Lords Sitting of 19 March 1957

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers
The Lord St. Oswald—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

PORT OF LONDON BILL [H.L.]
Read 3ª, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
BLYTH HARBOUR BILL [H.L.]
Read 3ª, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

CAPITAL EXPENDITURE ON WATER UNDERTAKINGS
2.35 p.m.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, I beg to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what priority they can now accord to capital expenditure on water under-takings, seeing that the "credit squeeze" has cut this from £30 million per annum from 1946 to 1954 down to £24 million currently, although industrial uses of water are rapidly increasing and drought years will again recur.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): My Lords, schemes for water supply were not exempted from the restrictions on capital expenditure which it was necessary to impose last year, but the curtailment has not been as severe as my noble friend suggests. I will, with my noble friend's permission, circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a list of the annual amounts of capital expenditure on water supply since the war. Her Majesty's Government fully recognise the importance of water supply, and the noble Lord may be assured that the essential needs of industrial users and other consumers are met.
Following are the figures referred to:
Authorised capital expenditure on water supply in the post-war years has been as follows:

£ million

1946 to 1950

13·1 (annual average)

1951

19·5

1952

20·5

1953

15·8

1954

21·1

1955

27·6

1956

23·8

LONDON BASIN WATER EXTRACTIONS
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, I beg to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how Section 14 of the Water Act, 1945, has been applied in regard to extractions in the London Basin from wells and boreholes; and whether the new mammoth buildings receive the right to a proportionately greater extraction rate on their predecessors' site.]
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, Under Section 14 of the Water Act, 1945 (which has been amended by Section 5 of the Water Act, 1948), my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing may make Orders defining areas in which special measures for the conservation of water are necessary in the public interest. In such areas, with certain limited exceptions, a licence must be obtained from my right honourable friend before any new well or borehole is sunk, or the capacity of an existing one is increased, for the purpose of abstracting additional quantities of water. If the London Basin is taken as being the area of the chalk extending approximately from St. Albans in the North to Croydon in the South, and from Romford in the East to Windsor in the West, the whole of it is covered by Orders so made. The Government are aware of the decline of underground water levels resulting from over-pumping in the London Basin and applications for licences are very critically examined. Only in quite exceptional circumstances would licences now be granted for abstraction anywhere in the built-up area of London, and there is no question of greater rights of extraction in relation to new buildings.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Earl for his careful answer. Nevertheless, is he aware that over-pumping is still increasing, and, therefore, has his right honourable friend the Minister measures in view to withstand the further entry of salt water, owing to the progressive lowering of the water table? Perhaps the noble Earl would kindly let me have a Written Answer, as it may not be convenient to answer further now.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, as I said in my first reply to my noble friend, the Government are well aware of the decline of the underground water levels resulting from over-pumping. That, of course, is the reason why my right honourable friend examines all these licences with great care. But I will certainly go into the question of the sea-water which my noble friend mentioned in the course of his supplementary question.

OIL AND PETROL RATIONING
2.40 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF POWER (LORD MILLS): My Lords, I think your Lordships would wish to know of the latest assessment of the oil situation which was given yesterday in another place. With the permission of the House I will make a statement.
The Government have reviewed petrol rationing and other restrictions on oil consumption in the light of the latest supply position and have decided that the improved prospects warrant some relaxations. Supplies of petrol, although increasing, are still likely to remain short of normal demand, and it is therefore not possible to abolish petrol rationing at once. Nevertheless, the improved supplies are sufficient to allow the basic ration for private cars to be increased by 50 per cent. to 300 miles a month in the next rationing period beginning on April 17. This will benefit all motorists, whether they use the extra mileage for business purposes or for their holidays. In addition, the improved supplies will be taken into account in assessing claims for supplementary allowances and in dealing with applications in respect of passenger and goods vehicles requiring petrol.
Supplies of gas/diesel oil are now sufficient to enable the coupon rationing
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scheme for Derv fuel and the other cuts on gas/diesel supplies to be brought to an end on April 1. But stocks in the hands of the oil companies must be built up during the summer to meet next winter's demands and with this end in view the companies have been asked to limit their sales to customers to minimum current needs. It is still necessary for consumers to exercise all possible economies; otherwise it may become necessary to prescribe a measure of under-delivery by the companies.
Fuel oil supplies are still below normal and stocks must be rebuilt before next winter. Although, therefore, there is no longer any danger of an increase in the present level of cuts, they must remain in force for the time being, subject to one minor relaxation in regard to fuel oil for space and water heating where the present cut of 25 per cent. will be reduced to one of 10 per cent., with effect from April 1.
The additional supplies which have made these relaxations possible have been procured only at higher cost. This is reflected in the price increases announced by the oil companies yesterday. In the case of petrol the increase is 1d. per gallon on the retail price.
2.44 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for the courtesy he has shown your Lordships' House in making this statement to-day—he could not make it in your Lordships' House yesterday. He will not mind if I offer one or two criticisms. I do not wish to look a gift horse entirely in the mouth, but I think he has treated with less than justice and equity that section of the motoring community—the private motorist—who, for one reason or another, perhaps studying the national interest or feeling that they could not make out a sufficiently good case for a supplementary ration, have tried to exist during this rationing period on the basic ration alone. Both they and that class of motorist who could not afford to run his motor car on a 200 miles a month allowance are getting very short shrift with the noble Lord's rather meagre increase of 50 per cent.
Would the noble Lord accept a suggestion from me that the private motor car basic ration alone be increased 100 per cent.? The noble Lord knows very well that the basic ration and the unit can be increased or decreased at any time that

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he wishes. Why does he wait until April 17 to do this? Why not immediately? We all know that there are ample supplies to cover it. Why end one rationing period on April 1, as he has done with diesel oil, and wait until April 17 to give the same concession to the private motorist? I would suggest to the noble Lord that he could do this overnight. It would help him in another direction. It would syphon off the extra demand that might arise if there is a bank-up, or continued bank-up, of coupons at the holiday period. May I ask him one other question? What does he intend to do with the basic ration of petrol for the petrol-driven commercial vehicle? He surely cannot allow the diesel-engined commercial vehicle to be coupon-free and ration-free, whereas the petrol-driven commercial vehicle is still subjected to a petrol ration. Of course, I am not so concerned with the commercial vehicle because we all know that now the commercial vehicle operator can get on a supplementary ration nearly as much petrol as he wants.
I have one last question—though I rather anticipate the answer, which is the formula at this time of the year, that he cannot anticipate his right honourable friend's Budget Statement. What does he intend to do about the tax? Surely it is implicit, if the tax is going to be taken off when fuel rationing ends, that, if the fuel ration is half taken off, half the tax should be taken off? Or are all the critics—and I include myself—who said that tying the 1s. a gallon tax to petrol rationing would mean not that the 1s. tax came off earlier, but that rationing stayed on later, now going to be proved true? My final word to the noble Lord is this. I would not recommend him to do without the rationing system. If he did, he would be running a risk which we in this country cannot yet afford to run. To disband the system would be wrong, but I would suggest to the noble Lord that the private motorist who has forgone any supplementary, has not gone into the black market and has tried to make do with this meagre 200 miles-a-month ration, is deserving of better treatment than he is now receiving at the hands of the noble Lord.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, may I be allowed to ask the noble Lord a question or two about this matter? The noble Lord will probably have seen the tape
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to-day. He will have seen that in Germany they have reduced the price of petrol. In connection with petrol rationing, there are two things: there is the amount of petrol and there is the amount one has to pay for it. Cannot the noble Lord do something on the lines the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has just suggested? Why keep the ration down to just a 50 per cent. rise? Why cannot the existing ration be doubled? Secondly, in the cost of petrol, the motorist is subjected to the purely inflationary levy of 1s. a gallon. May I ask the noble Lord whether, as he price of petrol goes up, as it was announced yesterday it would, by 1d. a gallon, the 1s. a gallon tax could be reduced by the amount by which the cost of petrol rises. Could not the noble Lord possibly see his way to give consideration to these two points?
LORD MILLS: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, for his most helpful suggestions—indeed, if I may say so, I always find him most helpful in what he has to advise. But unfortunately, I have to deal with the facts of the supply situation, and I have to take into account two factors. When the noble Lord and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, hear these two factors I think they will see why I cannot accept their advice. The first is the question of stocks. It is said that our stocks are plentiful. I am glad to say that they are in a satisfactory state, but they are still rather below normal. The second factor is the question of supplies. Although supplies have been better than we anticipated, they are still below normal. Perhaps there is even a third factor to take into account—that at this time of the year, if petrol is free, consumption is liable to rise very steeply indeed.
Having considered all these factors, we have come to the conclusion that the utmost we can afford is to increase the basic ration for the next rationing period by 50 per cent., and not by any greater figure. Not only should I like to see a greater figure; I should like to see the end of rationing. For the same reason it is not possible to accept the suggestion that the value of existing coupons in the present rationing period should also be increased by 50 per cent. I can appreciate the inequalities that arise out of a rationing system. One of the reasons

