Lords Sitting of 17 April 1958

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers

  FARM IMPROVEMENT GRANTS
  3.5 p.m.
  EARL DE LA WARR: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
  [The Question was as follows:
  To ask Her Majesty's Government when they expect to introduce arrangements for paying farm improvement grants on the basis of standard costs, since this will be of particular benefit to farmers using their own labour.]
  THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL ST. ALDWYN): My Lords, regulations for this purpose have been made and are being laid before Parliament to-day. They will come into operation on the 21st April. From that date it will be possible for a wide range of improvements and part improvements to be accepted for grant aid on the basis of either actual or standard costs at the option of the applicant.

  CHRISTMAS ISLAND BILL [H.L.]
  THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF PERTH): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to enable Her Majesty to place Christmas Island under the authority of the Commonwealth of Australia, and for purposes connected therewith, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a first time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Earl of Perth.)
  On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I beg to move that Standing Order No. 41 be considered in order to its being
  780
  dispensed with for the purpose of passing the Milford Haven Conservancy Bill through its remaining stages.
  Moved, That Standing Order No. 41 be considered in order to its being dispensed with for the purpose of passing the Milford Haven Conservancy Bill through its remaining stages.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, we on this side of the House are perfectly agreeable that this step should be taken, but I should like to utter a word of warning. We are quite willing that this particular Bill should be expedited, but we should not like this to be a precedent and/or to happen too often. We do appreciate a separate Report stage and a separate Third Reading.
  VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his consideration in this particular case, and I am in sympathy with him in his anxiety that it should not be regarded as a normal practice.
  On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

  LAND DRAINAGE (SCOTLAND) BILL
  3.8 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD STRATHCLYDE): My Lords, the purpose of this Bill is to encourage and assist owners of agricultural land in Scotland to get together to carry out schemes to improve land drainage and to prevent or mitigate the hazards of flooding and erosion. I commend the Bill to the House as a practicable and realistic measure, in spite of the fact that much was said in another place about its shortcomings. There it was compared with the far-reaching recommendations contained in the Report of the Duncan Committee which was published in 1950. The Duncan Committee envisaged the giving of new powers to the Secretary of State for the carrying out of drainage schemes of a very comprehensive character, and after the publication of their Report many discussions followed with the interests concerned, on ways and means of giving effect to their recommendations. But the problem of financing land drainage operations on the scale

  781
  envisaged and in the difficult conditions obtaining in Scotland proved intractable.
  When it became clear that there was no prospect of overcoming these difficulties we turned our attention to what could be done to strengthen existing powers relating to drainage of agricultural land. In this we were assisted by the Scottish National Farmers' Union and the Scottish Landowners' Federation, and I am glad to tell your Lordships that they are in agreement with the broad principles of the Bill now before your Lordships. Under existing powers, the Secretary of State is empowered to make grants of up to 50 per cent. in respect of the capital costs of approved drainage works. Over the past six years about 1,000 arterial drainage schemes, mainly on small rivers and watercourses, and benefiting some 47,000 acres of agricultural land, have been carried out at a total cost of £459,000. That, I hope your Lordships will agree, represents steady and valuable progress.
  Two difficulties, however, confront us at present. In the first place, drainage schemes of this nature, as your Lordships will appreciate, usually concern the land of more than one owner, and up till now the carrying out of these schemes has depended on the voluntary co-operation of all the owners concerned. In a considerable number of cases proposals for carrying out useful schemes have had to be abandoned because of the refusal of one or two owners to co-operate with their neighbours. This means that as more and more of the schemes where there is complete agreement come to an end there will be a considerable slowing up in the present rate of improvement. The second difficulty is that there is no means of ensuring that these grant-aided schemes once carried out are properly maintained thereafter; private and public money has been spent and yet, through the negligence of one or two, it may well be wasted.
  The farmers' and landowners' organisations agree with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland that new powers are well justified to ensure that a majority of owners in any area are not prevented from improving their land by the opposition of a minority, and that, if it comes to the worst, some compulsion should be exercised to ensure that grant-aided drainage works are
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  properly maintained. These, in brief, are the objectives the Bill is designed to achieve.
  As to the rights of minorities under this Bill, I can assure the House that we have taken care of this matter. The Bill provides for proper notice of a draft scheme to be given to all concerned, and for a public local inquiry to be held where objections are maintained. It also provides that the majority rule will operate only where two conditions are satisfied: first, that the willing majority will together be responsible for more than half of the estimated cost of the drainage works; and secondly, that the cost is estimated not to exceed £20 per acre of the land benefiting from the scheme. This limit in the granting of compulsory powers to a willing majority of interested proprietors has, like the main principle of the Bill, the agreement of the interested organisations.
  I might point out that power is taken in paragraph 8 of the First Schedule of the Bill to vary the figure of £20 per acre, but only by an order which will be subject to the Affirmative Resolution of this House and another place. I should, however, make it clear that the £20 per acre is an average figure, which means that some owners may be called upon to pay more than £20 per acre, less grant This will, however. become apparent at a stage when it will be possible for objections to be made to the draft scheme and before a majority has decided in favour of it. As I have already said, the final cost will be reduced by the amount of the Government grant. In view of this, I think it is fair to say that no undue burden will be placed on an unwilling owner. Of course, the limit of £20 per acre does not apply where all the owners concerned agree that an improvement order should be made.
  I should now like to indicate briefly the general lay-out of the Bill. Clause 1 enables an owner of agricultural land to apply to the Secretary of State for the making of an improvement order. If the Secretary of State is satisfied that a worthwhile scheme can be devised, and that there is a reasonable prospect of adequate support for it by the owners concerned, he will make a draft improvement order, and the procedure set out in Parts I and III of the First Schedule will be followed; that is to say, copies of the

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  draft order will be served on all owners and occupiers who may be concerned, and also on any local authority or other statutory body which, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, may be affected by the making of the order. A public inquiry will, if necessary, be held into objections. Thereafter the Secretary of State will proceed to make the order if the conditions which I have already described are met.
  Clause 2 sets out the provisions which an improvement order must contain. Here I would draw your Lordships' attention to two details. Subsection (1) (d) enables the Secretary of State to require, as part of the scheme, the carrying out of protective works, such as floodbanks, to prevent injury to adjoining land downstream. Subsection (4) places on the Secretary of State the duty of allocating the total cost, less the amount of the Government grant, among the various owners in the proportions in which they will benefit. Under Clause 3, an improvement order may provide for the appointment of a committee from among the owners concerned to act on their behalf. The detailed management of the drainage scheme will therefore be in the hands of those affected by it. Clause 4 provides for the payment of compensation for any damage done through the execution of drainage works.
  Clause 6 deals with variation of rents. Where the rental value of a farm is increased by a drainage scheme, the landlord, to the extent that he has paid for the scheme out of his own pocket, can obtain an increase in rent. Conversely, if works carried out under a scheme on land outside the area actually improved decrease the rental value of a farm, the tenant may claim a reduction in rent. The Secretary of State is empowered by Clause 7 to carry out the works if the owners so wish, and to recover the cost of doing so. Clause 8 gives the Secretary of State default powers. These are necessary to ensure that protective works are carried out, and that both grant-aided drainage works and protective works are maintained. Subsection (3) of Clause 9 provides that the Exchequer grant may be paid in instalments as the work proceeds. I do not think the remaining clauses of the Bill, which are largely procedural and formal, call for any special comment at this stage.
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  My Lords, we recognise that the Bill does not meet the hopes aroused by the Duncan Report, but I do not apologise for the Bill on that account, since, as I have indicated, there is really no way at present of financing operations on that scale. Nevertheless, the Bill is a useful measure, as with its aid it is hoped to increase the rate of improvement work to a level of some 10,000 acres a year. Accordingly, I invite your Lordships to give it a Second Reading this afternoon.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Strathclyde.)
  3.18 p.m.
  LORD MATHERS: My Lords, I am sure we shall all agree that in introducing this Bill the noble Lord has done the House and, I hope, the public—because I hope that the explanation he has given will be given wide publicity—a great service. As the noble Lord has indicated, the Bill was, in a sense, conceived in the Duncan Report in 1950, and that is quite a long time ago. The proceedings in another place, when the Bill had been formulated, took a considerable time, and a great deal of labour was incurred in dealing with it. For instance, two days were occupied in the Scottish Grand Committee dealing with the Bill on the basis of a Second Reading—a process that is possible under the special arrangements that apply there. Then on Committee stage there were ten meetings of the Committee between December 17 last year and February 18 of this year. That means, as I say, that the labour involved in bringing this Bill to birth was quite a long one.
  On all sides of the Committee in another place regret was expressed that the Bill did not measure up to what was intended by the Duncan Committee in their Report. The noble Lord has indicated that the Bill falls short in that respect. Yet he claims—and I think rightly—that some benefit can come from this Bill. What stood in the way of making improvements in the Bill in another place was finance. If a practically unanimous Commitee in the House of Commons, where the control of finance is exercised, has failed to make any impression upon the Government in the way of extending the financial provisions, and so making the Bill more effective, it seems to me that your Lordships will feel that in this House, where finance is

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  something that we are rather inhibited from dealing with, there would not be much reason or justification for our spending a great deal of time on the Bill. As I say, on all sides of the Committee in another place there was this feeling that the Bill should go further, but I am afraid that the Amendments that were made did not remove the feeling that the Bill still did not reach to the full measure of what was expected of it.
  We have had reminders in Scotland of what this Bill seeks to deal with. Even in the lower regions of the country—and one can visualise the effects being even more heavy and severe in the more precipitous parts of the country—flooding can be a very great menace. I see here to-day many noble Lords who must remember quite clearly the flooding in Berwickshire and along the East Coast, some ten or eleven years ago, when even the railway lines were made unusable by flooding. Even the great main traffic line from Scotland to England, by the East Coast, was out of use for some time. The branch line that ran through the county of Berwickshire from St. Boswells to Reston was rendered unusable; and today no one can find in a railway passenger timetable the names of the stations that were put completely out of use by the flooding at that time. The line runs through Earlston, Gordon, Greenlaw Marchmont, Duns, Edrom and Chirnside, before it reaches the East Coast main line again. None of those places appears today in the railway timetables. That is an indication of how greatly measures of this kind are needed to protect us from the kind of devastation that came upon that countryside ten or eleven years ago.
  The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said that this Bill has been rather disparaged because it does not meet the full obligations intended by the Duncan Committee Report, but he claims—and I think quite rightly—that it is capable of doing some good, provided that agreement can be reached amongst those who are affected. That is the great thing; this is a Bill that requires co-operation among all the interests concerned if it is to be of any real value. I think I can declare on behalf of those who sit with me on these Benches that in this accouchement stage of the Bill no barrier will be placed in the way to delivery at an early date.
  3.25 p.m.
  LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL: My Lords, I rise to support this Bill. It is a modest Bill, but within its small compass it has the power to do a very considerable amount of good. As my noble friend has explained, it will ensure that a number of important and badly needed drainage schemes will be carried out. It will also, I hope, ensure that these schemes are properly maintained. I was glad that my noble friend stressed that point, because the maintenance of any drainage scheme is of the utmost importance. I envisage these schemes as affecting largely low-lying and near-boggy ground; and, as your Lordships will know, it is astonishing how quickly drains in that type of land can silt up and become quite useless.
  I appreciate the difficulty in specifying the actual estimated cost of the maintenance, as is done for the estimated cost of the actual improvement scheme itself in Clause 2 (1) (f). The question of maintenance is, of course, mentioned in the following pargaraph, but merely to ensure that the cost is shared equally according to the scheme laid down. But the actual cost of this maintenance will be an extremely important part of the scheme, because it is no use entering into a well-thought-out scheme if its implications are so expensive or so complicated to achieve that it cannot be maintained properly. I hope that the Secretary of State, before issuing an order, will go very carefully indeed into this question of the cost of the maintenance.
  This matter is even more important because in Clause 3 arrangements are laid down for setting up improvement committees, with a secretary and a staff. This obviously forecasts comparatively large-scale schemes, which undoubtedly would be well organised and their maintenance work properly carried out; but the scope of the Bill as a whole, giving, as my noble friend said, about 10,000 acres a year (and I understand that the cost to the Exchequer is not expected to be very large, and also there is no limit to the amount of grant) seems also to envisage the possibility of a number of quite small schemes. I am thinking of schemes affecting possibly a small number, three or four, owner-occupiers who would not have the machinery to carry out careful organisation and might, although they were all willing, with the best will in

