Lords Sitting of 21 July 1958

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers
  ANGLE ORE AND TRANSPORT COMPANY BILL [H.L.]
  Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

  DUTY FREE IMPORTS FROM COMMONWEALTH
  2.36 p.m.
  LORD MACDONALD of GWAENYSGOR: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
  [The Question was as follows:
  To ask Her Majesty's Government if they can give a definite undertaking that at the forthcoming Commonwealth Economic Conference in Montreal the underlying problem of duty-free imports from Commonwealth countries into the United Kingdom, at present affecting in particular the Lancashire cotton industry, will be fully discussed.]
  THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD MANCROFT): My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give any undertaking that we will, at the forthcoming Montreal Conference, discuss our general policy of according duty-free entry to
  2
  goods from other Commonwealth countries. This is provided for in our trade agreements with these countries and is inherent in the whole structure of Imperial Preference, which brings very important advantages to our export trade. Her Majesty's Government have no intention of varying this policy. As regards the effect of duty-free imports from Commonwealth countries on the Lancashire cotton industry, this is a problem for settlement between the countries concerned and Her Majesty's Government doubt whether there will be much advantage in discussing it at Montreal.
  LORD MACDONALD of GWAENYSGOR: My Lords, I am not too sure that I can express any thanks for that reply. It is rather amazing, especially in view of what was said in another place by the Paymaster General on this very question. He said very clearly [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 590 (No. 131), col. 1009]:
  " … I am certain that it is safe to say that anything that affects trade within the Commonwealth is open for discussion at the Conference in Canada in September. Of course, that must be so. We cannot have a conference unless we have it on a no-holds-barred basis. Anything that people want to raise, be it the United Kingdom or any other country, is open to he raised. "
  The noble Lord makes reference to the cotton industry in Lancashire. Is he aware that the cotton industry in Lancashire has been working hard and has for a long while expected negotiations that would bring about a settlement of this matter? That has failed up to now. Could he tell us what are the prospects for these negotiations to bring about some understanding between us and those

  3
  countries in the Commonwealth whose exports endanger the future of the cotton industry in Lancashire? Will the noble Lord also remember that there are other industries which may meet a similar experience before long, in particular the leather industry?
  LORD MANCROFT: Yes, my Lords, I will indeed remember all this. But in this matter the problem of other Commonwealth countries is rather different from ours and it might not, I suggest, be appropriate to discuss the matter at a general Commonwealth Conference. With regard to cotton, the noble Lord will appreciate that Lancashire has reached agreement with the industry in India and has reached agreement with the industry in Pakistan; and the next step, I should have hoped, would be for them to reach agreement with the industry in Hong Kong.
  LORD MACDONALD OP GWAENYSGOR: My Lords, are we to understand that the leather and other producing industries, which may be in the same position before very long, are to proceed on the same lines as the cotton industry?
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I do not think that the problem of the leather industry arises out of a question concerned with cotton. That may present a quite different point of view.

  EXCHANGE OF ATOMIC ENERGY SECRETS
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK: 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 what the position is as regards the disclosure to America of the complete commercial know-how gained by Calder Hall about atomic energy power stations; and whether they can state that for details of H-bomb test results there will be no bartering away of commercial atomic energy secrets which would enable America, within a few years, with her huge production facilities, to overhaul and pass Britain's strong lead in the field of atomic reactors.]
  THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF GOSFORD): My Lords, In June, 1957, the Atomic Energy Authority as part of their continuing exchange of information with the United States Atomic Energy Commission, agreed to make available to the Commission details of the design of the Calder Hall reactors as at January 1, 1957. In June this year the scope of the exchange was widened to include information about standard Calder Hall fuel elements. All the above information relates only to the Authority's own dual-purpose reactors. Information developed from Calder Hall and incorporated by industry in their latest nuclear power station designs is not and will not be included. As to the second part of the noble Viscount's Question, the agreement signed in Washington on July 3, and now before Congress, is concerned exclusively with co-operation on the uses of atomic energy for defence and is in no way connected with the arrangements for co-operation on civil uses.
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his Answer to my Question. I hope that it will be satisfactory to the industry.

  CONTROL OF TROLLEY BUS SERVICES
  2.39 p.m.
  LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
  [The Question was as follows:
  To ask Her Majesty's Government whether favourable consideration could be given to amending the Tramways Act, 1870, in so far that certain provisions adversely affect local authorities or undertakings who desire to use trolley vehicles upon any road so as to bring the relevant provisions in line with those concerning road service licences in the Road Traffic Act, 1930.]
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, trolley bus services were deliberately excluded from the licensing provisions of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, which empowers Traffic Commissioners to license other bus services and to control the routes on which they are used. Trolley bus routes, on the other hand, must be approved by Parliament by means of Bill or Order. The

  5
  equipment and operation of trolley bus routes require the installation of apparatus in the streets and generally affect the ordinary citizen and public bodies to a much greater extent than other bus services affect them. Her Majesty's Government therefore think it fitting that the approval of Parliament should continue to be required for new trolley bus routes. This view accords with the conclusion of the Thesiger Committee which in 1952 examined the licensing of public road passenger services.
  LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, arising out of the noble Lord's reply, may I quote just a few words from paragraph 270 of the Thesiger Committee's Report. The Report said:
  "It is worth considering, however, whether in certain specific matters trams and trolley buses should be treated in the same way as public service vehicles."
  I would also ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that in this country there are at present only thirty undertakings operating trolley vehicles; and of these nine have notified their intention either to reduce their services or to withdraw trolley buses? Does the noble Lord think this is in keeping with the national interest with regard, for instance, to the load factor, which is a very desirable feature for the atomic power stations, and also from the point of view that trolley vehicles use home-produced fuel?
  LORD MANCROFT: Yes, my Lords, I am aware of all these facts. But the fact of the matter is that trolley buses are being reduced substantially in figures over a long period for a variety of other reasons. Generally it is considered by operators that the advantages of trolley buses are outweighed by the disadvantages, but for quite different reasons from those mentioned by the noble Lord.

  PROPOSED SUMMIT CONFERENCE
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any statement to make on Mr. Khrushchev's proposal for a Summit meeting at Geneva.
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: It is expected that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister will be making a statement in another place later in the after-
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  noon. In that event my noble friend the Leader of the House will be making one in this place.

  DIVORCE (INSANITY AND DESERTION) BILL
  Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
  VARIATION OF TRUSTS BILL
  Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
  FINANCE BILL
  Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
  Moved, That Standing Order No. 35 be suspended until the House adjourns for the Recess for the purpose of giving Government Business (except with the consent of the Government) precedence over other Notices and Orders of the Day, and that Standing Order No. 41 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be suspended for the aforesaid period.—(Earl St. Aldwyn.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

  BRADFORD CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  MAIDSTONE CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  PIER AND HARBOUR ORDER (GREAT YARMOUTH) CONFIRMATION BILL
  PIER AND HARBOUR ORDER (KING'S LYNN CONSERVANCY) CONFIRMATION BILL
  House in Committee on Recommitment of the Bills (according to Order).
  [The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
  THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords, I understand that no Amendments have been set down to any of these

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  Bills, and it may be to the convenience of the Committee if we deal with them and report them altogether to the House. Needless to say, if any noble Lord has a point to raise on any of these Bills we will certainly deal with it if he will mention it.
  Bills reported without amendment.
  DRAFT CALF SUBSIDIES (ENGLAND AND WALES AND NORTHERN IRELAND) SCHEME, 1958
  2.46 p.m.
  THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD) (EARL WALDEGRAVE): My Lords, in moving that this Order be approved, may I say that I think it would be convenient to your Lordships to consider at the same time the Scottish Order, which is identical in all material aspects. Subsidies on calves may be paid under schemes at present in force, and they apply to calves born up to 29th October, 1958. The schemes now before your Lordships for approval provide for continuing the schemes for a further three years. The rates of subsidy under the present schemes are £7 10s. 0d. for heifer calves and £8 10s. 0d. for steer calves, and neither the rates nor the conditions under which they are paid are altered by the proposed schemes.
  As your Lordships know, the purpose of the subsidy is to encourage the rearing of calves for beef production. It amounts, in effect, to an advance payment for beef cattle and is of particular value to small farmers. Since the subsidy was introduced there has been a considerable increase in the retention of steer calves from the dairy herd which were previously being killed at a few days old. The figures show that we are getting a useful expansion in the number of calves retained for beef, and I am confident that the calf subsidy is making a very valuable contribution to this. The calf subsidy has been operating now for rather more than ten years. It is accepted generally throughout the farming community, and I feel that it is still performing a worthwhile function and will continue to do so. I therefore commend this scheme to the House with confidence.
  Moved, That the Draft Calf Subsidies (England and Wales and Northern Ireland) Scheme, 1958, be approved.—(Earl Waldegrave.)
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, there is no question at all that this kind of scheme is doing a great deal to encourage the production of beef in this country, and having regard to the apparent breakdown in the negotiations with Australia about meat—and perhaps I might ask a question about that at a later date—it is essential that the beef supply in this country is kept up. However, whilst there is nothing in the Order on which one could raise any question, I am concerned with the rising volume of opinion that to refuse the subsidy on heifer calves from a breed like the Friesians—provided, of course, that they are kept purely for beefstock purposes—seems to be unreasonable. I gather that the steer calves of the Friesian types of cattle are eligible for the subsidy, but for some reason or other the Ayrshire calves do not qualify for the subsidy. I do not understand that either. I should have thought that a lot of Ayrshire steers were sold in the West of Scotland and I should like to know why it is that Friesian steer calves receive a subsidy and Ayrshires are excluded, although they are kept specifically for beef stock purposes.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, the main reason for the exclusion of Friesian heifer calves, which admittedly if they are suitably reared and fattened will make perfectly good beef, and of the other single purpose dairy breeds—Jersey Guernsey and Ayrshire—is that they are mainly reared to go into dairy herds and the aim of this scheme is beef production. My right honourable friend has given this matter careful and earnest attention. If we were to pay this subsidy to Friesian heifer calves, it is estimated that 450,000 would qualify every year and that this would add £3 million to the cost of the subsidy without adding to our beef supply. I am afraid that we cannot, therefore, include Friesian heifers in the scheme.
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, we have not had an answer yet about the Ayrshire steer calves. The estimate of 450,000 seems extraordinary to me, unless it

  9
  includes all heifer calves that pass into the Friesian herds. I should have thought that if the subsidy was relative to heifer calves specifically reserved for rearing as maiden heifers for beef, that would not be the figure.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I think that it would be extremely difficult to do what is suggested. We have either to give the subsidy to heifers or reject it. The reasons why we do not give it to store calves of purely dairy breeds is that they do not normally make good quality beef.
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I note with great interest that an Ayrshire steer is not supposed to make good beef. Apparently there are cases where it is possible that Ayrshire beef is as good as anybody else's.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  DRAFT CALF SUBSIDIES (SCOTLAND) SCHEME, 1958
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I beg to move that the Draft Calf Subsidies (Scotland) Scheme, 1958, be approved.
  Moved, That the Draft Calf Subsidies (Scotland) Scheme, 1958, be approved.—(Earl Waldegrave.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  WHITE FISH SUBSIDY (UNITED KINGDOM) SCHEME, 1958
  2.53 p.m.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, this scheme is necessary to provide for the continuance of the white fish subsidy for a further year from August 1 next. As your Lordships know, this subsidy is broadly made by one of two methods. Either it is given as a flat rate payment per vessel for each day at sea (the rates are set out in the Schedule) or as a rate per stone of fish sold. The object of the subsidy is to assist the industry through the difficult period when old and unprofitable coal-burning steam trawlers in the near and middle water fleet are being replaced by modern vessels which we expect will be capable of operating without subsidy by 1961 or at latest 1963. At the present time, a Committee of Inquiry under Sir Alexander Fleck is
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  engaged on the task of assessing the size and pattern and the implications of an economic fleet. I am glad to say that the modernisation programme continues to make quite good progress. Therefore we are working towards the time, in the next few years, when the industry will be able to operate on a self-supporting basis, without subsidy. I should emphasise that there is not now, and never has been, any intention that the subsidy should be permanent. Its object is to tide over the modernisation period. It is not to enable the old uneconomic vessels to remain in use indefinitely, bolstered up by subsidy.
  The general pattern of the scheme is similar to that of the current scheme and I will briefly explain the changes and the reasons for them. The main change in the new scheme is a reduction of about 15 per cent. in the daily fishing rates of subsidy paid to the old coal-burning steam trawlers, which still number nearly 300 vessels. The stonage rates will remain unchanged as will the rates for diesel vessels. The reason for this is that until the early part of last year these vessels were being scrapped at a satisfactory rate of about 80 to 100 vessels a year, but since then the rate of scrapping has fallen to only half that level and we cannot avoid the conclusion that the rate of subsidy to these vessels must be now too high. We want to see the former rate of scrapping restored and we are satisfied that this would be in the best interests of the industry and that it is necessary to ensure healthy economic development.
  New vessels continue to join the fleet at a satisfactory rate of 30 to 35 a year and we do not believe that there is any danger that a higher rate of scrapping of the old vessels will affect the supply of fish or cause harm to the industry. The proposed subsidy rates for the old vessels are about 15 per cent. lower than the present rates and the average subsidy they will receive will be about £14 10s. a day at sea instead of the present average of £17 a day. These lower rates will apply also to the older oil-fired steam vessels. I will not go into an explanation, unless your Lordships wish, as they are only a small number.
  The next significant change in the scheme is an increase of 25 per cent. in the rates for seine net fishing vessels