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why we should like to see the end of a rationing system is because we on this side of the House, as is true of those on the other side of the House, do not believe in inequalities. But they do arise. I am conscious of the case of the motorist who laid up his car, or who did not ask for supplementary allowances. Had it been administratively possible, one might have considered their case further. But I would remind your Lordships that it is only because of the co-operation of the public that petrol rationing is in the satisfactory state that it is to-day.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, mentioned the question of petrol-driven commercial vehicles. I dealt with that in my statement and said that we would take into account the improved supplies in dealing with the applications for supplementary allowances in respect of passenger and goods vehicles requiring petrol. Then the noble Earl, Lord Howe, mentioned the fact that Germany had reduced the price of petrol. I had not seen that news on the tape, having had no particular reason to look at the tape. But this is the cheapest country in Europe for petrol, and it may well be that elsewhere the price may be reduced. So far as the tax is concerned, I think all that noble Lords will expect me to say is that I will see that their views are forwarded to the right quarter.
EARL HOWE: May I ask the noble Lord one other question? He referred to the next rationing period. I understand that the next rationing period is to run for four months—is that correct? Does not the noble Lord look forward to a still further betterment in the situation in the period from April to August? If the position gets better, would not the noble Lord be able to deal far more leniently with petrol rationing than he has so far indicated? A 50 per cent. rise means 300 miles a month, as against 200 miles. Could the noble Lord not hold out a little more hope than just to say that the 300 miles standard, if I may so call it, is to run for another four months? Could not we be told that we may hope to get a still further betterment of the situation, perhaps in the middle of April?
LORD MILLS: My Lords, in reply to the noble Earl, I think he would be wrong in assuming that petrol rationing
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is necessarily going to last for four months. Coupons for six months are being issued, but four months' coupons may be used. I repeat that we will end rationing just so soon as the supply and stock position make it possible. It may be one month; it may be two months; it may be four months, or six months. No-one can tell. But at the earliest possible moment it will be done, and I would much prefer to see that than to have to consider again increasing the value of coupons.
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, with reference to the statement which the noble Lord has just made, that stocks are insufficient, may I ask whether he can confirm or deny information which reaches me, through officers of the Merchant Navy that tankers arriving in this country are being diverted abroad because of insufficient storage here at home?
LORD MILLS: My Lords, in answer to the noble Lord, I think this information must arise from the fact that we still do a large trade in oil with Europe; and I think the tanker movements to which he refers can only be in pursuance of that trade.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, before leaving this subject, may I ask the noble Lord this question? Would he give the House an assurance that he will not close the door completely to a reconsideration of the question of allowing this increase in the basic ration to operate before April 17? If I understood him aright, he said he would do it "if it was administratively possible." Having some experience of departmental organisation in regard to this matter, I can assure him that it is administratively possible. Would he balance this factor with what the Government are losing in taxation revenue from the licences on motor cars that are laid up? That sum might not be insignificant, and the Government cannot afford to "turn up their noses" at it. That might be balanced against the bringing forward by the time I have stipulated of this concession increase of at least 50 per cent. Will the noble Lord give the House the assurance that he will at least give that point his serious consideration?
LORD MILLS: My Lords, I think the noble Lord has misunderstood me. I

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never said it was administratively impossible to consider increasing the present ration by 50 per cent.: I said it was impossible because of the stock and supply position. I said it was administratively impossible to consider cases such as those of motorists who had laid up their cars or, for one reason or another, had not asked for supplementary allowances. That is quite a different thing.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, will the noble Lord take into consideration the thousands of gallons of petrol which to-day are sold by dealers all over the country without coupons, because they were over-stocked before rationing started, and which might be allowed to go to the legitimate holder of coupons on a 50 per cent. increase?
LORD MILLS: My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that this matter has my daily consideration, but I do not think that we should confuse stocks at individual garages with the overall stock position with which we are concerned in administering a rationing system.
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, with reference to the reply which the noble Lord has been so kind as to give me, would it not indicate that the needs of foreign customers are being put before our own needs?
LORD MILLS: My Lords, I believe the noble Lord would be quite wrong in arriving at that assumption. We have a very valuable trade in oil, both from the balance of payments point of view and from the point of view of tradition, with many countries in Europe, and we are right to keep that up. Moreover, the whole overall position is watched by the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, so that there is no danger of the kind which the noble Lord fears.

TRAFFIC SIGNS REGULATIONS, 1957
3.2 p.m.
LORD SOMERS LORD SOMERS rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Traffic Signs Regulations, 1957 (S.I. 1957 No. 13), dated January 7, 1957, laid before the House under Standing Order No. 61 on February 8, 1957, be annulled. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving
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the Motion which stands in my name, I can assure your Lordships that I have not done so without having given it careful consideration. It must be nearly five years since I wrote to the Automobile Association on this very subject, and when I saw the new Regulations I felt that something must be done to air the matter; for I felt that they were about as unsatisfactory as they possibly could be. It may seem to some of your Lordships that I am putting it rather strongly, but these alterations are going to cost a considerable amount of money and, for some reason that must seem good to them, Her Majesty's Government have not shown any great willingness to make any major expenditure on road improvements. I feel it is highly likely that if we have the alterations now proposed we shall not get any further alteration for a very long time; therefore it seems to me that if we are to have a change now, it is essential that it should be a satisfactory one. I hope that those of your Lordships who are interested in the subject have in front of you a copy of these new Regulations, because I shall be referring to them in detail.
I will begin by saying that I am one among many others who would like to see the Continental system adopted in this country. I know many have said that we like to make a compromise between the Continental system and the American system, but I can only say that any Americans who come to this country would find our roads very puzzling in comparison with theirs, even with the same road signs as are in use in America. I hardly think their signs would be very suitable for our roads. On the other hand, the Continental signs are simple, clear and easily understood; and they provide for every possible contingency that one may come across on the roads, and do so in about twenty-four signs as against something like the 300 which your Lordships will find in this list.
The Continental signs are chiefly pictorial—another point which makes them much more easy to recognise when one is driving past them at a high speed. It also makes them understandable to those who are either illiterate (if there are any left) or who come from foreign countries. They are recognisable to all who come over from Europe. That seems to me to a valuable point. We

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have a beautiful country, in spite of the fact that in many cases we seem to be doing our best to ruin its appearance, and it is quite possible that by encouraging European motorists to visit us we might bring about a thriving tourist trade. Granted we should first have to stimulate our hotel keepers to raise the standards of their food slightly, but, none the less, it is not an impossible thing and would be highly desirable.
Let us examine these signs as they stand. On page 16 there are shown three forms of road junction sign and the old, familiar sign for a cross-roads which, as your Lordships will see, has been changed from the multiplication sign to the addition sign. I think the great point about these signs is that not one of them gives the essential information—an indication as to whose is the right of way. I feel that one should never come upon a road junction without having quite clear in one's mind whether it is one's own right of way or the other man's. None of these signs show that. At a cross-roads one road should always be considered the major, whether in fact they are equal or not, and the minor road should have a "Major Road Ahead," "Go Slow" or "Halt" sign, while for the purpose of reassuring the driver the major road could have a sign similar to that used on the Continent—an upward pointing arrow with a small stroke across it.
On the next page we have the "Roundabout" sign which is unchanged except in size. That is perfectly all right; but there are two new "Bend" signs. The old sign of the "Double Bend" has been changed slightly to conform to the actual lay-out of the road, and for a single bend we are to have the upward pointing stroke, bending either to left or right. That is certainly an improvement, but, on the other hand, it is not definite enough, because, for one thing, these signs for road junctions, cross roads and bends are scattered all over the countryside at every conceivable point. Sometimes they are very significant and sometimes they have absolutely no significance. I have many times come across a "Cross Roads" sign on a main road and discovered when I arrived at the crossroads that it consisted of just a farm track leading off on either side. When one sees the enormous number of signs and knows that they may
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or may not be significant, one tends to become careless, with the result that when a sign is significant one may do something silly. This absolutely indiscriminate use of signs in any and every circumstance should be abandoned. I do not feel that the "Bend" signs are definitive enough. They do not show whether the bend is an absolute "hairpin" or just a mild curve in the road for which one hardly needs to slow up at all. That could be made much more easily recognisable by a very simple method—by just placing inside the curve of the bend, the ratio of the curve in yards. That sounds rather involved, but the public would soon learn to recognise the fact that a large number was comparatively safe and a small number was dangerous. If they can recognise the fact that "1 in 4" means a steep hill and "1 in 120" does not, surely they can do something similar with regard to a bend.
May I revert for a moment to road junctions? One particular junction has not been provided for, and I have felt for many years that this is most important. The junction to which I refer is the "V" junction, where two major roads converge upon each other. I know one particular case of that in Norfolk where all that is given on the right hand of the two roads is a "road junction" sign—an upright stroke with a small stroke to the left implying a small side road. Of course, one does not see the road until one gets there, and there is always some difficulty in approaching these places. One has to look behind to see whether there is traffic going in the same direction and converging upon one, and one has to look in front to see if there is any traffic going across one's nose. There again it seems to me that a particular sign is needed. I would suggest an inverted "V"—a very simple sign—with either an "R" or an "L" in the centre which would imply that the converging road is on one's right or on one's left. That would be a simple solution.
We come now to page 18. Here we have three signs. One says: "Low Gear Now". The next says: "Keep In Low Gear", and the third says: "Low Gear For 1½ Miles". It seems to me that all these signs for low gear are useless because they do not apply to every class of vehicle. If you come to a sign for a hill, as given in No. 118 on the next page which reads: "Hill 1 in 12" then surely

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any sensible driver will know whether he has got to change down or not. If he is driving a very large eight-wheeler lorry, he probably will change down, but if he is driving an ordinary private car he will not. I think one should do the ordinary motorist the justice of assuming that he probably has the sense to know whether or not he needs to change down.
On page 19 we come to the same sign for different circumstances, although in fact they are the same circumstances. One says: "Road Narrows" and the other says: "Narrow Bridge". What does it matter whether it is a narrow bridge or a narrow road between two cliffs, or something of that kind? The point is that the road narrows. So why should we have to have two specific signs for one thing. Then we look at No. 121, which is a sign bearing the words "Tram Pinch". That I think, is a new one—certainly I have never seen it. As trams are rapidly being made out of date, and are disappearing from the country, I do not think we need evolve a new sign for a "Tram Pinch". In fact, I think the only vehicle that would suffer from such a thing would be an ancient Trojan with solid tyres. I have seen many ancient Trojans, but not, I think, one with solid tyres. Then on page 20 we come to two signs—"Single File Traffic" and "Single Track Road". Those are alike enough in wording to be confusing, but they mean different things. One means that you must not overtake and the other means that traffic can move only in one direction. It seems to me that the difference between the two would be much more obvious if the first one "Single File Traffic" were changed to the words: "No Overtaking".
Let us now pass to page 22. Here we find two signs which are to be used for level crossings. The first indicates a level crossing with gates, and the second a level crossing without gates. There is also an additional sign bearing the words: "Trains Cross Here". I understood from the expert at the Automobile Association Headquarters, to whom I was speaking on this subject, that the first two of these signs are considered as warning signs, and that the third is to be placed only at the actual point where the crossing of the trains take place. Surely, if one has seen warning signs one naturally looks out at any rate for rails going across the road.
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I hardly think that we need have a sign showing where the lines actually cross. They are pretty obvious if one has one's eyes on the road. On page 23 we see signs saying "Tramway Crossing", "Trams Cross Here", and "Uneven Rails". Surely those three could be dispensed with. A tramway crossing, after all, could be marked as a level crossing without gates and the same thing applies, with regard to "Trams Cross Here" and "Uneven Rails". It seems to me that the signs "Trams Cross Here", "Trains Cross Here" and "Uneven Rails" could be changed to the sign "Bad Surface", which could also apply to several signs which I am going to mention later. The "Bad Surface" sign could apply to anything in the way of temporary surfaces, newly tarred surfaces, roughly paved surfaces or anything in that line Again, on page 23 we have: "Single Track Road With Passing Places". I suppose one can say that that is necessary, since if the sign did not include the words "Passing Places", one presumably would not venture down the road.
Let us now turn to page 24. We have there three signs for fords. One says simply "Ford"; another says: "Deep Ford", and the third, which is to confront you as you have crossed the ford, says, "Try Your Brakes". What is the significant difference between a "ford" and a "deep ford"? It seems to me that if a ford is worth mentioning it will probably be a deep one. In any case, there is always a danger of getting water in one's brakes, and I should have thought that the sign, "Try Your Brakes" is an injunction to do something which most people obviously would do, though in the interests of safety it may be as well to have the sign there. On page 25, we have two signs for "Two Way Traffic". One is presumably intended for the motorist's direction at the end of a dual carriageway, at the point where it becomes a single carriageway. That is why the two arrows upon it point one up and one down. There is also another sign with the same words: "Two Way Traffic", with arrows pointing sideways, one to the right and one to the left. What is the significance of that? When you come to a "T" junction you normally expect two-way traffic—and by the time you have got there, you can see whether the road has a dual carriageway or not. In any case,