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  the world, have physical difficulties in making labour and time available even to keep a contractor doing the work properly. These comments are not intended to be in any way against the Bill itself—I think it is an admirable Bill—but to try to make clear my feeling that its success will depend greatly on the help and sympathy with which it is put into operation by the Department of Agriculture. As I know myself, they are extremely helpful. I have contacts with them in more than one capacity, and they are an extremely helpful Department.
  There is one final point—namely, the question of grants. A great deal of the waterlogged land in the country has probably at some time or another been drained. If the Secretary of State takes too strict a view in regard to these drains—that although they may have been dug and constructed a long time ago they should in fact always have been kept open—it may make it almost impossible for a grant to be claimed. I think a certain amount of sympathy will have to be shown in the marginal cases in regard to what obviously ought to be maintained and the old, long-standing drain. If some of the draining was done one hundred or more years ago and the drain has gradually silted up, something which will in effect be new work may be disqualified because there had been a drain there. I repeat that I think the Bill is an excellent Bill, but its successful working will depend largely on the sympathetic action of the Secretary of State and the Department of Agriculture. I hope your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading.
  3.33 p.m.
  THE MARQUESS OF AILSA: My Lords, in speaking on this matter I feel that I must descend from an ancient family of drainers. Four generations back my ancestors started draining the countryside in which I now live, South Ayrshire, and my earliest initiation into land usage and management was a practical demonstration of the construction of drains. This was at the age of ten or twelve. My uncle took me out on the land and pointed out the right and the wrong way to drain, and the places that needed it and those that did not. Since I have had even more time to learn about land usages I have realised how wise he was in the interest
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  he took. I am only too pleased to welcome any movement, however small or great, that helps and encourages people to improve their land by drainage works.
  There are, however, one or two points about which I should like to inquire. I want to be reassured that this Bill does not in any way hinder or oppose any of the existing regulations for grants in aid of drainage works that are being carried out at the moment. I have in mind the present scheme by which there is a 50 per cent. grant to farmers who carry out land drainage on their farms. The other point I was going to raise has been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Stratheden and Campbell; it concerns what I call the repairing of old drainage works. As he has rightly said, there are areas where works were carried out sometimes up to one hundred years ago, but which, for one reason or another, have been allowed to fall into disrepair and now need to be renovated to make them effective. I hope that the Secretary of State will give sympathetic consideration to this point, provided, of course, that if these old drains are put in order they will in fact be effective.
  On some land adjoining my own and which actually belonged to our estates until about ten years ago, there is a bog. I remember that about twenty years ago there was a tremendous movement to get this bog drained, and I do not know how many thousands of pounds were spent on it. All was well until, unfortunately, the estates had to sell the farms to the occupiers. Then, for one reason or another, the drain was allowed to fall into disuse, and the bog is getting worse and worse every year. Everybody shakes his head over it; but, when these people are asked why nothing is done, the answer is, "We cannot get the money; we have not got the money." I hope this Bill will assist in encouraging occupiers to repair what was, done before, and I hope again that there will be sympathetic consideration of these cases by the Department of Agriculture.
  The only other small point I wish to raise is in regard to works which go through areas of afforestation. In the past there has been a tendency by the Department to draw rather a sharp line between purely agricultural land and afforestation land. If you drain forest land, of course you come under the forestry grants scheme. Where it is a

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  pure woodland there may be room for argument. Where you start from, say, the top of a sheep grazing on high ground, come through a shelter belt, and then down again, it is rather a different story. I hope that it will be possible for sympathetic consideration to be given to that matter. I have rather emphasised this point in view of the fact that such sympathetic consideration would encourage integration of forestry and farming into one unit, especially in the marginal areas.
  I notice in the Schedule that the Secretary of State is required to publish in the local Press notice of intention to carry out any work, I think for two weeks prior to the operation. Is this necessary where the improvement is to be carried out under the ownership of a single landlord? I agree that where there are many different owners and the improvement passes through different lands, then notice is needed; but if one landlord wishes to carry out work of this nature is it necessary to go through such a long procedure before getting assent? My Lords, I apologise for taking up your Lordships' time.
  3.38 p.m.
  VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, I just want to add my voice and plea to those of other noble Lords in regard to ditches which have become obsolete. I am an interested party. I have an area of land in regard to which at this moment I am suffering from the non-approval of a drainage scheme, purely on the ground that the ditches which were dug up to one hundred years ago have silted up to such an extent that now the water is flowing over the fields and not in the course of the ditch at all. When applying for a grant in regard to this land I was merely told, "Clean the ditches out first and then we will come back and look at them." I applied for a grant to dig what is no longer a ditch. I am quite prepared to pay £12 an acre to get my own land hack into cultivation, but I cannot afford to pay £25 an acre to do it.
  This situation arose from the fact that the tenant farmer gave up last year at the age of eighty-four. It may be legal or it may be many other things, but we cannot honestly expect any type of Scotsman ho calls himself a laird to go and tell his tenant to dig these ditches out. It is quite unreasonable to expect a man to
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  do so, and all the mud that is normally flung at us lairds would be justified if we ever behaved like that. The result is that there is an area of land, and all I can do now is abandon it. It seems to me that that is a snag over which the whole of this scheme can fall down.
  Then there is another point. I am not quite sure of the noble Lord's explanation, but I gather that if a tenant carries out an improvement he can then deduct the cost of that improvement from his rent. Is that not so? If it is not, I will not try to make the point. It is not a matter about which I am clear I shall have to read the OFFICIAL REPORT. But I wish earnestly to urge that the consideration which is shown frequently in England in cases of this kind should equally be shown in Scotland. I have said that I am an interested party in this particular case. Nevertheless, other noble Lords have raised the point, which I think is an important one.
  3.40 p.m.
  LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, I thank those noble Lords who have spoken for the welcome they have given the Bill, and I thank particularly the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, sitting opposite, for the reception he gave to it. The noble Lord, Lord Mathers, was considerably concerned as to the regrets that were felt in another place, and indeed elsewhere, that we had been unable to go ahead on the lines recommended in the Report of the Duncan Committee. Perhaps it is right that I should explain more fully to your Lordships what was involved. These major drainage problems in Scotland arise mainly in the narrow valleys of very fast-flowing rivers where the cost of large-scale drainage schemes would be quite disproportionate to the agricultural benefit which would be gained. If such schemes were to be executed and maintained it would be necessary to have some source of finance on which to draw in addition to the normal 50 per cent. Exchequer grant towards the cost of capital works and the contributions which could reasonably be levied on the interests which would benefit.
  The possibility of levying a general or special rate to bridge this financial gap was fully explored, but it was found impossible to devise any solution which

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  would be acceptable to the interests concerned. The difficulty in finding a solution on the lines of a rate is in some measure due to the character of our Scottish countryside and to topographical factors. Conditions in Scotland, your Lordships will realise, are very different from those prevailing in the low-lying areas in England, where extensive communities have a common interest in maintaining drainage systems and the levying of a drainage rate is a natural and effective way of raising the necessary local contribution. If I might give your Lordships an example I would take the valley of the River Spey. We estimated in 1955 that a comprehensive scheme of drainage works there would cost no less than £1,150,000. That would benefit about 11,500 acres of land of varying quality and the cost works out at somewhere in the region of £100 per acre. One has further to consider, over and above that cost, the very large cost of maintaining drainage works in the kind of circumstances that exist in the valley of the Spey.
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he can say what were the limitations? He has spoken of the valley of the Spey, but it is a very long valley.
  LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, it concerned the whole of the valley of the Spey. I hope that that explanation is satisfactory to the noble Lord, Lord Mathers. The noble Lord, Lord Stratheden and Campbell, expressed the hope that these schemes would be properly maintained. I do not think he need have doubts about that. The Bill provides amply to meet the need for maintenance, and I can assure the noble Lord also that the cost of maintenance will be very carefully considered, both when the draft scheme is prepared and, further, when it is considered at a local inquiry, should one be held. The noble Lord also asked what would be the Exchequer contribution, Taking 10,000 acres a year, on an
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  estimated cost not exceeding £20 per acre it comes to about £200,000; and 50 per cent. on that would be £100,000. I can assure the noble Lord also that all the help and sympathy of the Department of Agriculture will be in favour of getting these schemes carried through, and I would thank him for what he said of the helpful nature of the Department of Agriculture. The noble Marquess, Lord Ailsa, asked me whether this Bill did anything to hinder the ordinary drainage of farm land. The Bill has nothing to do with that and in no way affects it. Grant for that comes under Section 16 of the Agriculture Act, 1937.
  So far as the repair of old drainage works is concerned, if they are flooded no doubt they will be capable of being put right under this Bill. The noble Lord also raised the question of whether the procedure was not a little heavy-handed, in that notice of intention had to be given in a certain way; but the noble Lord must realise that others may be affected, besides the owner of the particular area of land which is to benefit. There may be owners of land downstream who would be affected by the alterations to a piece of land, and therefore it is necessary that the widest possible notice should be given. The noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven, raised the point of the existing grants which are given in relation to the draining of agricultural land, with which this Bill has no concern. He mentioned the question of reduction of rent. That really arises where land which has not been improved—land downstream, for instance, may have to be used to put up flood banks and therefore the area of a farmer's land might be reduced. Naturally in those circumstances he would expect to get a reduction in his rent. I hope I have dealt with the various questions asked and I would now ask your Lordships to approve a Second Reading of the Bill.
  On Question, Bill read 2a; and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

  MILFORD HAVEN CONSERVANCY BILL
  3.46 p.m.
  Amendments reported (according to Order).
  Clause 1:
  Establishment and duty of Conservancy Board
  (6) In formulating or considering any proposals relating to their functions under this Act, the Board shall have regard to the desirability—

  (a) of preserving natural beauty; and

  (b) of conserving flora, fauna and geological or physiographical features of special interest: and

  (c) of ensuring an easy passage at all times through the waters of the haven for ascending salmon and sea-trout.

  LORD SILKIN LORD SILKIN moved to omit subsection (6). The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the first of the Amendments standing in my name on the Order Paper. They are similar in intent to Amendments which I put down on the Committee stage of this Bill. I made the case then, and I can repeat it very briefly. It is simply that Clause 1 of this Bill, which is mainly a Bill for the development of Milford Haven, deals in sewn subsections with the functions of the Board. Subsection (6) provides that they are to have regard to amenity and to the importance of conserving fauna and flora. Many of us attach great importance to that duty. As the noble Lord knows, a great many representations have been made on this question of amenity, and my poor, simple little Amendment merely gave effect to the feeling that if the matter was of such importance to so many people, it was worthy of a clause by itself in the Bill. I therefore asked that, instead of being subsection (6) of Clause 1, the provision should become Clause 2 or 3.
  The noble Lord, Lord Brecon, did not think that the matter was worthy even of consideration. He rejected it in sixty-one words, and perhaps your Lordships will allow me to read fifty of them (eleven of them do not matter): they appear in the OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 208 (No. 49), at col. 399. The noble Lord said:
  "This particular subsection comes in part of the Bill that deals with The duties of the Board, and we can see no reason why it should have a separate clause of its own."
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  I had already given a reason: it may have been a bad one but at least it was a reason. He continued:
  "In the whole of this part the greatest care has been given to the question of amenity. At the moment we require that this clause shall remain as it is in the Bill, and I am afraid that I am unable to accept the Amendment."
  And that was all. I thought it was worth trying again, and so I have put the Amendment down for to-day. I hope that on further consideration the noble Lord will feel that, even if it is only a poor little thing, the Amendment is worth accepting, or at least reconsidering. I beg to move the first Amendment.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 2, line 32, leave out subsection (6).—(Lord Silkin.)
  3.50 p.m.
  LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, the reason I rise to refer to this mater is that I should think that probably before anybody else in this House was born I was interested in the development of Milford Haven. Now, after many years, what I tried to do, with various friends of mine, long before I was in either House of Parliament, looks like coming about. I have studied as sympathetically as I can the suggestion the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has made, and I am wondering whether anybody, reading the provisions of subsection (6) would consider it more important to have them as the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, suggests—that is, as a separate clause—than as they are at the moment, because I gather there is no difference between subsection (6) of Clause 1 and his new clause. Word for word the two would do exactly the same thing. That is so, is it not?
  I think some people who read the words are a little fogged as to what they mean. There are the words "flora" and "fauna", and "geological or physiographical features ". They are particularly interesting words to me, because in my early life I was a mining engineer and had to go through a very severe course which concerned the meaning of the word "geological", and so on. I am wondering whether the ordinary individual understands what is meant. I have already come across one or two who have asked: "What does that really mean?" If I may, I should like to have a definition of what those two words mean. Perhaps the Minister who is going to speak on the subject will inform the

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  House, in order that the rest of the country may appreciate what is really meant. The words "flora" and "fauna" I think we understand. Most people are gardeners and know what those words mean, but I should very much like to have a definition of the other two expressions in a form that anybody can appreciate and understand.
  There is just one other matter—and I do not know whether I am in order in referring to it. At a former stage (I believe the Committee stage) of the Bill, there was raised the question of whether the land contiguous with the Haven played any part in the deliberations of those considering this Bill. The Minister seemed to think not. I have read the Bill very carefully, and I think it must: it is absolutely necessary that that land should come into the general picture of the administration of the Haven. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Brecon, will, if he can, answer me on those two very simple questions.
  3.53 p.m.
  LORD CRAIGMYLE: My Lords, I rise to support the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and perhaps in the course of what I have to say I may be able to raise a little the heart of the noble Lord. Lord Teviot. Before speaking on the Amendment I have to declare an interest in that I am a Director of Milford Docks Company and also a sand and gravel merchant in the Milford Haven area. I am, therefore, closely interested in the excellence of this Bill; and I hope in the course of a few weeks to be interested in its smooth working. I also have to apologise for being unable to be in my place on the Committee stage. I very much wanted to speak to the Amendment which the noble Lords opposite put forward, but I was in Milford Haven and did not get back until eleven o'clock in the evening.
  I am glad to see the difference between the Amendment now proposed and the Amendments moved then. I was not at all happy about a reference which was made to "fostering the cultural and social development of the population". It has seemed to me a very curious thing to ask a Board of this nature to do, and I ventured to look up and ascertain whether any comparable Board had comparable power. The nearest approach
  796
  was the case of the Port of London Authority, which had powers to make bylaws for preventing the use of obscene and abusive language. I do not know whether that relates to the cultural development which the noble Lords had in mind. However, the point is no longer relevant.
  The point that has arisen in our minds, in considering these Amendments in Committee, and to some extent now, is that this Bill is not meant to be a town and country planning measure. The inclusion of references to amenities is really an indication of the importance which is attached to that subject whenever and wherever industrial development is being considered. It is for that reason that I consider these references to amenity should not come in Clause 1, where they are now, which deals, according to its marginal sub-title, with "Establishment and duty of Conservancy Board ".but should come, as is suggested in the Amendment, in a separate clause which has the title, "Protection of amenities".The Bill is not a town and country planning measure, and therefore these words should not be included in the clause describing the duties of the Board. Town and country considerations for amenities are very important matters and they are therefore a suitable subject for a separate clause. I think that in saying that I have emphasised the point of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin—not perhaps with the same emphasis he has given it; but I have agreed basically with him with a slightly new emphasis.
  From what was said in Committee, and also from what has been said elsewhere. it seems to me that some people would have liked to see this Bill drafted more in the form of a planning measure. But I cannot see that a planning measure was necessary. I think that the Bill has been correctly drafted: to be simply a conservancy authority Bill. The danger exists of a multiplication of planning authorities. I remember being told by a farmer in Cumberland a couple of years ago that if he wanted to put a stronger roof on his cowshed he had to get permission from six different authorities. That is not planning; that is making the situation chaotic, and we should be acting very foolishly if we allowed the development of Milford Haven to get bogged down in a multitude of different planning authorities.