  11
  which regularly make voyages of eight days or more. Most of these vessels are based on Grimsby and poor fishing results in the last year or so have not enabled them to keep pace with rising costs. We are reluctant to make any increase in subsidy at the present time but these vessels at present receive relatively low rates of subsidy and as an exceptional measure we have thought it right to give them this extra help in the coming year. We are proposing no changes in the subsidy rates for diesel vessels in the near and middle water fleet nor for the smaller inshore vessels. Apart from these changes in the subsidy rates, the only alterations are of a minor nature with which I do not think that I need trouble your Lordships. I commend the scheme to your Lordships for approval and beg to move that the Scheme be approved.
  Moved, That the White Fish Subsidy (United Kingdom) Scheme, 1958 be approved.—(Earl Waldegrave.)
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for his explanation. I have two questions to ask. The first is: what is the actual rate of the subsidy for the diesel vessel? What is its subsidy value to-day compared to that of the older coal-burning type of vessel on which it is proposed to reduce the subsidy? The second question concerns the seine net fishing boats. For how long is it assumed that this new subsidy will be required? What some of us are worried about, as in other cases where the removal of Government subsidy has brought a free market, is the lack of response in price, from the consumers' point of view, in relation to the Government help given.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, before the noble Earl answers my noble Leader's question, did I understand him to say that the reason for subsidising the solid fuel burning trawler was its uneconomic operation compared with the diesel vessel? Why, then, is it considered necessary to give the dieselengined trawler a subsidy at all? If the subsidy is to be lowered on the coal-burning trawler in order to accelerate its demise, why subsidise the new one?
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, perhaps it will be complicated if we get
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  into too much detail here. May I answer the noble Viscount's first point? The order in regard to seine nets is confined to one year, because the order is reviewed year by year. The diesel rates are all set out in the Schedule to the Order. Perhaps it is not simple to follow, but it is all based on the size of vessel, and the various sizes of vessels get a different rate of subsidy which tapers off to no subsidy for the modern large vessel. The whole thing is a transitional arrangement. Your Lordships will see in the Schedule to the Order the actual scales for the various boats. I think that answers the question also of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth. We are moving forward to an economic modern fleet, and it is only these small vessels in this short period that are having a subsidy; and that subsidy is being tapered off.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, what in the view of the Ministry is the efficiency degree of the modern diesel against the old solid fuel burning trawler? I cannot understand why it is necessary to give them this subsidy. The opening comment of the noble Earl was that the subsidy given to the trawler of the old type was given because of its uneconomic working, but we had to have them because we could not build enough diesels; and now we are building diesels, the subsidy given to the coal burning trawler is influencing the non-scrapping or the retention of those trawlers. Why give it to the diesels? What is the difference in the efficiency.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I think it is a question of turning over to the more modern type of boat. The whole basis of this scheme is that the small old boat, whether it is coal-fired, oil, steam or diesel, gets a tapering-off subsidy. The whole subsidy basis will come to an end in 1961, with a possible extension to 1963. The aim of the policy has been year by year to taper this subsidy down to the various classes of boats and ease the blow until it is finally tapered off. The question of why the diesel boats had it at all was much before my time, and I think it is irrelevant to this scheme, which includes the actual rates which should be paid next year.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: To be continued—that is the germane point.
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to point out that there is not a great distinction in the terms between the inefficient coal-burning and the diesel boats. It is apparently a question of the size of the boat, based on the Act of 1957. With vessels of 40 feet you get the stonage payment; with vessels of 40 feet or over, but under 80 feet, you get £6 10s. per day at sea, and up to £10 a day at sea for steam vessels not exceeding 140 feet. Do these things include diesels? There is no other place where one can find that out in this Order. It seems to me, therefore, that the Government could well be paying on the larger more efficient diesel boat, not a higher percentage rate of grant in relation to the expenses of the trip, but a higher block grant per day than in the case of the smaller and less efficient vessels.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  HERRING SUBSIDY (UNITED KINGDOM) SCHEME, 1958
  3.5 p.m.
  THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD STRATHCLYDE): My Lords, this Scheme has the same general purposes and is of the same general nature as the White Fish Scheme which has just been discussed. It prescribes the rates and conditions of herring subsidy which are to apply from September 1st, when the Scheme now in farce expires, until August 31st next year.
  The herring subsidy in this form was introduced for the first time last year. Your Lordships will recollect that it took the place of a subsidy given through the Oil and Meal Scheme operated by the herring Industry Board. Its object is to give the herring industry broad equality of treatment with the white fish industry in the matter of subsidy and to arrest the decline over the last few years in the herring fleet, which had come to cause considerable concern for the future of the industry. So far as we can judge, it is having some success in that respect. The number of vessels now engaged in fishing far herring is approximately the same as last year. While the catch in the first six months of this year was approximately 10 per cent. less than last year, due principally to there not being so many fish in the sea, herring prices have been higher
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  and fishermen's earnings are just about the same as they were last year.
  As in the case of the White Fish Scheme, we have reviewed, in consultation with the fishermen's associations, prospects for the ensuing twelve months, and, so far as we can judge, the economic position of the fleet is not likely to change much in that period. We have therefore decided to leave the subsidy rates unchanged. I ought perhaps to tell your Lordships that we have made one change in the conditions of the scheme—namely, that where two or more vessels are jointly operating the same gear their joint catch shall be deemed to be equally divided between them for purposes of determining their eligibility for subsidy. This should remove some difficulties and anomalies which have arisen in the past. This Order is important in that it gives practical assistance to our herring fishermen of a nature which during the past year has maintained both the fishermen's earnings and the size of the fleet. As such, I would commend it to the approval of your Lordships. I beg to move.
  Moved, That the Herring Subsidy (United Kingdom) Scheme, 1958 be approved.—(Lord Strathclyde.)
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I think this is a much plainer case than the other. I ought perhaps to apologise to the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, for quoting figures just now which apply to the herring industry and not to the white fish industry. These things look so much alike, and I find I was looking at the wrong Schedule. Nevertheless, the point remains, although it has been met in part in the other Paper by the reducing scale that I find there. With regard to the herring fishing industry, I should welcome an expansion of it. Herring is not so expensive to buy as some other fish, although it is not handled in anything like the same economic manner in the distributive trade that it used to be when I was a boy; to-day one has to pay far too much for things which do not add to the value of the fish. However, I think the general position here is good. I hope that everything will be done to try to assist the industry to restore to the Scottish and the East Coast handling ports something of the export trade that used to be so important a part of the industry.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  DOMICILE BILL [H.L.]
  3.9 p.m.
  Order of the Day read for the Bill to be considered on Report.
  LORD MESTON: My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.
  Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Lord Meston.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  Clause 2:
  General rule
  2.Subject to sections five and six of this Act, a person's domicile is in the country in which he has his home and intends to live permanently.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR)THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR) had given Notice of ten Amendments to Clauses 1 to 6, the first being in Clause 2 to omit "sections five and". The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, the first ten Amendments on the Marshalled List are necessary in order to give effect to the view which found general support on the Committee stage, that the law should be changed so as to put a married woman, for the purpose of the law of domicile, in the same position as any other person of full age and capacity. I am entirely in the hands of your Lordships, but the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, will remember that he moved an Amendment on the Committee stage, and it may be for his convenience, and that of other noble Lords who are interested, if I deal with the first ten Amendments together and indicate the way in which I am dealing with the problem.
  LORD SILKIN: That will be perfectly Convenient.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think it would be convenient if your Lordships would take them with this grouping. Amendments No. 1 and 6 form the first group. Amendment No. 1 paves the way for Amendment No. 6, which is to leave out Clause 5. The reason is that Clause 2, when read with Clause 1, and subject to the presumptions contained in Clause 3, will now provide the rule for determining the domicile of a person of either sex, there now being nothing in the Bill to exclude the provision in the Interpretation Act, 1889, that words importing the masculine gender are to include females. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, may remember that I wondered whether
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  an Amendment would be required to Section 18 (1) (b) of the Matrimonial Causes Act. I have discussed that with my noble and learned friend Lord Merriman, and we agree that no such Amendment would be necessary.
  The second group of these Amendments comprises Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5, the substantive Amendment being the omission of subsection (3) of Clause 3. The other three Amendments are consequential on this. The presumption contained in subsection (3)—that is, that if a person lives in a country mainly because he works there and has a wife or children whose home is in another country, he is presumed to intend to live permanently in that other country—is inappropriate once it becomes possible for his wife to acquire a different domicile from her husband. The presumption is unnecessary where the marriage has not broken down and wrong where it has.
  The final group of Amendments, Nos. 7, 8, 9 and 10, are made necessary by the abolition of the rule that a wife's domicile follows that of her husband. The proposed new subsection (2) of Clause 6 deals with the case where the custody of a child is given to two persons jointly who are domiciled in different countries. This happens sometimes through the operation of foreign law where the custody is given, for example, to two sisters who may be living in different countries. The child's domicile is to be in that country with which the child is more closely connected. It was always possible for this question to arise under the provisions of certain foreign legal systems. Now that it will be possible for husband and wife to have different domiciles, the question is of greater importance and requires express provision in the Bill.
  The effect of passing the Amendments which I am moving will be that Clause 6 (3), will read as follows:
  "Where a person entitled to the custody of a child changes his domicile, or a person whose domicile is not the same as a child's becomes entitled (or exclusively entitled) to his custody, the child's domicile does not thereby change if that person intends him to live in a country other than that in which that person has his domicile."
  The Amendments to subsection (3) are required to take account of the possibility that a child in the joint custody of two persons with different domiciles (as in the new subsection (2) substituted by this

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  Amendment) might have his domicile changed for him by the death of one of them.
  Your Lordships will, I hope, forgive me for having to put down so many Amendments. We have tried to deal with all the possibilities that might arise and to give effect to the undoubted view of the House as to the change in the wife's domicile. I beg to move.
  Amendments moved—
  Clause 2, page 1, line 8, leave out ("sections five and") and insert ("section").
  Clause 3, page 1, line 11, leave out ("the following provisions") and insert ("subsection (2)").
  Clause 3, page 1, line 15, leave out (", subject to the next following subsection.")
  Clause 3, page 1, line 18, leave out subsection (3).
  Clause 4, page 2, line 1, leave out paragraph (b).
  Leave out Clause 5.
  Clause 6, page 2, line 10, at end insert—
  ("(2) If each of two persons domiciled in different countries is equally entitled to the custody of a child, the child's domicile is in that one of those countries with which he is more closely connected.")
  Clause 6, page 2, line 15, leave out ("the custody of a child passes to")
  Clause 6, page 2,line 16, leave out the first ("the child's") and insert ("a child's becomes entitled (or exclusively entitled) to his custody,")
  Clause 6, page 2, line 17, leave out from ("if") to ("intends") in line 18 and insert ("that person").—(The Lord Chancellor.
  3.15 p.m.
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I am sure the whole House will be grateful to the noble and learned Viscount, not only for the way in which he has honoured the undertaking he gave but also for his clear explanation of these Amendments. They are, of course, highly technical, and unless one is an authority on the law of domicile one is bound to take a great deal on trust, as I do. I have been through the Amendments, and I am certainly not in a position to challenge the fact that they carry out what is intended, and what was intended under the Amendment that I put down on the Committee stage which was supported by a number of my noble friends.
  The only doubt I have—and I hope I shall not be regarded as being ungracious and looking a gift horse in the mouth—is whether it would not have been preferable, from my point of view, if the making
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  of this change had been made apparent on the face of the Bill itself. I accept the fact that the Amendments on the Paper put both sexes in the same category, but we have been so accustomed to the idea that the wife has the domicile of her husband that one would have expected the change to be stated in terms somewhere in the Bill itself. While, no doubt, it is there by implication, and in consequence of the Interpretation Act "he" includes "she" and so on, I cannot help feeling at the back of my mind that there may still be a slight element of doubt. Nobody knows better than the noble and learned Viscount that what is said here does not count at all when the Bill comes to be interpreted.
  While I myself cannot see any flaw in the Amendments, I should have preferred some words on the face of the Bill which would indicate that we were making this change and which would put the question beyond any possible doubt. I am not in a position to make any suggestion except putting in words—I have in mind possibly in Clause 2—to the effect that we are talking of the domicile of a person "including that of a married woman." That would make it quite clear that the domicile of a married woman was dependent upon what was her home and where she intended to live permanently. I think it is only right that that point should be mentioned, because that is an apprehension which a number of noble Lords felt; and if it were possible to add to the conciliatory spirit in which this Amendment is being put forward something in terms, I should be most grateful. There is one further small point. In the Amendment to Clause 4, on the list of Amendments I have it says "Leave out paragraph (6)". Should that not be "paragraph (b)"? I am sure it is a misprint.
  LORD MESTON: My Lords, I should like to associate myself with everything the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has said about what the Lord Chancellor has done in this Bill. At the same time, I should also like to associate myself with what the noble Lord said about the question of construction. I always speak under correction in your Lordships' House, but I understand that in Common Law it is an absolutely irrebuttable presumption that a married woman takes the domicile of her husband. I know that sometimes that presumption has been partly rebutted in, matters relating, for example, to the distribution of property, for the simple

