a measure of our intense anxiety in the statement he has made? As my noble friend Lord Attleee has asked: what is the capital cost? May I suggest to the noble Lord that it will not be short of £1,000 million? Has the noble Lord, and have the Government, measured this against the other capital adventures upon which, as a nation, they think we should embark? The noble Lord will realise that we have only recently debated an expenditure of £1,200 million for the railways, £80 million of which is to build 24-ton steel wagons for transporting coal from pithead to power stations. Now we are going to have a 275-kilovolt grid system over the country, with power stations sited at pithead to save transporting coal by rail.
The noble Lord now comes to the House with a £1,000 million project for putting up 1,000-kilowatt power stations—on what grid? The most ominous part of his, statement, if I may read it to your Lordships, is this:
"The programme will moreover involve the erection of new power stations and of overhead transmission lines in parts of the country

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which have not hitherto felt the impact of the nation's requirements for electricity."
May I ask the noble Lord—I am sure he is fully alive to this problem—whether he will see that some far better machinery is set up to listen to the legitimate complaints of the citizens of this country than is set up under his present powers for public inquiries, or, if I may say so, alleged public inquiries, into the destructive nature of the erection of a 275-kilovolt grid? If the noble Lord will forgive my saying so, these inquiries are fast becoming public brawls and not public inquiries. I hope that in the outcry about the siting of some of these atomic stations the noble Lord will not be judge in his own case in the public inquiries that will be held.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, would it not be more in accordance with our usual procedure if the Opposition were to put down a Motion and debate it, and let us get on with our Business this afternoon?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No!
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: We expect an answer.
3.33 p.m.
LORD MILLS: My Lords, I will try to deal as fully as I am capable with the various questions put to me by noble Lords. First of all, dealing with the questions of the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, I would say that by "material resources" I meant not only sites but steel and other materials, and perhaps above all the brains of the scientists and the engineers who will be engaged upon this work. I have reviewed that situation in order that I should not put before your Lordships a programme which seemed incapable of being carried out. I stressed the importance of coal because it is our fundamental wealth. Our energy requirements are growing so rapidly that we need more coal, more oil and nuclear energy. We have, I think, to bear in mind that world competition is growing and, if we are going to meet it, we have to press on with the mechanisation of our industries, which means more power. Coal, therefore, will remain the fundamental fuel upon which we shall rely for as far ahead as I care to look.
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The noble Viscount asked whether it was our intention to issue a White Paper. That is not our present intention, and for this reason: the programme must remain a flexible one subject to periodical review, and I doubt whether it would be your Lordships' wish that there should be a White Paper every time we looked at this subject. In regard to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rea, about whether we could not have a compact station which would not injure the countryside at all, I think that is asking me to look further ahead than I possibly can. All I can say is that the development of the atomic sciences is proceeding very fast, and nothing at all would surprise me.
The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, asked about the cost. I think I can give him some figures, if he will take them as estimated figures. They are the best estimate we can make in present circumstances. This programme of nuclear power is subject to alteration and improvement. Therefore we shall take every advantage of any improvements and discoveries, hoping and believing that, as we go along, the cost will drop. Conventional power stations to give this power would cost £810 million. The power stations to generate 6,000 megawatts of nuclear power will cost £1,460 million, but taking into account certain additional costs the difference amounts to £750 million.
The noble Lord, Lord Lawson, rather indicated that we had rushed this statement before this House. But surely the Press has for months been full of guesses as to what revised programme the Government were going to adopt. I am sure the public are waiting to be informed of the Government's intention. I have delayed putting forward this statement because I wished to satisfy myself that we had got a practical programme which we could follow, and that is why the statement has not been made in your Lordships' House before this date.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hall, asked about the number of stations. To carry out this programme, I do not think we shall find it necessary to construct more than another sixteen stations additional to the three for which orders have already been placed. The noble Viscount also asked about exports. It is hoped that, as a result of researches which have been

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made by the Atomic Energy Authority, the practical work which has been done on this problem and, I think I can claim, the lead which this country has established, we shall be able to achieve exports. Furthermore, this programme has been phased in such a way that at the time when we might expect exports to be growing we shall best be able to carry them. The noble Viscount, also on the economic side, asked about the cost of generation. The cost of generation at the three nuclear power stations which have been ordered is expected to be very slightly more than that at new conventional stations—that is, taking into account the capital cost as well as the operating cost. Capital costs are much higher, but the operating cost is much lower. It is, however, confidently expected that, while conventional stations will go on improving in efficiency, the efficiency of nuclear stations will improve much more rapidly, so that ultimately I think we can hope that the cost of generating electricity at nuclear stations compared with that at conventional stations will be less.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth asked, whether the Government had measured this enormous capital cost against other requirements. I should like to assure him that the capital needs of the nation are under constant examination by the Government, but I am obliged to the noble Lord for reminding us of the great importance of that fact. Finally, the noble Lord referred to the machinery for looking at complaints. As I said in my statement, the Government are deeply conscious of the need to look after amenities and to protect the rights of individuals. All the Government are seeking to do is to speed up the procedure, because in certain respects it takes too long. They are not intending to deny anyone the right of putting forward his side of the case. As the noble Lord suggests, I will certainly look fully into the machinery in order that, so far as may be possible, we can satisfy him that everything that can be done to protect our countryside and to protect the rights of individuals is being done. But I am sure he will also appreciate that we need this power, and that we cannot put power stations in the countryside in such a way that they and the transmission lines cannot be seen. If it is decided that we go forward with this programme, then I think
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we shall have to put up with the fact that there are so many more power stations in the countryside and that we cannot have only blue skies with nothing beneath them.
3.44 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I say how indebted we are to the noble Lord, Lord Mills, for the full answers he has given to all the questions that have been put to him with a view to getting die best we can for the country. In fact, if his answers had been included in his original statement, we might have been robbed of many opportunities to question him. The only thing about which I am concerned now is whether, when we have read carefully through his statement, together with his full and, so far, satisfying replies to questions, we can then leave the matter and not put down a Motion. Alternatively, if we think that it is in the interests of the country that we should have a debate on this subject we shall, with the consent of the noble Leader of the House, adopt that course.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, of course we shall be most ready to have a debate if noble Lords opposite want one. Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition will let me know, when he has had time to consider the statement and the supplementary answers that have been given.

RATING AND VALUATION BILL
3.45 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, we now descend from the relatively rarefied atmosphere of nuclear energy to the relatively pedestrian problem of rating and valuation. I am sure that the House is greatly indebted to the noble Earl, Lord Munster, for his clear and concise, if decidedly brief, explanation of this Bill. Apart from his recognised talents in exposition, the noble Earl to-day, in dealing with the question of valuation, can usefully draw upon his past experience as a member for six years of the London County Council, which is always, if I may say so, a liberal education in local government affairs. I recall with pleasure that we were members of the

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L.C.C. together. To remove misunderstanding I should say at once that, as here in your Lordships' House, so in County Hall, we were on opposite sides. From a proper sense of balance it fell out that for his first three years I was in opposition, but for his second three years he was in opposition. Now, in your Lordships' House, he is of the Government and I am of the Opposition; but I am encouraged by the knowledge that there are gathering outward and visible signs that time and circumstance may before long lead to a change in the location of us both in this House. So be it; the people giveth, the people taketh away; blessed be the name of the people!
My Lords, this is a bad Bill. It is bad because of the proposal contained in Clause 1. It is noteworthy that the noble Earl made practically no pretence whatever to defend the proposal contained in Clause 1. He may have to admit, with his accustomed intellectual honesty, that in fact there is no defence that can be made in regard to this clause, which is both objectionable and indefensible. It proposes to create a new class of ratepayer entitled to pay on only 80 per cent. of the assessed value of his premises, and the loss occasioned thereby will fall principally on the householder ratepayer. Moreover, this proposal will seriously complicate the rating system, which is already sufficiently complicated in all conscience.
Further, it is a patchwork proposal. Leaving aside for the moment the grave demerits of the proposal, why do it now, in the midst of the long overdue comprehensive review of local government finance, which we are told is well under way? Surely, if the position of the business ratepayer calls for special consideration (which I do not for one moment admit) it should be dealt with as a part of this review, and not as an ad hoc matter in advance of it. Instead. Her Majesty's Government, apparently yielding to pressures, are proposing forthwith to extend de-rating to another class of ratepayer, without any semblance of the justification which was prayed in aid for the de-rating of industry in 1929, which de-rating, I would recall, many of us engaged in local government at that time very strenuously opposed.
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To-day, commercial activity and the consumer trades generally are not depressed, as industry was in 1929. On the contrary, they are booming and expanding—so much so that it has been thought necessary to impose a monetary squeeze upon them to restrain and curtail them. There is therefore, in my submission, no case on the grounds of economic need for this rebate to the business ratepayer. And as I have said, Her Majesty's Government are doing this at a time when they propose to reduce the de-rating of industrial premises. Really, my Lords, this is topsy-turvydom. This proposal will further distort the rating system on the very eve, as one hopes, of its greater rationalisation. From statements made by Ministers in another place, it appears that the review will take place this year. I therefore submit that the position is likely to be that, whatever new scheme of local government finance emerges from this review, it will have to be revised in 1961, when, as we are told, it is intended to bring to an end the proposed de-rating of business premises. This really is a muddle, moving, I fear, into a jumble.
Now what is the case put forward by Her Majesty's Government in justification of this proposal? It is that the assessments on shops and business premises have, as the noble Earl has stated, gone up by 125 per cent. and domestic premises by only 40 per cent.; and that the share of the former in the total rateable value is now one-third higher than it was. From this Her Majesty's Government argue that it is an injustice calling for redress. But is it an injustice? Let me examine the facts of this increase. It is an increase on assessments which are twenty years old, and which go back as far as 1934—assessments which, but for the war, would have been adjusted, and undoubtedly increased, in 1940 and at each subsequent quinquennial valuation. These new assessments made, I would stress, by independent valuers for the first time, do no more than bring the assessments of business premises up to the level of their current values—namely, the rents which such premises can currently command. Is that an injustice? On the contrary, I submit that it is an act of justice to correct gross under-assessments which business ratepayers have enjoyed for over fifteen years—through no fault

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of their own, I readily admit; but from the circumstances of the case.
Nor are these assessments limited to old pre-war properties, for if am informed that in many cases the basis of old assessments has been applied on the first valuation in the old list to new buildings, on the ground that, although they command increased rents, they must be, and have been, valued in many cases by reference to the rateable value of surrounding properties. That is to say, these costly buildings, fetching high post-war rents, have been paying up to March, 1956, on assessments related to 1934.
This is also one of the inequities which the new assessments have corrected. Now, Her Majesty's Government propose to restore the inequity and to nullify this correction to the extent of 20 per cent., not at the expense of the de-rated industrial ratepayer (except as to 25 per cent.) but mainly at the expense of the domestic ratepayer, by reducing the rateable value of business and commercial premises by about £44 million. Her Majesty's Government are proposing to remedy an illusory injustice by imposing a real one on the residential ratepayer.
Nor is that the limit of injustice, for it is made the greater by the fact that the business ratepayer will recover up to 50 per cent. of his increase in rates, and in many cases more, from the Exchequer (because rates are a deduction from profits assessable to income tax and, as regards companies, to profits tax also), whereas the unhappy householder must pay his rates out of taxed income without any tax relief whatsoever. This is a consideration always to be borne in mind, for it is very material. The householder will subsidise the rates of businesses and, at the same time, will subsidise the National Exchequer. On the basis of the new valuation lists he is already doing this to the tune of £66 million a year, divided more or less equally between industry and the Exchequer, as a result of de-rating of industrial property.
The relief to be given to shops and business premises in reduced rateable value is estimated at £44 million, but only three-eighths of that will go to the shopkeeper; five-eighths will go to the business ratepayer. I mention that because most of the arguments which have been prayed in aid of this proposal have been based upon the supposed burdens
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imposed upon shopkeepers. The shopkeepers, however, will get only three-eighths. As to the shops, a very large proportion, if not the greater proportion, will go to the chain, multiple and departmental stores, which own an ever-increasing proportion of shops and retail businesses.
It is said in justification of this proposal that under the old lists shops and other business properties provided 33 per cent. and domestic properties 60 per cent. of the rateable value, and that if this Bill goes through the proportions will be 36 per cent. and 52 per cent respectively. But these two comparative proportions take no account of the taxation relief that businesses will get; and, in any case, the old lists were twenty years out of date and grossly understated the real values of business properties. It has also been objected—indeed the noble Earl made an oblique allusion to it—that domestic properties are under-assessed on 1939 values; but those values are the actual current values, because of rent control. This 1939 basis for domestic properties was prescribed by an Act of 1948 and was reaffirmed by an Act of 1953. Both Governments are, therefore, committed to this basis for domestic properties. The values of 1939 for dwellings remain current because, as I have said, of rent control.
But there is no such rent control covering commercial properties, and, as everyone knows, the rents of these have gone up, not by 125 per cent. but by 200 per cent. or 300 per cent.—in some cases even more. Many of us renting this kind of premises, know how great these increases of rent have been. When the 1939 basis was approved in 1948 and confirmed in 1953 there was no intention or mention of granting any relief to business properties, although it was manifest to anyone informed on this matter that a revaluation on up-to-date rental values would inevitably result in heavy increases. But it would, nevertheless, do no more than bring assessments up to the current value basis, and would merely correct the prevailing gross under-assessment and the partial, but nevertheless substantial, relief from rates which businesses had been enjoying since 1940—that is for over fifteen years. Under this Bill, they will continue to pay until 1961 at 20 per cent. less than they should properly be required to do. Really,