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the first direction in which one should always look is to the right, because that is whence the traffic will be approaching.
On the same page we come to the two much-discussed new signs for "School" and "Children." First of all, why have both? Surely the significance is the same. Children are children whether they are at school or not, and so far as the argument about the time of day is concerned, that does not apply, because often children are allowed to use the school playground after school hours, so that there will always be a danger that children will be there. As to the signs themselves, I think—and I know that I am not alone in this view—that they are badly designed. They are fussy and they are not easily recognisable from a distance. I know that my noble friend Lord Derwent, who is sorry that he is not here to take part in this debate but has authorised me to voice his views, has said that he very much disagrees with them because they show pictures of children doing precisely what children should not do. I think that that is a sound point, in that one surely does not want to educate children to start playing ball in the middle of the street. I think that the sign seen abroad for children is much more easily recognisable—just two children.
Going over to page 26, we have "Children crossing ahead". After the other two, why have that? What is the point? We then have No. 150, "Pedestrian crossing ahead". I must say that these pedestrian crossings have been a source of great danger, because if one cannot see them oneself, which is often the case if one is behind a lot of other traffic, one might find that one has to pull up very suddenly, and pedestrians are not always considerate in how they use them. Some sign of the sort is necessary, but again I think that a far more effective sign would be the sort of thing one sees abroad—a flashing amber light in advance of the crossing—not at the crossing, but in advance of it.
We have two signs for "Traffic signals ahead". Why two? Again I think that it is most essential that we should aim at uniformity in our signs, because the smaller the number we have for one purpose, the more easily we shall learn to recognise them and to know what they
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mean. The one given at No. 151, with a picture of traffic lights, is far more easily recognisable than just the words, "Traffic signals ahead". On page 27 we have three signs for animals: one is the picture of a cow and the word "Cattle"; the second says, "Stray Animals" and the third says, "Cattle Grid". Again it seems to me that there is much too much diversity. There should be only one sign for animals. It does not really matter in what circumstances they are crossing the road or are likely to be on the road. The point is that if there is the risk that animals may be there, one should look out. It does not matter whether one runs into a cow or a New Forest pony, the result is going to be very much the same, except, I suppose, that if one runs into a cow, one has to pay damages to the farmer, and so it is that much worse. One sign, that at No. 153, showing the picture of a cow, is ideal; and the one sign is enough for all animals.
No. 156 says "Road liable to subsidence". What is the significance there? If one sees that sign, does one drive down the road? Presumably, if one is driving an Austin Seven one might risk it, but if one is driving a large lorry one would hesitate to do so. Personally, even if I were in an Austin Seven I should not care to go down a road which was marked "Liable to subsidence". Next we come to "Temporary surface." As I have said before, I think that that could be replaced by "Bad surface". On page 28, we have three signs—four, if one includes the first one on the following page—for road works. One says, "Road works"; another says, "Road works ahead"; the third says, "Wet tar. Please drive slowly"; and the fourth says, "Temporary road surface". I should have thought that "Road works ahead" was quite enough for anybody to be on the look out and to drive slowly. Incidentally, I hope that there will be some regulation—I have found none among these—to see to it that the sign will be placed ahead so that the road works really are ahead. Too often I have seen a sign "Road works ahead" placed right up against the but in which the foreman was sitting. The other signs on page 29 I think one can pass, such as "Beware—ramp" and "Pass either side".
Now we come to the warning signs. Those in the first three pages are all right; but again, on page 33, we have

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two signs for "Turn right". One says "Turn right" and the other says "Turn right—one way only". What is the difference? The fewer words we use the better. "Turn right" means turn right and let us leave it at that. We go on to the prohibitory signs. The first I have any real grumbles about is on page 38. To me all these signs are far too wordy. One cannot stop driving a car, especially if there is a good deal of traffic behind one, and take five minutes to read through a notice such as this:
"Prohibited—locomotives, tractors, heavy motor cars and motor cars with seats for more than 15 persons unless requiring access to premises or land adjoining the road".
One must have some quick indication of whether one can go down a road or whether one cannot. Again at page 39 why have this sign:
"Play street. Prohibited—all vehicles 8 a.m. to sunset unless calling at premises in the street."
Why not just have the sign for children?
On page 40 we come to "One way" signs. This is a very knotty point. Too often, I think, these "No Waiting" signs do not show in which direction from the sign one is allowed to wait. Under every sign there should be an arrow pointing either to the left or to the right, or in both directions (incidentally, that is the way it is done abroad), so that one knows at once whether one is allowed to wait or not. There are certain places, such as in High Street, Worcester, where the permission to wait changes from one side of the street to the other, according to whether the date is odd or even. If one wants to wait, one has first to stop to consider whether it is an odd or even date; one has then to look at the sign to see whether one is within the hours; and then one has to find a place to park. During all that time traffic has been accumulating, and one is hooted at and yelled at to get out of the way. It is quite hopeless. It seems to me that the simplest way of getting over that would be to have detachable signs. The posts could be left there, and all that is needed is to have a detachable signboard. Again, when I mentioned this point to the Automobile Association, I was told that local authorities object to this method on the ground that they have not the manpower to carry it out. What are we coming to if we cannot provide the manpower to do a job which would take any noble Lord twenty minutes to do: to go
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down one side of the High Street, collect the signs and come up the other side and put them up there. If local authorities say they cannot provide manpower for that sort of thing, then it seems to me that they should be made to do it.
I pass now to page 41. It seems to me that these signs which imply hours when one may or may not park—for instance, Monday to Friday, 11.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. and so on—are much too confusing. "No reversing into street" is another sign which, among others, seems to me to be completely unnecessary. On page 44 mention is made of two signs of which I cannot see the significance. The first one is, "250 yards ahead, no entry." What does one do? Does one go on for 250 yards and then turn round, or does one turn round at once? It does not imply whether the "No entry" is to the right or left, straight ahead or what. Then, "130 yards ahead, no right turn." There again why does one want to know that in advance? Surely the "No entry" sign at the particular point where one cannot go further is sufficient.
We then come to the direction signs. On the whole, they are abort as efficient as they could be. I have no grumbles against them except one that I have already mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, who is to reply to the debate. He tells me that I am not right, but I have often found that on approaching a major road one finds only the next town on the road indicated. For instance, on reaching A1, one sees some town to the right and some town to the left. If a driver has lost his bearings and wants to get to London, he may not know which way to turn. I feel that the ultimate destination of the road, as well as its immediate next point, should be indicated, at least on important roads. But apart from that, I do not think I have many grumbles about the direction signs.
I do not think there is much more I need say, except on what I think is one important point: that is, I cannot find anywhere in the Regulations any provision of how far in advance of a given object a sign is to be placed. I rather believe that that rests very much with local authorities. To my mind, however, the Ministry of Transport should have have an absolute say on these matters; local authorities should have the right to

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question, of course, but it seems to me that the final decision should rest with the Ministry of Transport. The only point of a warning sign is to warn one of something that cannot be seen. Generally, one can see the object itself long before one sees the sign. It seems to me, in view of the higher speeds on main roads today, that signs should be placed a great deal more in advance of the object than they are.
To what conclusions do we come from all this? I think the chief one is that there is much too much diversity; there is too little definition of signs indicating the severe or not severe circumstances, and there is a lot of unnecessary wordiness. I am not going to press for a Division, and to-morrow, of course, these Regulations become law. However, I should be grateful if the noble Lord who is to reply could give me some assurance that these Regulations are not going to be the be-all and end-all of reform in traffic sign regulations. I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Traffic Signs Regulations, 1957 (S.I. 1957 No. 13), dated 7th January 1957, laid before the House under Standing Order No. 61 on 8th February 1957, be annulled.—(Lord Somers.)

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
3.37 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I rise, with the permission of the House, on the matter of the remaining Business for to-day, because I notice that the noble Marquess, the Leader of the House, is in his place. We, the Opposition, have an important Motion on the Paper in regard to which we were greatly indebted to the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, who made me a promise on March 5 that we should be able to have a debate on this subject. After a brief conversation with the Chief Whip, and also with the noble Marquess, we had Government time granted to us to-day, and the Minister of Power has arranged to be here to deal with the matter. While I have not a word of criticism to offer of the noble Lord who has just spoken, what is wrong with this arrangement is that the precedence of the Business has not been fair to
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the Opposition and does not fit in with the conversations we had on the matter. I am sure the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, would not think it is in accordance with the spirit of what he so kindly promised and arranged. Therefore, I think we have no option but to ask the House—I am giving the longest notice I can—to allow us to withdraw the Motion that has been put down to-day, and we must seek from the Government some other day, possibly of Government time, in which to deal with it.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, I can assure the noble Viscount that we are sorry matters should have worked out this way. As he said, this is a Government day. The Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Somers, which is now being debated, is a Prayer, and since this is the last day on which the Prayer could be taken, the noble Lord's Motion had priority. I am sure we are all agreed, whatever view we may take about the Homicide Bill, that it is important to get it completed as soon as possible. Therefore, I think it was inevitable that the Motion of the noble Viscount, Lord Hall, should come third on the Order Paper. However, I had not anticipated that it would be quite so late as it has turned out to be before it was reached. I can only express my great regret, and say that we shall be glad to arrange another date, which I am sure would be better, in the circumstances, on so important a subject.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Marquess. I would only add that I hope he will give instructions that, in such a case as this, where he has gone out of his way to give us time for a debate, in arranging the Business for that day there might be some consultation with the Opposition.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I do not think anyone imagined that the noble Viscount's Motion would come on so late. I am sure that no one would wish the conclusion of the Homicide Bill to be delayed longer than is necessary. I should say that that was perhaps even more important than any other Motion which could be brought forward. Therefore, I am sure there will be no difference of view in any part of the

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House. We do our best to see that the Business of the House is properly arranged, and it is not often that difficulties of this kind occur.
VISCOUNT HALL: My Lords, in view of all the circumstances which have been explained, I do not intend to move my Motion to-day.
LORD REA: My Lords, I am sure that the arrangement to which we have come is satisfactory to all concerned. May I strike a warning note for the future? It might be that there were noble Lords who were anxious to speak on the Motion of the noble Viscount and who took the trouble to come to the House, only to find, at twenty minutes to four, that the Motion is postponed to another day. I do not think that that has happened in this case, but I would point out that, in cases of this sort, we must be careful that arrangements are made through the usual channels.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, in this particular case it is not the Government who are postponing the Motion.
LORD REA: My Lords, I fully appreciate what the noble Marquess has said and impute no discourtesy on his part that the Motion is now withdrawn.