  19
  reason that the Inland Revenue authorities in this country and in some other country have point-blank refused to come to any agreement as to the domicile of the husband and the wife. It happened some years ago as between the Inland Revenue authorities in this country and the Inland Revenue authorities in Canada. But, subject to these apparent exceptions, it is an absolutely irrebuttable presumption at Common Law that the wife takes the domicile of her husband. It is not so stated in this Bill, and when the ordinary average person comes to read this Bill will he understand that the domicile of a married woman is or is not that of her husband unless the married woman desires to obtain a domicile of her own? Perhaps I have not expressed myself very clearly but it will not be for the first time in my life. As various other noble Lords wish to mention the same subject, I will say no more about it.
  3.22 p.m.
  LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, I should like to preface my remarks to your Lordships by saying that I have had a conversation with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and broadly what I am going to say to the best of my ability will express his views and not merely my own. He first of all said that he greatly regretted that his other duties prevented his being present here this afternoon, and he asked me to express his thanks to the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack for his endeavours to meet the point that was made in the Amendment before the House in Committee. He also asked me to express his view, which is also my own, that of course we knew that the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor would so faithfully interpret his words, and therefore it was not a surprise to us when we found everything done to meet the wishes of the House.
  At the same time, this point which has been raised by my noble friend Lord Silkin and also the noble Lord, Lord Meston, does appeal to him as well as to myself. I think it can be expressed in this way. Here has been a practice which has been the interpretation of the Common Law of the country for a great number of years. Had that been a Statute I am quite sure the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor
  20
  would agree that somewhere in this Bill there would be a definite revocation of that Section in the Statute. It is not a Statute; it is Common Law, and in consequence of that the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor (he said he was going to consult the Attorney General) has thought it not necessary to include that revocation explicitly in the Bill. Of course, I am aware of the Interpretation Act, that the word "he" covers "she", and also that the word "person" now means a person of either sex. I notice that the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor, in defending his proposals, used the words "persons of either sex". Of course, that is not in the actual Bill, but he used the words "either sex" because of the result of the Interpretation Act.
  The question that really arises is this: this matter of domicile may at some time or other come before the courts, and the courts have been in the habit of holding, in accordance with Common Law, that the domicile of a married woman is that of her husband. Someone will get up and say that that ceases to be the law, if this Bill becomes an Act, because of the new Act, the Domicile Act, in which such and such things are done. The court may say that if that were the intention of the new Domicile Act, to abrogate the existing Common Law, why on earth does it not say so in so many words? And it may well be that some court—it may be in some other country than this—is not so well aware of things here, and may hold that as it is not expressly stated in this Bill that this principle of the Common Law is abrogated, it was not the intention of Parliament in passing the Bill so to do. What I would venture to suggest, in humility, but with, I think, the concurrence of a much greater authority than myself, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, to the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor is that if he is not prepared to accept this to-day he will consider the matter very carefully between now and Third Reading, and perhaps, if necessary, introduce a small Amendment, a matter of a few words, which would make it perfectly clear that this Domicile Bill was specifically changing what was the law before it was introduced.
  3.25 p.m.
  LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I am rather surprised at these doubts. Probably the noble and learned Viscount will reassure us about them, but I should have thought it was trite law that when you get clear words in a Statute overruling the Common Law the Common Law is overruled. The words in Clause 2—
  "a person's domicile is in the country in which he has his home and intends to live permanently"—
  applied among others to married women and were sufficiently clear. However, the noble and learned Viscount will no doubt be expressing a much more authoritative view than I can.
  I rise to put to him two problems Which have been giving rise to a certain amount of discussion among some of those who are interested in this Bill and who are very grateful to him for the way in which he has responded to the strong feeling among a large section of the community that a married woman in respect of domicile ought to be treated like any other person. The noble and learned Viscount explained that this series of Amendments was necessary in order to cover the various implications which arise from this change in the law, and one of the matters which has been a little under discussion in some circles is a purely practical one which does not seem to be provided for.
  Suppose that an Englishman goes abroad, say an English soldier who is stationed in Germany for a time, and marries while over there a German woman who lives with him there. When the time comes for him to return home the German woman says, "I propose to stay on here in Germany; I am not coming to live in England with you". I imagine there is no question that under this Act (as it will then be) she will have German domicile, having remained there in Germany. Suppose she takes proceedings, as she will presumably be able to do, in a German court to obtain a divorce from her husband, and gets a decree against him; will she then be able to come over to this country and obtain an order for alimony on the basis of this decree which she has obtained in a foreign court by virtue of her new domicile under this Act? Because I can foresee that if that happens, as one would expect it might happen not infrequently, it will be very difficult for the English
  22
  husband to raise any defence to an application for alimony in circumstances of that sort. It might very well be that it was altogether the foreign woman's fault that the divorce proceedings had come about, and to make an order for alimony against the husband in this way would lead to injustice. I hope that these doubts about the matter are not justified and that the noble and learned Viscount will be able to set them at rest. But I felt that the point was one which ought to be dealt with.
  The other matter is this: that some question has been raised as to what happens in the event of insanity in any case of this sort. Suppose that a person changes his place of residence after becoming insane. Is that going to affect his domicile? Can he then have an "intention to reside"? How much insanity, so to speak, is necessary to remove the intention required under the clause? It is obvious that there may be difficulties here. Possibly it is a little unfair to put them to the noble and learned Viscount in this way, but if, on the spur of the moment, he can throw any light on these matters, many people will be most grateful.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, may I first deal with the points that were troubling the noble Lords, Lord Silkin, Lord Pethick-Lawrence and Lord Meston? The answer which I give has really been foreshadowed by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, but I should like to make one addition to it. If noble Lords will look at the Bill they will see that Clause 1 says:
  "The rules set out in sections two to seven of this Act shall be applied in determining a person's domicile."
  That is a mandatory, statutory provision and overrides any rules of law. That is the view I took. I should like the noble Lords to know that I considered it most carefully; but in view of what they have said and the quotation from my noble and learned friend Lord Denning, I shall certainly consider it again. I should not like noble Lords to think that I did not consider it —I did. I considered it care-fully, not only with my colleague the Attorney General but with the Parliamentary draftsmen, who are very familiar with the application of the Interpretation Act. But I will certainly consider it again and if there is the slightest doubt I shall make the position clear. Noble Lords will appreciate that one does not want to

  23
  throw doubt on the useful rule of the Interpretation Act if it can be avoided, but the first thing that I want to do is to make quite clear, now that we have agreed in your Lordships' House on making a considerable reform, that that reform is well and truly made—so I will look at it again.
  The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, has raised two points on which, as he rather indicated, I should like to give him a considered opinion at leisure. What I say now will be tentative and I shall of course write to him about it. But I should have thought that the Bill did not alter the governing principle—namely, that when one is considering the validity of divorce in a foreign country one has to consider the grounds, the jurisdiction or the basis on which it is granted. That is made easier by the wife's having a separate domicile. One has to consider also the grounds and the recognition of divorces in that regard. I should not have thought that in view of the second point, the need for the grounds to be recognisable, even with a person domiciled in that country, there would be any change in position. However, I will look into it again and will write to the noble Lord.
  On the second point, again if I may give my provisional view, the noble Lord will have appreciated (I think he had it in mind) that Clause 3 (1) will now read, after we have made these Amendments:
  "Subject to subsection (2) of this section a person who has a home in a country is presumed to intend to live permanently in that country."
  I should have thought that the presumption of intention would not easily arise in the case of a lunatic, who might have to be conveyed at once to an institution simply for the public safety, and in regard to whom it might be difficult to move him. Again, I do not think that he would be put into any difficulty; but in view of the possible troubles in regard to his estate and its administration I should like to discuss that not only with my right honourable and learned friend but with those who are under me who are constantly dealing with questions of lunacy, to see whether there are any rules which need looking into on the point. After I have done that I will communicate with the noble Lord. But, broadly, the answer is that I do not think they will cause difficulties. I am sure he will not mind my writing to him about it.
  LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Viscount for what he has said and for his indication.
  LORD MESTON: My Lords, I do not want to waste time unnecessarily, but I understand that Clause 1 will now read:
  "The rules set out in sections two to six of this Act shall be applied in determining a person's domicile."
  On Question, Amendments agreed to.

  PROPOSED SUMMIT CONFERENCE
  3.37 p.m.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, if my noble and learned friend would not mind, I have only a very short statement to make, but I thought your Lordships would like to hear what the Prime Minister is at present saying in another place. The text of Mr. Khrushchev's letter to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister was received by telegram from Moscow yesterday morning. As the House knows, Mr. Khrushchev suggested that there should be a meeting at Geneva on Tuesday of the heads of Government of the United Kingdom, France, India, the United States and the Soviet Union, attended by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. The message contains many allegations and statements which I do not think any noble Lords in this House would accept. Nevertheless, as my right honourable friend said last week, we are anxious to find a suitable means of trying to resolve, through a meeting of heads of Government, the grave problems which confront us. Her Majesty's Government are urgently considering, in consultation with our Allies, the best means by which to arrange for a meeting which Heads of Governments could attend. We shall also be keeping in close touch with the Governments of other Commonwealth countries. A further statement will be made as soon as possible.
  3.39 p.m.
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am quite sure that the Government have a difficult task at the present time, and I would pay due respect to that. But I must say that in the impending possibilities in the world at large to-day, and especially in the

  25
  Middle East, when an offer of this kind comes it is important that it should be dealt with very urgently indeed. How far the consultations would go between, shall I say, the Allies of the Free World, one cannot say; but if this matter is now to be long-drawn-out, and then there are eventualities which might perhaps have been prevented by an early response to the Khrushchev letter, it would be a great tragedy. I greatly hope that we may be quite certain that we can have a final and firm statement by to-morrow as to the intentions of Her Majesty's Government, the United States and others concerned.
  THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough. I believe we and our Allies are fully seized of the urgency of this question, but it also needs a great deal of thought, for the important thing about any kind of meeting is that it should be able to show results; and quite clearly a meeting at a day's notice could not do any such thing. I have no doubt that the noble Viscount would wish us to make with the Commonwealth and our Allies those contacts which are necessary, but I will certainly make a statement as soon as possible.
  LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I should just like to say a word upon this subject. I hope Her Majesty's Government appreciate the enormous importance that this question has in the minds of everybody in the country. Here is an opportunity which has never occurred before, and I hope that Her Majesty's Government will realise that it is well for us to seize this opportunity now, bearing in mind that by discussing now various items in Mr. Khrushchey's letter we may miss an opportunity in regard to which noble Lords on the other side of the House and certainly myself have said, "Let us get round the table as soon as possible." Here seems to be the first chance that we have had of getting Mr. Khrushchev and other people with whom we are intimately connected round the table now, and I hope that Her Majesty's Government will be able to do as the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition asks and tell us something quite definite which will perhaps enable us to go ahead on this all-important question.
  THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, we do not want to miss an opportunity, for that would be a grave error; but we want to create an opportunity which will give practical, positive results. That is the important thing.
  LORD REA: My Lords, does the statement of the noble Earl mean that at present Her Majesty's Government have neither accepted nor rejected the suggestion in the letter of Mr. Khrushchev?
  THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I have said that we are considering the situation with our Allies with a view to deciding the best way in which to meet the proposal which Mr. Khrushchev has made, and to answer his letter.
  LORD SALTER: My Lords, might I suggest that even though it is desirable that there should be a meeting followed by positive results, it is conceivable that even though Her Majesty's Government take the view that the chances against such positive results are very great, it might be better to meet, with a risk of achieving no positive results, rather than to refuse to meet in the present circumstances?
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I hope that in view of the request which has now been made by noble Lords on both sides of the House we may hope for and expect a final statement to-morrow. I am reminded that the right honourable and learned gentleman, the Foreign Secretary, has been over to the other side and seen both the United States President and the Secretary of State there. Listening to the wireless broadcast this morning I understood that they were in complete agreement as to policy in this matter. While, of course, it is recognised that the right honourable and learned gentleman still had to discuss the position with his colleagues when he came back. I cannot see that there need now be a long-drawn-out delay before a final decision is published, as the important and primary consultation basically necessary has already taken place.
  THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I hope there will not be any long-drawn-out or unnecessary delay, but we have our friends to consider. The right honourable and learned gentleman, the Foreign Secretary, arrived back here at half past ten this morning and we have