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is not this proposal getting pretty close to sharp practice—sharp practice on the domestic ratepayer and sharp practice on the local authorities, expressed as an uncovenanted gift to business and a subsidy to the Exchequer? All local government associations have protested strongly against this mischievous and indefensible proposal.
Local authorities have had to increase their rate poundages in order to off-set the loss of rate income which will result. These increases have ranged from 9d. in the £ to 2s. 1½d. The London County Council increase due to this factor and this factor alone—is no less than a 1s. rate. Over the metropolitan boroughs of London it will (including precepts) range from 1s. 4½d. in Westminster to 2s. 0½d. in Bethnal Green. As is not unusual, the poorer the districts, the poorer the people, the more do they normally suffer. As the Cockney would sigh: "They always cop it". And these unnecessary, unexpected and unjustified additional rate burdens are cast upon the harassed householders at the very time when other heavy increases of rates have arisen from the higher cost of municipal services, especially education and housing—the latter arising particularly from the reduction of subsidies and the high rates of interest flowing from the Government's ill-conceived financial policy. As I have said, everyone knew perfectly well that assessments based on values of twenty years ago would go up sharply. No one contemplated that because of that steps would be taken to vitiate to the extent of 20 per cent. this fair and overdue adjustment of assessments.
Why have the Government promoted this Bill? Not, I submit, because of any real injustice to the business ratepayer; for it is no injustice that he should be required henceforth to pay his fair share of rates based on current values. It may well be that he got a shock when he received his new assessment. But the measure of his shock was really the measure of his former under-assessment, which he had, rather providentially, been enjoying for some fifteen years. What this Bill does is not to redress a wrong: what it does is to do a wrong to the domestic ratepayer—a grievous wrong which can find no justification, I submit, either in
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fairmindedness or in equity. In addition, it distorts in one more particular the rating system of the country, which is already something of a jig-saw puzzle. If this Bill goes through, the rating system will have these Alice in Wonderland characteristics. Agricultural land and farm premises derated 100 per cent.; industrial premises derated 75 per cent. (soon to be reduced to 50 per cent.); shops and miscellaneous premises derated 20 per cent.; premises used for charitable, educational and similar purposes having sundry abatements (or in some cases complete exemption) of rateable value; three nationalised undertakings with special bases of assessment. And, so far as one can judge from sundry Ministerial announcements and from this legislation, however much local government finance may be recast, these discordant and distorting elements will continue to form part of the rating system—industrial derating as a continuing feature at 50 per cent. from some unprescribed future date: commercial derating as proposed by this Bill until 1961 and maybe after, and the other anomalous elements mentioned to an uncertain future. What an untidy state of affairs! It is more of a hotch-potch than a system.
But let me return to the proposal to derate forthwith by 20 per cent. business properties. Apart from being unjustified on merits, it is also precipitate for another reason. As the Government well know, there are, up and down the country, thousands of appeals against these new assessments, of which, I gather, the majority are still outstanding and will not be settled for many months—maybe not this year. This is causing financial difficulty and embarrassment to the local authorities by reason of the loss of income received by them. But who can say what the cumulative result of these appeals may be? It may well be that they will greatly reduce the total of business assessments, thereby altering, maybe very appreciably, the proportions of rateable values between the two classes of property—it may be against the householder and in favour of the business ratepayer. Yet, if this be so, the business ratepayer will still get his 20 per cent. relief—if this Bill becomes an Act—on the reduced assessment. This will mean that he will, in fact, be paying rates on an assessment adjudged to be fair and proper on appeal but,

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nevertheless, arbitrarily reduced by 20 per cent.
Even if the Government felt that they could not wholly and ultimately withstand the pressure of their friends and supporters, why, in modest decency, did they not wait at least until the appeals were generally dealt with, the new valuation lists were more or less settled and the real position were known, before they proceeded, with unbecoming haste, to give this concession of 20 per cent., which, in the result, may prove excessive even on the Government's own line of reasoning? Why, I ask, this overweening solicitude for one class of ratepayer at the expense of another? The Government have shown no such anxious regard for tenants in the matter of housing rents, despite the almost universal protests, the indignant force and expression of which is manifest in recent by-election results, and which will in no less vigorous a measure show itself, I do not doubt, in the by-elections still to take place. The householder has also expressed his opposition to this proposal. He has done this directly through his local government associations, whose business it is to protect his interests. Their opposition is unanimous and energetic to Clause 1 of the Bill. This is the objectionable, unjust and, indeed, indefensible clause to which my noble friends on this side of the House cannot give assent.
About the other clauses, I have little to say. Clauses 2 and 3, dealing with the three nationalised industries, are relatively unobjectionable. They purport to make certain adjustments of liability which are comparatively of a minor order and upon which I do not wish to say anything, at this stage at all events. As to Clause 4, this has the purpose, as the noble Earl said, of remedying a hardship in the calculation of equalisation grants in respect of rateable relief given to charities under Section 8 of the Rating and Valuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1955. There can be no objection in principle, I think, to this.
Thus we are left with Clause 1. We on this side of your Lordships' House cannot concur in giving this Bill a Second Reading so long as this clause stands part. As I said at the outset, this Bill is a bad Bill. If passed, it will operate to do an injustice to the vast number of residential taxpayers. It is also precipitate. It
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unnecessarily introduces another distorting element into the already distorted system of local rating. I feel bound to say, however, that it is all of a piece with the policy of Her Majesty's Government, which puts up the cost of living at a time when they hold out a desire to stabilise it on a so-called "plateau." If plateau there be, then it has all the characteristics, I submit, of a fast-moving lift with the changing attendants calling out, "Going up, going up?" With a determination which brooks no relent, they are busy in unison pushing the lift through the roof. I refrain from commenting on the fact that this seems to be one of the few fields where unity prevails among them; but we must draw the veil somewhere, even though it be only for pity's sake.
This Bill to increase the rate burden of the householder comes along with proposals to permit the increase of their rents by millions a year, to increase National Health Service contributions by something like £30 million a year, to increase the charge for school meals and to raise the cost of welfare milk by £14 million a year. A pretty piece of plateau stabilisation work, I must say! And, if you please, at the same time as this is being done, the public are being constantly deluged with ineffectual appeals to refrain from seeking wage and salary increases to meet these increasing expenses. Out of ingrained courtesy, I forbear from any reference to the Crazy Gang, but really, this is a crazy business, and the proposal in this Bill is not the least among its crazy elements. We on this side cannot assent to giving this Bill a Second Reading.
4.16 p.m.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, I cannot follow the noble Lord, Lord Latham, in any L.C.C. reminiscences, as I was never a member of that body, but my father for years played a great part in local government in London and I can assure the noble Lord that for many years I heard of his activities. Therefore, I am not at all surprised to-day to listen to his slashing and, if I may say so, rather wandering attack on this Bill.
I should like to make a few remarks on one aspect of Clause 1. As the noble Earl, Lord Munster, has said, the object of Clause 1 is to reduce by one-fifth the rateable values of shops, offices and other commercial properties. There is one group

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of commercial properties which, it appears to me, have been kept outside the scope of this clause—namely, advertising stations, where hoardings are erected for advertisements, and piers at the seaside. They are commercial properties just like shops. Why have these been excluded from the benefit of this 20 per cent. reduction? I am told that advertising stations have had their valuations increased by as much as 167 per cent., and the highest increase in the valuation of shops is 120 to 125 per cent. Yet these properties, which have had their assessments increased by 167 per cent., are not going to get the benefit of the 20 per cent. concession under this Bill. I would ask Her Majesty's Government to reconsider the case of these types of property. I would go no further at this moment, as I have hopes that the noble Earl may consider this problem sympathetically; but, in case he does not, I feel that I should make it clear that I reserve the right to put down an Amendment on Committee stage if necessary.
4.19 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, this is the latest of a long series of Bills amending the basis of the rating system, and it certainly will not be the last. As my noble friend Lord Latham has said, the rating system has become extremely erratic and arbitrary. Its original basis, whether just or unjust, was at any rate comparatively simple: it was, an assessment of the annual value of an immovable property, according to what it was deemed to be capable of being let for in its existing condition. Since 1896, however, when agricultural land was derated by 50 per cent., there have been a succession of alterations. In 1923, agricultural land was derated by 75 per cent.; then in 1929 industrial and freight transport hereditaments were derated by 75 per cent., and agricultural land completely. Now we have a basis of assessment in which some property is rated upon a pre-war value and some is rated upon a present-day value; and, in addition, shops and commercial properties are now to be rated upon 80 per cent. of their current value. There is no economic justification for all these various adjustments in the basis of local taxation. The Government, apparently, are going to deal presently with the derating of industrial properties, and are going to
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diminish it. But it is all completely arbitrary; there is no economic basis underlying it of any pattern whatsoever.
It is true that the basis of local taxation is open to criticism, but the defects cannot be remedied by the kind of means which have been adopted in the past. The basis of criticism is of an entirely different nature. It is that an assessment of a movable property is an assessment of two totally different things: it is an assessment of the land, and also of the permanent improvements which are placed upon it. There is undoubtedly a long history, not only in this country but in many other countries of local taxes being based upon a valuation of immovable property. That basis certainly has the advantage of being related to something which is peculiar to the locality, and undoubtedly it is far more equitable than such devices as excise duties or other taxation upon commodities, or attempts to localise income tax or inheritance duties.
But it still remains the fact that the basis of local taxation, in not discriminating between the value of the site and that which is placed upon it, is inherently faulty. It has the effect, especially as it is operated in this country where the assessment is related to the existing use of property, entirely disregarding its potentialities for better use, of exempting the valuable property which is undeveloped; of giving, in effect, a partial exemption to old, obsolete properties, whether commercial or slums, or what they may be, and, conversely, of imposing a penalty of higher taxation upon the improvement and the redevelopment of land. That is entirely a mistake. It is, in effect, a tax imposed upon a commodity of universal consumption—dwellings in which people live; shops, offices, factories and other business premises in which they carry on their industries—which becomes, in effect, an increase in the one case, in the cost of living, and in the other an increase in the cost of production.
It is surely high time that, instead of bringing in periodically these entirely arbitrary adjustments of the rateable values of certain classes of property, the Government gave serious consideration to what, after all, has been done in many countries