  797
  I am speaking from commercial experience in that area, and I am quite satisfied as to the competence of the existing authorities. The Pembrokeshire County Council came in for some rather hard words on Committee stage, as I read Hansard. Reacting, for example, the report of the proceedings at the inquiry into the proposed iron-ore clump at Angle, on the other side of the Haven from Haverfordwest and the town of Milford, I was confirmed in the impression I have had all along: that the Pembrokeshire County Council, and particularly their planning officer, have a most reasoned and balanced attitude towards the development schemes projected in the county. They are not prepared to say, on the one hand, "We must have development and the amenities can look after themselves"; nor, on the other, "We must have amenities and the developments can go elsewhere." They are out to get, so far as they can, the best of both worlds; and surely in doing that they are doing precisely what they should do under the various Acts under which they work.
  Not only the County Council, but also other authorities—for example, the Haverfordwest Rural District Council, in their capacity as coast protection authority—are following a reasonable and balanced course of action. As a sand and gravel merchant, I have had close experience of a project tentatively mentioned in Committee—by the noble Lord, Lord Ogalore, I expect—to dredge gravel in Dale Road, in the north-west corner of the Haven. As soon as the proposal was mooted, those who made it were inundated with information about what went on in Dale Road in the way of marine life and marine biological research, which would not go on if what we had in mind was done. We negotiated with the parties whose duty it is to protect such matters, including the field societies, the Nature Conservancy and the University of Wales, and, of course, the Haverfordwest Rural District Council, as the coast protection authority, and we were able to come to satisfactory conclusions. The reason was that we did not, as a commercial interest, go all out to get something which obviously was going to be a nuisance in the district; and the field societies and others accepted the fact that it would be a good thing that we should be able to dig sand and gravel in the neighbourhood. The results of these consultations were satis
  798
  factory to all and I suspect that this sort of experience can be duplicated by any commercial interests in the area.
  Further, in respect of the large projects, some of which have been started and some of which are still under discussion, considerable trouble has been taken by the big companies concerned to ensure that their projects do the minimum possible harm to local amenities. This morning I was speaking to one gentleman, who was able to confirm that his company had taken the advice of Mr. Colwyn Fulkes, the landscape consultant, and he assured me that acceptance of some of the advice would be costly to them. Surely that is an illustration of the fact that industrialists nowadays are not prepared to desecrate the countryside, as our ancestors did a hundred years ago by the sort of development which tore the heart of people like Ruskin. Nowadays, industrialists recognise their responsibility towards the amenities of the countryside in which they are working.
  For all these reasons, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, is right in emphasising the importance of the amenity provisions of the Bill, but asking that they should not be regarded as part of the duty of the Board under Clause 1 and should be mentioned separately as a new clause. As I see it, the change which he is proposing will assist the Board, in that they will be able to point out to those who perhaps regard it as their duty to safeguard amenities that it is not in fact laid down by Parliament as part of their duty, but that the matter is the subject of a separate clause and phrased merely in this way: that the Board ought "to have regard to" the desirability of doing these things. May I say to my noble friend Lord Teviot that, while it may seem a bit vague to talk about natural beauty and flora and fauna, he will realise that the existing authorities—the Nature Conservancy and the field societies—are quite clear in their own minds about the meanings of these terms.
  4.6 p.m.
  THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR WELSH AFFAIRS (LORD BRECON): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, for putting this Amendment down again. I am sorry that I dealt so abruptly with the Amendment

  799
  on the previous occasion. But the fact that he has put it down again has enabled me to give further consideration to the matter. I realise that the purpose of the Amendment is to emphasise the amenity problem of this area. My noble friend Lord Teviot has raised the question of the flora and fauna, and the geological and physiographical features. … I am sorry, my Lords, for my momentary indisposition. … I am glad that my noble friend has not asked me to explain about the flora and fauna because he says that he knows all about them. The geological features, of course, relate to the rocks, and the physiographical features are those of the islands within the Haven and those features below the high-water line which must be preserved at all times. The Amendment as now moved requires that the part relating to amenities shall be given a clause of its own. I am glad to say that, after consideration, on behalf of the Government I accept the Amendment as moved by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin.
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, may I express my gratitude to the noble Lord, and also our regret at his temporary indisposition. I hope that he will take a rest and feel better. If he wants any "tips" about what to do, I think I can help him, because I felt the same some months ago.
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—

  AFTER CLAUSE 1
  Insert the following new clause:
  Protection of amenities
  ("2. In formulating or considering any proposals relating to their functions under this Act, the Board shall have regard to the desirability—

  (a) of preserving natural beauty;

  (b) of conserving flora, fauna and geological or physiographical features of special interest; and

  (c) of ensuring an easy passage at all times through the waters of the haven for ascending salmon and sea-trout.")—(Lord Silkin.)

  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been dispensed with (pursuant to Resolution):
  LORD BRECON: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Brecon.)
  LORD OGMORE: My Lords, in speeding this Bill on its way, I should merely' like to explain for the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Craigmyle, and others that we on this side do not object to the Bill at all—we entirely approve of it—but we wanted to make it a better Bill. We all agree with the Government's motive, but we were whipping them on to make their motive have a greater impact on the Bill than they had intended. I understand that in spite of the fact that some of our Amendments were not accepted on the Committee stage they have had a good deal of effect in Pembrokeshire, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Craigmyle, has said, the industrialists in that area and the local authorities have taken to heart what we have said. The noble Lord has introduced himself to us today in the rather new light of a sand and gravel merchant, and I have no doubt that he looks at the development of the Haven rather from that point of view. We on this side of the House, while we are prepared in every way to sympathise with those who want to bring development into this part of Pembrokeshire, which is suffering badly from unemployment, wanted to make sure that nothing which could be avoided should be done to spoil the natural beauty of the countryside. That was our whole object. I feel certain that the progress of this Bill through your Lordships' House has had the desired result; in other words, it has brought home to those who propose to develop the Haven, to the Conservancy Board and to the local authorities, that they must not do anything which is avoidable to desecrate this beautiful part of our country.
  On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

  BURNS COMMEMORATIVE POSTAGE STAMPS
  4.12 p.m.
  LORD MATHERS LORD MATHERS rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the international importance that is being given in many countries to the celebration of the bi-centenary of the birth of Robert Burns which falls on the 25th January, 1959, the question of issuing one or more commemorative postage stamps will now be favourably considered.
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, before I put to your Lordships the case I want to put, there is some information which has come to my notice in the last day or two to which I should like to give prominence. In questions put by the noble Viscount, Lord Elibank, with regard to pictorial and other stamps, and in the answers given, much stress has been laid on the fact that the Post Office must see that the Queen's head is in a prominent position on, if not completely dominating, every stamp that is issued. In that way, and in that way alone, we declare the country of origin of the stamp and show that it is a British stamp.
  Within the last day or two I have received some information about stamps that have been issued in different parts of the Commonwealth, and it has been proved to me that certain parts of the Commonwealth have not felt themselves bound to adhere to what seemed to me, from the answers given to the noble Viscount, Lord Elibank, an absolute rule. For example, the Royal Cipher has been used in Malta and in other British Crown Colonies, where the Queen's head was thought to be inconsistent with the design oil the stamp. I am, of course, talking about pictorial stamps, to which the noble Viscount, Lord Elibank, has referred on a number of occasions. Canada and Australia, I understand, have issued small stamps commemorating great men. Any stamp could carry the inscription "United Kingdom Post Office and Revenue" if the Queen's head were not there. I am not arguing for any cutting of the use of the Queen's head on stamps: I am, I hope, sufficiently loyal to wish to see that practice carried into effect in the usual run of stamps. But I do put forward the fact that these variations have taken place in other parts of the
  802
  Commonwealth, where I am sure they were not motivated by any disloyalty to Her Majesty or any desire to remove Her Majesty's picture from the stamps.
  To come now to the Question I have put down, it may be looked upon as one of not much intrinsic value, but to me it is a matter of considerable symbolic value, and that is the atmosphere in which I put forward my case. I have been moved to put this Question down because of the intensity of feeling I have found in opposition to the attitude of the Postmaster General, who has summarily refused the request for a commemorative stamp or stamps on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns next January. I claim to speak for the majority of thinking Scots of adult age in Scotland, throughout our Commonwealth and, indeed, throughout the world. It is the claim of those who are associated with the request that it has been given inadequate consideration, and that the reasons put forward by past Postmasters General and the present Postmaster General for their refusal are also inadequate.
  It is claimed by the Postmaster General that to honour Robert Burns in the manner proposed would create a precedent and justify other claims for prominent personalities to be commemorated in like manner. Scotland rejects this excuse, and points to the issue of the Boy Scout Jubilee stamps last year, which were linked with the name of the Scouts' founder, Baden Powell, and with the centenary of his birth. I must not be taken as objecting to that issue, but it is recalled that no such distinction has been given to the Boys' Brigade, equally deserving of honour, which was founded in Glasgow in 1883 and is now widespread. I claim that Robert Burns is much more than a famous personality. He is an institution, predominantly Scottish in origin and. spirit, around which a great movement has grown, especially since 1885 when the Burns Federation was formed. Branches of the Federation exist not only in Scotland but in many towns across Canada, from Ontario to British Columbia, and in the United States, from New York to San Francisco; also in Western Australia, New South Wales and Victoria; in New Zealand, Calcutta and Karachi, and in Norway and Denmark. In Scotland there is hardly a town or

  803
  village where there is not a link with the poet, and South of the Border branches exist at intervals from Berwick to Chelmsford and London on the east, and from Carlisle to Plymouth on the west.
  The Burns Federation comprises not only Burns clubs, but also affiliated Caledonian societies, St. Andrew's societies and Scottish cultural bodies throughout the world, and many masonic lodges have Burns contacts. Some of the individual units of the Federation are themselves federated bodies, and the Royal Clan Order of Scottish Clans in the United States has 15,500 members and covers an estimated 20,000 families of Scots or of Scots descent. The Federated Clubs of South Africa have also a large total membership.
  While Burns is the inspiration of this great Federation, it has wider activities—educational, literary and otherwise. Its benevolent activities include the provision of homes for old people and the Jean Armour Burns Memorial Homes at Mauchline, which are soon to be increased in number from ten to twenty, show the quality of the adherents of the organisation, who find their inspiration in the words and works of this great humanitarian figure, whose kindly social philosophy has evoked praise and emulation from great reformers since his day.
  The appeal of Burns is world-wide in its scope. He sprang from the soil of Scotland, but he has made a unique place for himself as the greatest exponent of world brotherhood. In his address at the opening of the Burns Exhibition in Glasgow in 1896, the late Earl of Rosebery, the greatest orator of his day, spoke of Burns as "the universal friend", and that, in truth, is what he is recognised as being more and more as the years pass. His passionate regard for the dignity of the human personality and his hatred of injustice have placed him in the forefront of the world's democrats. He was no respecter of persons, except for real worth, and he did not allow wealth or social position to protect those whom he had occasion to criticise. His poem A Man's a Man for a' that comes most readily to mind in this connection with its attack upon a worthless lord.
  But there is no mere class bias in his attitude. He would condemn a worthless
  804
  poor person just as severely. He had high praise for noble Lords who were worthy of it, and I am sure it must be a matter of pride to the present First Lord of the Admiralty that when Burns visited Lord Daer, the son of the then Earl of Selkirk, he was able to write of him in very complimentary terms. I think the poet would pass the same verdict upon the noble Earl we know to-day. James, Earl of Glencairn, who was a friend of Burns, was another he found worthy of praise. In a lament which he wrote on the occasion of the Earl's death, he used the heartfelt words which many of your Lordships will know
  "The bridegroom may forget the bride
  Was made his wedded wife yestreen;
  The monarch may forget the crown
  That on his head an hour has been;
  The mother may forget the child
  That smiles sae sweetly on her knee;
  But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
  And a' that thou hast done for me!"
  That, I think, is clear proof that there is no class bias about Robert Burns.
  Robert Burns, it has been said, was born in poverty and died in poverty, but enriched the world. I warmly endorse those words. It is on record that at the age of fifteen years he was bent with toil through working so hard on his father's farm. Inevitably, this experience of hard living warmed his sympathy for the poor, and his protest on their behalf has come ringing down the years. In Man was made to Mourn he gives powerful expression to his feelings:
  "See yonder poor, o'er-labour'd wight,
  So abject, mean, and vile,
  Who begs a brother of the earth
  To give him leave to toil;
  And see his lordly fellow-worm
  The poor petition spurn,
  Unmindful, tho' a weeping wife
  And helpless offspring mourn."
  "If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave—
  By Nature's law design'd—
  Why was an independent wish
  E'er planted in my mind?
  If not, why am I subject to
  His cruelty, or scorn?
  Or why has man the will and pow'r
  To make his fellow mourn?"
  We have ended that state of affairs. Burns did not protest in vain. I know how the trade union movement years ago, was inspired by what he wrote. The poet's social philosophy was a kindly one. He was brought up humbly in a God-fearing home. His father and mother were exceptionally well-doing people. The picture of their home which is given by the poet in The Cottar's