  27
  only had the chance of consultation with him before lunch. And we must let the Commonwealth countries know what is in our mind.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether a reply has been received from India and, if so, what that country said?
  THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, we are in consultation with the Indian Government now. It is not our practice to reveal what Commonwealth Governments say to each other in private, but I hope that when I come to make a final statement the position will be made clear.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, I did not ask about consultation between members of the Commonwealth but whether the Government of India, as an independent Government, had replied to Mr. Khrushchev, and, if so, whether the noble Earl knew the terms of the reply.
  THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, the Indian Government have replied to Mr. Khrushchev but I am not quite sure whether they have made that reply public.
  EARL ATTLEE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl, the Leader of the House, this question? He has said it is very important, if we are to have a Conference, that we should get results. Will he also bear in mind that not having a Conference might have very bad results?

  DOMICILE BILL [H.L.]
  Report stage resumed.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I now beg to move Amendment No. 11, which deals with transitional provisions and is intended to provide for situations existing before this Bill becomes law.
  Amendment moved—
  Clause 11, page 2, line 32, at beginning insert—
  ("(1) Nothing in this Act affects the determination of the domicile of a person dying before its commencement.
  (2) Nothing in this Act affects the validity of any document executed or thing done before its commencement.")—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, This Amendment deals with the application of the Bill to Northern Ireland, and does so without abridging the legislative powers of the Northern Ireland Parliament. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  After Clause 11, insert the following new clause—
  Provisions as to Northern Ireland
  "12.—(1) This Act extends to Northern Ireland.
  (2) For the purposes of section six of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920 (which relates to the powers of the Parliament of Northern Ireland to make laws) section ten of this Act shall be deemed to be contained in an Act passed before the day appointed for the purposes of the said section six."—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.

  PUBLIC RECORDS BILL [H.L.]
  3.48 p.m.
  Order of the Day read for the consideration of the Commons Amendments.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendments be now considered.
  Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  [The references are to Bill No. 69 as first printed for the House of Commons.]
  Clause 2, page 2, line 17, after second ("public") insert ("and other").
  Clause 3, page 3, line 24, leave out ("may") and insert ("shall").
  Clause 4, page 3, line 39, leave out ("after consultation with") and insert ("with the agreement of").
  Clause 5, page 5, line 15, leave out ("for") and insert ("to").
  Clause 5, page 5, line 15, leave out ("inspection") and insert ("for inspecting and obtaining copies").
  Clause 5, page 5, line 25, leave out ("make arrangements") and insert ("require arrangements to be made").
  Clause 5, page 5, line 26, leave out from ("Public") to end of line 27 and insert ("comparable to those made for public records in the Public Record Office, and subject to restrictions corresponding with those contained in the foregoing provisions of this section".)
  First Schedule, page 13, line 8, leave out ("have power to") and insert ("include his decisions on such questions in his annual report to Parliament and shall from time to time").
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, in dealing with these Amendments I always wish to consult the convenience of your Lordships' House. I have gone through these Amendments. They are all relatively small matters. They clarify and make dear the course of conduct which I should pursue as Minister in charge of Records, but I do not think they require individual discussion by the House. Therefore, unless any noble Lord has any points he wishes to raise, I suggest that this is a suitable occasion when we might agree to them en bloc. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  AGRICULTURE BILL
  3.49 p.m.
  Order of the Day read for the Bill to be considered on Report.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.
  Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Earl Waldegrave.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  Clause 1:
  Repeal of powers of supervision, direction and dispossession under Part II of Agriculture Act, 1947, and Part II of Agriculture (Scotland) Act, 1948
  1.—(1) So much of Part II of the Agriculture Act, 1947 (in this Act referred to as "the Act of 1947") as provides for supervision orders, and for the giving of directions to and the dispossession of owners or occupiers on grounds of bad estate management or bad husbandry, that is to say sections twelve to twenty of that Act, shall cease to have effect, and all entries in the register of local land charges relating to supervision orders shall, as soon as may be after the passing of this Act, he deleted.
  (2) So much of Part II of the Agriculture (Scotland) Act, 1948 (in this Act referred to as "the Scottish Act of 1948") as provides for warning notices and for the giving of directions to and the dispossession of owners or occupiers on grounds of bad estate management or bad husbandry, that is to say sections twenty-seven to thirty-four of that Act, shall cease to have effect.
  LORD SILKIN LORD SILKIN moved to omit Clause 1. The noble Lord said: My Lords in the
  30
  absence of my noble friend Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, who is engaged on public business in another part of the building, I beg to move the first Amendment. I am in some difficulty because I did not realise until a moment ago that he was leaving the Chamber. This is really a repetition of the discussion was had on the Committee stage. The Amendment is intended to express the disagreement on this side of the House with the abandonment of Part II of the Agriculture Act, 1947. I believe that on the occasion of both the Second Reading and the debate during the Committee stage we on this side put forward our arguments as fully and as strongly as we could. I feel that I can add nothing to those arguments.
  I remain entirely convinced that the Government are making a great mistake in repealing Part II of the 1947 Act. I do not think that it is called for by any section of the farming community; I do not think it is going to produce any advantages to the industry; and I do not even think that in the name of so-called freedom it is necessary. Having said that, I can only express the wish that, even at this late hour, the Government may have second thoughts in this matter. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Leave out Clause 1.—(Lord silkin.)
  LORD WISE: My Lords, I should like to support my noble friend in moving this Amendment. As he says, we do not want to go over the old ground, but I think that from this side of the House we condemn the action of the Government in this matter. It has been said that the alteration is not wanted, and certainly my own view is that this is a retrograde step. The 1947 Act was carried out in a very satisfactory manner. It has been said that there were not many supervision orders, and that may be true. Nevertheless, there was a good deal of encouragement in regard to agriculture from the agricultural executive committees, and I think that by taking their power away, as this particular clause does, a step is made in the wrong direction. I cannot find anything in this Bill which will either improve the prosperity of the farming industry or increase food production. The removal of Part II of the original Act will definitely encourage irresponsible and casual methods of farming to appertain once again in the industry, as we know they

  31
  did in the years gone by, before the passing of the 1947 Act. It seems to us on this side of the House that it releases the owner-occupiers from their obligation to the State to make the best possible use of their land in the interests of food production and good husbandry.
  I believe that the Government would have been far better advised not to play about with Part II of the Act of 1947 but to take steps to continue guaranteed prices and assured markets, which come under Part I, as a reality. At the moment, in my opinion, they are illusory because, so far as I can see, in agriculture there is no stable guaranteed price and no secure market. For this reason the Government would have been far better advised, from the point of view of prosperity of the industry, to take steps to assure to the industry a fair price for all its commodities and good stable markets. This particular Bill does not in any way help us; and I hope, with my noble friend, that the Government, even at this late hour, in view of the distrust (I think that is the right word) which the industry feels in regard to this Bill, will take steps to reintroduce into the Bill a continuation of the whole of Part II of the Agriculture Act, 1947.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I am afraid that I must ask the House to reject this Amendment. I have studied in detail the debates on this Bill in another place, and I have read carefully the speeches that were made here on previous occasions. Running right through all these speeches and all this opposition to the repeal of this clause there has been the question: "Why are the Government doing this?" Very strange reasons have been put forward, but there is only one reason for the Government's action in repealing Part II: we are doing it because we think it is right. This is certainly not a vote-catching provision.
  Noble Lords opposite have not failed at each stage in the debates to call attention to the unfavourable views expressed by the National Farmers' Union. We should naturally prefer to have the National Farmers' Union with us on these matters; but in the last resort the Government must do what they consider to be right, and they will have been fortified in their decision by the waning in recent months of any interest, for or against, in
  32
  farming circles generally in the continuance of these powers. The argument which I think short-sightedly appealed to many N.F.U. branches and farmers (it is only an opinion, but I have the impression it was their argument) was "Let sleeping dogs lie." The Opposition argument, as I understand it, goes further and says, "Stir up the sleeping dogs. Use the powers"—though I must admit that their recently published statement on agricultural policy is slightly vague on this point. But do they think that if they use that argument and go to the N.F.U. they are going to get much support for it?
  The Opposition have sought to conjure up a picture of the Government being determined to betray agriculture—that was the term used by the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough—and to abandon price support for the industry; the repeal of these disciplinary measures has been treated as a first step, as a sort of straw in the wind, for these ulterior and dreadful purposes. There is no foundation for these charges. Price support for the industry must be justified on its own merits. That is how the Government look at this matter, and the evidence is there for all to see in Part I of the Agriculture Act, 1957. All we are doing here and now is to get rid of the power of eviction of freehold occupiers; and that, apparently, is what the noble Lords opposite want us to retain.
  It has been argued that the general public will not tolerate price support without disciplinary powers. What evidence is there of that? Do the public demand similar disciplinary powers against any other industry? Agriculture is not the only industry which enjoys Government support. In fact, it is the general public who have been most critical of the use of disciplinary powers, against individual owners and occupiers. The man in the street is not demanding their retention. The evidence is that the townsman and the man in the street are disgusted with the whole business. What was the reaction to the eviction of the owner in one of the worst cases of farming we ever had to deal with? It was a petition to the Queen.
  So we say that the provisions of Part II must be looked at on their merits, and we come back to the question: what is right in the present situation? We say the farmer in need of help and advice will

  33
  go more regularly to a Ministry which has no power to place him under supervision and endorse his licence, as it were, by making an entry against his farm in the land charges register. There can be no doubt in our mind that, whatever the original intentions may have been, the Franks Committee found that supervision was regarded as penal. We cannot in the same breath claim that Part II is a friendly measure and that it is a deterrent. One cannot have it as a carrot and as a spur. In an atmosphere free from the threat of disciplinary powers, I believe that the advisory services will be able to work more easily and efficiently in helping the less efficient farmers to raise their standards.
  LORD SILKIN: Is not the noble Earl misconstruing the effect of the Franks Committee Report? They expressed no opinion about the merits of this matter at all. I thought it was agreed that all they expressed was criticism of the way in which it was being done. That is not the language which the noble Earl has used. He referred to their view that it was "penal."
  EARL, WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and I have discussed this matter before, of course, and I absolutely agree, as I said on Second Reading, that the Franks Report expressed no opinion on whether or not Part II should be repealed. But they did say—and I am sure the noble Lord must remember it, because he was a member of that Committee—that this question of supervision orders had come to be regarded as penal. It is indeed a fact that if you have a mark against you on the land register it is marked up exactly like an endorsement of your licence: and it is, in effect, penal.
  We feel that the poorest farmers are in need of persuasion and help, and not of compulsion. Our view of the whole matter is expressed in the 1957 Act, in which we have enlarged and extended the guarantees and buttressed them, not with penal powers but with grants for the improvement of farms. If I may quote my right honourable friend in another place, he said that rather than harry and bully the bottom 1 per cent. of farmers we want to release the energies of the top 99 per cent. In present circumstances, moral arguments apart, the disciplinary powers
  34
  are useless and probably positively harmful.
  Now, those are the arguments on merits. But to come back to the Franks Report, the procedures by which the powers were operated under the 1947 Act by the Minister could no longer be maintained in the face of the conclusions of the Franks Committee. That Committee laid down that judicial functions should not be exercised by Ministers of the Crown who also exercised executive functions. We could not exclude agriculture from this general principle, which we accept and which the country accepts. In the face of that, the procedures of the 1947 Act would have had to be drastically altered if the powers were to be retained. This raised the question—which, with respect, I say the Opposition have never faced—whether the powers, on their merits, justified quite extensive legislation to create an entirely new machinery to ensure their continuance. This is the issue the Government had to decide, and it could not just let matters slide for the sake of a quiet life. We felt that there could be only one decision, and that was that the disciplinary powers of the 1947 Act had patently outlived their usefulness and that public opinion was against them. They were operating as a deterrent to efficiency and not as a help. The powers could not be left on the Statute Book as they were, and not operated. In our judgment, it would have been quite wrong to set up new judicial tribunals, leaving with agricultural executive committees the task of acting as detective to bring cases to light and prosecutors of cases before the new tribunals. And we know from our contacts with the committees that they would have been very unhappy with such an arrangement. The only course open to the Government was to face the facts and repeal these powers.
  We have been told that this means an end of the usefulness of agricultural executive committees. I can well believe that it would have been the end if we had left them simply with the rôle of detective and prosecutor before the Tribunal, but we have made no such mistake. There is a real, positive and productive task ahead of agricultural executive committees in many fields of activity including, in particular, the field of technical development and advice. Finally—it may be a small point, but I should like to make it—I suggest that