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already; that is to say, separating the value of the site from the value of the improvement; and imposing a uniform rate upon the value of the site and reducing the amount which falls upon the improvements. There is ample precedent and experience for such a course. It is done in most of the British Dominions; it is done in Denmark, in parts of the United States and in other countries. It is practicable and simple; it has given satisfaction where it has been adopted, and it is fortified by economic arguments of a simple and decisive character. In the study which is being given to local government financial reform, here is something of a constructive nature which ought to receive attention, so that we can put our system of local rating upon a coherent and scientific basis. For those reasons, as well as for the reasons given by my noble friend Lord Latham, I too am entirely opposed to this Bill.
4.28 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I have only a few words to say as the last speaker on this side of the House. I think your Lordships will agree, however much some noble Lords may have differed from the views expressed by my noble friend Lord Latham, that he made a quite exceptionally able speech—such a speech as one would expect from someone with an outstanding experience of local government finance. Indeed, he has left little for other speakers to add to the case he made. My only regret is that all the opponents of the Bill seem to have been kitting on this side of the House, because I am sure that the objections to this Bill, on grounds of local government finance and social justice, are even more important than the political objection to the policy of the Government which has been raised by the Opposition here this afternoon. I am sorry that sonic other noble Lords—and so many noble Lords are independent in these matters—did not criticise this Bill purely from the angles of local government finance and the desirability of having a just proportion of the burden of rating between different sections of the community.
I should like to endorse what my noble friend Lord Latham said about the effect of Clause 1 of this Bill on London. The essential unfairness of this clause is that the ordinary householder in London will
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have to carry the rate burden carried until now by non-industrial buildings—or, to be quite accurate, the major part of the rate burden. This unfairness will be felt more acutely in London than in many other towns in other parts of the country, because so large a proportion of rateable property in London consists of shops, offices, public buildings, banks and so on, all of which will have their rateable value reduced by one-fifth. The effect of this Bill, as the Minister said in another place, will be to reduce the total rateable value of England and Wales by about 7 per cent.; but the reduction of what a 1d. rate will produce in the county of London will be about 12½ per cent.
To-day is Budget Day for the County of London. To-day we (I say "we," because I have the honour to be a member of the London County Council at the present time) are asking Londoners face the higher rate which we feel obliged to impose in order to meet our increased expenditure. The Council are being asked to increase the present rate to a figure for the coming year which will be higher by 2s. 4d. in the £. The ratepayer in London will therefore have to find a record figure of 9s. in the £ for the County rate. Of this extra 2s. 4d. on the present London rate, 1s. 4d. will be needed to cover the higher cost of running the Council's services, while 1s., as my noble friend Lord Latham mentioned, will be an increase due directly and entirely to the 20 per cent. reduction in the rating of shops and offices proposed in Clause 1 of this Bill.
It seems to me, as I am sure it must to any fair-minded person, grossly unjust that this tax burden should be shifted from the onus of commercial and office property to the London householder. It is unfair because it could easily have been avoided if the Government had waited until the increase of rateable value in industry had come into effect, or, better still, until there had been a general review of local government finance. The second objection is that this method of altering rateable value is contrary to a reasonable system of local government finance. Why are we getting these piecemeal alterations in rateable value? Industry is about to go up, and commercial premises are about to go down. Surely, it would have been far better to wait

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until all classes of property were assessed according to their current value, and then rate relief could be given as desired in relation to real social need. I cannot help wishing that the Government had been willing to wait for a proper and considered review of local government finance, which would at last bring uniformity into our rating system. With those few words, I strongly support the case that has been made by noble Lords who sit on this side of the House.
4.33 p.m.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I rise for only a very few moments to reply to this debate, and to try to answer some of the questions that have been addressed to me. The House will not be surprised when I say that the noble Lord, Lord Latham, expressed views with which I think the greater mass of the Members of this House would profoundly disagree. To say, as he did, that Her Majesty's Government are giving birth to a separate body of ratepayers has, in point of fact, no foundation in evidence at all. The noble Lord knows far better than I do that houses are already separately assessed on a completely different basis—namely, at their 1939 values. Industry is paying on current value, but at only 25 per cent. of its full rating and agriculture is not rated at all. The shops and offices had been singled out, as we see it, for specially severe treatment.
What in point of fact happened was this. The assessments on businesses, offices and shops were, as I have said, increased by an average of over 120 per cent., which will undoubtedly cause serious financial burdens and embarrassments to many of the smaller shops and businesses. Indeed, no other class of ratepayer—none which the noble Lord, Lord Latham, cited, and none which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, cited—has, in fact, been asked to pay on that basis. One of the complaints which was raised by all noble Lords who have spoken, except my noble friend Lord Jessel, was: Why should Her Majesty's Government give this relief by a small measure such as the one I have presented to-day? The answer, I think, is very simple, and one which I endeavoured to give in my observations when I moved the Second Reading. We were satisfied that the revaluation which took place transferred too
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large a share of the rate burden on to shops and offices, and we considered that it should not be allowed to continue for a further year—indeed, it might have continued until the next quinquennial, which would take place in 1961.
The noble Lord also pointed out that the increases in assessments are the first which have occurred for, I think he said, a period of twenty years, and that that merely brings the assessments up to current levels—in other words, we are correcting an under-assessment. That is perfectly true. I would not quarrel with the noble Lord at all, but the injustice here arises because houses which were also greatly under-assessed have not been brought up to their current levels. When they are brought up to their current levels, the need for this temporary relief will disappear. That is why it is only temporary, and that is why it expires altogether, if I may use that expression, in 1961.
Another remark which we have heard to-day is that Clause 1 of this Bill is grossly unfair to householders. I wonder if it is? Householders will still be bearing a share of the burden which is 13 per cent. smaller in this coming year, 1957–58, than it was before the revaluation which took place in 1955–56. Those shops and other premises which we are relieving by this Bill will still be bearing a share 13 per cent. larger than it was before revaluation occurred. It seems to me that it is only right that, in these circumstances, the Government should endeavour to remedy an obvious injustice by doing justice to that particular class of occupier.
LORD LATHAM: May I interrupt the noble Earl? Is not a large proportion of that 13 per cent. due to the expansion of commerce, and not necessarily due to higher assessments of individual property?
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I could not break down the figure of 13 per cent. any further. There is always a difficulty when one gets into these percentages. The ones I quoted must be percentages over the country as a whole. It may well be that part of it is due to larger business premises, or an increase in business premises, and the other part to the erection of a large number of houses since the assessment was made twenty years

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ago. But I could not at the moment break down those figures any further.
It was also suggested that there may be a large number of appeals. We were asked: why not wait and see what the appeals decisions are like, and how many have been received? By the end of December, so I am informed, nearly 350,000 proposals to reduce assessments had been settled, and scrutiny of the results achieved indicates clearly that the broad distribution of the rate burden indicated in the White Paper published a short time ago is not likely to be materially disturbed. The noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, raised the subject of rating of site values. He will, I hope, forgive me if I do not go into that matter on this occasion, because it has nothing whatever to do with this Bill. But on any other occasion I should be quite prepared to argue with the noble Lord in this House whether or not the rating of site values would be a useful addition to the rating system.
I could not help thinking, having known the noble Lord, Lord Latham, so long, that, with his eye on the local elections which are so near, the noble Lord and his colleague in front of him perhaps felt it politically expedient at this moment to impress upon the electors as best they could that almost the whole of the increase in the rate poundage in local authority areas can be traced entirely to Clause 1 of this measure.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I am sure the noble Earl did not wish to misrepresent me. I was not thinking of local elections. Indeed, I dealt with London; and in London, as the noble Earl is aware, there will be no elections for another year.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I beg the noble Earl's pardon. I am talking about the other elections which are due to take place in this country from April onwards. As I say, knowing the noble Lord, Lord Latham, so well and knowing his art of conducting politics even better, I am quite certain that he hoped to be able to impress upon the electors that the whole of this increase in the rate poundage can be traced to this measure.
LORD LATHAM: I never said that.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I did not say that the noble Lord did say that.
LORD LATHAM: The noble Earl got as near to saying it as is possible.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I said I could not help thinking, knowing the noble Lord so well, that that was possibly at the back of his mind.
LORD LATHAM: I am comforted by the noble Earl's compliments.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: Perhaps what he really required to do was to cover up the maladministration of so many Socialist-controlled councils. What he was seeking to achieve I am not clear. The noble Lord, Lord Jessel, asked me whether piers and hoardings come under Clause 1 of the Bill. The answer is that they do not. My right honourable friend would not be prepared at the moment to extend that clause to cover this particular point. I hope I have answered some of the more important questions addressed to me, and trust that your Lordships will now give the Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

PATENTS BILL [H.L.]
4.43 p.m.
Order of the Day for the consideration of Commons Amendments read.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendments be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(Lord Mancroft.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
COMMONS AMENDMENT
Clause 1, page 2, line 8, leave out subsection (2).
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, the first Amendment to the Patents Bill which was made in another place and to which your Lordships' agreement is now sought is very similar to one which was moved in your Lordships' House by the noble Lord, Lord Cawley. It is some time since your Lordships considered the Patents Bill and some of the more technical provisions may not, therefore, be completely fresh in your Lordships' minds. Perhaps I may briefly remind the House why the

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Government found themselves unable at that time to accept the Amendment to which the House is now asked to agree.
First, I thought that it was unlikely in practice to achieve the early publication of Ian invention, since it seemed to me that an applicant could ensure postponement by neglecting to put his application in order. Secondly, an applicant has, since 1939, been allowed to make a request to postpone acceptance, and hence publication of his patent specification, until the end of the statutory maximum period. I suggested then to your Lordships that Parliament ought not to make what would amount to a change in the law on this second point without an inquiry amongst the interested parties.
I still feel that my first argument was a valid one. Bearing in mind, however, the views expressed in your Lordships' House during the Committee stage of this Bill, Her Majesty's Government took an early opportunity to consult the various bodies interested in this matter—the F.B.I., the Chartered Institute, and so on. This, then, is what happened. It turned cut that their opinions, the opinions of the experts concerned, strongly favoured the making of the Amendment. This Amendment was further pressed by both sides during the Committee stage in another place, and the Government accordingly thought it their duty to put down this Amendment at the Report stage of the Bill. I offer this explanation because I particularly do not want the House to think that our acceptance now of an Amendment which was originally unacceptable to Her Majesty's Government is in any way intended as a discourtesy to the noble Lord, Lord Cawley, to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, or, indeed, to the House. I think your Lordships will now appreciate exactly what happened. Accordingly, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
4.46 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I do not know what the noble Lord, Lord Cawley, is going to say, if anything, and I do not know whether to take at its face value what the noble
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Lord, Lord Mancroft, has said—that he has now offered your Lordships an explanation. I lam not sure whether he has not offered your Lordships an apology. His words were that an Amendment was put down in your Lordships' House very similar to that which now appears upon the Order Paper and which was accepted by the Government in another place after the Government turned it down in your Lordships' House. "Very similar" really should read "precisely the same". The noble Lord, Lord Cawley, put down an Amendment to leave out subsection (2) of Clause 1. That is precisely the Amendment, now made in another place, to which your Lordships are now asked to agree.
I remember that the noble Lord said at the time that he was surprised that I did not put down the Amendment. I explained to him then why I did not put it down, and I was only too happy to support my noble friend, Lord Cawley. I thought the argument that the noble Lord advanced to your Lordships, and—if I may be so immodest as to say so—the argument that I advanced, was unanswerable. I had not heard any better argument advanced anywhere. But now we appear to have the Amendment upon the Order Paper. One of the reasons the noble Lord advanced for rejecting, on behalf of the Government, this same Amendment was—and I quote from Column 737 of Vol. 200 (No. 13), of the OFFICIAL REPORT for December 4, 1956:
"We considered this matter carefully at the time. We discussed it with patent agents. We consulted the Federation of British Industries, the National Union of Manufacturers, The Association of British Chambers of Commerce and the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents and The Trade Marks, Patents and Designs Federation. We came to the conclusion that the effect would not achieve what the noble Lord has in mind",
intimating that the decision of the Government was influenced by the opinion of those bodies. I think I understood the noble Lord aright: that the self-same bodies were consulted before the Amendment was accepted in another place and it was upon their recommendation that the Government agreed to it. It appears to me to be somewhat mysterious.
However, I am going to suggest to the noble Lord that the reason why the Government accepted this Amendment was because they were so impressed with the arguments that were advanced in your

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Lordships' House—and I will give a great deal of credit to the noble Lord that the Government did accept the Amendment, because, if he will recall his last words, they were that he would consider very carefully what had been said, he would discuss it with the President of the Board of Trade and, if they came to the conclusion that the fears that we advanced were substantial, then something would have to be done. Well, something has been done and we are grateful for it.
There is one thing I would point out to the House—that is, that at the time when this Bill was going through your Lordships' House the procedure was most handicapping. If your Lordships will remember, we in this House could not have a Report stage unless on the Committee stage there was an Amendment to report. The procedure has now been altered, in my view with great advantage to the House. Immediately after the Committee stage of this Bill I had a letter from an eminent member of the Patent Bar, who pointed out how right we were in the fears we had expressed and how wrong the Government were in not accepting the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Cawley. I replied to this eminent Queen's Counsel saying, "I am sorry that we cannot do anything about it now in this House. You will have to prosecute the matter in another place." I have shrewd suspicions that that was the reason why another eminent Queen's Counsel in another place put down the noble Lord's Amendment and got it carried. I personally thank the noble Lord for bringing forward this Amendment and I am grateful to the Government for having accepted it. I do not think that my modest word of protest is uncalled for, because the Government might have saved themselves a lot of time and trouble if they had elected to accept the wisdom of this House, which, in many cases, is far superior to the guidance that they get from anywhere else.
LORD CAWLEY: My Lords, I had not intended to say anything on this matter, out I feel I must say a word of gratitude to my noble friend Lord Mancroft that this Amendment has now been accepted by Her Majesty's Government, and to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, who has been so assiduous in assisting me in getting it passed. In conclusion,
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I must say that I am sorry that the Government did not accept my first Amendment too.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
COMMONS AMENDMENT
Clause 2, page 4, line 7, at end insert—
("(5) Subsection (3) of section twelve of the Patents Act, 1949 (which provides for an extension of time where an appeal is pending or the time for appealing has not expired), shall apply in relation to the revised period as extended by virtue of the preceding provisions of this section as it applies in relation to the period referred to in that subsection.")
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this Amendment is of rather minor importance. It is nothing more than a drafting Amendment. Its purpose is to improve the provisions of Clause 2. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Mancroft.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SHOPS BILL [H.L.]
4.54 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be again in Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE in the Chair.]
Clause 51:
Appointment of inspectors
51.—(1) A local authority may, for the purpose of carrying out their duty under the last foregoing section, appoint such inspectors as they think fit, and may pay to inspectors appointed by them under this section such reasonable remuneration as the authority may determine.
(2) Provision may be made by regulations with respect to—