TRAFFIC SIGNS REGULATIONS, 1957
3.42 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, we will resume the debate upon the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Somers, I am afraid that I, on behalf of the noble Lords on this side of the House, cannot join him in wishing to annul the Regulations. I do not think he himself desires that. I sense that the noble Lord has put this Motion down for the purpose of expressing some views he has about the various Regulations but has no idea of asking your Lordships to proceed to a Division on this, matter.
I agree with a great deal the noble Lord has said. In my view, the signs are multiplied far too much. They are wordy. They show, in some respects, a Victorian outlook on modern road conditions. I am not going through every
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one of them, but I will ask your Lordships to look at one set of these road signs which I think illustrates the lack of modern vision upon the requirements of road users, or even of the general public. I refer to page 47. Here we have signs that denote "Public Lavatories", "Public Urinals", "Public Conveniences", "Ladies", "Gentlemen", "Men" and "Women". I suppose they all relate to the same thing. I cannot understand the blatant vulgarity of it. It is funny in one sense, but it is tragic in another. Some time ago, when I was in Australia, and particularly in Melbourne, I never saw signs like that; I saw one standard sign, and it was called "Comfort Station". I thought that was very descriptive and in good taste. I think these signs are terrible. Surely we could use a little more imagination than to plaster our towns and our countryside with signs such as this.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Somers, in much of what he has said. I would have thought that these signs should have been submitted to a body like the Fine Art Society—not that I believe that the Society are very good in many respects, but I am certain they could have done something better than this. The noble Lord criticised the signs warning of "School" and "Children". I do not know what the figures shown are doing—playing ball or something like that. It could be a far more simple sign. Why have the word, "School" on the sign? Why not just the figure of the child? I drive six miles to the station through a housing estate, usually just at the time the children are going to school. I have been most impressed with two or three little toddlers of the "Lucy Atwell" type, with their pigtails rampart and their satchels on their back, toddling along to school. I always slow down at that particular point, because I think they make such a pretty sight. It would be far better to have a figure of a child like that without the word "School" underneath. It would attract attention, And why not have it in colour?
I could go on with many of these things. I agree that the authorities have had difficulties in trying to draw up a new sign code of international application, but J should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, whether it is necessary, on many of these pictorial signs, to have international agreement. Take the case

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that I have just stated of, "Comfort Stations". You will never get those places called the same, or the signs to be of the same size or the same design, in an international agreement. The same applies to the sign for school-children. I am very much concerned with this question, but not so much concerning the design of the signs. My criticism would be that in some cases the Ministry require two years' grace to install them. Two years is a very long time. The streets of our cities and towns are being painted with many signs and direction indications. Does the noble Lord not think that there should be something universal in their design?
There are unilateral parking signs on some of our narrow streets in country towns, and the one person who is allowed to break that rule is the driver of the van or the commercial vehicle which is loading or unloading on the side of the street on which no waiting is allowed upon that date. So that does away with all the benefit of unilateral "No Waiting" signs. I am conscious of the fact that, with the noble Lord's assistance, and with the assistance of the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, we did something about this waiting in no-waiting areas in the Road Traffic Bill, before we had the "No Waiting" sign. But does not the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, agree that we have to go further to make any of this signposting in our cities really effective?
We have a simple and universal code for loading and unloading. I will not reiterate the arguments I put forward to the noble Lord and the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, upon the Road Traffic Bill, when I opposed the powers given to local authorities to make these regulations themselves. Some of these highways through our towns are really not the concern of the local authorities; they are national highways and through routes. I am not going into the old argument I raised on the City of Oxford, but I was in the City of Oxford yesterday morning at 12 o'clock, and right by Carfax on one side of the road was a 5-ton lorry and on the other side of the road within two yards of the traffic lights was a pantechnicon. It funnelled the traffic there down two lanes, and those two lanes could just squeeze through. A bus could just squeeze through with
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one inch to spare. What is the good of having "No Waiting" signs and unilateral parking signs when the local authorities, the Ministry of Transport and the Home Office allow these vehicles to act directly contrary to what we want them to do?
I should like to ask the noble Lord one other question. This is inspired by what I thought was an excellent idea printed in one of our Sunday newspapers, the Observer. We used to have a policy of two-carriageway roads. Then we had three-carriageway roads. Then we decided that three-carriageway roads were far too dangerous so we had four-carriageway roads. Now we are reverting in many cases to three-carriageway roads, and some of these three-carriageway roads can be highly dangerous unless they are properly signed. In my view, it is a most tragic state of affairs. I expect your Lordships will remember that on one of our great highways, the A.34, at the entrance to Southampton, there has just been built a new road which is a three-carriageway road. In my view, it is highly dangerous.
I should like to ask the noble Lord to consider seriously this planning. If he has not a copy of this paper, may I give him mine? I think that to make a three-carriageway road, by painting signs, a two-carriageway road one way and one carriageway the other, instead of allowing both sets of traffic to fight for the middle would be a very great help. Speaking on behalf of noble Lords on this side of the House, I do not oppose the passage of these Regulations, but I would ask the noble Lord and the authorities to give some serious consideration to the multiplicity of signs and traffic lights that are going up in this country.
One's attention to-day is so distracted from the main purpose of driving a motor vehicle and keeping one's eyes on the road that one has to look all over the place—up in the sky, right and left—and, with the present congestion of our traffic, many of the signs that are designed to save life and injury contribute more to accidents than carelessness on the part of the driver. If there is one person for whom I have great sympathy, it is the driver. As I get older, I drive on the roads less and less, principally, I suppose, because I have less tolerance and less patience; but one has to keep

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one's eyes to the left and the right, upon the roads, upon the signs and upon the signs of the driver in front. The multiplicity just makes bedlam and a highly dangerous condition when we are trying, in Regulations like these, to make the roads safer.
3.55 p.m.
LORD WALERAN: My Lords, I do not propose this afternoon to go into any great detail as the noble Lord who has moved this Prayer did. As a member of the Standing Joint Committee of the Royal Automobile Club, the Automobile Association and the Royal Scottish Automobile Club, I merely want to say what our opinions are in the matter, in principle. As your Lordships know, draft Regulations of this kind come before the motoring organisations for their comment. Each individual constituent of the Standing Joint Committee discusses them, and then they go into consultation together. This practice was followed and the motoring organisations came to the conclusion that the time had come for a definite step to be taken in adopting the European system of using diagrammatic and pictorial representations.
The Ministry, however, pointed out that there was a snag in this, in that the signs recommended by the 1949 Geneva Conference, which very much followed the European system, had been superseded, as it were, in 1952 by alternative proposals put forward by the United Nations Economic and Social Council. It was not possible at that time to get worldwide approval in this matter. That may be desirable in the long run because people are driving more and more in different countries and it is advantageous if the signing is the same throughout the civilised world.
If your Lordships look at this document, you will see it very largely confirms the old signs, with certain alterations. At least five points are particularly welcomed by the motoring organisations. I can give them in this order: first, the authority for larger traffic signs; secondly, requirements for the illumination of certain traffic signs and the incorporation of reflecting material—and, in particular, I should mention the "Halt" signs; thirdly, additional signs to indicate parking places; fourthly, pictorial, signs for schools and children, and, fifthly, "Bend" signs which indicate the direction of the bend.
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I think it would be fair to say that the new Regulations incorporate certain improvements and, therefore, I myself and certainly the motoring organisations would not like to see them annulled. That would be a backward step. But we sincerely ask the Minister to do his best to bring forward the date when a real improvement is made in the signs. I am certain that he motoring organisations, who represent the people who are using the signs, should be really brought into consultation. I think the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, said that more imagination should be used in certain directions. I am not certain that it might not be better if there were less imagination used and we got down to the real facts of the case. I hope that the Ministry will pursue this matter, and that, if it is not possible to get world-wide agreement within a very reasonable space of time, we shall extend the pictorial sign.
4.0 p.m.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, I agree with much of what the mover of this Motion has said about signs. I have estimated that there are about twenty-four signs illustrated here which are really quite redundant. I submit that the fewer signs that the ordinary driver of a vehicle on the highway has to deal with the better will it be, and the more likely will it be that those signs will be observed and be of real value.
I think that page 47 of this document is perfectly stupid. I can hardly believe that the Government can seriously put forward such a proposition. I should like to ask my noble friend who is to reply to this debate to turn his attention to page 47. It is not necessary to have all that outfit. It is not going to affect public safety and all the rest of it. With the noble Lord, Lord Waleran, I am strongly in favour of the signs being obvious to a person driving along the road. One should not have to think twice as to whether one has seen a sign; it should strike one in the eye, as it were, and one should be prepared to take the necessary action.
On the whole I think that there is perhaps more good than bad in these Regulations if only the Minister can be persuaded to go through the whole thing with an effective blue pencil and scratch out those signs which are really