  35
  the policy we propose represents a far better use of the Ministry's staff. Formerly they had to play a part in the administration of Part II of the 1947 Act. To-day, surely, they will be more profitably employed on the administration of Part II of the 1957 Act, advising on and administering farm improvement schemes. My Lords, the Government are repealing Part II of the 1947 Act on its merits, for we are perfectly sure that in modern circumstances this is the right course to take.
  4.6 p.m.
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I must say that we like listening to the noble Earl. During the last twelve months or so, since he became very active here, he has become quite popular in the House. He is what is called "a good fellow", and we like him. He has made the best case he can for this extraordinary piece of legislation, which is now reaching its final stages. But, however nicely he puts the case, and however much he tries to woo us on this side of the House, may I say to him that the repeal of this Part of the 1947 Act is one of the grossest pieces of landlord legislation that we have ever come across. I do not care how he argues—that will continue to be our view from the facts.
  He says that as a result of the Report of the Franks Committee the position raised by the continuation of Part II of the Act would have been very awkward to deal with. He says that it was thought that in the future it would have a penal operation, and that, because of the cases that had gone before, in the opinion of the Franks Committee there had grown up a view that dispossession or supervision in such cases was penal. But is that kind of action which is now described as "penal" confined to the interpretation of Part II of the Agriculture Act? Almost every Government control on agriculture to-day is subject to action in cases of default which is penal. For example, we are to-day facing a vast improvement in the standard of the product in the milk industry. In this matter there have been the different stages. First of all we had the milk that was bad. Then we had milk that was a bit better—"accredited" I think was the term—and if a producer did not reach a certain standard and was not accredited
  36
  he soon found himself without a licence. They took it away. Then, to-day, if you become registered for tuberculin-tested milk and you do not reach a certain standard, you are in danger of having your licence taken away. That is penal—very penal. Why should the Ministry suddenly become—
  LORD HAWKE: Is that not precisely the same as the Factory Acts?
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Exactly.
  LORD HAWKE: Then why is it such a terrible thing to have something called penal under Part II of the Agriculture Act?
  LORD SALTOUN: The noble Lord has only to keep a cow giving a low enough quality milk, and he can appeal to her.
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I am afraid that that interjection does not take me any further in my argument one way or the other, although no doubt it is very humorous. But I must say that I cannot possibly see the difference. What has been the operation of Part II of the Act? The operation in the past has been that where certain standards were not being reached then it was possible for the local executive committee to have the judgment of farmers themselves and to put a farm under supervision.
  There seems to have been one public case, which the noble Earl himself described as a case of really bad farming, but there is no apparent complaint on his part that the action taken in that case was wrong. Somebody worked up a sort of agitation about that case. If, in the same way, you took away a licence from a farmer because his milk was not reaching the standard, nobody would grumble—but it would be penal. Then, because of the Franks Report, you say that you do not know what to do; that you cannot go on with this system because of the opinion of the Franks Committee. Well, it was not the opinion of the Franks Committee. They simply said that the view that this was penal had grown up, and they expressed no view on it themselves. You have made this Bill more than ever a landlords' measure, because what you have put in this Bill in place of that system makes

  37
  the landlord almost the only judge of whether two-thirds of the farmers in the country are efficient or not.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: May I interrupt the noble Viscount before he leaves the point about this being penal? I do not want him to misunderstand me, because I used the point rather differently. I said that we were anxious for farmers to come to the agricultural executive committees and the Ministry's officials for advice because they have great work to do, but we felt that if the committees had these penal powers the farmers would not come to them. I used the comment of the Franks Committee only to underline the point, to show that it was not only my own view but that the Committee also held that these powers were penal.
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Still I am not moved. I meet farmers as well as do a bit of farming myself, and I must say that that view of it does not run at all in this matter. Farmers, with few exceptions, have been very anxious to take advantage of the excellent work which is done by the Ministry's advisory officers. They have helped me again and again when difficulties have arisen, especially when I have to give so much time to Parliamentary and other duties. The Ministry of Agriculture officers deserve every praise and I have not the slightest complaint to make about them; nor can I imagine for one moment that there would be any difference if the agricultural executive committees were kept in existence—the same good results would be obtained.
  The Government run away from the fact that in the early years of the administration of the 1947 Act some thousands of farms were supervised, with on the whole excellent results. The number of people who were deprived of the control of their holdings compared with the thousands which were supervised is evidence that the work of the Ministry of Agriculture, its officers and the executive committees, was completely successful. That is the fact. But what has happened in the last few years? Ever since the storm over a case which the noble Earl himself described as one of bad farming, everything has been quietened down. The number of cases considered has fallen lower and lower. There is not the same amount of statistical evidence, and because of this falling off, you now abolish it.
  38
  Is there not another side to the Bill? You talk about the difficult task of providing bodies to take the place of the agricultural executive committees. You have not hesitated to set up a new set of tribunals to deal with appeals from farmers who in future are going to be judged mainly by the landlords as to their efficiency. I have not heard one single argument to-day which would make me go hack on my own view that this is a Bill in favour of the landlords.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: I think I must really interrupt the noble Viscount, if he will allow me. He used the words "mainly judged by the landlords"; but the tribunals will be composed of a legal chairman, a landlord and a farmer. Why that is "mainly landlord", I fail to understand.
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: The Government would not face the task of finding a legal tribunal for the general application of Part II; nevertheless they are going to the trouble of setting up a tribunal to which the farmer brings his appeal, but the accuser is the landlord. The decision on whether the case ought to be brought or not is not left to the judgment of the agricultural executive committees, as it was before. That apparently does not run.
  I think I have proved my case. Of course, the noble Earl would not dream of thinking that the Government he represents have made "kissing go by favour" (if I may use an old saying), but we think that they have. The Government have done this largely for their friends the landlords. But this is not the only thing they have done which has no popular appeal. I do not think that there is any popular appeal in repealing such portions of taxation as would save the surtax payer £30 million in one year; but the Government did it and, I say, did it for their friends. I am sure that there may be other cases in which, for other reasons, they might take actions which would not have a popular vote.
  But we also have to deal with the results of this action. I say that one-third of the farmers, who are owner-occupiers, will be free from practically any check whatsoever on their standards of farming, while the other two-thirds, who are tenant farmers, will have to face this unfair position. If we are going to be able

  39
  to continue the steady progress which has been made in the last few years under the administration of this Act, we shall be doing an ill service to the agricultural industry as a whole if we pass this Bill and administer it in anything but the highest sense of justice. I do not suppose that all we may say to-day is going to stop the Government from passing it. After the speech of the noble Earl, I can see that he is quite determined, and the Government behind him. But we shall watch the effect of this new Statute with the greatest keenness. I am sure that before the Bill has gone far, in the next year or two, when another Government occupies those Benches, you will find different provisions made for the promotion of the success of the agricultural industry than this Bill seems to involve.
  4.20 p.m.
  LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, noble Lords opposite have taken a very high moral tone. We have fallen away from grace. This is "a landlords' Bill." I want to tell your Lordships an experience of my own. Before the 1947 Act, at the commencement of the last war, similar powers were given to agricultural executive committees. At the beginning of the war I was in a position in which there came under my observation a large number of smallholders who had been registered by officialdom as carters, and had been called to the Colours and left their wives and families to carry on the cultivation of the holdings. There were complaints by these men and their officers of bitter hardship and wrong exercised on these humble, poor people by the use or the misuse of these powers. When I saw them continued in the 1947 Act, to me it was quite horrible, and after that experience I shall always be grateful to any Government that takes them away. But not only am I grateful; I am sure that throughout Scotland there is a large number of people in humble, poor homes who will be grateful to the Government for taking away these powers, because while they exist these people can never be easy for fear of some similar sort of thing happening.
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I really must protest if that is the way it is going to be left. Apparently the cases to which the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, refers were
  40
  cases of hardship arising from military service before the 1947 Act.
  LORD SALTOUN: The hardship did not arise from the military service, but from the use of powers similar to those which are now being taken away.
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: The noble Lord means that they were not adequately staffed because the men on the croft had been called to the Colours?
  LORD SALTOUN: It would be a long story to tell the noble Viscount; I will tell him outside, if he does not mind.
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER of HILLSBOROUGH: We will leave it to the record of Hansard. Certainly if you want the agricultural industry to go on expanding and developing, and not let the workers on the land fall back into the dreadful state of 1924, after the repeal of the Corn Production Act, you will have to produce something better than this.
  On Question, Amendment negatived.
  Clause 3:
  Amendments as to notices to quit agricultural holdings
  (2) The following subsection shall be substituted for subsection (1) of section twenty-five of the Act of 1948 (which requires the Minister to withhold his consent to the operation of a notice to quit an agricultural holding unless he is satisfied as to certain matters)—
  "(1) The Agricultural Land Tribunal shall consent under the last foregoing section to the operation of a notice to quit an agricultural holding or part of an agricultural holding if, but only if, they are satisfied as to one or more of the following matters, being a matter or matters specified by the landlord in his application for their consent, that is to say—
  (b) that the carrying out thereof is desirable in the interests of sound management of the estate of which the land to which the notice relates forms part or which that land constitutes; or
  (d) that greater hardship would be caused by withholding than by giving consent to the operation of the notice; or
  (e) that the landlord proposes to terminate the tenancy for the purpose of the land's being used for a use, other than for agriculture, not falling within paragraph (b) of subsection (2) of the last foregoing section:

  41
  Provided that, notwithstanding that they are satisfied as aforesaid, the Tribunal shall withhold consent to the operation of the novice to quit if in all the circumstances it appears to them that a fair and reasonable landlord would not insist on possession."
  4.24 p.m.
  LORD SILKIN LORD SILKIN moved, in subsection (2), to omit the proposed new paragraph (b). The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is the provision which provides for notices to quit. There are certain circumstances in which under paragraphs (a) to (e) it is possible for a landlord to get possession. In the case of the one that is the subject of this Amendment, the landlord can get possession if he satisfies the tribunal that it
  "is desirable in the interests of sound management of the estate of which the land to which the notice relates forms part or which that land constitutes".
  This again is an Amendment that we discussed on the Committee stage. I then criticised it on the ground that a landlord will get possession on the vague terms that it is "desirable in the interests of sound management". It is difficult for a tenant, knowing nothing of the circumstances, to meet a case of that kind. He may be occupying a relatively small part of a large estate, and there may be no complaint about the way in which he is farming; yet he can be dispossessed on the vague ground that it is "desirable in the interests of sound management of the estate". It does not say that it is essential, or even that it is desirable in the interests of agriculture that possession should be given.
  "Sound management of the estate" may involve all sorts of considerations, other than agriculture, which may not necessarily be in the public interest. Sound management of the estate, from the point of view of the landowner, may be a very different thing from sound management of the estate from the point of view of the public interest; and there may even be a conflict. Nevertheless, a landlord has only to go before the tribunal and satisfy them that he could make more money, if he had possession of this small farm, by a more efficient and profitable management of the estate, and he can get possession. We think that that is quite wrong, and it is in order to delete this
  42
  particular power that I move this Amendment. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 2, line 45, leave out paragraph (b).—(Lord Silkin.)
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, we have already debated this matter in Committee and I do not want to go over all the same ground again. Perhaps I can make two points and then illustrate the sort of situation with which paragraph (b) is designed to deal. First, there is nothing new in a provision enabling a landlord to obtain possession on estate management grounds. It is laid down in the 1948 Act. Therefore, I find it somewhat difficult to believe that those who move this Amendment wish to delete the provision entirely. If they do, it seems wholly inconsistent with their general attitude, which seems to be that the 1947 and 1948 Acts were so good that they should not be touched at all; and this provision, or a similar one, is included in the 1948 Act. The second point is that the National Farmers' Union and the Country Landowners' Association accepted that the provision in the 1948 Act relating to estate management was not working satisfactorily. They had much discussion together and this new provision was agreed. In a matter affecting so closely relations between landlords and tenants that is of first importance; and the two sides, through their organisations, were agreed. Is it really suggested that we should disregard this agreement?
  The landlord and tenant system will not work unless estates are well managed and divided into satisfactory and well-equipped holdings. We are giving our grants under Part II of the 1957 Act for this purpose. But often we find that there are unsatisfactory holdings where the landlord could not be advised to spend capital on new or improved equipment. Nor could the Government pay grant in respect of capital expenditure. The only long-term course, on grounds of sound management, will be to run such a holding together with a neigh-houring holding on the estate. Then capital can properly be spent on equipping the two holdings as a single unit with a single homestead. Paragraph (b) enables a fair and reasonable landlord to obtain possession in these circumstances. It is in the public interest that