(a) the qualifications to be held by inspectors;

(b) the mode of appointment and terms of tenure of office of inspectors;

and compliance with regulations having effect by virtue of this subsection shall be obligatory on a local authority by whom an inspector is appointed.
LORD MATHERS LORD MATHERS moved, in subsection (1), to substitute "shall" for "may" where that word first occurs. The noble Lord said: I think the intention of this Amendment and the next, which go together, will be clear to the Committee. My contention is that if there is to be inspection carried out by the local authority in matters of this kind they ought to appoint inspectors; it should not be left as a matter of option for them to do so. My next Amendment is merely complementary to the first. I ask that, if there is to be uniformity and a proper standard of what is expected of the inspection, there should be some responsibility placed upon someone apart from the local authority, to see that a proper standard is set. The words that I suggest in Amendment No. 87 are designed to carry out that intention. They place the local authorities under an obligation to see that the conditions of service and remuneration are such as can be approved by the Secretary of State. It will be remembered that these two Amendments were put down when I still had the hope that Scotland might be included in the Bill.
If the words do not quite bear the proper application of what is intended, I hope that, if the intention is accepted, the Government may take the responsibility of putting correct words into the clause later on. What I have in mind is that if it is left to the local authority to appoint anyone as an inspector they may use that opportunity for pensioning off some servant whom they wanted to let down quietly at the end of his service, without much regard to his ability or to his qualifications for carrying out the duties that would be required of him if proper attention were to be given to this matter of inspection. I have thought it wise to bring these considerations to play upon this particular clause. I cannot give chapter and verse for it at the moment, but I believe that conditions like these are included in the Food and Drugs Act. If I am correct in that—I have been assured that I am—it seems to me that that is a sound argument for bringing the same considerations to bear in connection with this clause and with this important Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 42, line 10, leave out ("may") and insert ("shall").—(Lord Mathers.)
THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): Although I am resisting these two Amendments, I do not think there is really anything between the noble Lord and the Government on either of them and, like the noble Lord, I propose to deal with both of them together, if he and the Committee will permit that course to be taken. As regards the second of his Amendments, I cannot help thinking that the noble Lord has not fully appreciated the effect of Clause 51 (2), which gives my right honourable friend power to make regulations with regard to the qualifications, the mode of appointment and terms of tenure of office of the inspectors. It seems to me that that covers all the points which he desires to achieve by the present Amendments, and in a more appropriate way. The extent of remuneration, I am advised, is not a matter for the central Government but one for the local authority. Under the existing law my right honourable friend does not have, nor does he desire to possess, any power of deciding the remuneration of these local government officials. As regards conditions of service and qualifications, I believe that those matters are adequately dealt with under Clause 51 (2) by the power to make regulations.
The other question is one on which I have heard argument in another place literally for hours, but I believe that in fact the Amendment makes no effectual difference. Although on paper it would appear that by substituting the word "may" for "shall" we are taking away a duty and providing an option, in the specific language of Statutes in relation to local government service that is not so. It is, of course, the desire that every local authority charged with enforcement should appoint an inspector. The phraseology employed in the Bill, as distinct from that under existing law which employs the word "shall", takes cognisance of the fact that there is no effective method of enforcement supposing the local authority do not appoint an inspector; for they could appoint an inspector who did nothing, and this change of phraseology would give no effective means, of enforcement.
In point of fact, the ordinary custom of many of these Statutes which impose duties on local authorities, like the phraseology of many Statutes which

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impose duties on a Minister, is to give power to do a thing and to expect them to do it, leaving it to the control of Parliament and the local authority to carry out their duties. As regards the actual phraseology of the first Amendment, there is nothing in it, although I am advised that that employed by the draftsman is slightly more appropriate. As regards the second of the two Amendments, we already have, under Clause 51 (2), the powers we want to achieve the noble Lord's purpose, and as these Amendments are intended to be complementary I hope that, in the light of the explanation which I have given, and which I hope will not have impressed the noble Lord as unduly obscurantist, he will see fit to withdraw the first Amendment and net to move the second.
LORD MATHERS: I seem to have a fairly good excuse, if not reason, in the actual wording of the Bill. I shall rest my faith on what the noble and learned Viscount has said, and will withdraw my first Amendment; and I will not move my second Amendment.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I am much obliged.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD MILVERTON LORD MILVERTON moved to leave out subsection (2). The noble Lord said: The object of this Amendment is, I am afraid, the precise reverse of that which actuated the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, in his Amendment. As the noble and learned Viscount has just pointed out, the power in subsection (2) enables the Minister to prescribe by regulation the qualifications to be held by shop inspectors and their mode of appointment and terms of office. It seems to me to be clearly implied from that that the Secretary of State does not consider that local authorities are able, unassisted, to choose the staff required to perform their statutory functions, or that they can be relied upon to lay down appropriate conditions of service. I regard that as a regrettable lack of trust in local authorities.
At the present time, a small minority of the officers appointed by local authorities are subject to Government supervision in this way, but I suggest that there is no real case for an extension of that list. Indeed, the main objective of the Local Government Manpower Committee, which was set up in 1949 and
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was composed of representatives of Government Departments and local authority associations, was, as stated:
"To simplify the methods of departmental supervision of local government activities, to reduce the need for and the extent of such supervision and to ensure wherever possible that a greater measure of responsibility rested on local authorities."
No Government has disowned these objectives, and many of the recommendations of that Committee have been put into effect. The effect of laying down qualifications in regulations might be to prevent authorities from enforcing the provisions of shops legislation through officers who, though not formally qualified, are perfectly capable of efficiently carrying out these duties. There are obviously cases, particularly with small local authorities, where, for example, the public health inspector could perfectly well perform the functions under the Shops Act in combination with his other duties.
As regards the mode of appointment and terms of tenure of office, the growth of Whitleyism in local government makes it quite unnecessary for the Government to enter this field. The shop inspectors have their representatives on a National Joint Council, on which both employers and employees are represented, and this body is fully competent to deal with questions relating to conditions of service. Incidentally, it is very difficult to conceive what should be the qualifications to be held by Shops Act inspectors. Presumably the only kind of examination which could be imposed would be on the provisions contained in shops legislation, and I should have thought that in many cases a local authority would be able to find someone to carry out what is, after all, a very practical job, even though he could not commit to memory the provisions of the Shops Act. I am thinking, for example, of small authorities who might wish to employ a part-time inspector. A retired policeman might be very suitable for the purpose, and it would be unreasonable surely to ask him to sit for art examination in shops law.
In addition to all these details, however, I suggest that there is an important principle at stake. Unfortunately, we live in a society which is being enervated by extreme centralisation, in pursuit of which we are teaching this nation to bend more and more to the dictates of any Whitehall clerk. I cannot believe that the

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noble and learned Viscount in charge of this Bill would ever favour slavish subservience to centralisation, or would wish to sap a sense of responsibility, even in local authorities. We have taught the world the way to win freedom, and it seems that by a great deal of our modern legislation we are now teaching it the way to lose it. We are supporting all self-government—there is a notable instance coming tomorrow—and we say that the only way to learn to carry responsibility is to be given the right to exercise it. Yet here at home our legislation shows an increasing reluctance to trust our own people. We say abroad that it is essential to effective democracy to have a local government possessing sufficient authority to manage its own affairs and to provide a sound foundation for a good central Government. I see no reason why we should not practise at home what we preach abroad. Above us all there still looms the immense tutelary powers of the State, and I suggest that it would be undesirable to add to them. That is the basis of this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 42, line 15, leave out subsection (2).—(Lord Milverton.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I think the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, would have just ground for complaint if I did not resist this Amendment. If I do so, it is not because I see either in the Amendment or in the Bill as drafted the deep philosophical implications which my noble friend has sought to read into them. The Bill is both more innocent than he appears to imagine and less closely connected with the affairs of Ghana. The fact is that the Government have full confidence in local authorities in the ordinary way. If it will be some consolation to my noble friend, I can tell him that both as regards conditions of tenure and as regards qualifications, it is the Government's intention to consult local authorities. In that way, I hope, it will be made apparent that we have confidence in the local authorities. I dare say that the local authorities will be glad to have some degree of uniformity in consultation in the matter. And I do not think that they would, on reflection, resent it as a criticism, explicit or implied, of their ability to decide their own affairs, if they do this in much the same way as one another.
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This is very often achieved by a regulating power. Nor do I think that they would feel that this was a case of a clerk in Whitehall imposing his baneful will upon them.
Without derogation from the general statement which I have just made, I think it is right to say that the Gowers Committee expressed great concern at evidence which showed that one or two local authorities had appointed as shops inspectors persons who, clearly, were not fit to do the job properly. I should have been disposed to agree with my noble friend, subject to the wiser opinion of my right honourable friend, that a retired policeman would appear to be a suitable incumbent of this office; but I hardly think that the same can be said of a car park attendant. Yet, a car park attendant was one of the persons who, the Gowers Committee found, had actually been appointed to this duty in one case. On another occasion the choice fell on the Mayor's mace-bearer. I should have thought it would be felt desirable by neighbouring local authorities not to permit occasional lapses of this kind, provided that the power of regulation is carried out after due consultation with the local authorities. I feel that this is not a gross abuse of power such as my noble friend seemed to think.
As regards tenure, I think that my noble friend has probably overlooked the wishes of the inspectors themselves. Inspectors are particularly vulnerable to victimisation. This particular power in Clause 51 (2) of the Bill was put in at their request, in order to protect them from local victimisation as a result of their activities.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Victimisation by whom?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: Victimisation by people whom they have inspected. Such people may have certain powers. They may be able to lobby local interests against the person who has inspected them. Public health inspectors are rather analogous officials, and they have been protected in an analogous way. It is, therefore, at the request of inspectors, or potential inspectors, that this clause was inserted. It was not designed for the purpose of limiting freedom of local authorities, but for protecting the integrity and freedom of the inspectors. I hope

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that, with that explanation, my noble friend will accept what the Government have done as the best solution.
LORD MILVERTON: I am grateful to the noble Viscount for his full and complete reassurance on this subject, though it leaves me personally quite unsatisfied. The reasons which he gave, to my mind, are minor reasons compared with the principle which he so airily over-rode—that is, that excessive centralisation is ultimately a very bad thing for the local authorities if we want them to be efficient. In the circumstances, having expressed my protest, I have no alternative but to ask leave of the Committee to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 51 agreed to.
Clause 52 to 56 agreed to.
Clause 57:
Annual reports
57. Every local authority shall make to the Secretary of State an annual report of their proceedings under this Act containing such particulars as he may direct, and the Secretary of State shall make to Parliament an annual report giving an account of his proceedings under this Act and of the proceedings thereunder of local authorities.
5.16 p.m.
LORD MILVERTON LORD MILVERTON moved to leave out Clause 57. The noble Lord said: This Amendment also is instigated by a clause which, to my mind, is another instance of top-heavy paternalism. I submit that, it is open to the same objection as Clause 51. I do not wish to repeat all the reasons which I gave when speaking on that clause, but to my mind it clearly indicates lack of confidence on the part of the Secretary of State in the ability of local authorities, and an inability to trust them to enforce the law. After all, the production of annual reports—and no one should know it better than I do—is unproductive labour and in my opinion the time and money spent on this work could be better spent in enforcing the law which is their subject matter. In any event, it seems to me unlikely that the reports will ever be seriously read by anyone, or examined critically, even if it should be thought that action might follow.
If enforcement of the Shops Act were grant-aided, there would be an excellent reason, or excuse, for the Secretary of
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State to require an account of expenditure on matters on which Exchequer monies were being spent. But in fact local authorities do not receive any contribution from central funds. I understand that Section 128 (3) of the Factories Act, 1937, has been quoted as a precedent for the submission of an annual report to a Minister. This section, however, merely requires that local authorities shall pass on to the Department a copy of the annual report of their medical officer of health, which is prepared for the information of the local authority in any event, and which covers a much wider field than local authorities' responsibilities under factories legislation. So, once more, I think it is right to protest against this unnecessary supervision or interference by the central authority. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 57.—(Lord Milverton.)
LORD DERWENT: I did not think that on this Bill I should ever disagree with my noble friend Lord Milverton, but I do so now. I should like to say just one word about this Amendment. I think it is essential that Her Majesty's Government should be in a position to know whether a local authority is functioning under this Bill, when it becomes an Act, or whether it is not functioning. In my own part of the world, within a very short space of coastline, there are some five or six holiday resorts and areas covered by other local authorities as well. At this moment, I know well that there is one local authority which takes its duties seriously. There is another local authority which makes some effort, but the remaining local authorities make no effort whatsoever, with the result that shops are open at all sorts of extraordinary hours when they are not supposed to be open, to the great detriment of those local authorities who try to carry out their duties, In this case, I must say that I cannot agree with my noble friend.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: As between my two noble friends, I have no hesitation in preferring the opinion of my noble friend Lord Derwent to that of my noble friend Lord Milverton, who, I must say, is in a terribly gloomy mood this afternoon. These baleful prophecies of the disaster which would occur as the result of a proposal that local authorities should submit annual reports to the