  805
  Saturday Night is a tender and moving one. I dare not extend my quotations unduly, but I hope this debate will cause the poems and songs to be taken down from the bookshelves of those who are entrusted with the decision on this plea I am making. I believe that the poem I have just mentioned and the Epistle to a Young Friend would make rewarding reading to anyone. The latter poem was written by Burns to young Andrew Aiken, a son of the Robert Aiken to whom The Cottar's Saturday Night was dedicated, and it is one of the most sincere efforts the poet ever made. The great sympathetic heart of the poet extended to the lower animals, and the animal welfare societies for which this country is renowned have been greatly encouraged in their efforts by his warm-hearted writings.
  The songs for which he is responsible have made a great contribution, and because of his genius in this respect Scotland has a wealth of song literature which is unsurpassed. Many of these are adaptations of old vulgar ditties collected by the poet from unsavoury sources. He used his talent upon them, melted out the dross, and made them worthy to be sung by the Heavenly Choir itself. The poet's showing up of hypocrisy and insincerity in public life, and even in the Church, it his own day, earned him much opposition, and he had many detractors. He was no worse than the average of his contemporaries, but he himself furnished material for criticism of his own conduct by his self-confessed follies. His regret for these lapses was real, and it should be remembered that at the time when he was most heavily assailed by criticism for his alleged excessive drinking he was working very long hours as an exciseman and at the same time pouring out the songs that have largely contributed to his fame. There simply was not time for him to be as bad as he has been painted.
  I have had my life enriched by what I have received from him, and I am grateful to him as a Scotsman, as a citizen, as a trade unionist, as a politician and as a Christian, for the kindly outlook upon my fellow-men which he has fostered in me. I do not take his life as an example to follow—he warned against that—but I hail him as a very great man and in all humility, realising my own need for mercy, I am content to say in the words which conclude the epitaph at the end of
  806
  Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard:
  "No further seek his merits to disclose,
  Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
  (There they alike in trembling hope repose)
  The bosom of his Father and his God."
  Robert Burns's death at the early age of thirty-seven years was a tragedy. What he might have given us if he had lived to a maturer age can only be a matter of speculation and keen regret that he was not given the chance. But what he has given us is a wonderful heritage, and his name and fame are firm and secure for all time. He is entitled to be honoured by the country he loved so dearly, and it is with such patriotic feelings in mind that I make bold to claim that Scotland, as a partner in this United Kingdom, is entitled to have the refusal by the Postmaster General reversed. It is an affront to Scotland that her wishes in this regard have been treated with such contempt. The idea of issuing special stamps for Scotland, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is; not acceptable to Scotland, and should be dropped in favour of the issue for which I am contending.
  It is obvious there is no policy regarding the issue of commemorative stamps, unless it is a policy of stubborn refusal., otherwise we should not have had the spectacle of an issue for the Boy Scouts' half-century and none for the world Y.M.C.A. centenary which was celebrated in 1955. Do not let us be put to shame by the Soviet Union, whose Burns bicentenary stamps are now on sale in Britain. Perhaps an appeal in the name of America may be more acceptable to your Lordships and to Her Majesty's Government.
  I wish I could take everyone here to that poor thatched dwelling at Alloway, near Ayr, where Burns was born over 199 years ago. There can be seen many of his original manuscripts and other things he used and handled in his lifetime. Let us, in imagination, join the 95,008 pilgrims from every part of the world who visited the cottage last year, and read, as they were able to do, the tribute written there by Robert Ingersoll from the United States, a tribute that can be seen there by anyone:
  "Tho Scotland boasts a thousand names
  Of patriot, king and peer,
  The noblest, grandest of them all
  Was loved and cradled here.

  807
  Here lived the gentle peasant prince, The loving Cottar's King,
  Compared with whom the greatest lord Is but a titled thing.
  "'Tis but a cot roofed in with straw,
  A hovel made of clay;
  One door shuts out the snow and storm One window greets the day.
  And yet I stand within this room And hold all thrones in scorn,
  For here beneath this lowly thatch Love's sweetest bard was born.
  "Within, this hallowed hut I feel Like one who clasps a shrine,
  When the glad lips at last have touched The something deemed Divine,
  And here the world thro' all the years, As long as day returns,
  The tribute of its love and tears Will pay to Robert Burns."
  I ask that Robert Burns be given recognition by his country in the way that we are asking for in this Question.
  4.33 p.m.
  LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I think it might be well if I started my reply at the same point as the noble Lord, Lord Mathers began his speech, with reference to the dominance of the Queen's Head on our stamps. I was not quite clear why he brought up that matter at that stage; in the normal way I should be pleased to debate that with him, but it hardly seems to me to appertain to the Question he has on the Order Paper?
  LORD MATHERS: My Lords, may I say a word in explanation? It seemed to me necessary to say a word on that point. I had not included it in what I had prepared to say to the House, but I felt, in view of the firm adherence to that policy there was with regard to previous Questions, that it was desirable to mention it.
  LORD CHESHAM: I naturally accept what the noble Lord says; and I shall say no more about it, except that, of course, he must remember that the stamp policy of other countries, whether inside or outside the Commonwealth, is not a matter for us.
  To-day I feel rather at a disadvantage, because I am fully aware of the weight and importance of this matter, particularly in Scotland, as the noble Lord has been at great Pains to point out to us. Perhaps it may be said that as I am not a Scot myself it is difficult for me to appreciate that. I should like to emphasise that that is not so, and whatever I may say after this, I certainly thoroughly
  808
  respect the depth of feeling and sincerity which the noble Lord showed in his speech. Before I run any further risk, I think I should say this. On a recent occasion, when I was trying to be sympathetic and polite when opposing something, I was misunderstood; and the noble Lord who had moved the Second Reading of that particular Bill was under the impression that I was agreeing with him. The fact that I say I can understand the depth of sincerity in the very moving speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, must not be taken to indicate that I am agreeing with it in advance. I hope, nevertheless, that I shall remain polite, even if I have to be negative from the point of view of what the noble Lord wants.
  The first point I want to emphasise—indeed I want to make it abundantly clear—is that my right honourable friend does not presume in any way to pronounce on the importance or otherwise of the poet Burns. The Burns Federation used the word "unique". My right honourable friend would not dream of querying the use of that word. He would not, if he were here to-day, I feel, query anything the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, said in his long and moving panegyric. I would take slight exception to the use of the words "summarily dismissed this request". I do not think for a moment the action taken was summary; I think the matter was well considered and carefully considered. I stress that what I am about to say on the general position is a matter of firmly based policy and is not affected by whether the request is on behalf of Burns or any other private individual.
  My Lords, it might be convenient if I state once more what that policy is. It is to have a basic issue of stamps for each reign, commonly remaining unchanged throughout the reign, and supplemented from time to time by special stamps to mark outstanding events in the national life and royal and notable postal anniversaries. Special stamps are not issued to commemorate people; nor, apart from the royal and postal anniversaries, to mark past events. If one looks at all the special stamps issued in the last twenty-five years or so, I think it will be quite clear that this policy has been maintained. The reason why, as a matter of policy, we avoid commemorating

  809
  anniversaries of great men is mainly because, in a country with a history like ours, the number of people with a claim to be commemorated is very large and even if we had frequent issues, the Post Office would be in a very invidious position and would undoubtedly have to reject many strongly supported claims. It is fairly easy to run off at short notice a list of about one hundred people—and no doubt there will be more—worthy of consideration of such commemoration, even leaving out the question of events.
  I know that it has been argued—the noble Lord argued it to-day—that a precedent was created, that the policy was not maintained by the issue of the Scouts stamp last year. It has been maintained—as the noble Lord maintained to-day—that it was issued to mark the anniversary of the birth of the first Lord Baden-Powell. I regret to say, however, that that is not true. I admit that last year was the anniversary of Lord Baden-Powell, but the stamp was issued to mark the Jubilee Jamboree of the World Scout Movement. Had that Jamboree, which was assessed as an outstanding event in the national life, not been held, the stamp would not have been issued. I was a little surprised, shall I say, to hear the noble Lord say that the forthcoming stamps for Scotland were unpopular. Naturally, if he says so I must accept that, but so far as I am aware that is the first indication that it is so. At the time they were announced, their issue, I had thought, was hailed with some approbation.
  Another argument has been put forward, though not to-day, that a change of policy to mark centenaries and bicentenaries would not cause much bother because there are not many of them. But that is not quite true either, because, according to my reckoning, in 1959 there are at least thirteen centenaries and six bi-centenaries of great men who might well, I think, furnish a strong claim to similar commemoration. I should like to repeat what I said earlier: I make no attempt to compare these men with Burns or Burns with them; I give these figures merely to show how complicated it would be, and in what difficult waters it would be possible to get, if there were a change of policy.
  The noble Lord was good enough to pass me over a small envelope full of Russian stamps with which I was already
  810
  familiar. But I have to query whether they were issued as Burns bi-centenary stamps. So far as I know, the stamp was issued in 1956, which I do not think indicates that it can really have been a bi-centenary stamp. Then again, so far as I can make out, it was one of a series which they issued that year and which included eight other names of men whom they, no doubt, considered to be of world-wide standing. I do not want to take up too much of your Lordships' time, and I think I have now said enough for your Lordships to appreciate that it is not possible to issue the, stamp for which the noble Lord has asked, and that to do so would mean a fundamental departure from the well-founded stamp policy we have in this country. This departure my right honourable friend the Postmaster-General is not prepared to make.
  4.43 p.m.
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I intervene in this debate for a few moments because this has been a subject with which I have been associated in your Lordships' House for the last four or five years. The first thing I have to say is that I desire to support as strongly as I can the plea put forward in the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Mathers. The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, in reply, said that the acceptance of the noble Lord's proposal would be a departure from the fundamental policy which has been in operation in this country for some time. I do not think that necessarily that is an objection. If good reason can be put forward for a change of policy, then I think it ought to be considered with a view to its acceptance.
  The second argument used by the noble Lord, Lord Chesham—I think it was the main argument—was stated also by the Assistant Postmaster General, Mr. Thompson, in another place on February 6 of last year when he said [OFFICIAL REPORT (Commons), Vol. 564, col. 414]:
  "One of the complications of doing what the honourable and learned gentleman suggests"—
  he was referring to Mr. Hector Hughes who had put down a Question on this subject—
  "is that we have so many great men to pay tribute to that it would be difficult to choose one against another."

  811
  I think there must be some confusion in the thoughts of Her Majesty's Government as to how many centenaries it would be proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, or anyone else, such as myself, to nominate for the honour of commemoration. I do not think there is that great number of persons. If you rule out all persons who might be said to be of a controversial nature, I do not think that there are so many to whom you would need to pay this tribute.
  I do not necessarily say that because something is done in other countries it ought to be done in this country. Therefore, when I cite what has been done in other countries I merely make my point that there are not so many of these gentlemen as is suggested by the noble noble Lord, Lord Chesham, who said that a few years ago there were twenty-five or fifteen centenaries, and a few years before that some twenty centenaries.
  Let us see, for instance, what the Belgian Congo does. In 1928 they published a set of stamps to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Stanley's exploration to the Congo—Sir Henry Morton Stanley, G.C.B., who was an Anglo-American and who had his name linked with Livingstone in the opening up of the African Continent. I think he was a most worthy person to commemorate in this fashion. Then we come to Belgium, and we find that Florence Nightingale was honoured on a Belgian stamp. I should have thought that she was eminently a woman for such distinction, and that she might be commemorated on a British stamp as well. Then, in France, Pasteur, who gave so much to the world, was commemorated. Next we come to Hungary. In 1948 we find that Hungary honoured and commemorated in this way Robert Fulton, George Stephenson, Thomas Edison, Louis Bleriot, Roald Amundson, Byron, Hugo, Poe, Twain and Shakespeare. Italy commemorated Marconi, and only last month Spain commemorated Goya by a special stamp.
  Apart from the specific demand that we have made to-day, all we ask is that Her Majesty's Government should review their general policy in this matter and should consider such a change of policy. It can be done without any expense; any expense would be recouped by the revenue produced. We suggest that the
  812
  Government should in this case follow the very good example that has been pursued in other countries. By the names that I have indicated I suggest the kind of individuals who should be commemorated. In the long run they would not amount to the number which the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, suggested. If we change our policy in that respect, and if, further, the time comes when we in this country introduce small low-value pictorial stamps, then, indeed, we shall abandon the idea that a stamp is merely a label to pay for the postage and we shall go forward into more imaginative spheres so far as our postal stamps are concerned.