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redundant. I do not want to repeat all the arguments that have been advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Somers, and the noble Lord, Lord Waleran, but I should just like to say that as an ordinary humble individual I agree with those arguments. I would go through pages 38 and 47 with a fine comb. Surely it is not necessary to have two "Children" signs. One sign such as one finds on the Continent is enough. Let us have our signs in line with those found on the Continent. Do not let us be too much led up the garden path by the suggestion that we in Europe should make our signs conform to those of the United States. Traffic conditions in America are quite different from those here, and I suggest that we should be satisfied if the signs in use here conform to those in use on the Continent. I do not see why we should try to go further than that.
4.4 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I wish to raise only two points on these Regulations. The first, on which I agree with so many noble Lords who have spoken, on both sides of the House, concerns the mere multiplicity of signs. The Ministry of Transport seem determined sometimes to put up signs merely for the sake of multiplicity. I cannot remember the exact wording of one you will find scattered about Slough at the moment, from whatever point you approach it. It runs, I think, as follows, "Caution. Slough—Safety Town". My Lords, whatever may be meant by "Slough—Safety Town", I can scarcely believe that it renders it more dangerous. Why the fact that Slough is a safety town should render it necessary to warn all motorists of some special danger defeats me! I should like to know from the noble Lord who is going to reply, what is the purpose of these signs, and, if he knows it, how much public expenditure they have involved. I noticed another sign the other day in the country which said, if I remember aright, "Road ahead may be muddy". I think that, if we go on at this pace, by next year we shall have a sign all over the country, saying, "If it rains, it may be wet". I hope that my warning may be in time to stop this development.
I now come to the question of the particular signs that are the subject of the
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debate on this Prayer. Here I would welcome a remark of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth—though I think that, by a slip, he misnamed the body when he spoke about the "Fine Art Society", as the people who might be consulted. I think the people who might well have been consulted are the Council of Industrial Design, who have been much concerned with the question of street furniture and are the body set up and financed by the Government themselves, a body whose advice is really worth both obtaining and generally following. I should like to read, because I think the House ought to have it before them, a paragraph of the last Report of the Royal Fine Art Commission. Paragraph 72 reads as follows:
"Like the Council,"—
that is, the Council of Industrial Design—
"it"—
that is, the Royal Fine Art Commission—
"is also interested in the design of the new Traffic Signs adopted by the Ministry of Transport. It is a matter for regret that draft designs should have been prepared by a committee on which those interested in the general appearance of street furniture were not represented. The present designs are below the standard that the public is entitled to expect in a matter of this importance, and indeed below that commonly seen on the Continent. The Commission had hoped that the details would be reconsidered before final approval was given to them."
My Lords, those are the considered words of the Royal Fine Art Commission. It is most puzzling to many of us in this House that the Government should set up two such bodies as the Council of Industrial Design and the Royal Fine Art Commission, and should either not consult them at all or, if they do consult them, invariably ignore their advice.
To deal with the specific Regulations now before us, I believe it is a fact that no expert typographer has been employed at all. I think it is quite possible that some advertising agent or other may have been consulted, but no expert typographer has been employed. That is of some importance, because there are in these Regulations elaborate provisions about the size of letters but, I think I am right in saying, none at all about their spacing. Anybody who knows anything at all about typography knows that, when you are considering lettering, the question of spacing is as important as that of size.

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Let me mention two other matters or errors which I think follow from this fact. The first is the confusion caused where lettering of different sizes is combined in a single sign. I wonder whether noble Lords who have the Regulations before them would look at page 37 and would compare sign 306 with sign 307. If they look at sign 306 they will see a quite clear sign "No right turn"—all the lettering of uniform size. But sign 307 has an enormous "No" and then an almost invisible "right turn". I do not believe that any expert typographer would for one moment have approved sign 307 with these mixtures of size. They lead to quite unnecessary confusion of the person whom it is intended to warn.
Probably the pictorial signs are among the worst of the new signs. I agree with many other noble Lords that there is a great deal to be said for the Continental system in which you have a good symbol and let it speak for itself. For the mixture of symbol and lettering there is very little to be said. I think the most comic example is No. 153, which your Lordships will find on page 27. There we see a pictorial—indeed, I believe, a photographic—representation of a cow. I cannot conceive that anybody who has ever seen a cow could mistake the animal for anything else. But, by way of explanation for the motorist who has never seen a cow, there is written underneath in bold lettering the word "Cattle." I have consulted a former Minister of Agriculture, who assures me that it would be generally recognised that what is represented is a cow; and the only suggestion I have had from my noble friends is that probably, if it were not for the word "Cattle", a motorist would not be prepared to meet a bull. It is really quite absurd that the Ministry should have so much doubt of their own pictorial representation that they must give an explanation of what is represented.
I do not wish to repeat any of the criticism which has already been made, but I do beg, in the interests both of economy and of public safety, that the Ministry of Transport should rid themselves of the idea that any useful object is served by unnecessary multiplication of signs. And, secondly, I beg Her Majesty's Government to say to the Ministry of Transport, as I hope they have already said to other Government Departments,
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that where questions of design are involved which concern the convenience and amenities of the public, they should, as a matter of course, consult such bodies as the Council of Industrial Design, which is certainly the appropriate body where street furniture is concerned, or the Royal Fine Art Commission. To set up and finance public bodies of this kind and then ignore them is demonstratively contrary to the public interest and also quite foolish.
4.13 p.m.
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, I should like to raise one particular point on these Regulations, but before doing so I would say how much I agree with my noble friend Lord Somers when he urged that it should be made clear to users of the road, beyond all doubt, whether they have the right of way at a road junction or whether they have not. I have felt for many years that one of the major causes of road accidents is the uncertainty and doubt which faces road users, particularly motorists, owing to the fact that they are not at all clear, and are not told in clear terms whether or not they have the right of way. That was done many years ago with regard to traffic on the sea, and I believe that I am right in saying that it has also been done with regard to air traffic; but it has still not been done with motor traffic. I do not know why. I have in mind a particular case which came into the courts the other day, and which must be a very common kind of case. Two motor cars on right-angled courses collided at a cross roads in the country where there was no sign of any description indicating the existence of a road junction or crossroads, still less saying which road had priority over the other.
The particular point which I rose to make concerns "Halt" signs. If I am right, the coming into force of these Regulations will mean that a number of existing road signs which have not been altered to comply with the Regulations will be invalid. It may be said at once—and I am sure it will be said by Her Majesty's Government—that it is the duty of local authorities to see that signs are altered so that they are valid; and that I do not dispute. But I should like to ask whether it is generally realised that, until they are altered the signs will be invalid, and that no successful

619
prosecution can therefore be initiated under them. I am told that in one large town in England, far from the largest, there are no fewer than seventeen "Halt" signs which, on the passing of these Regulations, will become invalid and, therefore, of no use; and it may be that in other towns there are corresponding numbers.
I thought it right to draw attention to this fact and to ask whether the extension of time which was granted in the year 1950, when I believe the existing Regulations came into force, could not be further extended. Between 1950 and 1957, it has been lawful, I believe, for the old "Halt" sign, with the triangle pointing upwards, to be in force and valid. Under these Regulations that will no longer be so, and all "Halt" signs with the triangle pointing upwards will be not only out of date but invalid. Surely we could extend that period of time for some few years longer so as to avoid making those signs invalid or the cost of correcting them. I wish to stress that point, which has been drawn to my attention, because I believe that it is one of some significance.
4.18 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF DEFENCE (LORD MANCROFT): My Lords, I was comforted to hear my noble friend Lord Somers tell your Lordships that he does not intend to press this Motion to a Division, because that would indeed have been unfortunate. If these Regulations were not to come into force, we should have worse chaos on our roads, which at the moment are not wholly free from chaos. These Regulations, which have been discussed in some considerable detail this afternoon, are the fruit of the work of many years, and the need for them has been accentuated by the passage of the Road Traffic Act, 1956, which was initiated in this House and which we debated in so much detail last year. The draft was circulated to about fifty organisations, representing all possible interests concerned, and over 200 suggestions were considered. Since my noble friend Lord Conesford has raised this point, I may say that I understand that both the Royal Fine Art Commission and the Council of Industrial Design were, in fact, consulted, though I am afraid that agreement
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was not reached with them on quite a considerable number of points; and an expert typographer was consulted concerning the construction of the letters and spacing on pages 74 and 75 in the Regulations.
These new Regulations are not perfect, of course, and this afternoon your Lordships have naturally drawn attention to the ones which you do not like, so I can only take it that the others meet with your Lordships' approval, and I am happy to see that apparently a very large number do so. I cannot possibly answer this afternoon in detail all the points which your Lordships have raised, but I will make this promise: that all your Lordships' suggestions will be carefully considered. This draft is not the last word on road signs and regulations. They will have to be amended from time to time to meet changing circumstances, brought up to date and modified as the occasion demands. The points raised by your Lordships will be carefully looked at by experts, and if the points are valid they will certainly be considered in any further amendments.
One thing which has come out of our debate this afternoon, and on which there is no disagreement, is that the standard of signposting and direction signs generally in this country has improved considerably. Indeed there was room for improvement. That improvement is continued in these Regulations. Higher standards are laid down for clarity, lettering and visibility. I draw your Lordships' attention particularly to diagram 448 and the larger lettering in 430. I was glad to hear that this met with your Lordships' approval. I agree with those of your Lordships who have said that, though our direction signs have improved, they are still not so good as some we see on the Continent. Certainly they are not so good as some one sees in France, which I think is the country most of us know best, and where the signs are, I think, outstanding. I myself drove from London to the South of France last summer. It was a road which I had not travelled before, but I got lost only once in the the course of the whole journey, and that was at the top of the Old Kent Road.
I would, however, remind your Lordships that our signs are much older than the Continental ones. As I have said,