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central Government seem to me to be out of all kind of proportion. As my noble friend Lord Derwent said, we want to know how this Bill is working. We do not want the inspectors' reports to be wasted on the desert air. Where there is inspection, there is information; and information is largely wasted if it is not correlated and centralised. There is no undue paternalism in wanting to know the facts. There would be paternalism in interference but, after all, Parliament is giving my right honourable friend a responsibility for conditions in shops and he is entitled to have information upon which he can exercise that responsibility.
My information is that local authorities normally require inspectors to supply them with annual reports, and all that would be required under the Bill is for the local authorities to forward the reports they already have to my right honourable friend, so that he also may enjoy them. I am happy to give an assurance similar to that which I gave on the last Amendment: that it is our intention to consult the local authorities about the particulars which will be adequate for the report. The local authorities, I fancy, will find their neighbours' reports extremely interesting. Moreover, the additional information which will be available will be of value to Parliament. The Gowers Committee attached a good deal of importance to this proposal. I am told that the absence of the information which would have been contained in these reports has occasioned great difficulty to the draftsmen in drafting the present Bill. I should have thought that my noble friend who proposed this Amendment, with whose principle I so much sympathise, would, on the whole, feel able to console himself with the fact that these prophecies of gloom are perhaps a little overstated in this instance, sad as the present situation undoubtedly is.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I am much obliged to the noble Viscount for the answer he has given to the noble Lord, Lord Milverton. I am sorry to be on a different platform in this matter, but I want to ask whether the noble Viscount could make representations to his right honourable friend the Home Secretary to see whether there could be some regular publication, not of
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all the inspectors' reports, submitted from hundreds of local authorities, but of some kind of summary that would give all those organisations interested in the progress of this matter the facts which would enable them to get at the root of what has occurred over a period, either annual or triennial. Such a summary would be of great use to the trade unions, welfare societies and the like.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I may be wrong in this matter, and I know that my right honourable friend will listen respectfully to the words which have come from the noble Viscount, but if he would read the second part of this clause, which provides that the Secretary of State shall make to Parliament an annual report giving an account of his proceedings under the Act, and of the proceedings thereunder of local authorities, he will see that the provision is designed to meet the need which the noble Viscount has in mind. I am sure that my right honourable friend will consider it in the light of what he has said.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount for his explanation of the reasons why this clause ought to remain in the Bill. I have still the same lurking dissatisfaction with this creeping paralysis of centralisation, but, in view of what he said. I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 57 agreed to.
Clauses 58 and 59 agreed to.
Clause 60:
Punishment of offences
60.—(1) A person guilty of an offence under this Act shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds.
5.26 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL THE EARL OF LISTOWEL moved in subsection (1), to substitute "fifty" for "twenty" [pounds]. The noble Earl said: In moving this Amendment I hope that I can appeal to the noble Viscount's sympathy if I recall to his mind an episode which occurred in your Lordships' House two or three years ago during the Committee stage of the Television Bill. If the noble Viscount will cast his mind back, I think he will remember that he proposed an Amendment to alter the maximum penalty

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which the Government had suggested in the Television Bill. If I remember rightly, he was successful and the Government went some way to meet his proposal. I am proposing an alteration in the maximum penalty in this clause for offences committed against the provisions of the Bill, for the same reason as the noble Viscount wanted the maximum penalty altered in the Television Bill.
It is simply this: that the maximum penalty of £20 proposed in Clause 60 is the same in amount as that already laid down in the pre-war Acts of Parliament relating to shops. It was laid down in the 1936 Shops Act and that maximum was borrowed from the 1928 Shops Act; so that, in fact, the maximum of £20 goes hack for nearly thirty years and has taken no account at all of the change that has occurred in the value of money during that period of time, I think your Lordships would agree that although £20 may still be not unfitting as a maximum penalty for a first offender, a subsequent offender should be liable to a heavier fine, and that magistrates should have the option of imposing a heavier fine if they think a heavier line is suitable in the circumstances. I am not wedded to the wording of this Amendment. I think that there are two ways of doing this: either by having a maximum of £50 for any offence under the Bill, which is what I am suggesting, or one maximum for the first offence and another maximum for subsequent offences. That seems to be the way it was done in the earlier Acts. I do not pretend to know which is the better course, but I suggest that the noble Viscount may well agree in principle that the maximum of £20 is too low and that some Amendment is required in order to enable magistrates to impose a heavier line for persistent offenders, if they think fit. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 45, line 36, leave out ("twenty") and insert ("fifty").—(The Earl of Listowel.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: The noble Earl has made two persuasive points, one of which is to recall out of my murky past an incident which I am bound to say had slipped from my memory but which I will accept from him. The second is that fines must go up as the value of money goes down. I would agree in
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general that there is a good deal to be said for this suggestion, but it is even more important to keep the maxima in line with the fines for similar offences. Under the Factories Acts, which are analogous to this, arid, indeed, of which I should be inclined to say that persistent breach was worse, the maximum penalty is £20; that is to say, the maximum penalty for offences relating to the hours of employment of women and young persons is £20, which is the same as is proposed here. It would, at first sight, be an anomaly to put £50 into the Shops Act when £20 remained in the Factories Acts. Similarly, under the Licensing Act, 1953, which is a relatively recent piece of legislation, the maximum penalty for selling intoxicating liquor outside hours is £30. Again, I should have thought that it was slightly absurd to make the penalty under this Bill much higher.
Under the Shops Act, 1950, which has the merit from the point of view of the noble Earl of being a piece of Socialist legislation and not too ancient, for a first offence it is £10 and for a second offence it is £20. So we are actually increasing here the maximum for first offences, but following the recent practice of leaving the actual amount of penalty to the court, and trusting the court (and in this I hope I shall have the approval of my noble friend behind me) to be able to distinguish between first and subsequent offences.
If I may speak rather outside the brief, I would point out to the noble Earl, from a considerable experience of police courts, that if you find persistent disregard of an Act of this kind the inspectors tend to bring a number of summonses, sometimes amounting to twenty in all; and if the inspectors follow this simple device, by a process of arithmetic the noble Earl will see that the amount the persistent offender will have to pay even on one occasion may be some hundreds of pounds. If, for instance, he failed to give a large number of shop assistants the half holiday, the fine might run into thousands of pounds in the case of a big shop. My inclination is to think that these summary offences are probably adequately penalised as they are. In my experience, magistrates, on the whole, seldom impose maxima. The type of offence which is

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dealt with in these Acts is best dealt with by inspection and prosecution, and unless one were going to impose sentences which I think no one would think appropriate for offences of this class—that is to say, sentences of imprisonment—I do not believe that as between the £20 and £30 there is very much difference. My right honourable friend, who has considered the noble Earl's proposal, would prefer to leave the fine the same as in the Factories Acts, and for that reason I resist the Amendment, although I am bound to admit that the noble Earl has got a plausible case which he has put extremely well.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I am grateful to the noble Viscount for his reply, but I must say that I am not altogether happy about it. It seems that he is in rather a fix, if I may put it in that way. I can sympathise with his desire to be consistent by bringing the penalty for offences under this Bill into line with the penalty for similar offences under existing Acts, such as the Factories Acts. On the other hand, he also wants to be consistent about carrying out as many as possible of the recommendations of the Gowers Committee Report; indeed, he invoked the Report of the Gowers Committee when we were dealing with the last Amendment. I should like to read paragraph 125 of the Gowers Committee Report, which says:
"We heard some complaints that these figures"—
that is referring to the maxima in the earlier Acts—
"were not high enough, and more, that the fines actually imposed were inadequate. We think that the maximum penalties for second and subsequent offences might well be increased."
There it is. The noble Viscount is in some difficulty, but I am sorry he does not feel that the importance of being consistent in the matter of the Gowers Committee Report is not greater than that of being consistent in relation to the other Acts. However, if I cannot persuade him, I do not press the point, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 60 agreed to.
Clause 61 agreed to.
Clause 62 [Defence available to persons charged with certain offences]:
5.35 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL THE EARL OF LISTOWEL moved to leave out Clause 62 and to insert the following new clause:
Defence available to persons charged with certain offences
"62. Where the occupier of a shop is charged with an offence consisting in a contravention of a provision of Part I, II, III, IV or V of this Act he shall be entitled upon information duly laid by him to have any other person whom he charges as the actual offender brought before the court at the time appointed for hearing the charge and if, after the commission of the offence has been proved, he proves to the satisfaction of the court that he has used due diligence to enforce the execution of this Act and that the said other person has committed the offence in question without his knowledge, consent or connivance the said other person shall be summarily convicted of such offence, and the occupier shall be exempt from any fine."
The noble Earl said: This appears an elaborate Amendment, but it is designed to meet a quite simple point. The purpose is to enable magistrates to convict a shop assistant of an offence when the shopkeeper has proved to the satisfaction of the court that the offence was committed without his knowledge or authority. To take a simple example, suppose a shopkeeper says to his assistant that he must not sell a certain article during the time the shop is closed on the early day in the week, but the shop assistant sells that article, then, clearly, the shopkeeper will be justified in arguing in his defence that this was done without his authority or consent. I should have thought that, equally clearly, the shop assistant was guilty of an offence under the provisions of the Bill and should be liable to conviction by the court. If this Amendment were adopted, it would simply be restoring the provisions of the 1950 Shops Act which cover this particular point. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 62 and insert the said new clause.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
LORD DERWENT: When my noble friend replies, would he be so good as to deal with the one point that occurs to me: whether, in fact, this Amendment might not lead to awkward situations where the owner of the shop has given no instructions and is prosecuted. He then says that he has given those instructions and some nervous employee, not