  SPEED LIMITS ON TRUNK ROADS
  4.50 p.m.
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN VISCOUNT GOSCHEN rose to urge upon Her Majesty's Government the unwisdom of seeking to apply special speed limits on trunk roads other than the normal 30 m.p.h. limit through built-up areas; to ask whether Her Majesty's Government are in a position to give any information as to the results of the recently imposed 40 m.p.h. limit on the above-mentioned type of road: and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I realise that I am delving into a very controversial subject. but fortunately it is not in any way, I think, a controversial subject so far as Party politics are concerned. It is a national problem, and one which I believe must be approached with common sense, as well as from technical and other angles. It is essentially a matter of common sense mixed with the safety and speed of vehicles and so forth. I must remind the House that if these problems had been taken up years ago by successive Governments, there would have been no need for me to introduce this Motion to-day.
  I am not going to speak of the normal 30 m.p.h. limit in London and other cities, towns and villages, because I believe it is agreed by all that that works extremely well and has led to a reduction in casualties. I propose to speak chiefly on the principle of the matter and not on the particular merits of each trunk road. It would, of course, be impossible for

  813
  me to do that, first because I do not know them, and secondly because we should be here all night. The example which I will take is the Great West Road, the one which I know best and use most, and the tributaries of that road which go off at the end of it. Before I go on to deal with the matter with which I am concerned—the 40 m.p.h. limit—I would say this. I hope that Her Majesty's Government, when making new highways, whether they be above buildings or similar to the new Birmingham motor road, will make absolutely certain that there will be no roundabouts or cross-roads, and that special arrangements will be provided for pedestrians to cross from one side to the other; for it really is time that we had in this country roads on which every form of vehicle can go without being slowed up every few minutes by various limits.
  I am in no way convinced that the 40 m.p.h. limit on these trunk roads will increase the flow of traffic. I understand that one of the theories the police hold is that it will; and I understand that they would like traffic to go along all in one block, so that they can get rid of it more quickly. I cannot understand that theory, particularly when we have on our roads vehicles of such very different categories. We may have a donkey or horse cart; then one of the mutual friends of the noble Lords, Lord Mancroft and Lord Lucas of Chilworth—the abnormal load"; then heavy vehicles, and various types of motor car. I cannot see how all those vehicles can go along in one block unless they go at a very slow speed.
  Since the 40 m.p.h. limit has been brought in as a trial, I have noticed, as I live down beyond the Great West Road, that the average speed of the traffic has dropped very considerably. I should like to know 'whether there is any record of the speed at which the traffic used to move before this new limit was introduced. On these roads one now sees a great deal more of what one noticed only slightly before—perhaps three heavy vehicles moving at the same speed, about 35 or 36 m.p.h. and all having a rather good race to get up to their 40 m.p.h. This means that no other car can pass them without breaking the law, for in order to pass a car or lorry doing 35 or 36 m.p.h. one has to go at over 40 m.p.h. Ono may then be able to maintain a speed of 40 m.p.h. until one comes to the next
  814
  group of heavy vehicles. I. should very much like to go out one day with a police car. Then the crew could point out to me where I was wrong, or I could point out to them where they are wrong; because I really do not understand this matter. I wonder very much what would happen if, during Ascot Week a speed limit of, say, 40 m.p.h. were put on every road leading out of Ascot. How would people fare then and how would the Berkshire police contend with that issue? I honestly do not believe that the 40 m.p.h. limit increases the flow of traffic.
  With your Lordships' permission I should like to refer to the Report on the 30 m.p.h. speed limit in the London Traffic Area, published by the Stationery Office in 1956. In the "Reservations on Differential Speed Limits" I should like particularly to read one paragraph on page 42:
  "Roads now free from restriction. The number and severity of accidents would tend to be reduced but, because pedestrians and cyclists would be fewer than on roads with a 30 m.p.h. limit, the combined effect would be much less than in paragraph (a)"—
  which deals with the 30 m.p.h. limit.
  "Traffic flow generally would be slowed, and the advantage of an even flow of traffic would not be obtained while certain classes of vehicle are restricted to lower speeds. Overtaking would be more difficult and dangerous. The restriction would be unpopular with drivers and voluntary observance could not be expected. At night we think that the limit would generally be disregarded."
  On roads returning to London the problem is slightly different, because one is entering into the narrow straits and it is not a question of getting traffic right into London and then getting it moving again: we come down to the 30 m.p.h. limit, which is not quite so important. But at the London end of these trunk roads having dual carriageways, even on days when there is heavy traffic, such as holidays, Saturdays and Sundays, it is not as a rule a question of doing 40 m.p.h. on the return journey, so that that particular speed limit would not be necessary. There are other types of trunk roads, as we all know, which do not have dual tracks but which are wide. Some have three tracks. I will take as examples two roads. The first is the road which leads from the end of the Colnbrook by-pass to Slough. A 40 m.p.h. limit has been imposed there. I maintain that that is quite unnecessary. The

  815
  road is wide, and not in any way dangerous. At times the traffic becomes very heavy and one cannot go at much more than just about 40 m.p.h., so I cannot see why there is any need for a 40 m.p.h. limit there. The other example is the road from the end of the Great West Road to Staines. This is one which affects the homeward bound passengers and not the outward bound passengers. There are many people who say that they would rather drive an additional fifty miles to avoid going through Staines. But it is going to be bad for those who do use that road if a 40 m.p.h. limit is imposed—I am not certain whether it has yet been imposed; but I believe that it is intended—because there are appalling traffic jams in Staines. If this 40 m.p.h. limit is applied on this road, which is again a wide road, and almost straight, I do not see that the traffic will clear at all until it disperses among the streets of London.
  I must say that I think I should have added to my Motion the words "except in special cases". I met one such case the other day—I think the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, knows about it. It is near St. Albans, where a limit was put on some time ago, and I am certain there are a few places where a limit must be imposed. But taking the question as a whole I do not see that special limits are in any way necessary. This speed limit, with its effect of slowing up traffic, may unnecessarily delay commerce and industry and the business of the country. We must remember that not all motor traffic on the roads consists of people who are driving for pleasure—in fact they are only a small proportion. Again, there are many people in this country to-day who say that it is no pleasure to drive. So from that point of view I think we want to get the traffic away as quickly as possible.
  I should like to leave for a minute the word "safety", which of course is always in one's mind and which is one of the chief factors. Most drivers to whom I have spoken—and they are drivers in every particular range, and from different sections of the public—intensely dislike these 40 m.p.h. limits. In fact, I could not really tell your Lordships how they were described to me by the majority of motorists. The various
  816
  signs are apt (and in this connection the motoring organisations agree with me) to confuse drivers, especially when some of them are not lit. Whether it is by mistake or by a "back-hander" I do not know, but when you come to the de-restriction signs, both on the Great West Road and on the road leading to London Airport, you find that they are not lit. I do not know whether or not it is through a mistake, but in some cases these 40 m.p.h. limit signs are not lit. I understand, however, that they should be.
  Obviously, confusion is caused by the fact that there are too many signs on the roads nowadays. I should like to mention particularly the small signs beside the road. They are made of wood, and they spell out a sentence; and either one cannot see them, because one happens not to be on the same side of the road, or, if one is on the same side of the road, one is rather apt to "bet" on what the last word is going to be—and that may easily cause an accident through a driver running into the back of a vehicle in front. There are far too many signs. I have not been down the road myself, but I am told that the new road which goes past Gatwick Airfield is particularly bad in that respect.
  Then, my Lords, it will be a very difficult thing to enforce this new limit. I think the police agree that the 30 m.p.h. limits are not really enforced and that it is impossible to enforce them. If that is so, the 40 m.p.h. limits will be even more difficult to enforce. And what about the position at night? This question has been brought up before. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, has brought it up and perhaps he will speak about it later. But I consider that this 40 m.p.h. limit on big roads really tempts and provokes people to break the law; and a law such as that surely cannot be very good.
  Safety, as I have said, is the chief factor. Accidents are not always caused by speed. I am not going to be one of those who say that accidents are never caused by speed, because obviously that is not true; but they are not always caused by speed. There are many accidents in London with the 30 m.p.h. limit; and I repeat, accidents are not always caused by speed. It comes down to the fact that accidents are caused, from the motorist's point of view, by just purely bad driving. To my mind,

  817
  there are several types of drivers. There is one we all know—the hooligan, who will invariably drive too fast, whether there is a regulation or whether there is not. Whether he is in a fast car or whether he is in not such a fast car, he will always drive like a hooligan; but those drivers are a very small percentage of the population. Then there are drivers who drive fast within the regulations but who have experience and know the capabilities of their motor cars and of themselves.
  Then we come down to the majority of drivers—those who keep within the rules, or nearly so, but who commonly go at between 55 and 65 m.p.h. or something like that. Some drive well and some drive badly. Then we come down to a category which I consider to be nearly the worst of the lot, and that is the driver of the very old car which one probably sees only on Saturdays or Sundays: the car is ancient; the people inside it are nearly always ancient, and they are extremely dangerous. They have every right to be on the road if their car is in good working order, but they have not the right to stay in the middle of the road or on the right-hand track of a dual carriageway, which they are rather prone to do.
  In regard to accidents from other causes, principally to children crossing the roads, much has been done by lectures and television to educate school children, and the figures show that although the number of vehicles on the road has gone up considerably, the ratio of casualties to children has not increased. The word "safety" can often be misleading, because a motorist can have an accident, even whilst travelling slowly, either through pure and simple bad driving or bad luck, or because he is under the influence of alcohol; but I think that the majority of accidents are caused by bad driving. Many are due to pedestrians themselves, and though much has been done to educate children and parents, they do not seem to learn very fast. Only last night, at the first traffic lights in the Great West Road, when the lights were green and I was doing 40 m.p.h., a man walked across the road about 35–40 yards on the far side of the lights. That is but one simple case of what the motorist has to put up with. But the results of bad driving still remain. This is due to lack of knowledge of the rules of the road or to
  818
  lack of understanding of the motorist's own capabilities and those of his car, or simply to the old fault of "cutting in''. I have seen that done since the 40 m.p.h. limit has been introduced, with one car doing 40 m.p.h. and another going at 41 m.p.h. and coming in on the left. I am not at all certain that the accident rate will fall a great deal as a result of the innovation of these limits.
  The Institute of Advanced Motorists have issued a pamphlet on this question which reprints a message to them from Mr. Watkinson, the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, who sends them his best wishes, saying that what the Institute stand for and what they are doing is of the greatest use. That is about all, I think, that is being done to help motorists. There are no Government schools for training motorists after their original testing. An enormous amount is spent on posters of all kinds, and I think that if schools to train motorists were given more money by the Government the standard of driving would go up. To my mind, the motorist's life is full of nothing but "don'ts." He is told "Don't do this" and "Don't do that". Most people look upon him with horror, and he is unwanted. If motorists were given more encouragement and fewer "don'ts", I am certain that the standard of driving would improve and that we should not see so many accidents.
  My next point is one that has not been discussed—that is, the psychology of driving. Some people drive for business and others for pleasure; but for whatever reason they drive they should be in a quiet (I was going to say "happy", but that is possibly the wrong word) state of mind. If a motorist is always being held up by limits which he considers to be completely unnecessary, he is not likely to remain in that quiet state of mind; and when he becomes irritated he drives badly and probably breaks the laws, even if he does not have an accident. It is rather like riding a horse. If the rider becomes irritated, he rides extremely poorly; and the horse knows it and reacts accordingly. Of course, I do not mean to suggest that a car has an intelligence like a horse, but there is no doubt that a motorist will not drive well if he is in a bad temper.
  The Government have stated that this limitation has been imposed for a trial