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there have been considerable improvements of late, and I think your Lord-ships, like myself, will have been impressed with the new system of "through London" signs which are now going up. They have met with widespread approval, and they are a great help to the traveller who is a stranger to London and who is trying to find his way around it. But these signs, I regret to say, are very expensive. They may cost as much as £50 each, and they cannot all be put up at once. Some of your Lordships have talked about the multiplicity of signs. I would point out that very few signs will be changed. There is no reason to change a large number of the existing signs which are still serving their purpose quite adequately. I have referred to the additional "through London" system of signs which we hope will spread and will be adopted by more cities in the country.
There is one matter to which I would draw attention. The Ministry of Transport have hitherto lacked powers to require the erection of these traffic signs. To give one obvious example in London: you will find that, if you get as far on your journey through London as Stepney, you are then likely immediately to get lost, because the signs peter out when you get to that borough. The highway authority there has refused to bear any part of the cost of the signs. It would seem that the good citizens of Stepney subscribe very closely to the lesson of Matthew, Chapter VIII, Verse 39:
"An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign and there shall no sign be given to it."
Highway authorities can now be directed to participate in this scheme. That is clearly an improvement. This scheme of sign-posting in London alone—the through-routes with a yellow background, and the local ones with a blue background—will cost nearly £150,000.
I agree with what has been said about the need for a high standard of signposting from all points of view—from the points of view of the elimination of confusion and the reduction of the risk of accidents. It is, however, part of our system, and has been for some time, that no right of way should be indicated: that nothing should be put up to tell you that it is your road. That has been part of the policy for some time. Signs can be put up bearing the words "Halt",
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"Slow", and "Yield" on the minor road, but the road user is not actually told when it is his road. Everybody must therefore keep a look-out.
I agree also with those noble Lords who have said that there are too many signs. There are, indeed, far too many. There is too much confusion because of advertisements and other pictorial signs. Hammersmith Broadway, for example, is a clutter of signs, and it confuses rather than instructs. In one roundabout near London there are five different direction signs, including the rare "Port" sign, in this case leading to Southampton. Highway authorities have power to remove unofficial signs, and they do try to clear up the confusion. Some have done it very well. I wish that more would show zeal in this matter. Of course the Ministry have the right to compel them to do so, in the last resort, but naturally one does not want to use compulsion unless it becomes really necessary, There has been a great deal of improvement at Peterborough and Nottingham. I particularly draw attention to those two cities. They have made great improvements, and their example is being followed in Manchester, Grimsby, Worcester and two or three other places. Perhaps one might express the hope that Birmingham will also follow this good example. At present the Birmingham city fathers seem intent on getting you into the city and never letting you out again.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Somers upon the need for simplicity and clarity, but I think that, in this connection, there is a misunderstanding concerning page 47—those vexed signs which have displeased Lord Lucas of Chilworth. Those signs are simply signs which local authorities are permitted to put up or retain. If we were to do away with all those shown on page 47, and substitute one only, it would be expensive. We hope, in due course, to get more uniformity, but we cannot suddenly do away with all the existing signs which are tolerably clear and serve their purpose. To do so would be very expensive.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: May I ask the noble Lord if it is any more costly to call a woman a lady than simply to call her a woman?
LORD MANCROFT: Of course it is not. What we want to do is to make certain that the new signs that are put up are as uniform as possible, and we wish to allow for as little variety as possible. We allow the old ones to remain only where they are perfectly clear and give a straightforward indication of what is intended. The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, especially drew attention to the question of the cow, and sign 153. That cow has caused more trouble than the noble Lord knows. The animal is, I am informed, a South Devon cow. When this was first produced, we received communications from indignant people in Hereford, pointing out that not only was it a South Devon cow but that it was a pretty poorly bred cow at that. They wanted to know why they could not have a Hereford beast in Herefordshire. If we agreed to that, people in Ayrshire, Lincoln, Aberdeen, Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney and the Highlands might well be likely to ask for variations of their own.
My Lords, there are many other details connected with these Regulations into which I should like to go if time permitted, but it does not. We are, for instance, preparing a code of practice for marking and lighting road works. That, I think, has been a considerable source of trouble in the past. Our aim is to get something which will ensure safety and uniformity. Contractors must not only provide a uniform system of signals but they must have to work them a man who has a rough understanding of what he is doing and what traffic conditions are in the area.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: The noble Lord is on a very important point here, and I am grateful to him for mentioning this. Will he consider the advisability of not allowing public works contractors to use automatic lighting signals when they want to have one-way traffic on the road, because often those concerned have no experience of the volume of the traffic with which they have to deal?
LORD MANCROFT: I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, about the importance of this matter. Too often the operation of these signs is put in the hands of "Charlie," because he is not bright enough to make the tea.
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The main criticism, however, which has been levelled against our whole system is that we have not adopted the Continental protocol which is used throughout Europe. Why have we not followed the Continental system, which has many admirable points and which many think is preferable to ours? The trouble is that ours has been in existence much longer. The Continental system did not have final legal authority until about 1949. We were hoping that there would be agreement throughout the world on a world system, and we were prepared to make changes had that agreement come about. Unfortunately, the Americans would not come into the world system, and having abandoned all hope of a world system and as there were going to be two systems anyhow, we decided to stick to our own rather than to adopt the Continental system. We should have liked to adopt the Continental system but it would have cost a great deal of money and taken a lot of time to make the necessary alterations. It might cost as much as £15 million; therefore, as I have said, we have decided against change. Undoubtedly there are many admirable features in the Continental system.
What we are now trying to do is, with typical British liking for compromise, to get the best of both worlds. We are gradually incorporating their good points in our system, particularly with regard to legibility and clarity of lettering. The Continental system is, however, not altogether suitable for this country. It is much more suitable for a large Continental area where many languages are spoken, and conditions generally are very different from those in this country. But while I do not deny that the Continental system has excellent points, I do feel that it is less flexible than ours, and not so adaptable in some respects. Our system undoubtedly has its faults but they are being steadily eliminated. It does not really cause confusion to the degree that some people imagine to foreigners who come to this country. It gives them a quiet laugh now and again, but it does not cause many accidents.
I think that, on the whole, the decision we have taken in not changing to the Continental system but incorporating it where we can is a sound one. It is a difficult matter to decide, because there is so much to be said for both

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sides. We are, of course, experimenting with other Continental schemes. There is the double white line for dangerous roads, which is now being experimented with down the Portsmouth Road and which has been a great success on the Continent and in America. We are certainly going to look at the "Onno" scheme which was mentioned in the Observer last Sunday. There has been much improvement in the standard of illumination, which is now compulsory for some signs. Investigations have been carried out on the best methods of illumination and on reflecting materials, including the American Sectchlite, now being manufactured here. These and other experiments are going on. My noble friend Lord Conesford made fun of Slough. Many people have done that in the past and no doubt many will do it in the future. The reason that motorists are warned to go carefully through Slough is that it is a safety area which contains many new signs the motorist does not expect to find. There are experimental signs and schemes and all sorts of new terrors to motorists, including, perhaps, the possibility of finding Lord Conesford driving towards you.
I have twenty or thirty more points still unanswered, but I do not propose to enter into them at this moment. I promise again that I will look carefully at all the suggestions which have been put forward, and when further regulations are being framed they will be considered by the Department, which keeps them constantly under review. These Regulations are not free from blemish—I do not pretend that they are—but the more fact that your Lordships have tended to concentrate on those which can be criticised only shows how admirable are the remaining ones. When these Regulations pass into law to-morrow I hope that all motorists will appreciate the further clarity, safety and help they provide on the Queen's Highway.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, first of all, I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. Some very interesting points have been raised and I am glad to see that with most of my chief points most noble Lords were in agreement. I am particularly grateful to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, that this is not
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the last of our reforms and that we may hope to consider further reforms before long. I cannot say that I agree altogether with what he regarded as our tradition of not implying who had the right of way. I think that uncertainty on that point makes motorists do uncertain things and that not being absolutely certain whether one has the right of way or not is a great source of accidents. But no doubt that point will be considered when we have our next reforms. I again thank noble Lords and beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

HOMICIDE, BILL
4.34 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, your Lordships may rest assured that in rising to move the Third Reading of the Homicide Bill I shall not travel again over the ground that has been covered so often. May I summarise the position thus? Over the first part of the Bill, there is broad general agreement that it will work a welcome change in the criminal law. Over the other part, there are many differences of opinion and these differences are likely to persist. I have frequently described this Bill as a compromise, for that is what it is, but I think that this can be said: it is an attempt to find a via media of which most of us can say that, even if it does not go exactly where we want it to lead, it leads in the right direction. Both the principles on which the Bill is founded and the details have been canvassed so firmly in your Lordships' House that I think that if I were to do it again, it would be tedious repetition. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will not think it discourteous in me if I suggest that I move the Third Reading of the Bill now and give those noble Lords who wish to say anything further on this topic an opportunity of bringing out the points in their minds, after which I shall have the greatest pleasure in seeking to reply to them. In the hope that that course commends itself to your Lordships, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3ª.—(The Lord Chancellor).
4.36 p.m.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, I do not rise to oppose the Third Reading of the Bill or its passage into law, but equally I do not rise to support the Bill. I think that I can best express my attitude towards it in the well-known phrase of "praising it with faint damns". The opponents of abolition have relied in the past on four main arguments. The first was that if a man had committed the vile crime of murder, he deserved to "swing" for it. I think that few people to-day would admit that that was the main objection they had to the abolition of capital punishment. The second argument was that human life was so sacred that the punishment for taking it ought to be of a unique kind, and that kind must be death. It always seemed to me a rather peculiar evidence of this belief in the sacredness of human life that the State should break the very principle for which it was supposed to stand. I think that few people take that line at the present time.
The third ground for opposing the abolition of capital punishment was that it was alleged that murderers were such incorrigible offenders that if they were not put to death the imprisonment which must be the substitute for it must be genuinely a life imprisonment. The whole experience of this country and in Europe, where a certain number of murderers have been reprieved and released from prison after serving a sentence, not of life, has been to contradict that argument. It has been practically unknown for released murderers to do a second murder, with very rare exceptions.
The fourth reason which has been put forward is that as murder is a particularly foul crime, as we all admit, it is essential to have a real deterrent, and that the only deterrent which is unique and capable of having the desired effect is to take away the murderer's life and so protect the public. It is on this principle alone—and I do not think that the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor would disagree with this statement—that the present Bill proceeds to compromise. It distinguishes between two kinds of murder, one only of which is in future to be punishable by death. It does not make any pretence that the line of demarcation is drawn so as to mark the degree of
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heinousness of a murder, or even the degree of brutal premeditation.
For this reason, a large body of public opinion is mystified as to the principles of the Bill and considers the Bill to be illogical. But the promoters of the Bill have selected certain specified types of murder with regard to which they think that the retention of capital punishment will provide a real deterent: for instance, with regard to carrying lethal weapons to commit a burglary, for attacks on the police, for attacks on warders and other crimes. However, I do not think that even the promoters of the Bill can be very happy or believe that it is a compromise which is at the same time logical in all respects.
Your Lordships know quite well that in this matter of the death penalty I am a complete abolitionist. But I have never said—and I would not say it, because it would not be true—that in no conceivable circumstances could the death penalty be a deterrent. What I have said is that the few people who may be deterred from committing a murder by the fear of capital punishment are outnumbered by those who are stimulated to commit even this appalling crime by the glamour which attaches to the whole business of the gallows and the notoriety connected with any form of capital punishment. That may seem an absurd statement, but I would draw the attention of your Lordships to two facts which occur in ordinary life and which show that the threat and fear of death, so far from deterring people, to some extent stimulates them to face the danger. The two illustrations that I give are big game hunting and mountaineering. I am convinced that the possibility of untoward results happening to the person concerned is part of the stimulus and excitement of engaging in both of these activities. If you had a hill that was easy to climb and there was no fear of anybody falling from the rocks, then I do not think you would get half as many people to climb it as you get engaging in mountaineering owing to the very possibility that an accident may happen. Human beings are very curious, and I am convinced that the glamour connected with capital punishment is one of the factors which leads to a continuance of murders.
Therefore, I am sorry that the provisions of this Bill have not done away with