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wanting to lose his job, may be hesitant about saying anything. The shop assistant will be fined when, in fact, it is really the fault of the occupier. And it may then happen that the occupier or owner of the shop, not wishing to get himself into trouble, will pay the fine. This Amendment seems to me to be likely to lead to the possibility of all sorts of awkward situations arising.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: It is as well to see exactly what is in issue here. Clause 62 of the Bill, as drafted, makes it a defence if a person charged with an offence consisting in a contravention of the provisions of the first five Parts of the Act proves that he used all due diligence to secure compliance with the law. That is in line with quite a number of Statutes and regulations. I cannot remember them all, but there are quite a number under the Food and Drugs legislation, and quite a number under the Public Health legislation; and I am also told that there is another under the Agriculture (Safety Health and Welfare) Provisions Act, 1956. At all events, noble Lords can take it as certain that there are a number of cases where regulations, if broken, can lead to the prosecution of an employer; and the employer, as the person legally responsible, has to exonerate himself by proving that he is innocent of any fault and has used due diligence. Some employers find that onerous, particularly a conscientious man who feels the stigma of a prosecution for this type of offence rather more hardly. He may value his reputation as a good employer, as a purveyor of clean milk and so on. He finds, to his distress, that the regulations have been broken, and he is prosecuted, and he has to prove that he is innocent, contrary to the general rule of English law.
There are two patterns: the Bill follows one pattern and the noble Earl suggests the other; and both have precedents in this legislation. The question is which the Committee prefer. The first pattern is our Clause 62: that if the owner proves he is innocent, he is to get off. The other pattern says that he can invoke that defence only if he prosecutes somebody else, normally his employee, but sometimes an independent contractor. The advantage
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of that, from the point of view of enforcement, is that he has another person before the court whose views can be heard, so that the judicial authority before whom the prosecution is brought has the opportunity of probing the matter further, of seeing perhaps that it is not a put-up defence and so on.
On the other hand, we feel that the model we have chosen, which follows the model of the 1956 Act, is the more humane and the better of the two. It is extremely invidious for an employer to prosecute his employee, and I do not think a good employer will often do so. At any rate, it would be extremely unjust to put the employer in the position of having to prosecute his employee or else debar himself from asserting his innocence. I say that with a certain amount of feeling, because it once happened to me. Fortunately, I was able to persuade the local authority that I was so certain to get off on the statutory defence that they would not prosecute me at all. But if they had, I had instructed my solicitor not to accuse my employee, who was manifestly guilty, rather than incur the odium of so doing. I should have been in the position of being convicted of a criminal offence and of being debarred from asserting my own innocence, simply because I preferred not to prosecute my employee. So in this instance I endorse the advice I have received from the Home Office with more than the usual sense of conviction. I hope I have spoken with a sense of conviction of which I have the courage, because in the other case that did not fall to my lot. I hope that, in speaking with some feeling on the matter, the noble Earl will agree with me and will withdraw his Amendment.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I am much moved by the force of the noble Viscount's argument. I did not realise the difficult position in which an employer would be placed. I think he will agree that my Amendment has some force, but I see the other side of the case, and I must admit that the noble Viscount is probably right. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 62 agreed to.
Clause 63 agreed to.
Clause 64 [General Interpretation Provisions]:
5.42 p.m.
LORD DERWENT LORD DERWENT moved, in the definition of "closed", to leave out "the serving of customers" and insert "retail trade or business". The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 92 to 96 inclusive, are all trying to deal with the same problem—that is, the definition of the word "closed", which, under present legislation, and in this Bill, is taken to mean, "closed for the serving of customers". It has been, up to now, almost impossible to know what the words, "closed for the serving of customers" means. The courts have found extreme difficulty in interpreting them. It may be that my noble friend, with his great legal knowledge, when he comes to reply will be able to satisfy me that they do in fact mean what they appear to mean.
The two types of business which are particularly affected by this definition are car selling businesses and those selling televisions, though, of course, the selling of cookers and everything else is also affected. There have been two cases in the courts from which everybody hoped, after they were over, that everyone would know what the words meant. But they merely made the situation rather foggier. The first case was Waterman v. Wallasey Corporation, and the decision in that case was that it was no offence to show a person over a car and to discuss its price and merits—no sale, of course, having taken place; though how they know that, it is difficult to tell—whilst in the other case of Hesketh v. Wallasey Corporation it was established that if a prospective customer was taken out for a trial spin in a car, this did constitute being open for the serving of customers. So we get what, in fact, may be two sales—one takes place indoors and is supposed to be just seeing the car, and the other out-of-doors, which is supposed to be selling the car. In either case the car may be sold, or it may not. So the result of these two cases did not help much.
What is even more uncertain is the effect these two judgments have on other businesses—for example, the demonstration of television after the shop is supposed to be shut. Is that serving customers, or is it not? In the early days of television—and the sale of television sets provides one of the more difficult
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questions—there was little viewing time and it was not always possible to demonstrate a television during the hours a shop was supposed to be open. But those days are past. There is now plenty of time, and I do not see nowadays that there is any difference between showing a television, a car, a piano, a cooker, or anything of that kind. I am not in the least interested myself whether televisions or cars should be demonstrated before closing hours or after; I do not care at all. But, surely, this is new legislation, and the intention of the Act ought to be made abundantly clear in the Act itself. If the Government want television or cars to be shown after closing hours, then put it in the Bill. But as, apparently, that is not their intention, then I suggest that the words of my first Amendment will cover the situation and will make it quite clear. Instead of using the words, "'closed' means closed for the serving of customers", the words would read "'closed' means closed for retail trade or business." I am advised that that will be well understood in the courts and will, in fact, cover exactly what it says—that you must not carry on any retail trade or business. I believe the courts understand that.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: In my view, the noble Lord is raising an intensely interesting point. Might I put this question to him? Whilst, by accepting his Amendment, you might close a television shop for retail business, suppose that before the hour of closing the assistant takes the television set out of the shop, puts it in a motor car and drives it to the house of the prospective purchaser and demonstrates it on the purchaser's own premises. What happens then? As the Bill is now drafted, my interpretation is that if he does that upon an afternoon when the shop should be closed under the early closing provisions, he is breaking the law. But how are you going to enforce it?
LORD DERWENT: I hesitate to embark on this legal argument with my noble friend sitting on the Bench in front of me, but I rather think that the case the noble Lord mentioned might well be covered by the decision in Waterman v. Wallasey Corporation. But I do not know. I am hoping to hear from my

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noble friend when he replies. If he does not like the wording, "retail trade or business", I would ask him what wording he does like, for there is no doubt whatever—because the courts have found themselves in difficulty—that the wording, "for the serving of customers" is not satisfactory. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 47, line 6, leave out ("the serving of customers;") and insert ("retail trade or business;").—(Lord Derwent.)
LORD MILVERTON: I should like to say a word in support of the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, as some of these linked Amendments are in my name as well. I do not wish to repeat the noble Lord's argument. The aim of the Amendments, as he has said, is to endeavour to remove what we regard as the ambiguity in the definition of "closed". Perhaps I might add to what he said by referring to the fact that one Amendment, No. 95, makes explicit mention of the taking of orders. I understand that it is argued, no doubt based on Case Law, too, that the taking of orders is implicit in the meaning of "retail trade". If that is so, I suggest that in this new legislation it would be desirable to make it quite plain to those who are affected by this legislation and explicitly state it in the Bill. I beg to support the Amendment.
5.51 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: May I ask the noble Viscount this question? Would he, at the same time as he is answering the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, deal with this point that I have raised? Is it covered by his undertaking? I raised this point, the noble Viscount will remember, on one of the first Amendments—I think it was to Clause 10. That was one of my reasons for asking him to consider it, and he very kindly undertook to do so. If you take goods from the place of sale, which is closed for the purpose of serving customers, to another place, is that illegal? I interpret it to be so, under the Bill as it is drawn, if it is done upon an early closing day or at any time—perhaps the noble Viscount will tell me this—outside the hours when that particular establishment is permitted to be open. So no wireless or television salesman can sell a wireless set or a television set after
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seven o'clock on any weekday, unless it is a late closing day, even if it is away from the place that is supposed to be closed for the purpose of business. He cannot do it on the afternoon of the early closing day. The same obtains with motor cars, commercial vehicles, caravans or anything like that. Does this not involve the original Amendment that put down, which the noble Viscount said he would be kind enough to look into, with a view perhaps to meeting the case?
LORD DERWENT: Before the noble Viscount replies, may I make a correction? When answering the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, I cited the wrong case. I think the case that made it illegal was Hesketh v. Wallasey.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I have been asked a number of questions, and I am afraid that I am going to give a most unsatisfactory reply. A Minister who attempts to be a British law-ascertaining tribunal is inviting disaster. I have heard many a Minister try, in both Houses of Parliament, especially if he has legal training, but invariably, if he tries to do so, he fails to carry the conviction of the Committee which he is addressing. It has always seemed to me that the basic reason why many Ministers—in fact, all Ministers including myself on the present occasion—fail to do so is that when they are asked a number of questions of this kind, they are being asked what we should describe, in legal language, as questions of fact and not questions of law. All these questions are questions of degree for the tribunal of fact, be it magistrate or jury, to pronounce upon within the ambit of the Act; and, if you try in advance to give a hard answer on a suppositious case about a question of fact, the chances are that the next week a case will come up in the courts, apparently indistinguishable, and the opposite conclusion will be arrived at.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: May I phrase the question I put in a different way?—I am now addressing the Minister responsible for the Bill. Is it the intention of the Government in this Bill to enact legislation which will debar the things that I have said? Surely the House is entitled to know that. If the House cannot be told that, how can the House act as a Legislative Chamber?

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What are the Government's intentions in this Bill, and are those intentions as I have outlined them?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: No. I think this is exactly the kind of trap into which I have seen Ministers fall before. The Government intend, as the Bill is drafted at the moment, to limit the hours during which shops are open for the serving of customers. They intend to leave to the courts, who are the persons entrusted with that kind of business, the question of what, on a given state of facts, consists in being closed, and what, on a given state of facts, consists in serving customers. There is almost every kind of combination and permutation which an ingenious mind can find in advance, and the only sensible answer that a lawyer ought to give is that we entrust the decision of cases on fairly clear words to a body of responsible men of the world, acting impartially, who, when the concrete circumstances of a given case are stated to them, do not find it impossible to decide, for instance, whether a shop is closed for the serving of customers.
Of course, one would like to have a more precise definition, my noble friend Lord Derwent would like to have a more precise definition, and it would certainly be my desire to have a more precise definition of what constitutes being closed—that is to say, closed for the serving of customers or closed by any other rubric. All the ingenuity of "all the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men"—and they are very much more ingenious than I am—has failed to find a definition which does not involve some issue of fact which would be at least as obscure as the form of words which is now chosen—" closed for the serving of customers ". The form of words which is now chosen, "closed for the serving of customers", has to some extent been elucidated in the courts. It has been elucidated in the courts in the two cases of Hesketh and Waterman, to which my noble friend referred. The advice I have is that they afford admirable guidance as to what the law is in the matter. That means that the particular form of words which has been chosen has been the subject of judicial scrutiny and judicial explanation, which makes them rather plainer than most other forms of words.
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My noble friend Lord Derwent prefers the form of words which he has put forward. I will gladly consider with him or, preferably, will arrange that he or any other noble Lord interested in the subject should consider with the draftsman responsible for this Bill, whether any form of words is better than "closed for the serving of customers". Those advising me, and I myself, are persuaded that the formula which the noble Lord himself has devised is actually more obscure and more full of questions of fact which cannot be elucidated in advance than the formula which the Government have chosen. My noble friend would insert "retail trade or business". What is "closed for retail trade or business"?
LORD DERWENT: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Viscount. Although we have not yet come to it, I believe he has looked at Amendment No. 96.
VISCONT HAILSHAM: I think the noble Lord is being a little previous. I was taking things stage by stage. First of all, I am dealing with the formula stage by stage. The noble Lord has chosen the formula "closed for retail trade or business". What is "retail trade or business" and what is "closed"? That raises an exactly comparable level of problems, rather similar, though not identical, to those which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, asked me in relation to "closed for the serving of customers". What is "closed", and what is "serving of customers" in relation to the kind of circumstance which he has in mind? What is "closed" and what is "retail trade or business" in relation to the formula my noble friend prefers? So far as I know, there is in fact no answer to that question.
It is quite true, as my noble friend suggested, that both the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, and the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, apparently realised that the formula they have proposed was at least as vague as that which the Government proposed, because each in his turn has inserted a further definition in the subsequent definition of "retail trade" to cover this point. Unfortunately, they have not covered it, because the formula in the second definition phrase "retail trade" starts with the word "includes". "Includes" tells you a number of things which are meant, but does not purport to tell you the extent to which the phrase