  819
  period. I hope that it is only a trial period, and not a period of waiting for the inevitable. I hope that they will try out all the means they have at their disposal and not rest only on the idea of a 40 m.p.h. limit. I think that they should have another go at the laning of traffic, with the appropriate words written in large letters on the roadway at frequent intervals. This cannot be done as it is in America, because of the differences in the volume of their traffic compared with ours—for example, they have roads on which all vehicles drive at 40 m.p.h. All their vehicles are capable of doing the same speed and must do 40 m.p.h., whether they want to or not. Obviously, this kind of system cannot apply in this country because of our roads, but I think that on some trunk roads we could try more laning of traffic.
  I believe that the police should be allowed, not to instruct but to advise motorists, instead of standing by and waiting for someone to break the law. They can patrol these roads, and if they see people obviously refusing to give way, they can advise them that that is the wrong thing to do. I asked a question—not in this House but of one of the motoring organisations—about the matter of putting traffic lights further back from the actual cross-roads. I was told that it was impossible, because a slow-moving vehicle—again, possibly a horse and cart, or any electrically propelled vehicle—would not have time to get across the distance between the lights before they changed. I am not certain whether the idea has been considered before, but I should like the Government to try out the idea of putting a yellow warning light some way back from the actual traffic lights, rather like they do on the railways. I see no reason why that should not work, and it would give the motorist more time to think and to pull up. I imagine that it would only be necessary on these really main roads.
  I hope that the Government will try everything and will not just impose a 40 m.p.h. limit, because, as I have tried to explain. I consider it to be a bad innovation—in fact, it is a step back towards the age of having a man with a red flag walking in front. As to the second half of my Motion, if the noble Lord who is to reply says that everything is satisfactory, I shall have to ask him to
  820
  whom it is satisfactory. I should also be grateful to the noble Lord if he could give us details about the twenty-five or thirty sites from which the investigations mentioned by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport in a debate in another place on March 24 will be made. My Lords, I fear that I have already taken up too much of your Lordships' time. I now beg to move for Papers.
  5.22 p.m.
  EARL HOWE: My Lords, I shall not take up much of your Lordships' time. I was interested when I saw this Motion on the Order Paper, although I understood it to be concerned with differential speed limits and the advisability of having them or not, and the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, will forgive me if I suggest that he has gone a good deal further than that this afternoon. As to differential speed limits, all your Lordships who have been abroad and driven cars in France will have experienced them. The only thing I have noticed about their operation is that, for the most part, they are completely disregarded. I should like to know from the Ministry of Transport—I hope that when the noble Lord comes to reply he will be able to tell us—what is the real policy of the Ministry. What does 40 m.p.h. represent, as against 30 m.p.h.? One cannot always tell when one is in a 30 m.p.h. speed limit, but the general surroundings do give a certain indication—there are houses, and we are told to look for street lamps and the like—and I think that that limit has been accepted as being a reasonable one. But now we are to have this 40 m.p.h. limit. What does it mean? Does it mean that 40 m.p.h. is safer than any other speed? Does it mean that the road on which a 40 m.p.h. speed limit is in operation is any safer than that with a 30 m.p.h. limit?
  It seems to me crazy, when we study the problem of traffic as a whole, that we should spend millions of pounds making new roads, only to cancel out the good done. Only the other day the noble Lord opened the construction of the London—Birmingham motor way. Suppose that that motor way is completed in nineteen months, as I think it is due to be, it is possible that after another nineteen months somebody will say "Let us have a 40 m.p.h. speed limit over this stretch; it will only be a short

  821
  stretch and it will not matter much". What is the good of spending an enormous amount of money on roads such as, for example, Western Avenue or the Great West Road, and promptly proceeding to nullify very largely the advantage of the means of access to and from London by imposing special limits upon them? Surely, the Ministry of Transport should try to avoid putting a limit on important arterial roads.
  One has not been able to see a lot of the working of the 40 m.p.h. limit, but I have noticed a few roads upon which it is intended to place that limit. One such road that I know well—it may not be known to many of your Lordships—is a road running from Greenford to the iron bridge at Southall. It is a 50-ft. wide road, and I do not think it has a bad accident record. Recently 40 m.p.h. limit repeater signs appeared on the lamp posts, whereas previously it had been an unrestricted road. That happened one morning, but the next morning somebody—I do not know whether it was the Ministry of Transport or not—went along with a lot of brown paper and covered up the 40 m.p.h. limit signs. It is a road that I use often, and ever since then I have been watching for the disintegration of the brown paper and the re-emergence of the 40 m.p.h. limit signs. I do not know whether that road is intended to be restricted or de-restricted. But, in any case, it is absurd to have a 40 m.p.h. or even a 30 m.p.h. limit on it: it has never been restricted. As I say, I do not think it has a bad accident record and there are hardly any houses near it once you are clear of Greenford itself.
  Take another case, that of the Western Avenue. There we have Northolt Aerodrome, which your Lordships know well. There is a twin-track road that goes through, with only one opening of any importance between the Hillingdon roundabout and the Northolt roundabout, and that is at the entrance to Northolt Aerodrome itself. That is an obvious road intersection and nobody can miss it; it comes in on only one side and does not go across to the other. The other day I noticed in the newspaper that somebody had suggested that a limit should be placed on this twin-track road that goes through open country for the whole of its course. The Minister, instead of treading on the suggestion, as one would
  822
  imagine he would, because there is no possible reason for putting a 40 m.p.h. limit on that road—there is not one house along it, and nowhere can a child run across—has referred it to the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee. What on earth can be the advantage of doing that? Surely it is one of those cases where the Minister, with all the experience of his Department behind him, could make up his own mind without having to consult the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee, who have far more important matters to which to turn their attention in the central area of London itself—I mean matters besides parking meters, which seems to be one of their principal activities at the moment.
  Can we be told how the various stretches of road that have been restricted to 40 m.p.h. have been selected? If one knew that, one would be in a much better position to avoid making rather absurd criticisms of the Minister and his Department. We should all be together with hint. But it is quite impossible to judge how those 40 m.p.h. sections of road have been selected.
  There is one point upon which I should like to pay a tribute to the Minister. The repeater signs which have been put up in various restricted areas are really useful. There are a few in the 30 m.p.h. areas, and a few in the 40 m.p.h. areas. But they are not going up fast enough. If the erection of these repeater signs could be pressed on with, I believe they would do a good deal of good. As we all know, it is easily possible to find oneself in a restricted stretch of road without in the least knowing that it is restricted. As one who has motored through the length and breadth of the country, I have noticed that there are many areas in the Midlands and in the North where the local authorities have not been sufficiently diligent in seeing to the erection of these signs.
  I have said as much as I wish to say, but I want to know what is the policy of the Minister with regard to the erection of 40 m.p.h. signs. How have the restricted 40 m.p.h. areas been selected? Is it an experiment, as we have been told, and if so how long will the experiment continue before the Minister expects to be able to tell us the result? I urge upon the Government to keep both the 40 m.p.h.

  823
  and 30 m.p.h. restricted areas off the new main arterial roads. Keep those roads as free as you can. It is possible that if the Minister is able to give us a satisfactory reply to the various points I have ventured to raise, we shall be behind him in his effort. But let it be a common-sense effort, and not one promoted by such an organisation as the Pedestrians' Association or something like that.
  5.34 p.m.
  LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, I think your Lordships owe a debt of gratitude to my noble friend Lord Goschen for having raised this Motion to-day, and I should like to support his quest for further information from the Government. My approach to the question is that, whatever may be the result of this experiment, it is intensifying the already harsh lot of the private motorist. He is being made the central subject of a further Government road experiment. The private motorist may be responsible individually for various misdeeds, but collectively he is a good citizen, doing his best to obey the laws. He feels something like this: that if he goes too fast he is told he is dangerous; if he goes too slow he is told he is holding up the traffic; if he stops he is usually told to go on, and if he goes on he is usually ordered to stop. He is taxed for roads, but the money does not go on the roads; when he is given roads they are often too rough and too obstructed to go fast, and when the roads are smooth and straight he is restricted. I think the private motorist deserves a higher degree of consideration than Government Departments usually give him.
  On this particular subject, on March 26 the Minister Without Portfolio said that this experiment had two aims. First, he said that it was a restriction on safety grounds; and then, in his answer to supplementary questions, we found there was a second purpose, which was to speed the flow of traffic. Both those objectives are admirable, no doubt, but I think we are entitled to know which is paramount—which is the primary purpose of this experiment—safety, or speeding the flow. If it is safety, then before this experiment is converted into anything permanent there should be published figures in relation to the particular sections of road on
  824
  which the experiment is taking place which will convince, not officialdom, but the public, that accidents are being avoided, that injury is being reduced, and that life is being saved. If the Government can publish that in full, I am sure they will have the support of all the community, including the motoring public. But until they can show such figures I submit that it is quite illogical to build fast, straight roads which are not intended to have any speed limit, and then put a limit upon them.
  On the second aim, that of speeding the flow, I find it somewhat difficult—and perhaps the Minister will throw some light on this point—to see how the 40 m.p.h. limit will speed traffic throughout the whole day, because there is always a variable load of traffic according to the particular road and the hour of the day. For instance, on the Great West Road it might be said that when there is much traffic a 40 m.p.h. limit will succeed in its purpose of speeding the traffic. But at lunch time to-day I came up from London Airport along the Great West Road, and I can assure your Lordships that keeping to a 40 m.p.h. limit in fact prevented one from getting to your Lordships' House with that speed which it was possible to do with complete safety. Again, speeding the flow of traffic is an admirable objective, but I submit to your Lordships that before this experiment is converted into anything permanent the public have a right to hear something more than just a Government declaration that the experiment is considered successful—that, if I may say so, the pedestrian in White hall knows what is good for the motorist better than the motorist himself. We want chapter-and-verse proof that the experiment in the secondary aim of speeding the traffic has justified itself. One thought occurs to my mind. Speeding private motorists in and out of London means more and more in, and more and more out. I was reading yesterday that Sir Brian Robertson, the Chairman of the Transport Commission, called for fewer and fewer in, and fewer and fewer out. I should like to have an assurance that the Government know in which vehicle they are riding—what I would call the "Mancroft" or the "Robertson" model.
  This experiment has an important public relations aspect. It will be for the police in due course to enforce a 40 m.p.h. limit on roads which may be clear

  825
  and take 60 m.p.h. with complete safety. I believe there is more bad blood made between the citizens of this country and the police through traffic work than any other single cause. What we want to build up is mutual confidence between the motoring public and the police, and not a feeling of mutual hostility, or at any rate on the one side a feeling that the aim of the police is to get at the motorist when he breaks the law, even though his offence is really a technical one. The citizen motorist must be convinced by figures, by information, that this experiment is a success. Otherwise, I submit to the Government that it would be wiser to drop it at the end of the initial experimental period.
  5.40 p.m.
  LORD GISBOROUGH: My Lords, in the Report on the 30 m.p.h. speed limit in the London traffic area various views are expressed, very diverse views, on the increase or decrease of speed limits down to the 20 m.p.h. limit that is mentioned by the Pedestrians' Association. I should like to support the plea of the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, against the extension of the 40 m.p.h. limit areas. However, I should like also to support a higher limit of 45 m.p.h. for a great number of areas at the moment limited to 30 m.p.h. I think it is almost indisputable that speed limits are unenforceable unless they are constantly supervised by policemen who are visible to the motorist. Motorists will then slow down; but if they do not see a policeman or a police car very few take a great deal of notice of the limits—at any rate, few of the faster drivers, who are the people that matter in this case. They are: the people who will take little heed. The effectiveness of a speed limit depends primarily and almost wholly on the willing co-operation of drivers to obey that limit. Therefore, those limits must command the respect of drivers. Motorists must be "sold" the desire to keep to those limits, and they can be "sold" that desire only if those limits are sensible speed limits and relate to the density of the traffic and the housing.
  The motoring organisations say that the 30 m.p.h. limit in the outskirts and on fast roads quickly becomes the minimum speed and not the maximum speed at which motorists in fact drive. These unjustifiable speed limits soon bring a tendency by most drivers to dis
  826
  regard them altogether, and this, of course, brings the whole system into disrepute. I believe that this 40 m.p.h. limit, if it is instituted, is not fast enough on arterial roads like the Great West Road to be considered justifiable, and if those roads are going to be restricted at all the limit should be at least 45 m.p.h.; otherwise, the motorists will use their own discretion. I believe that the utmost care and restraint (and this has been fully stressed in these reports) must be used in the selection of areas, and there should certainly be no extension of the present areas but a reduction of them, if anything.
  It is most necessary to avoid being led by local pressures, because many of the local councils consider that their piece of roadway is particularly dangerous, and from the national point of view this adds up to thousands of restricted miles for the long-distance motorist. May I give two examples? There is a road at Marton, in Yorkshire, where for miles there is an unbroken wall on one side and an unbroken hedge on the other; there are no houses. The limit ends only just before a rather dangerous crossroads, where you are allowed to go at any speed you wish. There is another road between Acklam and Thornaby, and the only possible human beings concerned—there are no houses—are the 10,000 or 12,000 who lie at peace and, one hopes, in safety, in the cemetery. The speed limits are not designed for the slow driver; they are designed for the driver who would go too fast. Therefore whatever limit is imposed must be fast enough to be acceptable to him as well as be safe for the other road users.
  The county councils in their report say that 45 m.p.h. would command the respect of the motoring public. Therefore, again, if there must be a second speed limit, let it be 45 m.p.h. and not 40 m.p.h. Furthermore, a higher limit where it is at present 30 m.p.h. would reduce overtaking, which at the moment takes place a great deal on the outskirts of towns—people who are not prepared to go at 30 m.p.h. overtake and cause accidents. I think 45 m.p.h. is not excessive, because modern cars are much steadier. They have good brakes, and being fast cars people are more used to driving them at speed and do not consider 45 m.p.h. to be too fast for a great many of the roads at present restricted to 30 m.p.h. I feel that this restriction