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what I call the whole beastly business of the hangman or any other form of execution I should have regarded that as a great step forward in the public life of this country. I regret that this Bill attempts to form a compromise, instead of having that, as I consider, most salutary effect. In spite of that view of mine regretting the nature of this Bill, I have lived a very long life and I am fully aware that the British people, as a whole, are strong supporters of compromise; and they are strong believers in taking one step forward and never going a great way at one time. In some respects, I admire the British people for their determination in both of these matters, and I have often supported them in that action.
When it comes to this particular Bill, however, the question arises whether this compromise, such as it is, is a good one, and whether it is a genuine step forward or not. Personally, I do not consider that it is a particularly good compromise, or that it is a particularly good step forward. But apparently the Government do; and, what is more, the Government believe that public opinion generally will regard this as a satisfactory compromise and a satisfactory step forward. It is true that this Bill has gone through the other place, and it is likely to go through your Lordships' House. In view of those facts, I will not be the one to stop it from going through into law. It may not prove a very good Bill; it certainly is not a very logical Bill; but if it pleases public opinion in this country, as the Government profess it does, then I shall certainly not stand in its way.
4.45 p.m.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: My Lords, the Government must look with a certain measure of satisfaction at these empty Benches this afternoon. They can compare the fact that upon the Third Reading of a very controversial Bill, admittedly filled with a number of anomalies, instead of a heated House of 335 Peers, as there were on the Second Reading of the Bill that I introduced in July, there is now, to judge from the attendance this afternoon, very little interest in the Bill at all. Is this the result, as the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor suggested, of the Government having found a via media that satisfies almost everyone? Or is it the result, as I ventured, perhaps rather impertinently, to
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suggest a week ago of some clever evasive action by the present Minister? I do not wish to give the answer to-day; the answer will be given by what actually happens when the Bill comes into operation.
I should like to say, first of all, how sincerely I have regretted finding myself month after month, and indeed, year after year, in disagreement with the noble Marquess the Leader of the House, who in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred I regard as a statesman possessed of the best possible judgment. Let me say, too (I hope he will allow me to pay him a humble tribute), that I was very much impressed by the patience and knowledge with which the Lord Chancellor defended the other day what I personally believed to be an almost indefensible Bill. No one could have done it better; no one could have made a better case for the Bill to which we are asked to give a Third Reading this afternoon.
Much now will depend upon the way in which the Bill is administered. It will depend a great deal upon the administration of the present Home Secretary and his successors. Fortunately, we have to-day a Home Secretary who is obviously intensely interested in penal questions. In the last few weeks he has made two remarkable speeches, first, when he was in charge of the Bill after he had become Home Secretary, in which he sketched the complexities of all the mental questions connected with crime. He said that here was a field almost uncharted upon which we were just beginning to work. The second speech was the speech he made the other day upon prison administration. There again, he showed that he was in full possession of some of the issues that concern crime much more even than this or that type of punishment.
He spoke of a research programme into questions of this kind. Let me remind noble Lords that in the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, and in the proposals that I originally made upon which the Bill was founded, there was a provision specifically inserted implying much greater facilities than there had been before for research into questions such as these with which I am dealing. Unfortunately, this research clause has been almost ignored. I am delighted to think, after what the Home Secretary has said,

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that he is now going to put life into it, and that we are going to see an effective inquiry into all these mental questions to which he rightly attaches so much importance. Let me suggest to him that the first branch of these questions that he should ask the researchers to consider is the branch that concerns the mentality of murderers. I believe that the result of any such inquiry will be to show that in an almost insignificant number of cases the death penalty has any effect at all. I greatly hope that he will at once set in operation this urgently required inquiry into this particular branch of the subject.
In the meanwhile, I hope most sincerely that he will hold his hand in cases that come before him, and, at least until the research which I have mentioned is completed, will continue to give reprieves to the classes of murderers who are still liable to the death penalty under the Bill. I know that the Lord Chief Justice believes that if the Home Secretary adopted a line of this kind he would be setting up the dispensatory power of the Crown against the Statute Law. I do not believe that that criticism can be justified by history. Let me give noble Lords two cases. Let me give, first, the case of the attitude of successive Governments towards infanticide. The death penalty for infanticide has never been inflicted since 1849, yet it was only in 1922 that it was abolished by Statute. For all those forty or fifty years the Home Secretary of the day reprieved every case of infanticide in the teeth of the statutory law. Let me give another example—and the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, will remember it well—the case of murderers under eighteen years of age. No murderer under eighteen has been executed since 1887, yet it was only in the Children Acts of 1908 and 1933 that these reprieves were authorised by Statute. I hope, therefore, that the Home Secretary will not be deflected from the line that I have suggested by any of the comments that have been made during our debates upon this subject by the Lord Chief Justice.
I ask him further to consider very carefully what has happened in Belgium. Belgium, in some ways, is a country not unlike this country—an industrial country, mainly urban, very thickly populated; the kind of community in which it might be expected that murders would
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be more common than they would be in a rural area. Since 1863 there has not been a single execution in Belgium, although the Statute Law has never been altered. At the end of the last war, there was a great agitation to start executions again in Belgium. In much the same way as in this country, there was an exceptional outbreak of robbery with violence. There was a particularly bad case of a gang murder, and a strong demand that the power that had not been exercised for eighty years should be brought into operation again. The Minister of Justice, who was Emil Vandervelde, opposed the demand. The King signed a reprieve, and it is interesting to note that, following that incident, robbery with violence and murder steadily started to decrease. Let the Home Secretary look carefully into this Belgian precedent, and let him, as I say, continue to give reprieves, particularly after the last eighteen months have shown that they have had no significant effect upon the number of murders. Let him on no account put himself in the position of being, as we believe, a great penal reformer but at the same time being the Home Secretary who, after eighteen months of reprieves, revives these horrible executions.
5.0 p.m.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: My Lords, I had not intended to detain your Lordships in this matter, but the speech which has been made by the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, is of such an important character that I should like to say a few words with reference to it. I, too, should have preferred that the whole death penalty had been abolished. Like the noble Viscount, I am glad indeed that we have gone so far along that road, but I should be glad to think that the Home Secretary would be able to take the advice which the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, has tendered to him. I appreciate the difficulty and the difference that there is between taking that course, in face of the passage now of this new Bill, and the precedents which he gave where the law was old and apparently, by public consent, out of harmony with current opinion. Therefore, these precedents are not quite what they seem to be.
That brings me to this point which seems to me the great weakness in this

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Bill: that is, that murder by shooting is a capital offence, no matter what the circumstances may be. So, unless the Home Secretary takes the view which the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, has advanced, we may find that we have two murders. One is the kind which is among the most horrible forms of murder, the premeditated, slow poisoning of an unsuspecting person, which is not a capital offence. The other is sudden shooting, under great stress of emotion (we had a case not very long ago of a woman in that position) because of an intolerable sense of wrong. That, in all circumstances, is a capital offence. That would seem to me the major defect in this Bill, apart from the fact that it does not abolish the death penalty altogether. I hope sincerely that, if the Home Secretary felt, in the circumstances of the new law, passed without dissent by both Houses of Parliament, unable fully to accept the advice and the views which the noble Viscount. Lord Templewood, has given, he would at least be able to judge the circumstances and the mental condition of a person guilty of certain murder by shooting, such as the one to whom I have referred, before feeling automatically bound not to recommend a reprieve.
5.3 p.m.
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, I should like to say in a few words, because I did not have an opportunity of doing so on Second Reading, why I support this Bill. In that respect I, like the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, a confirmed abolitionist as regards the capital penalty, go further than he does and adopt not an attitude of neutrality, as he would, but an attitude of support for this Bill. Indeed, it seems to me that, if we approach this Bill from a logical viewpoint—which, of course, we do not—it is the abolitionists who ought to be loud in their support of the Bill and the retentionists who ought to be speaking with equal vehemence against it. I am surprised, if I may say so, not to find my noble friends Lord Teviot and the noble Lord who sits beside me now, Lord Ailwyn, stoutly opposing the passage of this Bill. It will be their speeches, if I mistake not, which will be quoted in a hundred years' time as an example of the extremes to which people could go in the dark days of the 1950s. But yet I
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find them silent upon this Bill. That, indeed, I find surprising.
The reason why I support this Bill is simply that if it is passed into law, it will be, from my point of view, improving the position because it will reduce the number of cases in which the death sentence is passed. To me it is as simple as that. I would only add that I confidently expect that it will be only a very short time before there will be complete abolition of the death penalty. I concede at once that the example which I now mention has not very great value, because it covers such a very short time; but it is a fact, I believe, that since it became known that the death penalty was not being put into operation—that is, about eighteen months ago—the number of murders in this country has not increased. That is what we always said would happen, and it is contrary to what the retentionists said would happen. I admit that we can place little value upon that figure. On the other hand, I submit that it does not help the retentionists in the slightest degree, because it does not bear out the prophecy which they always make—namely, that, when the death penalty is suspended, the number of murders will increase. So once again, for what they are worth, the figures are on our side. I just wanted to say why those of us who are of the confirmed opinion that the right thing to do is to abolish the death penalty altogether, not only can justify our support of this Bill but indeed, in my view, ought not to do anything else.
5.6 p.m.
LORD HADEN-GUEST: My Lords, I merely desire to say that, as one who supported the continuation of the death penalty when the Bill was brought in originally, I still remain of the same opinion. But I am glad to note that the present provisions limit the number of the crimes in which the death penalty can be inflicted. I agree with what has been said by the noble Lord who has just spoken: that what we really need is a great deal more research No one so far this evening has mentioned the question whether there are any particular varieties in human development which make certain people actual criminals. Some of them really are an inferior brand of human being—I do not think there is very much doubt about that: they are