  43
  he should be enabled to do so; and, therefore, I cannot accept the proposed deletion of this paragraph.
  On Question, Amendment negatived.
  4.30 p.m.
  LORD WISE LORD WISE moved, in subsection (2), to omit the proposed new paragraph (d). The noble Lord said: My Lords, I hope that at long last the Government will meet us on this Amendment. It will be within the memory of noble Lords that at the Committee stage of the Bill we discussed the question of hardship in relation to the tenant, and the Government were not able to accept the proposed Amendment to that clause. This Amendment is on a somewhat different footing. We have heard on many occasions that in regard to the agricultural industry there are three partners—the landlord, the tenant and the agricultural worker. There seems to be nothing in this Bill in so far as the agricultural worker is concerned; it deals mainly with the landlord and the tenant. It has been said—and I think quite rightly—that it is in the nature of a landlords' Bill. Certainly Clause 3 favours the landlord and mainly safeguards his interests. It gives him the right of approach to the agricultural land tribunal on very favourable terms indeed for the tribunal's consent to the operation of a notice to quit. The terms are set out in Clause 3. The first is in the interests of good husbandry. We have just dealt with the second. The third is in regard to research, education and smallholdings, and the fourth is the one with which I am dealing at the moment.
  Under previous Acts the landlord has certain protection in regard to notices to quit. Under those Acts he is helped in obtaining possession of his farm, and the tenant has to be on his best behaviour in many respects lest he be subject to notice to quit: he has to pay his rent on time, he has to carry out his obligations under his tenancy, he has to farm according to good husbandry, and in many other ways. I think that this particular clause rather loads the dice once again against the tenant. The Parliamentary Secretary may argue that there is a proviso in this clause which is of help to the tenant. But let us look at the clause in relation to the proviso. The particular subsection with which I am dealing is a purely personal one. It is not of the same description as the other subsections in Clause 3 but is
  44
  a personal one, and it calls upon the landlord to establish a fact before the agricultural land tribunal. That fact is that the withholding of consent to the operation of the notice to quit, which he has already served upon his tenant, will create hardship to himself.
  The Parliamentary Secretary will argue that the tenant has the same right to come before the tribunal and try to establish hardship. But in a dispute between the tenant and the landlord with regard to hardship, the position is quite impossible for the tenant. He can prove his own hardship, but he cannot refute the landlord's hardship. The landlord can state his case, and the tenant has no means of refuting it. Once the landlord has proved that it would be a hardship for the tribunal to withhold consent to the notice to quit, then it is obvious that, in that particular case, the proviso will not operate, because the tribunal, having once decided that it is reasonable and having accepted the hardship case, cannot possibly go back on their decision and suggest that the landlord is not a fair and reasonable person and that consent should be withheld. Having once decided that the landlord is correct and that hardship will be entailed by withholding the notice to quit, the tribunal, I suggest, cannot then decide that the consent should not be given if they consider that "the landlord is a fair and reasonable person".
  The tenant is put in a difficult position. In many cases he suffers undue hardship by notice to quit. He may be an excellent farmer, and in this I call to mind the words of the noble Lord at the last stage that the landlord might not be able to get rid of an unsatisfactory farmer. In this particular case the landlord may be able to get rid of an excellent farmer, because if he proves to the tribunal that he would suffer hardship, then the tenant, whether he is a good or a bad farmer, would have to leave. The Government all along have been trying to persuade us that they wish for fair treatment both for the landlord and tenant. I suggest that if that is the case, then the only thing they can possibly do is to take out paragraph (d) from the Bill, and allow the tenant to come into the Bill on the same terms as the landlord, and not on adverse terms.
  I have a feeling that the landlords will not do so badly out of this Bill. I also feel that the time is coming when the

  45
  landlords may have a far better time than they have had in the past. I am prepared to admit of bad times in regard to owners of farms, but with rents provided for under the Bill, and with improvements catered for under various other Bills which we have recently passed, the agricultural landlords should be in a far better position than they have been for perhaps many generations. I hope the Government will give way on this Amendment and delete paragraph (d) from the Bill and, in the words of my noble Leader, leave the tenant in a fair and square position. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 3, line 6, leave out paragraph (d).—(Lord Wise.)
  LORD SILKIN: On the Committee stage I had an Amendment down under which it would not have been open to the tribunal to make an order for possession if it would involve greater hardship on the tenant. That Amendment was defeated. So we are left with the provision that the tribunal can make an order for possession if there is hardship on the landlord, but cannot refuse to make an order for possession if there is hardship on the tenant. I hoped that the Government would be able to agree that there should be the same criterion in both cases.
  LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I beg the noble Lord's pardon. Would he elaborate that a little? As I read it, it is the same for both—"that greater hardship would be caused by withholding than by giving consent. …" It seems to me they are exactly balanced. Would the noble Lord elaborate it?
  LORD SILKIN: As I read this provision, it is that the tribunal have got to make an order for possession if there would be greater hardship on the land-lord—
  LORD SALTOUN: On either.
  LORD SILKIN: It is only the landlord gets the benefit of this provision: the tenant does not. The landlord is seeking possession of the holding, and if there is greater hardship on him he gets possession. The hardship of the tenant is not taken into consideration at all. It is not open to the tenant to come along and say to the Tribunal: "There is hardship on me and therefore you ought not to mike the order for possession."
  LORD SALTOUN: I beg the noble Lord's pardon. Surely the greater hardship is not on the landlord; it is on the tenant. If the lesser hardship is on the landlord and the greater hardship is on the tenant, then the landlord does not get his order. Is not that right'?
  LORD SILKIN: I do not read it that way. I read it as a one-sided provision under which the landlord can get possession if he would suffer the greater hardship; but it does not protect the tenant in any way. However, that is the case for the Amendment. I admit that it is not an easy provision to understand. If it provided that the tenant could come along and say that there would be great hardship on him if the tribunal made the order for possession, and the tribunal could accept that and refuse the order, I should be prepared to agree that there is no point in the Amendment. But I do not read the Bill that way. I would be very grateful if we could have a clear statement as to what this provision really means.
  4.45 p.m.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, perhaps it would be convenient if I replied straight away to these points that have been raised. I hope that I can help the noble Lord, Lord Wise, on this matter, because what is running in both his mind and Lord Silkin's mind is this supposed loading of the dice, this unfairness, this landlord's privilege, and so on. I want to assure your Lordships that I believe that this provision is fair and that the dice are not loaded. I want to deploy this argument as carefully as I can and try to make this point. The Amendment as we have it makes it impossible for a landlord to obtain possession on hardship grounds. That is quite clear. Under this Amendment, he would not have even the limited right which he has now under Section 25 (1) (c) and (d) of the 1948 Act to seek consent on grounds of hardship if he wants the land for a purpose specified in the contract of tenancy or if both the landlord and the tenancy are still the same as in August, 1947.
  There is, clearly, some misunderstanding here, which has been brought out in the exchanges between the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, a moment ago, about the effect of the "hardship" provision in the Bill

  47
  as it is now drawn under this paragraph (d). Let us get this point quite clear. Hardship cannot be argued by the tenant as an overriding defence against any other grounds. That was the point which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin made before. The hardship defence is used when hardship is raised. One of the grounds that a landlord can use is hardship. If he raises that ground the tenant can defend himself by pleading greater hardship. It will be for the Tribunal to decide on balance which hardship is the greater.
  The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, on Committee stage was asking that the tenant could plead hardship, as I understand it, as an overriding defence against any other grounds—good husbandry or good estate management or anything else. I tried to explain then, and your Lordships agreed because you rejected the Amendment, that we could not do that in the interests of agriculture or anything else. That is where the confusion has arisen and this question of "dice-loading" comes in. As I said, a landlord who wants to plead hardship must specify this in his application, and the tenant will therefore know that point is going to be raised. He will then be able to prepare his answer and plead his own greater hardship. The landlord must prove that greater hardship will be caused if the tribunal refuse the order than if they give it. This deals with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wise. It is the tribunal who has to decide which is the greater hardship when the point is raised. The onus of proof is clearly on the landlord, and it is not easy to prove.
  I do not think this is a "landlord's charter" at all. Let us consider the tenant first. There has been so much misunderstanding that I want to go through it carefully. Consent to the notice might take away the tenant's livelihood, and deprive him and his family of their home. His hardship is obviously grave. Even where an alternative holding is readily available, he will have the hardship of moving. Now let us consider the landlord's case. He is going to put up the ground of hardship. Refusal to consent will not deprive him of something he already has: at best it will disappoint him in an expectation. I think your Lordships will agree that it is not going to be easy for a landlord to prove that
  48
  greater hardship will be caused by refusing consent than by giving it. Even if the landlord does establish this point—and I will come in a moment to the sort of case where I think he may be able to establish it—the tribunal are still required to refuse consent
  "if, in all the circumstances it appears to them that a fair and reasonable landlord would not insist on possession."
  If, for example, the landlord had only recently bought the farm and the tenant was one of long standing who had done the farm well, it seems to me that even if the landlord established greater hardship the tribunal might hold that a fair and reasonable landlord would not in the circumstances turn out that tenant. Again, if the prospective occupier was a bad farmer—the landlord's son, perhaps—and the tenant was a good one, one was experienced and the other inexperienced, a "reasonable landlord", in spite of considerations of hardship, might decide to let the tenant stay. The tribunal would have to decide that. The cases where consent is given on grounds of hardship will, I think, be limited. I should like to say a word on the sort of case where I think hardship might justify consent. It will depend on the opinion of the tribunal, and it will be for them to weigh up and judge.
  Let us take the case for a moment of an owner-occupier with a medium-sized farm, a hundred acres or so. Suppose that that owner-occupier falls ill, and finds that he cannot manage this farm himself any longer, but he wants to retain the house because he lives in it together with his wife and children: he does not want to get out of it altogether. It may be that the best his wife and his young son, shall we say, can properly do is to tackle about half the farm. He would like to let the rest of his farm to a neighbour while he is sick and while his son is young. That neighbour may be an excellent farmer with several farms, who could well tackle this land in addition to his own organisation. But under the present law the owner-occupier cannot let his farm on a lease for a term. He has to consider whether it would be wise for him to let the farm go while he is sick. This will almost certainly be a risky thing to do, because he will have no ground whatever for getting it back. Under the law as it stands to-day he will not dare let some of this land, so he will retain