  827
  should be controlled on a more national plan, and should not be allowed to be extended by local authorities who, from sectional interests, might restrict too much roadway. It is far better to remove the dangers of road conditions than to impose new limits. One of the big dangers on the roads on the outskirts of towns, I feel—and I think many of your Lordships will agree—is parked cars, which compel drivers to pull out to get past them, and then if other people are coming up behind them there may be an accident. I think that kind of thing causes quite a lot of accidents.
  The Pedestrians' Association have considerable worries over the speeds of motor vehicles and about the possibility of a 40 m.p.h. limit. I think there is little they need worry about, because at the moment the 30 m.p.h. limits are, to a great extent, not obeyed. It is more important for the Pedestrians' Association to start making plans to keep pedestrians off the roads by the provision of crossings acceptable to pedestrians, with no steps, so that perambulators, and so on, can be wheeled over or under the roads. It is to the mutual advantage of the pedestrians and the motorists that they should be kept separate. The London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee unanimously stressed the desire for complete separation of various classes of road users.
  Furthermore those means should be physical means and not legal compulsion. I believe that the new Cromwell Road has a very effective fence down the middle, and this stops a great amount of jaywalking. Some of your Lordships know Newcastle. I would draw attention to Northumberland Street which is like driving down a market; people pay no attention to traffic and wander across throughout the whole length, and consequently the number of accidents is very large. What is very important, I think, is that no further development should take place on town approaches. At the moment, in spite of all the legislation against ribbon development a great number of houses are built along the main roads outside the towns. I feel that in a few years' time roads within twenty or ten miles of any large town will be restricted. This is going to have an appalling effect on those who work in the centre of those towns. I feel that more stringent
  828
  legislation should be introduced to stop any further "crawling-out" of houses into the countryside. Council estates are normally set well away from the main roads, which is excellent planning.
  There exists a rather odd idea in this Report that restriction to 30 or 40 m.p.h. would allow the maximum volume of traffic to go along a given road. This may or may not be correct in a peak period, but as the peak period lasts only about four hours a day, I cannot believe that during the remaining twenty hours this restriction to an even flow will in fact exist. To speed travel into the towns without actually increasing the speed of vehicles, the British Transport Commission have suggested a much greater priority to the main routes as against the intersecting routes. I think I am right in saying that at Slough there is a large number of traffic lights which have been put up in an attempt to phase the lights, so that one cannot go at more than a certain speed, and if one does one is stopped by the lights. This is only another means of frustrating the motorist, to make him lose his patience, as he certainly will do, however deplorable that may be; and it only disrupts the even flow of traffic. I feel, too, that roundabouts and lights on the main roads should to a great extent be reduced and that the sideways should be phased-in on the more modern system.
  There is only one worry I have in regard to the 45 m.p.h. speed limit, wherever it may be, but particularly on the outskirts of towns—I must apologise to your Lordships for keeping you so long, but this is my last point. A large number of accidents occur on a certain type of road, which happens to be a T-junction. No less than 42½ per cent. of accidents involving two cars are caused by a car turning to the right. I wonder whether much consideration has been given to changing the Highway Code, or to some form of alteration of the system, so that these accidents caused by cars turning to the right may be reduced.
  5.55 p.m.
  LORD SOM̃ERS: My Lords, in rising to support the Motion of my noble friend Lord Goschen I think I may be accused by some of riding my pet hobby-horse. Be that as it may, I can only say that he is a very good horse—though he has one

  829
  great objection; namely, to being reined in when it is totally unnecessary and unreasonable. Before I deal specifically with the matter in the Motion—that is, the 40 m.p.h. limit—I should like to make a few remarks about speed limits generally. There is a large body of opinion to-day which Molds that speed, per se, is dangerous. This is quite untrue, as has been proved by figures given by the motoring organisations, which show that only a small percentage of accidents can be put down to speed alone. Naturally, if there is an accident a higher speed will make it more severe. On the other hand, I think one must realise that accidents are more due to careless driving than to fast driving. One can get over that problem only by having a more critical review of our driving tests. I will come to that matter in a moment.
  One constantly hears people say that there is a craze for speed to-day, and that drivers are rushing along madly seeing how fast they can get from one place to another. I have a strong suspicion that most of the people who say that are non-drivers. If speed is undesirable, why is it that we are spending such vast sums of money in speeding up our railways and our airlines? One has to remember that the pleasure motorist is in a small minority to-day. Most people drive to get from one point to another for business or other reasons; and the less time they spend in actual transit the better, both economically and otherwise. That being the case, I hold that the speed limits should be cut down to an absolute minimum. I should like to quote again the paragraph which the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, quoted from the Report of the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Sub-Committee, which says:
  A speed limit should never be imposed unless there is clear justification for it. The effectiveness of a speed limit depends primarily on the willing co-operation of drivers. If a speed limit is imposed without justification drivers tend to disregard it, and this brings the whole system of speed limits into disrepute."
  I can hardly agree more strongly with any words.
  With regard to the 30 m.p.h. limit, I think most of us would agree that in the centre of a town it is probably necessary, although, as has been pointed out by the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, it is just as possible to do silly things at under 30 m.p.h. as it is at over that
  830
  speed. However, I think we all agree that probably a limit in towns is desirable. But the point is that these 30 m.p.h. limits are not confined to built-up areas. A "built-up "area is defined as that which has lamp posts at certain intervals. If ever there was a piece of legislation which approached nearer to the point of inanity, I should like to know what it was. Why on earth should a piece of road which previously was uncontrolled, and along which it was perfectly safe to drive at 60 m.p.h., suddenly become unsafe because lamp posts have appeared along the side of it? I can think of many examples. I think, in particular, of one stretch of road, going south from Oxford, along which there stretches, I think for about two miles, a row of lamp posts with no houses in sight, and perfectly open country. It is a wide road—I should think a four-lane road; but there are lamp posts there, and so the 30 m.p.h. limit applies. Of course, many boroughs which have rather a bee in their bonnets (if I may put it that way) about this question of speed in relation to safety, have erected these lamp posts purely for that purpose.
  I believe that the whole attitude that the road is primarily for the pedestrian must be revised very severely. I am not saying for a moment that a pedestrian has no place on the road, or that his safety should be disregarded; and nobody could be more anxious than I am to preserve road safety and to reduce fatalities. But one has to realise that to-day the road is primarily for the motorist, and that when the pedestrian goes on the road he must do his part to ensure the safety of the traffic. Many accidents are caused by people stepping off the pavement irresponsibly, without looking in one direction or the other, and thereby causing a motorist to swerve and possibly crash into somebody else.
  Let us turn now to the actual stretches on which a 40 m.p.h. limit has been introduced. On the whole, the motoring organisations were not in favour of a differential speed limit, but they felt that on stretches in the London area where a 30 m.p.h. limit was unjustifiable a 40 m.p.h. limit would help to speed the traffic. What have we found? We have found that on some thirty miles of road which previously had a 30 m.p.h. limit the Minister has introduced a 40 m.p.h. limit, but that on more than twice that

  831
  mileage a 40 m.p.h. limit has been introduced on roads which previously were decontrolled. What is the point of that? Will it increase safety? Is it justifiable in any sense of the word? Another question I should like to raise is: Should local authorities be the deciding bodies as to whether a 40 m.p.h. limit should be introduced? My answer to that is definitely "No". What would be thought of a railway system which had a different type of signalling and a different ratio of speeds over a certain stretch of its line, simply because it had crossed the county border? To-day our trunk roads have to be looked on in much the same light as the railways as a means of fast transport. In fact, so far as commercial traffic is concerned, we all know that the roads are rapidly taking the place of the railways.
  LORD MATHERS: Shame!
  LORD SOMERS: My Lords, one point I would stress is that the trunk roads in and out of London, such as the Great West Road (perhaps the Great North Road is rather a sore point, as we all know its shortcomings) and other similar trunk roads, should not be subject to these limits. Where the roads are clear of the central built-up area they should be free of restriction. The good motorist is not going to drive faster than is safe. Of course one will always have the hooligan who is going to disregard any kind of regulations whatsoever. Here I should like to say a word about our present driving tests. They do nothing to eliminate the hooligan, because naturally the hooligan is on his best behaviour when he is taking his driving test. It is the psychological side that needs to be gone into much more, and I believe that a much more severe test—something in the nature of that given by the Institute of Advanced Motorists—should be considered, and that a motorist who wishes to obtain a licence should drive with an experienced member of some motoring organisation for a period of, shall we say, not less than one month, at any rate, over varying conditions of road before he is allowed to have his licence at all.
  We are told that these limits are experimental. I should be very glad if the noble Lord who is to reply can give us some indication of when the experiment is to end, and also an assurance that when
  832
  that time comes the limits will be removed until they have been further discussed in Parliament. Personally, I do not think very much will be discovered from them. If the accident rate has decreased slightly, there will be no proof whatever that it is due to the imposition of a 40 m.p.h. limit: it might have done so in any case. I believe that this idea that speed is the main factor in accidents must be exploded, and that careful driving with speed should be the maxim of the motorist.
  6.6 p.m.
  LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, I would say that most, if not all, the points that could possibly be raised on this Motion have been dealt with to-day. With our somewhat elastic Standing Orders, the debate has ranged far and wide beyond the terms of the Motion. There are, however, one or two points which perhaps I might keep the House for a few moments to emphasise. I have read very carefully the evidence placed before the London Traffic Advisory Committee, and I am certainly not impressed with the various reasons advanced for the introduction of a differential speed limit. We have debated this subject this afternoon without information as to the success or otherwise of the 40 m.p.h. limit trials which have been taking place recently on certain sections of trunk road, and I suggest that it would have been more helpful (I do not say this in a derogatory way) if the Minister who is to reply for Her Majesty's Government had spoken immediately after the noble Viscount who moved the Motion.
  I cannot help feeling that if differential speed limits are introduced in a large way they will have the effect of confusing motorists and perhaps producing a dangerous situation. The experience of the 30 m.p.h. speed limit tends to show that the nominal maximum speed limit becomes the minimum speed limit, which under certain traffic conditions may be too high. The object of this exercise of a 40 m.p.h. limit is to maintain uniform speed, but I believe it is true to say that experience in America shows that if all vehicles are travelling at the same speed on any particular stretch of road a kind of mesmeric effect is produced on drivers, often with fatal results; and if a hold-up or accident occurs, numbers of cars pile up one upon another. Unless Her Majesty's Government have been able to obtain conclusive

  833
  data during the recent trials proving the differential speed limit to be a success, I suggest that we should do well to retain the 30 m.p.h. limit on the present basis; and certainly I cannot help feeling that the trials have not yet gone on long enough.
  I suggest that roads should be either restricted to 30 m.p.h. or entirely derestricted, leaving the appropriate speed to the discretion of the driver himself. I fully appreciate that the object behind a higher speed limit is to allow speeds greater than 30 m.p.h. on roads where conditions are suitable, but I cannot help feeling that because of the pressure from local authorities few of the existing 30 m.p.h. limits would be raised; rather would a differential limit be imposed on roads which are at present derestricted—indeed, as we know, this has already happened in quite a number of cases. I hope that where a speed limit of 40 miles an hour has been imposed, and there is a substantial improvement to that road, the speed limit will be reviewed. I am sure we should all be most interested to hear from the Minister the results of trials which have already taken place.
  6.10 p.m.
  LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I find myself in some difficulty as I have not prepared a speech for this debate, but in view of the fact that this debate has widened itself beyond the terms of the Motion I feel it only right that there should be at least one speech from this side of the House. I personally believe that the noble Viscount who put this Motion on the Order Paper would have given a greater service to this House and to the country if it had been put down in. broader terms, so as to encourage more people to attend the House and to listen to the debate and to make contributions. I am thinking particularly of my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth, who holds very strong views on this subject. Apart from the fact that the Motion appeared to relate to a purely technical matter, there was a reason why he might have found it difficult to attend; but if the Motion had been in wider terms I think he would have done his best to come.
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: My Lords, I spoke to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, and it was entirely owing to
  834
  his indisposition that he did not speak; and for no other reason.
  LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I still think that, if it had been a wider debate, it might have been possible for him to come.
  On this question of speed limit there are quite a number of problems. I think we can all sympathise with the desire for people to move from A to B as fast as possible, but we must remember that the roads belong to the nation. Many different types of people drive cars. There are the young, and not so young, capable drivers who can drive fast cars. There are elderly people; there are infirm people who are using the roads; there are cyclists. We have many lorries; we have many coaches; and we must also remember the use of the roads by the pedestrians. When we start considering speed limits I think we have to consider all these people.
  I myself would suggest that there is a greater case for more control of speed limits than for decontrol. I had an experience yesterday in driving on the A.5 road to Northampton: it was a hair-raising experience. There was a form of control, and that was exercised by the heavy vehicles. The cars were diving in and out in a most dangerous manner. I should have thought that, if there had been a speed limit on that road of 45 or 50 m.p.h., there would be a much more even flow of traffic, and one could have driven in a great deal more safety and comfort. I am not very happy about the 40 m.p.h. limit: I think it is too close to the 30 m.p.h. limit. When one has been driving for a long distance one starts to feel that 30 m.p.h. is crawling. There is very little difference between 30 and 40 m.p.h. I should have preferred to see those roads which demand a 40 m.p.h. limit given a 30 m.p.h. limit. But I believe that on many of our roads in this country a 50 m.p.h. limit should be instituted. That would permit traffic to move much more smoothly and with a great deal more safety.
  I should like to make only two suggestions, since this debate has extended itself rather widely. As your Lordships know, one of the pleasant occupations of local authorities is to dig holes in roads, and this practice causes considerable danger and inconvenience. I should like to see a rule that, where road works are