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deformed. In some of those cases, if it can be done properly, as it will certainly be done under this Bill, it is a very proper thing to get rid of those people and to prevent them from having any more children. That is an extremely useful thing.
In the short debate that we have had to-day—and this is no occasion for a long debate—nobody has mentioned the question of heredity; nobody has mentioned the question of whether there are certain grades of development, especially of mental and moral development, in human individuals. I think that it is desirable, as I said before in a previous debate, that we should have the death penalty, which is one of the things which will hold in restraint people who are inclined to take refuge in murder, as it were, when they want to achieve a limited object of their own. I do not think I am any more brutal than other people, but I happen to have had a long medical training and have seen medical people in many aspects in many countries—in fact, in most countries—in a very large proportion of the habitable world, and I have not the slightest doubt that there are very great differences between one kind of individual and another kind of individual: they stand at altogether different levels of evolution and development. I hope that the day may come when our civilisation is sufficiently well developed to prevent such things happening. I hope that it will be possible for us to do away with punishment by death for murder simply because there will not be any more murders. I am glad to see that there is likely to be a decline. At the present time, there is not a decline in the number of murders. There are more murders now than were taking place annually at the time when the debates on this matter were originally held in another place and, subsequently, in this House.
I felt that I could not sit here and fail to express my opinion, not because I think I am more bloody minded than other people but, perhaps, because I have seen a great deal of bloody mindedness during my experiences in three wars and as a doctor in many "slummy" parts of the world, and not only in London. There are at present in the world certain people, born in bad conditions, who are
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definitely a danger and who, in certain circumstances, should, if they commit crime, suffer the death penalty.
5.12 p.m.
LORD AILWYN: My Lords, I came quite unprepared to speak this evening and I am not very good at speeches "off the cuff", but my noble friend beside me has challenged me, and I feel that a few words in reply are required in common civility. Your Lordships may remember that I spoke strongly against the Silverman Bill. I expressed myself as not only a retentionist but as an extentionist. I considered that people who were guilty of some of the most fearful crimes of all—these terrible, savage assaults on old people and on children—were no longer fit to live in this world. I am unrepentant; I still hold those views. But that does not mean to say that I do not realise that one is in a considerable minority in this matter. I think that this Bill, in principle, is a compromise—it is a compromise Bill, as the noble and learned Viscount said—and is probably the nearest thing to meeting the general approval of the community at large at the present time. I thought very sincerely as to whether I should speak on Second Reading of the Bill. On the whole, I decided against it. It may be illogical, but I do not think these matters can be decided by logic. I have these opinions; I hold them; and I certainly do not oppose the passing of this Bill.
5.13 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am grateful to all your Lordships who have spoken for the contributions that you have made at this terminal stage of a difficult piece of work. I am sure your Lordships would not want me to go over the answers which I made at some length last July to the general arguments that have been advanced to-day. The noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, in the course of a modest, moderate and reasonable speech, said that he did not think that the death penalty was a deterrent of such value as to justify its existence. After many years, in many capacities, of considering the matter, I am firmly of the belief that it is an indispensable deterrent for certain classes of murder. I say that only because I should not like this matter to be left

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without a statement of my clear and sincere belief, whether your Lordships agree with it or not.
But I think the most remarkable moment in this short debate was when my noble friend Lord Templewood said that he found, I will not say disquiet, but great sorrow at being divided in this question from the noble Marquess the Leader of the House. I put it to Lord Templewood that that exemplifies, as clearly as any aspect of this matter, how strongly the two points of view are held in this country; and there is no one that I can think of who would impute a lack of sincerity, either to my noble friend Lord Templewood or to the noble Marquess who leads this House. In that situation I believe that there is a duty to find a middle course.
I should like to put it to Lord Templewood in this way, because he has said—and criticism from friends is good for the soul, I know—that this Bill is not so much a compromise as an attempt to get out of a difficulty at any expense. Well, I ask him to listen to this debate, including his own contribution, and he will see that those who think as be does have maintained that the death penalty is not an indispensable deterrent for any form of murder. There are many of us—I am glad that my noble friend Lord Ailwyn has spoken, because he has exemplified a school of thought which, believe me, is by no means a small school of thought, as every public opinion poll has shown—who think that the death penalty is an indispensable deterrent for every class of murder. This Bill reflects the Government's view that it is an indispensable deterrent for some, but not all murders, and the Government have tried to find what are the murders which, as I have said, can be looked at from the point of view of the two limbs of my proposition: those likely to strike at law and order and those where the murderer is most likely to be deterred—because no one who has ever considered this problem has said that the death penalty is not a deterrent.
My Lords, in considering this Bill, your Lordships may or may not agree with the Government's selection of these murders. But if the making of a selection to the best of our ability is not a fair compromise, then I do not think that I compromise has any meaning at all. I
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venture to remind your Lordships once again—I am afraid I have done it before, and I ask your Lordships' pardon for it—that one of my great heroes is the first Marquess of Montrose, whom we in Scotland call "The Great Marquess". He is a hero not only to me but has been, for 300 years, to millions of my countrymen, because in Montrose the fire of moderation and of the need for compromise burnt as purely and strongly as the fire of fanaticism burnt in his opponents. I do not apologise. I believe it is right that v hen there are strongly held opinions that divide friends, divide families and divide Parties, Her Majesty's Government should seek for a middle course which will provide a decent and workable solution to the problem.
I want to say one word now concerning what the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, said with regard to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, and also on what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Wilmot of Selmeston. I shall, of course, convey to and discuss with my right honourable friend the suggestion which the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood has made, and I want to make clear to the noble Lord, Lord Wilmot of Selmeston that the passage of this Bill does not in any way affect or limit the operation of the Prerogative. In the case which he mentioned, which one occasionally finds, where there is a murder by shooting which has circumstances which mitigate its enormity, the Home Secretary will take that aspect into account; and I do not want it to go out from this House that there is any restriction on the right of the Home Secretary to advise a reprieve.
I do not want to argue in any logic-chopping way what the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, has said with regard to insanity and the age limit. The noble Viscount, lord Templewood, the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, and myself are, I believe, the only three members present to-day of that trade union of ex-Home Secretaries in your Lordships' House. But I do want to make clear that all cases within a certain line must be very carefully considered. That, no doubt, has happened. After all infanticide applies to a mother whose reason is affected at the time of the birth of the child, but not affected to the extent of insanity; and, clearly, all Home Secretaries would have

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considered a very long time before refraining from interfering in such a case. The same thing applies with regard to youth. But the governing principle must be, and must continue to be, that each case is considered on its merits and on the circumstances of that case. There is no other approach which can be substituted for that careful and intense regard of the circumstances of the case before the Home Secretary.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble and learned Viscount, but would what he has said apply to those under eighteen? I understand that those under eighteen have been reprieved for something like fifty years although no change was made in the Statute Book.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the answer to the noble Viscount is this: both from the legal and the practical point of view, in the days before the Act to which he referred, cases would have to be considered individually, but that would not prevent any Home Secretary saying to himself with regard to those under eighteen: "It must be an exceptional case, a case so exceptional that I cannot imagine it, before I would allow that person to hang." But what he must not do, either in law or in morals, is to say: "I will in advance take a line with regard to a class of cases, a line that is contrary to the existing law of the land." He must consider the case on the individual circumstances. That is as I understand the position.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: My Lords, I certainly understood, when I was Secretary of State, that all those under eighteen were reprieved, and I do not remember any case in which there was any discussion upon the individual murderer. I do not know whether the memory of the noble and learned Viscount is the same as my own.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, that was the result, but that did not prevent that approach to an exceptional case, had such arisen. I agree that it is difficult to imagine such a case; but it may happen, and what I am saying is that the Home Secretary must consider each case on its merits. But in considering each case he must take into account
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all the factors. I am not going through them in detail. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, may remember that they were enumerated by Mr. Herbert Gladstone, who was Home Secretary in 1907. I cannot remember whether the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, went as Under-Secretary to the Home Office in 1906 or 1908.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: It was in 1906.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I thought that was so, so that the statement was made at a time when the noble Viscount was Under-Secretary at the Home Office. He will remember that it is a classic statement, going into the factors which a Home Secretary takes into consideration, which are, of course, the individual factors and the public factors, including the confidence of the public in the administration of justice.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, what the noble and learned Viscount is saying may have great importance in the administration of the law when this Bill reaches the Statute Book. As I understood the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, he was urging that straight away, from now on, the Home Secretary ought to reprieve all cases of capital punishment until the matter had been elucidated by further research, and he instanced the cases of the under-eighteens and those convicted of infanticide as having set a precedent. But, Parliament having rejected a Bill for the abolition of capital punishment, and having passed a Bill establishing a crime of capital murder which is to be punished by death, would a Home Secretary be obedient to the law of the land if, beforehand, he recommended a reprieve, for such general reasons as the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, has mentioned, in every case that came before him? The noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor said that the Home Secretary must consider the actual circumstances of the individual case before recommending a reprieve, but surely he must also do that before refusing a reprieve.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: I am sorry to interrupt again. I do not suggest that the Home Secretary should say, as soon as the Bill becomes law, that he is going to recommend a reprieve in

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every case. What I want is that in practice he shall look at every case, and that the result shall be the same as has taken place in Belgium.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My noble friend Lord Templewood is asking my right honourable friend the Home Secretary to take the course which was so castigated by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice, in the earlier debate. With great respect, I agree with what the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, has said. Each case must be looked at on its merits and circumstances; and these circumstances include not only those connected with the crime and the criminal but those connected with the public and also with public respect for the administration of justice. As I said, it was very well put, if I might be allowed to say so, in the statement of Mr. Herbert Gladstone, to which I have referred and which has always been considered the locus classicus in the matter. What is wrong, as I assume, is to say in advance that a certain class, all without individual consideration, will be reprieved, because that offends against the old rule about giving a licence to commit crime, contrary to the existing Statute Law of the Realm.
My Lords, I have tried to deal with the main point which the noble Lord, Lord Wilmot of Selmeston, made earlier. I fully appreciate the logical position of the noble Lord, Lord Merthyr, but I do not think it requires any further comment from me. I have already prayed in aid for my own purpose what my noble friend Lord Ailwyn has said. The controversy in its present stage has, I think, been going on long enough, because it is quite clear that we shall not in the immediate future reach complete agreement between the two sides. There will always be those
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who think we have gone too far. There will always be the abolitionists, for whom nothing short of total abolition is enough. As I have said, we have tried to find a middle course and I do commend to your Lordships the thought that this limited retention of capital punishment will preserve the essentials of law and order in the country while saving from the capital sentence those whom many feel should not be subjected to the ultimate penalty of the law. It is on those grounds that I commend the Bill for a Third Reading by your Lordships' House.
On Question, Bill read 3ª, and passed.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL
Brought from the Commons, and read 1ª.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, I have to inform your Lordships that it has been arranged through the usual channels that the Motion of the noble Viscount, Lord Hall, on the future development of the fuel and power industries, which was down for to-day, and which was posponed, will be taken on Tuesday, April 2.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Earl for his announcement; we are grateful that the arrangement which he refers to has been made. I hope that my noble friend's Motion will be kept clear of other Business so that it can be adequately discussed.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before six o'clock.