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will ultimately go. Therefore, it precisely does not answer a range of questions which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, posed me.
The wording favoured by my noble friend Lord Milverton is
"the demonstration of goods and any personal service facilitating their inspection, the taking of orders."
The formula preferred by my noble friend Lord Derwent includes inserting after "auction", in the same phrase, the words,
"and the personal attendance by the occupier of the shop upon any person so as to permit the demonstration or inspection of any goods offered or exposed for sale at the shop."
In relation to either of those formulæ I cannot make up my mind what the situation would be—it certainly would not be the same in the two cases—in relation to the demonstration of the various articles which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth had in mind at places other than the shop by persons in the employment of the owner of the shop other than the occupier of the shop himself. To my mind, this only illustrates that it is very easy to say that a formula devised by a Bill is not precise. I should be the first to admit that "closed for the serving of customers" is not particularly precise; but it is quite wrong to substitute another formula which, at first sight, in one's own eyes is much mare precise but, upon closer investigation, is seen to raise a totally different and far more complex series of problems. We want to stop creating more doubt and difficulty than would be removed by the substitution of a new formula. We want to avoid prohibiting harmless activities, including, possibly, even window displays. Is a window display a demonstration? I suppose on the dictionary meaning it probably is.
Broadly speaking, therefore, the view to which we have come and to which we adhere at this stage—although the last thing I want to do is to be dogmatic or to suggest that the last word has been spoken, or that even some further formula might not be found to elucidate the matter more plainly—is that, ultimately, what constitutes a shop being open or not is what the lawyers call a question of fact, not of law. Parliament should lay down to the magistrates (who are, if I may say so in the presence of the learned Lord Chairman, normally fairly intelligent people), as it does with juries in parallel
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circumstances: "If a shop is open for the service of customers outside certain hours an offence has been committed, but if it is closed for the service of customers an offence has not been committed. What exactly constitutes being open or closed for the service of customers is for you, as men of the world, to say, in the light of the particular circumstances of the case."
The best guidance that we can give to the Committee is that that is a proper solution. It is also in line with the general doctrines of English law and practice to trust the magistrates upon a fairly clear statement of the law, to apply that law to the state of affairs which an extremely complex situation may reveal. That is the best we can do. I want to make it quite plain, both to the noble Lord opposite and to my noble friends, that if, for any reason, they think they have a more precise formula, and would like either to press the one which they have put down or some other form of their own devising which they may think is plainer than that of those responsible for the drafting of the bill, the disposition of those responsible for that draftsmanship would be to accept it if they felt that a greater degree of light would be shed upon the subject. At the present time, the disposition of those responsible for the draftsmanship—and, I may add, my own also—is to lay down the general guidance that this is one of those questions which should be left to a competent lay tribunal as a question of fact, once one accepts the view that the ordinary man is quite clear when a shop is open for the serving of customers as he is quite clear when he sees an elephant.
LORD DERWENT: I find this entirely unsatisfactory. I see the difficulties; but one of our principal difficulties; is that we do not know what the Government want to do. We do not know if, when a shop is closed, in the sense that the building is closed, they want to allow people to look at a car or at a television set after the shutters are down. We do not know if they want to allow people to take a car or a television set or a cooker to somebody's house to demonstrate it after the shop is closed. We have no idea of their intentions. The noble Viscount has said that we are leaving this matter vague. Of course we are leaving it vague, because we do not know what is wanted: In my

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submission, we are not leaving it as vague as the words that are at present in the Bill. Obviously, we cannot press this matter now, and we will reconsider what the noble Viscount has said. It will not help us much, because we do not know what it is desired to do. Before I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment perhaps the noble Viscount will say what he wishes to take place; then we should be delighted to try to draft something. Until then I do not see what we can do.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I find myself in complete agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Derwent. If the noble Viscount will forgive me for saying so, it is not fair for him to come here and ride off the Amendment by a clear and clever exposition of the legal processes. After all, Parliament is composed of ordinary intelligent individuals, not lawyers. The lawmaking is put upon them. I am certain that all noble Lords wish to discharge their duties and functions to the best of their ability, and to make the law as clear as it is possible for them to do, so that the ordinary man in the street can understand it. What an impossible position legislators are put in when we do not know, as the noble Lord, Lord Derwent has so clearly said, what are the Government's intentions! Do the Government desire to make it illegal for goods to be taken out of a retail shop and to be sold outside that shop, in the case of motor cars or television sets, pianos and other transportable goods, after the hours which this Bill sets out as being the limit within which retail trade can be carried on in that shop or upon those premises? If the Government will tell us their intentions, then we will do our best, with our average intelligence, to help draft the law so as to give effect to those intentions.
The noble and learned Viscount is really only telling us that we do not know what Her Majesty's Government want, and neither do they. This is one of the most awkward questions which makes much of this Bill a farce, but the noble and learned Viscount says in an airy fairy fashion—I hope I am not saying this offensively—"Ah! But it is not our duty to interpret the law; that is for my learned friends." It is our duty to make the law and to make it as clear as we can. The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, has made
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a brave attempt. I cannot help him very much, although I desire to do so, until I know, as he desires to know, what are the intentions of Her Majesty's Government.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I have heard these debates, on exactly these lines, fifteen or twenty times, over the last twelve years, with both Parties in power, and I have noticed that what the Minister has said has had the same effect, at any rate on the lay members of the Committee to whom he has been speaking; and each time I have realised that the misunderstanding was inevitable and almost absolute. So far from pretending or believing that it is not the duty of Parliament to make legislation clear, I myself assert it, and I am a defender of that principle against my noble friends and the noble Lord opposite. It is easy to say that what the Government mean is intelligible to an ordinary man when the Government say they want a shop closed within certain hours; but making something clear is not the same as making it either elaborate or precise.
On other occasions in this Bill we have seen the dangers and difficulties which occur when one has to undertake to make the law elaborate or precise. The effect is to encourage evasion. If Her Majesty's Government say their intention is that shops should be closed for the serving of customers, that seems to me to be something which an ordinary man can understand, something he is much more likely to understand than the formula devised as to one part by the united wisdom and as to the other part by the divided wisdom of my three noble friends who have put down this particular Amendment. I believe that the ordinary man and the honest shopkeeper will know in general what is meant when it is said that a shop shall be closed for the serving of customers.
On a much earlier Amendment I told the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, that we would consider the motor car trade separately. I agreed that perhaps theirs is a special problem and that some degree of exemption may be the way out. It is even conceivable that the radio trade may present a similar problem. These are matters which can be discussed now or at later stages of the Bill. But I am quite sure that Parliament nearly always makes a mistake if it disregards the

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advice of the draftsman and, so far as I am concerned, the rather modestly trained lawyer, not to be too precise for the sake of avoiding evasion, but to leave it to a tribunal of fact, composed of honest and reasonably-minded men, to apply the intentions of Parliament, plainly stated, to any given set of circumstances which Parliament can only dimly foresee in detail and would be unwise to pronounce upon in detail in advance. It is also part of the policy of the wise draftsman to use, in legislation, words which an honest shopkeeper, or whatever class of man he is seeking to legislate for, will understand in the ordinary sense. It is only the one who wants to evade the law who will be in difficulties.
I stated, I hope with commendable frankness, that if a more precise formula can be found which exactly defines what is meant by opening and closing a shop and does so in such a way that it cannot be evaded or misunderstood, I shall be the first to welcome it. All I am saying at this stage of the Bill is that the special problem of the motor and the radio trades may have to be dealt with by way of exemptions, and that particular problems of definition have to be solved by the Parliamentary draftsman or by myself. We believe that the formula which my noble friends have devised is at least as obscure as that which we have devised.
LORD DERWENT: I will read what my noble and learned friend has said with great care, but I hope that if demonstrations are to take place away from the shop they will be legal, and that that will go into the Bill. That will make it abundantly clear that the article is not something which is being sold from the shop. If those are the intentions of my noble and learned friend, perhaps we may return to the point later. I now beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave withdrawn.
6.17 p.m.
LORD DERWENT LORD DERWENT moved, in the paragraph defining "shop assistant," after the words "work about the business of a shop" to insert "for more than twenty-five hours in any week". The noble Lord said: We have partly debated this matter before. I suggest to your Lordships that it is a question we ought to decide to-night and not leave to a future occasion. It was debated when I had a
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consequential Amendment to this on Clause 38. This is an Amendment which deals with part-time workers. My definition of part-time workers in this Amendment is those who work for twenty-five hours a week or less; and the Amendment seeks to take those part-timers out of the control of this Bill. The reason I have chosen a total of twenty-five hours a week or less is that as long ago as 1934, in the Shops Act, that was considered as defining a part-time worker for young persons, and they were taken out of the orbit of that Act.
Now unless there is something of this kind in the Bill we shall make complete nonsense of some of the administration. Clause 38 (2) lays down that where working hours of a shop assistant include the hours from half-past-eleven in the morning to half-past-two in the afternoon, that worker shall be allowed between those hours an interval for dinner of at least three-quarters of an hour if feeding on the premises or at least one hour if feeding outside the premises. Every day, for five days a week, many hundreds of true part-time workers (I have taken this as an example but it appears all over the country) go into the City of London at about eleven or half-past-eleven and leave again at three o'clock; so that their daily work, for five days a week, is four or three-and-a-half hours. They go there solely to serve luncheons to City workers. They do nothing else in the City.
If this Amendment of mine, on Clause 64 is not put into the Bill, all those people who are going into the City at 11.30 a.m. are then to have three-quarters of an hour off for lunch, just when people are coming in to get their lunch; then they will go away at three o'clock. That makes absolute nonsense. When the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition raised this matter on Clause 38, he seemed not to mind the idea behind my Amendment, but he put out a word of grave warning as to what might happen if too many hours were worked in a day by this particular category of part-time workers—those working twenty-five hours a week or less—and thought they might work three days a week for twelve hours a day. It is for that reason that I think this Amendment should be passed to-day—so that all your Lordships will have time to see that these people are properly looked after. I think that the noble

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Viscount will find that the only Amendment he will want to put in will be the Amendment which I had down last time for Clause 38 (1), because in that subsection it is laid down that a shop assistant:
"shall not be employed to work continuously about the business of a shop for a spell of more than five hours without an interval of at least half an hour for a meal or rest:".
The noble Viscount will remember that when I was talking about Clause 38 (1), I explained that I wanted to put these people back into the Bill, and the effect of my Amendment was that they could get protection. Apart from that, I suggest that one must have something in the nature of my Amendment which deals with part-time workers, because either people in cities will not get their lunches or they will have to have them at very queer times—the workers may have to get their lunches by 9 a.m. It does not make sense. The principle has been agreed in previous Acts of Parliament. It started as long ago as the Shops Act, 1934. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 48, line 6, after ("shop") insert the said words.—(Lord Derwent.)
LORD JESSEL: I should like to support this Amendment. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, on the second day of the debate, replying to Lord Derwent's Amendment, put it very well, I think, when he said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 201 (No. 34). col. 980.]:
"it also takes away the meal interval provision in Clause 32 (2) as well, leaving the meal interval provision in Clause 38 (1)."
That is exactly what Lord Derwent wants to put back. He wants to give these part-time workers the meal interval provision in Clause 38 (1). Also, the noble Viscount was right in what he said about taking away the half-holiday. Again I quote:
"I cannot myself see why the Sunday provisions do not work well enough in their place. If an assistant is employed on a Sunday but not on every weekday the requirements of Clause 39, about time off in lieu of Sunday employment, have been complied with; so I do not see that any hardship is involved in regard to the employer."
The Sunday provisions of Clause 39 are not all right if the person works more than four hours on Sunday only because, as I read it, he is not allowed to work
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more than three Sundays in the quarter. In the season, in seaside places, very often people are required just for Sunday work, so, if the provisions of Clause 39 are complied with, they will not be able to work every Sunday; they must have one Sunday off in the quarter—by the "quarter" I mean a period of four Sundays. I think that is the right interpretation. I should like to hear the noble Viscount's remarks on that when he comes to reply.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I am to some extent taken aback by this Amendment. I thought we had agreed to discuss this matter on the Amendment to Clause 38. My understanding was that I had answered, and that my noble friend had accepted what I said at the earlier stage of the Bill. It is, therefore, to some extent, impromptu that I now rise to deal with a matter which had to some extent passed from my mind. The effect of the two Amendments taken together—the one which was withdrawn (and I thought withdrawn with the consent of the Committee) and this one which is before us now—is to exclude from the employment provisions of the Bill all shop assistants who work twenty-five hours a week or less. With the exception of the provisions relating to Clause 38 (1), the present Amendment—that is to say, the one we are now discussing to Clause 64, page 48, line 6—has, I think, by itself, the effect of excluding part-timers altogether from the Bill: that is to say, that even the provisions in Clause 38 (1) would cease to affect the part-timer if the present Amendment were passed.
I cannot at the moment, therefore, see what the purpose is of moving this Amendment, unless it is to go even further than the Amendment which was (in my judgment, at any rate) rightly withdrawn at the earlier stage of the Bill. I cannot see why any of the provisions should not, as they are drafted, apply to part-time workers. The relevant provisions are half-holiday provisions in Clauses 37 and 43 and the meal interval provisions in Clause 38 (2). Even if I do not take a legitimate or, as my noble friend might complain, a rather debating advantage of him in referring to the provisions of Clause 38 (1), which are clearly designed to apply to part-timers but which this Amendment would exclude from part-timers, I would point out that the Bill