  49
  it, and no doubt he, or, rather, his wife and young son, will farm it as best they can; and I doubt if this is in the best interests of agriculture.
  How much better it would be if he let off a portion of the land to this other farmer! Circumstances change; the man gets better; his son goes to a farm institute, and becomes qualified. He would like to have his farm back again. There will be no hardship to the tenant, who is a big farmer and has plenty of land. Under paragraph (d) he could plead that there would be greater hardship to him if he did not get his holding back again. Would your Lordships wish to deprive that type of man in such circumstances of the only grounds on which it was open to him to make that kind of arrangement? He is not a Duke, just a small man. It is by no means a foregone conclusion. We are not bringing in any lease "through the back door," because this has to go to the tribunal and the tribunal has to judge of the greater hardship within the terms of the proviso. There it is.
  As if have said, Clause 3 has the agreement of both sides of the industry. We have, indeed, specifically asked both the Country Landowners' Association and the National Farmers' Union whether they were satisfied with the present wording of this provision, and we have been assured that it meets their wishes. That seems to me a very good reason for retaining the wording in the Bill, and I ant not convinced by any of the arguments that I have heard for the Amendment, cogently as they were put. I know that it may be said that hard cases make bad law. But I think it is a mark of a good law to make equitable provision for human hardship. In my view, this clause of the Bill makes that provision and I must recommend your Lordships to reject the Amendment.
  LORD WISE: My Lords, the noble Earl has given us a hypothetical case which surely would have been covered quite properly by the "hardship" clause in the 1948 Act, in regard to a contract made between the landlord and the tenant. It seems to me that this Bill takes the contract part of it out of the hardship case. Would it not be possible, in view of the great difference of opinion as to the interpretation of this subsection, and if the Government are determined that
  50
  it should still remain in the Bill, for the Government to have a look at the wording to see that there is no ambiguity as to the interpretation?
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, if I may by leave of the House speak again, I would say that if it is a question of looking again at the words I do not think that would be helpful. These words have been looked at carefully by both sides of the industry. There is absolute agreement on both sides, the landlords' organisation and the farmers' organisation, on the wording, and I really do not see what would be the point of considering them again.
  LORD WISE: There seems to be a difference of opinion on the two sides of the House.
  On Question, Amendment negatived.
  4.55 p.m.
  LORD SILKIN LORD SILKIN moved, in subsection (2), to omit the proposed new paragraph (e). The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name. This is to leave out paragraph (e),
  "that the landlord proposes to terminate the tenancy for the purpose of the land's being used for a use, other than for agriculture".
  The landlord can thereby get possession. I would draw attention to the operative words of the clause—namely, that the tribunal shall consent to an order for possession. They are under an obligation to do so, subject, of course, to the proviso. I am well aware of the proviso which the noble Earl has quoted on many occasions, but they must make an order for possession if the landlord proposes to terminate the tenancy for the purpose of the land's being used for a use other than for agriculture. Hardship does not arise here. Even if the hardship of a tenant is very great, it does not arise; this is one of the grounds on which the tribunal must make an order for possession.
  I would ask the noble Earl to consider the kind of use that a landlord could make of the land. First of all, it will be something other than agriculture. It must, I presume, be something for which planning permission has been given—I accept that. Therefore, it may well be that in the opinion of the planning authority, it will be a proper use of the land. I would not deny that. Nevertheless, it need not necessarily be in the national

  51
  interest that the land should be used for that other purpose. This is taking away an agricultural use. It might be for the purpose of starting up a factory; it might be for the purpose of starting up a race-course—after all, racecourses have been started with planning permission and on agricultural land. The dominating factor will be that the landlord can do better, that he can make a greater profit.
  Whatever the alternative use may be, tribunals are under the obligation to make an order for possession. I agree that if they are satisfied that a fair and reasonable landlord would not insist on possession, they have a discretion not to make the order. But the test of what a fair and reasonable landlord would do is a subjective one; the noble Earl and myself, for instance, might have very different views as to what a fair and reasonable landlord would do. It is not a thing you can appeal about. I imagine that if you took 100 people and got their views as to what a fair and reasonable landlord would do, you might get a large number of conflicting ideas about it. It is not a matter on which a tenant can rely. I admit that in a glaring case such as the noble Earl mentioned, where a person buys a piece of land one day and the next day gives notice to quit and goes to the tribunal because he proposes to use the land for some purposes other than agriculture and for which, if you like, he has obtained planning permission, the tribunal obviously would say that no fair and reasonable landlord would jump in like that; and one can imagine other cases.
  There are, however, many other cases where they would be in great difficulty, and I can well imagine their saying, "After all, this is a borderline case and it is the man's land. He is entitled to do what he likes with it, and if he can make a bigger profit by getting possession, then why should he not do so?" A great deal will depend on the sympathies, on the personal attitude, of the tribunal. That is something one cannot avoid. It is not as if they were interpreting a fixed law which is there before them and on which they have to give a judicial decision. It might well seem to them fair and reasonable that they should give a decision in favour of the landlord. I feel that it would be far better to delete this provision altogether in cases where the land-
  52
  lord wants to use the land for some other purpose—not necessarily for some purpose beneficial to the public interest. If those words "beneficial to the public interest", were inserted and if he had to establish that it was in the public interest that he should get possession even though he might wish to use the land for another purpose, I should find a great deal of difficulty in arguing. But where the position is simply that he wants to change from agricultural use to some other use I believe he should not be entitled to do so. Therefore, I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 3, line 9, leave out paragraph (e).—(Lord Silkin.)
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, naturally I have some nervousness in arguing on planning law with the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, for he has forgotten more on that subject than I shall ever know. This is really a matter which deals with planning law versus this agricultural law. I am a little puzzled to know why the noble Lord wants to have this paragraph out, because, as your Lordships know, it was in the 1948 Act and apparently has worked satisfactorily in the past though it has been very little used. It is a type of case which is very rare.
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, will the noble Earl forgive my interrupting? He says that this is in the 1948 Act but he does not hesitate to amend that Act. He has amended it all through whenever it has suited him.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, certainly I am amending it. We have been scolded for amending the Act and I think that that is a perfectly fair point to make. We have been told in this place and elsewhere that the 1947 and 1948 Acts were very good and should be left alone; but we have felt that they needed amendment. I think it is fair to say that the noble Lord is now seeking to alter the Act where we are leaving parts of it alone.
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, we have never objected to amending the Act to improve it. The noble Earl is saying things which we have never said from this side of the House. We have never said these Acts are sacrosanct and must not be amended in any way. The noble Earl is putting words into our mouth.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I beg the noble Lord's pardon, for I should not wish to do that. But if we may

  53
  continue the argument, under this Amendment a landlord who wanted to use his land for non-agricultural purpose for which planning permission is not required, such as forestry (that is probably the normal use for which this provision would be applied) would be unable to put that forward as a ground for consent for a notice to quit; but I think it is agreed generally that the tribunal should be able to consider the case where a landlord puts his position forward on those grounds, and should be able to give consent if they are satisfied that the case of the landlord is genuine and that a fair and reasonable landlord would in fact insist on possession in all the circumstances. Again I must say that this clause has the agreement of both sides of the industry—the Landowners' Association and the National Farmers' Union.
  It may be helpful if I try to explain something which will closely follow the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin—the relationship of paragraph (e) of this clause to the other provision about notice to quit for non-agricultural use, at present in Section 24 (2)(b) of the 1948 Act. Under that provision, which is not affected by this Bill, a landlord who has planning permission to put his land to a non-agricultural use can serve a notice to quit on the grounds that he requires the land for that use, and need not then obtain consent to the notice. In these cases, where a planning authority has already decided that there is no objection to the land's going out of agriculture, it would, in our view, be unreasonable to require the landlord to obtain consent from some other body which in effect would have to reconsider the decision of the planning authority. We do not think that that would be at all desirable. It was not in the legislation that has existed up to now and we do not think it should be. The Bill will not alter this position in any way.
  Paragraph (e) of Clause 3 of the Bill, however, covers uses such as private forestry for which Town and Country Planning consent is not required. I need not remind your Lordships that the proviso requiring the tribunal to decide the application by the standards of a fair and reasonable landlord will apply to this paragraph just as it applies to all the others. It seems to us, therefore, that a tenant is fully safeguarded against any unfair or unreasonable use of this ground
  54
  for consent and that this clause should stand. I must, therefore, ask your Lordships to reject the Amendment.
  On Question, Amendment negatived.
  First Schedule.
  [Minor and consequential Amendments]:
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: May I, with your Lordships' permission, take Amendments 5 and 6 together? These are purely technical Amendments and I do not think I need speak long on them. They will enable the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor to deal with the period prescribed under Section 50 (3) by order, so that it can be included in the omnibus order he will be making to regulate the establishment, constitution and procedure of agricultural land tribunals. As the Bill is at present drafted he would otherwise have to make a separate regulation, and we consider that that is undesirable. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 17, line 29, at end insert—
  ("15. In section fifty, in subsection (3), the following paragraph shall be inserted at the end—
  "In this subsection" the prescribed period "means the period prescribed by the Lord Chancellor by order made by statutory instrument (which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament); and the power to make orders under this subsection shall include a power, exercisable in the like manner, to revoke or vary any order made thereunder.'").—(Earl Waldegrave.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 18, line 1, leave out from beginning to end of line 4.—(Earl Waldegrave.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, this is a somewhat technical Amendment and is designed to remedy a defect which has recently come to light in the Sixth Schedule to the Agriculture Holding Act, 1948, which provides for the conduct of arbitrations. The Amendment provides the machinery whereby an arbitrator can obtain a ruling from the courts where there is a dispute as to whether he has jurisdiction to hear and decide a case referred to him. It would also enable him to award costs, and to have his remuneration fixed, whether or not he has jurisdiction. I think it will

  55
  interest your Lordships to know that this point has been discussed with the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, who agree that there is in the 1948 procedure a defect which needs to be put right; and they consider that the terms of this Amendment provide the appropriate remedy. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 18, line 7, at end insert—
  ("21.—(1) The provisions of paragraph 24 of the Sixth Schedule (under which a special case may be stated for the opinion of the county court where any question of law arises in the course of an arbitration under the Act of 1948) shall apply in relation to a question as to the jurisdiction of an arbitrator as they apply in relation to a question of law arising in the course of an arbitration.
  (2) The provisions of the Sixth Schedule relating to the fixing and recovery of the remuneration of an arbitrator and the making and enforcement of an award as to costs together with any other provision thereof applicable for the purposes of or in connection with those provisions shall apply where the arbitrator has no jurisdiction to decide the question referred to him as they apply Where the arbitrator has jurisdiction to decide that question.").—(Earl Waldegrave.)
  LORD WISE: My Lords, if the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors agree, then I, as a member, also agree.
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, this Amendment is a drafting one only. Paragraph 10 of the Schedule sets out the amended Section 26 of the Agricultural Holdings Act and enables the Lord Chancellor to provide certain things by order. In Section 21 of the Reserve and Auxiliary Forces (Protection of Civil Interests) Act, 1951, there is a reference to Section 26 of the 1948 Act as authorising the making of regulations. This Amendment substitutes "orders" for "regulations" to bring the reference in Section 21 of the 1951 Act into line with paragraph 10 of this Schedule. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 18, line 25, after ("Lord Chancellor") insert ("and for the reference to regulations there shall be substituted a reference to orders,")—(Earl Waldegrave.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  5.11 p.m.
  LORD SALTOUN LORD SALTOUN moved, after paragraph 30, to insert:
  "31. Paragraph (b) of subsection (2) of section seven which relates to variation of rent) shall cease to have effect."
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of the Amendment is to take out Section 7 (2) (b) of the 1949 Act, which provides that in a rent arbitration the arbiter must not take into account the relief in respect of rates to occupiers of agricultural holdings affected by the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1929, nor the amounts recoverable by occupiers from owners under Section 47 of that Act nor any benefit that may accrue to the tenant from the operation of the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931.
  So far as the rates are concerned, now that there is to be a statutory direction to arbiters to fix rents on the basis of open-market value, the reference to de-rating relief of occupiers and owners is hardly relevant any longer. The arbiter has to put himself in the position of a prospective offerer for a farm and decide what he will offer for that farm, and he has to take the rates and everything else into account, including fixed equipment and such things. Every prospective tenant must be assumed to know what his liability for rates is to be. In 1961 when the revaluation of all heritable subjects is completed and the new valuation lists come into force, agricultural land will cease to be rated altogether and the houses and cottages will be separately valued and rated, the rates being paid by the occupier of the holding, as in England.
  The reference to amounts recoverable by occupiers from owners under Section 47 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1929, is now probably completely out of date. There are probably very few people affected by that to-day. Then there is a reference to the Agricultural Marketing Act, and I suggest that it is not applicable to the present position, because the profitability of agriculture is now dependent upon the system of guaranteed prices deficiency payments and grants. To retain this reference is only confusing to the arbiter. In any case, a farmer or an offerer for a farm to rent is aware of the profit trends in farming, quite irrespective of the Agricultural Marketing Act. One would like to know what is meant by the reference to the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931, and in what way the arbiter is intended to apply it.
  That is what interested parties think, and I should like to add a further argument. Parliament is very fond (and I