  835
  being carried out on a road which is normally uncontrolled, for some distance on either side of the road works a 30 m.p.h. speed limit should come into effect. I experienced a case only the other day when driving at a reasonably fast speed. I suddenly came across some little lights in the road. I thought it was positively dangerous. The other point I should like to make is this. if we are to have decontrolled roads, parking should be forbidden on such roads. There are to-day plenty of lay-bys, and I think that people should be forced to use them. If parked cars were taken off the road it would prevent a great deal of danger. I have spoken very briefly, and perhaps not quite correctly. As I say, I regret that this debate has not been in the presence of a fuller House, so that there could have been more support from this side.
  6.16 p.m.
  THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD MANCROFT): My Lords, the Motion of my noble friend Lord Goschen refers to "special" speed limits. The 40 m.p.h. limit, which we have been principally discussing this afternoon, is, as your Lordships now realise, not so much a "special" speed limit as an experimental speed limit. It is an experiment, and, as my noble and gallant friend Lord Teynham has pointed out, a new experiment. I hope it is in the sense of an experiment that your Lordships will view the whole question this evening, because that is how I propose to regard it.
  There will certainly have to be modifications to many of the proposals which are now being tried out. We do not suggest for one moment that these experiments are final and not subject to change. That is the point of an experiment. Your Lordships will ask, "What is the object of the exercise? What is the object of the experiment?" The answer is perfectly simple. We are frequently told, in nearly all debates such as this, up and down the country, that the accident rate upon our roads is nothing short of a national scandal. We are also told that unless something is done about the quantity and flow of traffic upon the roads of this country, particularly those near the big cities, traffic will soon grind to a standstill. The object of this experiment,
  836
  therefore (and here my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye explained my remarks perfectly correctly) is to reduce the number of accidents that are due to speeding and overtaking; and, secondly. to try to get a more even flow of traffic on the busier main roads. I regard those two things as complementary. I think it is perfectly logical that if there is an uneven, spasmodic flow of traffic it will increase the incidence of accidents. My Lords, on that point the statistics bear me out.
  The London area is the obvious place to start this experiment. Indeed, in starting the experiment in the London area my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation is only falling into line with the wishes which your Lordships have frequently expressed. We were discussing this very topic on the Road Traffic Act. 1956. if this London experiment proves successful, as I hope it will, and if my right honourable friend receives Parliamentary sanction which he will seek in that case. I can assure my noble friend Lord Somers that the Minister proposes to apply the new speed limit to places outside London where, as in the London area, some speed limit is warranted but 30 m.p.h. is unrealistic. As we all know there are lengths of road leading into certain towns, before the 30 m.p.h. area is likely to be reached, which are suitable for a 40 m.p.h. limit. This is only an application of what is called the "fading" principle of speed limits, which has been widely and successfully practised in America.
  This is a controversial subject, but unfortunately all traffic experiments are of necessity controversial, and Her Majesty's Government prefer the risk of controversy, into which we have inevitably run on this matter, rather than to stand still and do nothing. Your Lordships will remember the controversy there was during the debates on the Road Traffic Bill about the proposal to give the police power to tow away vehicles that were causing obstruction. We were told that we were encroaching on the liberty of the subject" and that this" was an unpardonable trespass". Nevertheless, after much controversy this became the law and we hear nothing about it nowadays. I regret that. I wish we heard more about it.
  EARL HOWE: What about Harley Street?
  LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, has the noble Lord forgotten the case reported in the papers of the Harley Street surgeon who complained that his professional work had been seriously impeded and possibly the lives of patients endangered by the fact that the police towed away his car, which had been left outside his consulting rooms?
  LORD MANCROFT: I remember that case very well. I am sorry that the noble Lord interrupted me before I had concluded what I was about to say. We have heard nothing to-day of the type of objection that was raised during the passing of the Bill, and 300 vehicles are towed away a week—I think it is satisfactory that that should be so. I much regret the case of the doctor, but that was not the type of case which I had in mind when I started my sentence. That controversy ranged high and wide during the discussions in Parliament. The noble Lord, whose memory goes back farther than mine, will remember the controversy when the 30 m.p.h. limit was first moved in the 1934 Bill, which was in charge of the late Lord Hore-Belisha. That has contributed to the reduction of accidents: the statistics prove that. I am prepared to admit that there are probably logical objections to every scheme put forward to reduce accidents and try to speed the flow of traffic.
  I would ask your Lordships to bear in mind for a moment the reason why these regulations have been put before Parliament. In November, 1954, the then Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation asked the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee to review the 30 m.p.h. built-up-area speed limit as applied to roads of traffic importance in the London traffic area, with special reference to whether the present law on the speed limit met modern conditions—faster cars, a different flow of traffic and wider roads. My right honourable friend announced in Parliament on May 9, 1956, that he had accepted most of the recommendations in the Report, including that relating to the 40 m.p.h. speed limit. What is more, the desirability of such an experiment is clearly implied in the Road Traffic Act, 1956. That Act also shows that Parliament envisaged the possibility of 40 m.p.h. becoming a second substan
  838
  tive speed limit and not a special speed limit, as may be implied by the wording of my noble friend's Motion.
  What is the correct figure? I think that my noble friends Lord Balfour of Inchrye and Lord Gisborough are right when they say that the correct speed limit is the one that can be enforced because motorists regard it as reasonable and see the need for sticking to it. If a large majority of careful drivers—and a large number of drivers, surprisingly enough, are very careful—stick to a speed limit on any stretch of road, then that limit is probably the correct one. In order to be able to answer this debate as best I could, I have driven over the entire range of roads in the London area which are included in this experiment and I have been surprised to find how often, even in the early stages of the experiment and before the plans are complete, the 40 m.p.h. limit turns out in normal conditions and at normal times of the day to be the right, or roughly the right, speed. The difference between 30 m.p.h. and 40 m.p.h. is often greater than is mathematically apparent. As the Highway Code tells us, at 30 m.p.h. a motorist can brake to a standstill in 45 feet at 40 m.p.h., he needs 80 feet.
  I think that the Committee's conclusions are also worth looking at. In considering the case for a differential speed limit, the Committee took evidence from various interested organisations. Naturally there was a great deal of opposition and controversy, but the majority of the Committee concluded that the weight of evidence was distinctly in favour of a differential speed limit, and I am certain that my right honourable friend was right to accept that advice. While recognising that each case should be considered on its merits, the Committee thought that on main roads the 40 m.p.h., speed limit could be applied both in some built-up areas, which are usually subject to the 30 m.p.h. limit, and also in some partially developed areas where many roads were previously de-restricted but where high speeds had obviously been an important factor in the accident rate. That is the point I should like your Lordships to remember, and it is the governing factor. On most main roads leading into London, there exist one or more fringe areas where these conditions apply before the truly built-up area is reached.

  839
  We have discussed this afternoon whether the correct limit should be 30, 40, 45 or 50 m.p.h. The British Transport Commission were in favour of 40 m.p.h. as a uniform speed limit on the main traffic routes in the London traffic area. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, wants 50 m.p.h.
  LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I did not mean 50 m.p.h. in the London area. I suggested 50 m.p.h. on some of the trunk roads which have not the modern three-line traffic, and 40 m.p.h. for inner London.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I am afraid the noble Lord will not endear himself to those noble Lords who think that the confusion between 30 m.p.h. and 40 m.p.h. is puzzling enough. The police were divided between 40 m.p.h. and 45 m.p.h. Some of the police were on the side of my noble friend, Lord Gisborough—not, I hope, for the first time in his life. On balance, the Committee favoured 40 m.p.h. as being in practice equivalent to an enforceable limit of 45 m.p.h.
  The Committee gave careful consideration to all interests—pedestrians, cyclists, motoring organisations and so on. Most of the views that were put forward to the Committee have been voiced in the debate this afternoon. At the risk of wearying your Lordships, may I emphasise the care and consideration that was given to the data that was provided, to the statistics that were examined and the views that were heard, so that your Lordships should be quite convinced that the experiment which is now in operation was not just a whim, thought up by my right honourable friend and myself in our baths? This has been given the most expert consideration before it was launched. It was examined by experts who had all the data available to them, particularly the accident rates, before they suggested that the experiment should be carried out.
  There have been one or two remarks about the 40 m.p.h. signs. Special signs have been prepared and I think that they indicate clearly where the 40 m.p.h. limit can be expected. As I have said, in the last few days I have driven over most of the roads on which the experiment is being carried out and I think that the signs are very clear. My noble friend Lord Goschen complained about the con
  840
  fusion of signs in certain areas. I agree that in certain areas there is a prolificity and confusion of other signs, about which we have heard much, and I sympathise with these complaints, but I noted that my noble friend wanted a warning yellow light before approaching crossing lights. I think that rather defeats the argument he was originally advancing. I apologise to your Lordships for the fact that there has been some delay in getting all the signs up and that not all roads are fully signed, or yet satisfactorily illuminated. In general, signs are required to be lit by their own sign lamps, unless satisfactory illumination can be achieved by lighting from near-by street lamps or by the use of reflectors. I hope that these signs will be completed very soon.
  All your Lordships have asked, quite naturally, what deductions we draw from this experiment. It is far too early to assess the effects of the experiment. It has only recently been implemented, and I should not like to suggest that any conclusions of importance can be drawn from it yet. The police tell me that the new speed limit is being fairly well observed. Here I cordially agree with my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye about the need for relations between the police and motorists to be as good as they can be; nothing is more likely to cause exacerbation than the frequent disobedience of a speed limit which the motorist believes is a silly one. That is why we want to make certain that this is the right figure.
  Careful tests are being carried out. Accident statistics for all the roads before and after the imposition of the new speed limit will also be carefully studied. I think it will be necessary to allow at least six months to elapse before any reliable results begin to emerge; and as my noble friend Lord Selkirk told your Lordships when he and I were responsible in your Lordships' House for the Road Traffic Act, 1956, it will be more like two years before a final decision can be made. In the course of those two years, as I have indicated, modifications to the scheme will most certainly have been made. We shall have to study carefully the flow of traffic and the technical and complicated figures which show whether anything has or has not been achieved in the desired direction. We shall also have to study the reaction of the motorist to see how

  841
  faithfully and sensibly motorists are or are not obeying the 40 m.p.h. limit.
  So I cannot hold out any hope—and I see no reason to do so—of an early decision as to whether this scheme is working. All I can say is—and I ask the House to agree with me—that it is perfectly right for the Government to try the scheme. Time after time we are asked why we do not do something about accidents, speeding, better roads and so on, and whenever the Government suggest something as an experiment, there are about nine people who find ten different reasons for trying eleven different experiments. They may all be right; but let us get on with this one and see whether it works. As an experiment, it will require modification. I hope that it will work, and my own personal view is that it will. I think it is here to stay, and I say, "A good job, too!"
  EARL HOWE: Perhaps I might ask the noble Lord a question, which I did ask in my speech; and if he cannot answer now. possibly he will send me a note. Is it the policy of the Ministry of Transport, so far as possible, to keep restricted areas off the main arterial roads?
  LORD MANCROFT: I did not answer that question on purpose, because I was not certain whether the noble Earl was referring to trunk roads or new motorways.
  EARL HOWE: There is the proposal I mentioned for the Western Avenue, near Northolt. I want to know whether the speed limits can be kept off the main arterial roads, so far as possible.
  LORD MANCROFT: I can give my noble friend the assurance that my right honourable friend would like to keep as many roads as possible as free from as many restrictions as possible, commensurate with safety and an even flow.
  6.35 p.m.
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for answering my Motion, although I cannot say that I altogether agree with what he has said. I agree that it is of value for us all to know that something is being tried out, but whether it is a good thing to try out only one method of reducing accidents and increasing the flow of traffic, I am not sure. I should have thought it was worth while trying every
  842
  one. The noble Lord appeared to be rather critical of my suggestion of yellow lights, but there is a great deal of difference between a warning light and a traffic light. I appreciate that he has gone as far as he can at the moment, but I would ask him to speak to his right honourable friend the Minister of Transport about trying out the other methods to see whether they might: not work as well. In the hope that he will do that, and that whatever is done will eventually decrease the number of accidents, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
  Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

  ALL HALLOWS THE GREAT CHURCHYARD BILL [H.L.] ALL HALLOWS THE LESS CHURCHYARD BILL [H.L.]
  The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bills was withdrawn: the Orders made on February 6 and March 5 last discharged, and Bills referred to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
  CLERGY ORPHAN CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
  Reported, with Amendments.