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has been carefully drafted to make reasonable and flexible provision for part-time workers. For instance, the provisions of Clause 43 (1) (a) are expressly designed to meet the needs of part-time workers and, I think, primarily designed to meet the needs of part-time workers and no one else. It is that amongst other provisions—
LORD JESSEL: I hesitate to interrupt the noble Viscount, but I do not quite follow. Is that not just a new alternative definition of half-holiday?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I think not, with respect to my noble friend. The purpose is to apply half-holiday provisions to part-time workers. That is why a new definition is inserted. That is the intention of the Bill. The second part of the definition in Clause 43 (1) (a) is devised for the precise purpose of making the provisions of Clause 37, which relate to a half-holiday, applicable to part-time workers; and it is this provision, among others, which would be excluded from application to part-time workers if this Amendment were carried. I cannot go the whole way with my noble friend on Sunday work. I have not got up the case afresh, but I do not understand why, if a person is employed for Sundays only, he is not given for purposes of Clause 39 a whole holiday for the rest of the week. It may be the effect of Clause 39 on the part-time worker is as mentioned by Lord Jessel. Without notice, I should not like to dogmatise whether it is or not. The effect of Clause 39 on particular types of part-time workers may be to restrict the number of Sundays on which they may be employed. I should not like, offhand, to exclude the possibility of making a concession on that point—but not by this avenue, not by excluding part-time workers as a whole from the Bill. I am most anxious that the Bill should not include an anomaly in this respect.
I should like to consider the point further, in the light of any advice I might receive from my right honourable friend, but in my own mind I am clear that in general it would not be fair to exclude part-time workers as such from the provisions on Sunday working. It may be that it would be proper to make a concession for particular types of part-time workers on some part of the operation of the Sunday work provisions, but that is a detailed question which I think could be
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dealt with on Clause 39, either in the course of Report stage of in another place. I do not think that the right way of approaching the subject is to exclude from the operation of the Bill the Sunday and half-holiday provisions in relation to part-time workers as a class. As I think I said on the previous occasion—and I should like to repeat it—those advising me would find the definition of "part-time worker" by the rather crude dividing line of twenty-five hours a week unacceptable in itself.
LORD DERWENT: Why unacceptable?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: Because it leads to so much controversy about what a part-timer really is. Twenty-five hours seems to be a purely arbitrary line of demarcation, which has not been justified by any argument before your Lordships. Clearly a 25-hour-a-week man would be a part-timer but it is not clear whether a 26-hour-a-week man would be anything more. That would have to be gone into.
I apologise to the Committee if my remarks have been related to some extent to the arguments as we have heard them. I thought that the subject was closed by the withdrawal of the earlier Amendment. I admit that it is entirely my own fault if I was under that misapprehension, but I should not like your Lordships to think that I was guilty of any want of courtesy in not dealing with it in more detail. However, I think I have said enough to indicate that, at any Tate in the view of the Government, there is no reason at all, with the qualification I have given, why Clauses 37 and 40 should not apply to the part-timer as such, and why Clause 38 (2), to which my noble friend referred, should not exactly meet the circumstances which my noble friend had in mind. Clause 38 (2) provides that
"Without prejudice to the provisions of the foregoing subsection, but subject as aforesaid,—

(a) where the working hours of a shop assistant include the hours from half-past eleven o'clock in the morning to half-past two o'clock in the afternoon, he shall be allowed between those hours an interval for dinner of—".

Then it gives the alternatives:—
"at least three-quarters of an hour, if that meal is taken in the shop…"
or
"at least one hour in any other case;".

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I should have thought that that was applicable to the cases which the noble Lord has in mind and would be met, if an employee was employed during the lunch hour and nothing else, by his not being employed after the lunch hour. I should have thought that that was the answer to that point. It is the intention of the Government to apply the provisions of the Bill to part-timers, and it is also the intention not to create any anomaly which would impose upon the employer of a part-timer an onerous and unnecessary restriction. Should my noble friend have any particular instances in mind with which we could deal by way of amendment to Clauses 37 to 40 inclusive, I know that my right honourable friend will be glad to consider them and so, indeed, should I.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Before the noble Lord speaks, may I say that I have looked into this matter a little since the previous discussion, and the trade union attitude is clear to me. They are a little anxious. They are afraid, as the noble Lord, Lord Jessel, said, that if we carry the original Amendment to Clause 38 and do not make some amendment to Clause 39, there will be some dubiety about the situation with regard to part-time assistants employed on Sundays as well as on other days. If the noble Viscount, with his noble friend Lord Derwent, would look into this matter a little further before Report stage, perhaps we could have a talk about it. I should like to leave it at that now.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I shall be only too glad to do so. What I had contemplated on the Clause 38 Amendment was that the various undertakings which I had given during the Committee stage should be carefully considered by those advising my right honourable friend, and any which required further discussion could be considered between noble Lords and myself, or between noble Lords and my right honourable friend, before Report stage. I was hoping that that suggestion would cover the situation.
LORD DERWENT: The noble Viscount went rather quickly and I am not quite sure what he said; but I will read it. I do not think he met my point. I may be entirely wrong about this question,
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particularly about mid-day workers who are serving luncheon's to other people. I think we can put Amendments down for the Third Reading, because if there are Amendments on Report stage, there may be consequential Amendments to put forward at the following stage. I am not very happy about this question at the moment, but I may be happier when I have read the OFFICIAL REPORT. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL THE EARL OF LISTOWEL moved to insert the following definition:
"'Souvenir' means any article designed primarily for ornament and any article which by reason of its materials or its manufacture or of any design or representation incorporated in it has particular associations with the locality in which it is sold;"
The noble Earl said: The object of this Amendment is to try to attach a precise meaning to the word "souvenir". We must do this in order to distinguish between genuine souvenirs and articles which cannot, by the widest stretch of imagination, be regarded as souvenirs but which, nevertheless, are sold as such by tradesmen outside normal hours. Perhaps I may be allowed to draw attention to what the Gowers Committee said on this point, because I know that the noble Viscount opposite attaches as much importance as we do to the views of the Gowers Committee. I would direct the attention to the noble Viscount to paragraph 106 of the Report. I will read only the last sentence.
"We were told by a Shops Acts inspector at a holiday resort that he felt that he had no choice but to regard all Sunday sales as legal, because he saw no likelihood of prosecutions being successful. 'Visitors,' he said, 'now take home as presents and souvenirs a more useful type of article, e.g. wearing apparel, shoes, slippers, and even small articles of hardware and household utensils.'"
That is what has been happening at holiday resorts on Sundays, and that is what will continue to happen under the Third Schedule of the Bill as it stands, because there we find souvenirs and fancy goods classed as things that can be sold on Sunday. We have found a similar difficulty in London in regard to the Festival Pleasure Gardens at Battersea, which, under the Second Schedule, are exempted for the sale of souvenirs. We found there that tradesmen sell pretty well anything on Sunday, telling their customers that the articles can be called "souvenirs". I

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think that here is a gap which ought to be closed.
I admit that a great difficulty arises at this point, which I leave to the fertile imagination of the noble Viscount and the very able draftsmen he has at his disposal. It is extremely difficult to find a definition of "souvenir," and I have merely had a shot at it in my Amendment. I do not pretend that it is a good definition. It seems to me that there are two things which most people would regard as being appropriate to a souvenir. One is that it should be intended as an ornament, and the other is that it should have some indication of its local origin and connection, such as, for example, the Coat of Arms of a London Borough or the Coat of Arms of Blackpool, Brighton, or wherever the object is bought. I suggest that those two characteristics might be regarded as being essential to a souvenir. I admit that I am only drawing a bow at venture, and I am certain that the noble Viscount will be more successful than I have been in my Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 48, line 9, insert the said words.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I am grateful to the noble Earl: indeed, he should spare my blushes by not referring to my fertility of imagination or device; and I know that those who are responsible for the drafting of this Bill will appreciate the implied compliment to themselves. However, they have so far failed to find a Satisfactory definition of "souvenir" and, with respect, they are not impressed with the gallant attempt of the noble Earl. They feel—and I am bound to agree with them—that an ordinary garden spade with the words on it "A present from Brighton", or the crest of Brighton, would be a souvenir within his definition. Therefore, I think the noble Earl's definition would be worse than none.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: It has to be designed "for ornament", too.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: No, with respect, not on this definition, because the Amendment says:
"'Souvenir' means any article designed primarily for ornament"—
that is one part of it—
"and any article which by reason of its materials or its manufacture or of any design
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or representation incorporated in it has particular associations with the locality in which it is sold."
According to this definition, the souvenir does not have to fulfil both the conditions, in which case it would be too narrow, but has to fulfil either, in which case the definition is manifestly too wide. As I say, those advising me are not impressed. They are open to suggestion, but they have lost all confidence in that fertility of ingenuity and device with which the noble Earl has credited them, and I certainly never had any confidence in my own.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: As I said, I have not great confidence in my own fertility of inventing a definition for this word, or even in the ability of my advisers to do so. However, I hope that, as the noble Viscount has admitted that a definition should, if possible, be found, he will have another look at the matter between now and the Report stage, and that if, after further consultation with his advisers, a formula is found, he will be good enough to suggest something when we reach the next stage of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD MILNER OF LEEDS LORD MILNER OF LEEDS moved to leave out subsection (2), and insert—
"(2) If either throughout the area of a local authority in England or Wales, or in some part thereof, it is customary—

(a) for there to be no general abstention from the carrying on of retail trade or business upon a bank holiday, but

(b) for there to be, instead, such a general abstention upon another day,

they may by order direct that, for the purposes of the application of this Act to their area, or to that part thereof, as the case may be, the bank holiday shall be treated as a business day and not as a non-business day and the other day shall be treated as a non-business day and not as a business day."
The noble Lord said: Clause 64 (2) is not easy to interpret, but I imagine that it was included in the Bill to make it possible to continue the custom which exists in certain districts, and particularly seaside resorts, of which your Lordships will know there are some outstanding ones in Yorkshire, such as Scarborough and others, where retail trade may continue on a Bank Holiday falling within the season, but in exchange shops are permitted to close on some off-season

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weekday. If Clause 64 (2) as now drafted is allowed to remain in the Bill, then the position would go far beyond the question of an exchange such as I have indicated.
In certain towns, such as Leeds and Bradford, it has become the custom to open on the half-holiday on which customarily the shops would close. In the case of Leeds and Bradford, it is the Wednesday afternoon prior to a Bank Holiday and the Wednesday afternoon following a Bank Holiday. It has been customary for the shops to open on those days, but in exchange to close on the Tuesday following the Monday Bank Holiday; and that happens at Easter, Whitsuntide and August. Your Lordships will appreciate that, whatever the reason for that (and I think the reason was that it was not considered fair to shop assistants in those towns to take away the customary half-holiday and not to give something in exchange, and therefore it was agreed that the shops should close on the Bank Holiday Tuesday) it is obviously desirable. It enables shopkeepers, shop assistants and others to have a fairly long week-end from the Saturday to the Wednesday morning, and it would seem eminently desirable to facilitate that being done.
Further, many northern towns, as your Lordships are aware, have a Wakes Week in the summer when businesses usually lose down for a whole week, running, for example, from the Friday of one week to perhaps the Thursday of the following week inclusive. In the succeeding week the whole holiday overlaps the normal local early closing day. If Clause 64 (2) remains in its present form, every weekday in the Wakes Week would become a non-business day, and shops would be obliged to close, in addition, on some afternoon, possibly the Friday or Saturday, in the second week. Obviously, again, that is not intended or desirable.
I do not wish to take up your Lordships' time unduly, but there is also the question of a possible five-day week, some discussion on which has taken place in the retail trade. One method whereby that could be effected would be to close all day on the normal early closing day, instead of only on the afternoon of that day. But again, if Clause 64 (2) remains in the Bill, as drafted, that day will be treated as a non-business day and shops
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will be required to close in the afternoon of some other weekday as well. In that way the intention to convert the half-day closing day into a whole day closing would be thwarted. There are other customs and practices of that kind which would be affected if this subsection were allowed to remain in the Bill in its present form.
The problem, therefore, is to devise a form of words which would allow shops in seaside resorts, for example, to open on the Bank Holiday Monday and to close for a full day on some other day, and, at the same time, to permit the carrying on of such customs as are carried out in Leeds, Bradford and elsewhere, and for the shopkeepers and shop assistants not to be penalised. The new subsection which I propose will have the effect of enabling that to be done. It would enable local authorities—and it will be a matter for the local authority in each case—to make an order under the Bill whereby the shops could close on the Bank Holiday Tuesday and open on the customary half-holiday in the week preceding and the week following the Bank Holiday, and permitting seaside resorts to carry out the exchange which is proposed. The matter is a little complicated, but I think the noble Viscount is seized of the position. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 48, line 32, leave out subsection ("2") and insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Milner of Leeds.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I am happy to say that the Government can see their way to accept this Amendment. It has been already fully explained by the noble Lord opposite, and I do not think I can add anything to his explanation. It permits a perfectly desirable local practice in various parts of the country to continue, and it is our desire that it should continue.
LORD MILNER OF LEEDS: I am greatly obliged to the noble Viscount. I hope that it is a practice which will extend from the civilised and considerate North to the hitherto uncivilised and inconsiderate South.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 64, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 65 agreed to.
House resumed.