  57
  have protested about it on more than one occasion) of deciding hypothetical conditions under which an arbiter is required to value a property. When I was a professional Associate of the Surveyors' Institution (having taken the Intermediate Examination, as the noble Lord, Lord Wise, will appreciate), I would, as a valuer, have valued a building lot anywhere—in heaven, hell, or anywhere else. I thought I knew all about valuation and I was perfectly prepared to value anything under any conditions laid down by Parliament in any Act. Fortunately for the world, one goes through a further stage. A valuer who really is a competent valuer realises that valuation is a very fine art and, as in the case of those engaged in other arts, a valuer improves by experience. A valuer must be extremely sensitive to current trends.
  A valuer never feels really happy unless he is dealing with a commodity in a market—I think that is a fair way to put it as the noble Lord, Lord Wise, will probably agree. Therefore, if we have an Act of Parliament which directs how a valuer is to do his work, the fewer conditions by which we bind him the better. With any commodity and any market his "feel" of the price is always formed by his knowledge of the law affecting that commodity and every other consideration affecting it in the market. We shall get very much better results if we do not hamper valuers too much by hypothetical considerations, which every good valuer hates to see embodied in Acts of Parliament. For that reason I am rather anxious that the Government should accede to this Amendment.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 19, line 23, at end insert—
  ("31. Paragraph (b) of subsection (2) of section seven (which relates to variation of rent) shall cease to have effect.")—(Lord Saltoun.)
  LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, has explained the purpose of this Amendment, but I should like to view the matter a little more carefully than he has done. He wishes to delete Section 7 (2) (b) of the 1949 Act. That section provides that in a rent arbitration the arbiter must not take into account the relief in respect of rates given to occupiers of agricultural holdings by the de-rating provisions of the Local Government
  58
  (Scotland) Act, 1929, nor the amounts which occupiers could recover from owners in consequence of these provisions (that is, Section 47 of the Act), nor any benefit that may accrue to the tenant from the operation of the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931.
  The basic issue raised by this Amendment is whether the benefit of relief from rates should accrue to the tenant or to the owner. The whole purpose of the de-rating provisions of the Act, or one of the main purposes of the Act of 1929, was to relieve occupiers, not owners, of the burden of rates; and that remains the policy of Her Majesty's Government to-day. The Act of 1949 prevents the arbiter from nullifying the relief which the tenant obtains as a result of de-rating. If I understood the noble Lord aright, he commented also that the meaning of the provision of the 1949 Act, which he wishes to repeal, is not quite clear. I would say that if a form of words can be advised which will remedy the doubt, if it exists, it will certainly be taken into account when a comprehensive review of the Agricultural Holdings Acts is under-taken.
  As regards any benefits that might accrue from the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931, a farmer might, for example, get better returns as a result of improved marketing. Clearly that is not a matter which should be taken into account in determining rent. I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising this matter. I am sorry that I am quite unable to accept his Amendment, but I can assure the noble Lord that we will give further consideration to the matter when there is any prospect of legislation to amend the Agricultural Holdings Acts. I hope that with that assurance he may be, prepared to withdraw his Amendment.
  LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I am grateful for the trouble that my noble friend has taken, but I am still a little worried, because, speaking as a valuer, it seems to me that I have to carry two contrary things in my head at the same time. I think that if my noble friend Lord Strathclyde will consider it logically for a little while he will probably come to the same conclusion that I have come to. I have not the smallest wish to embarrass Her Majesty's Government, and if they will not accept the Amendment I certainly shall not press it, but if

  59
  he examines it logically he will find that it is rather difficult to accept the position that he has now.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Second Schedule [Enactments repealed in consequence of the provisions of this Act]:
  5.21 p.m.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, we now come to the Second Schedule. In paragraph 3 of the First Schedule, which amends Section 73 of the 1947 Act, it is provided that paragraph (c) of subsection (3) of the section shall be omitted. This Amendment is merely a drafting one to include this paragraph in the list of enactments that will be repealed in consequence of the provisions of the Bill. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 23, line 39 (column 3), at end insert—
  ("In section seventy-three, in subsection (3), paragraph (c).")—(Earl Waldegrave.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, during the Committee stage in another place paragraph 10 of the First Schedule was redrafted so that it now sets out the whole of the new Section 26. As paragraph 10 provides for the new Section 26 to be substituted in full for the present Section 26, the partial repeal of the present provision is not required, and this Amendment accordingly omits it from the list of provisions to be repealed. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 25, line 10, leave out from beginning to end of line 18.—(Earl Waldegrave.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Fourth Schedule [Transitional provisions]:
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, with your permission I will take Amendments No. 12 and No. 13 together, These two Amendments seek merely to tidy up part of the Fourth Schedule which contains the transitional provisions. The Bill provides for certain functions to be transferred from the Minister to arbitrators, the Agricultural Land Tribunal or the Lord Chancellor. The Fourth Schedule at present contains a number of paragraphs which preserve the validity of action taken by the Minister under
  60
  powers which are now being transferred from him. We have been advised that these paragraphs may not provide a complete saving, and the two Amendments seek to substitute a general saving in the place of the specific ones. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 27, line 31, at end insert—
  ("1. Where, by virtue of any provision of the First Schedule to this Act, any functions of the Minister under an enactment referred to in that provision fall to he exercised after the coming into operation thereof by the Lord Chancellor, the Agricultural Land Tribunal or an arbitrator, anything done in the exercise of those functions, in so far as it has effect immediately before the coming into operation of that provision shall, subject to the provisions of this Schedule, continue to have effect thereafter as if done by the Lord Chancellor, the Agricultural Land Tribunal or an arbitrator, as the case may be, under the said enactment as amended by this Act.").—(Earl Waldegrave.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 29, line 8, leave out from beginning to end of line 13.—(Earl Waldegrave.)
  On Question. Amendment agreed to.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, this is purely a drafting Amendment, and I do not think that it needs exposition at all. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 29, line 44, leave out from beginning to end of line 4 on page 30, and insert—
  ("10. Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph 1 of this Schedule, regulations made by the (Minister under section twenty-six or section fifty of the Act of 1948 in force immediately before the passing of this Act shall continue in force thereafter and shall be treated as orders made by the Lord Chancellor under the said section twenty-six, or, as the case may be, the said section fifty, as amended by this Act.").—(Earl Waldegrave.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, it may be convenient for the House to take Amendments Nos. 15, 16 and 17 together. These Amendments provide merely for the application to Scotland of the Amendments to the Fourth Schedule which have just been moved by the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, and which have been accepted by your Lordships. The first Amendment is purely drafting. The second Amendment provides in the new paragraph 1 that, so far as Scotland is concerned, the Lord Chancellor does not

  61
  come into the picture at all. The Secretary of State, the Land Court and an arbiter take the place of the Lord Chancellor, the Agricultural Land Tribunal and an arbitrator respectively. The third Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 30, line 25, leave out ("Paragraph 1") and insert ("Paragraphs 1 and 2").—(Lord Strathclyde.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 30, line 27, at end insert—
  1("(a) in paragraph 1 for references to the Minister and to the Lord Chancellor, the Agricultural Land Tribunal or an arbitrator there shall be substituted respectively references to the Secretary of State and to the Land Court or an arbiter;").—(Lord Strathclyde.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 30, line 42, leave out from beginning to end of line 48.—(Lord Strathclyde.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, this Amendment is the Scottish counter-part of the Amendment which your Lordships have just made to page 29, line 44. It provides that in any case before the appointed day in which a tenant objects to a notice to quit the proceedings will be governed by the regulations made by the Secretary of State in 1950. In cases arising after the appointed day the provisions of paragraph 36 of the First Schedule to the Bill will have effect. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 31, line 12, at end insert—
  ("15. Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph 36 of the First Schedule to this Act, the regulations made by the Secretary of State under section twenty-seven of the Scottish Act of 1949 in force immediately before the day appointed for the coming into operation of section three of this Act shall continue to have effect for the purposes of any proceedings consequent upon a notice to quit in a case where the tenant served on the landlord a counter-notice under subsection (1) of section twenty-five of that Act before that day.")—(Lord Strathclyde.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.

  LANDLORD AND TENANT (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) BILL
  5.25 p.m.
  Amendments reported (according to Order).

  CHEQUERS ESTATE BILL
  5.26 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, on behalf of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Bill seeks to amend at several points the Act and the trust deed which at present control the administration of Chequers. As your Lordships know, this historic house has been a source of pleasure and encouragement to successive Prime Ministers over the past forty years. It has been the scene of many historic conferences, and the scene of many momentous decisions, especially during the war years. Your Lordships will, I am sure, wish to join me in expressing once again our appreciation of the great generosity of the late Lord Lee of Fareham, and of Lady Lee, in presenting this beautiful house and its many treasures to be held in trust for the benefit of successive holders of this increasingly arduous office.
  With the lapse of time, however, and the great changes which have taken place since 1917, it has become apparent that several of the provisions of the Act and the trust deed which it embodies, although natural and proper at the time when they were drawn up, are no longer appropriate to the present day, and the trustees have found increasing difficulty in carrying out their duties in administering the house and the estate. At the same time, the income from the endowment has long ceased to suffice for the upkeep and maintenance of the property, arid it has been necessary for the Exchequer of late years to assist the trustees with a series of grants in aid. The trustees have therefore decided that they must ask the Government to introduce legislation to allow a relaxation at certain points in the somewhat strict provisions under which they operate; and it is desirable that the Exchequer's grants in aid, which have hitherto rested only upon the authority of the Appropriation Acts of successive

  63
  years but which will clearly be a permanent requirement, should, in accordance with the general practice, be specifically authorised in a permanent Act of Parliament.
  The amending Bill which is now before your Lordships is necessarily a somewhat complex document, comprehensible only by constant reference to the various provisions of the original Act and its Schedule. In essence, however, it has three simple objectives: first, as I have just indicated, to place on a permanent footing the Exchequer assistance to the trustees; secondly, to simplify the administrative procedure of the trustees, mainly by reducing their number, and by relieving from this particular burden a number of eminent people who are much preoccupied by their own heavy duties; and, thirdly, to allow the trustees somewhat greater freedom of action, so as to permit a more efficient and economic administration of the estate while still requiring them to preserve its character as a property and as a suitable country residence for the Prime Minister.
  On the first of these three objectives, I need not enlarge. It is provided for in Clause 2 of the Bill. The second matter is dealt with in paragraph 2 of the Schedule. The existing administrative trustees are Lady Lee, the Prime Minister, the Speaker, the Foreign Secretary, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Minister of Works, the Lord Chief Justice, the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Trust, and the Director of the National Gallery. Your Lordships will appreciate the difficulty, I think, in merely assembling such a formidable body. We desire, therefore, to reduce this body in number, retaining of the existing trustees only Lady Lee and the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Trust. The others will be the Lord Privy Seal, as chairman; a person nominated by the Prime Minister, another nominated by the Minister of Works; and finally, the Public Trustee—six persons in all, in place of ten as at present.
  Other provisions in the Bill—namely, paragraphs 11 and 12 of the Schedule—simplify the requirements for the actual conduct of business by the trustees. The third objective is, broadly speaking
  64
  covered by the remaining provisions of the Bill. The most important is no doubt that contained in paragraph 10 of the Schedule, which gives the administrative trustees, subject to certain restrictions, the powers of a tenant for life under the Settled Land Act, 1925. At present the trustees have practically no power to sell land; they cannot raise loans, and cannot apply capital to effect improvement in the estate, even though the latter is obviously necessary from time to time if the land is to be farmed in an efficient and economic manner.
  It is proposed that the trustees should be given powers similar to those available to trustees of any public trust, subject, however, to certain very important qualifications. In the first place, the administrative trustees must always have regard to the need for preserving the character of the property as a suitable country residence for the Prime Minister. They must also refrain from making any avoidable change in the essential character of the house and grounds. Finally, before exercising their powers to sell land, they must obtain the consent of the Prime Minister. Moreover, my honourable and learned friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury gave an express undertaking in another place that the Leader of the Opposition will be consulted whenever there is a major question to be decided affecting the estate or of selling the land. Their power to dispose of chattels, which include many works of art, will be exercisable only with the express concurrence of the Lord Privy Seal, as chairman of the trustees. In other words, even if a majority of the trustees wished to dispose of any chattels, they could not do so without the express consent of the Lord Privy Seal.
  I should make it clear, I think, that the trustees have no intention of disposing of any of the works of art or other valuable possessions in the house. They are, however, under the severe disability that, as things now stand, they cannot dispose of objects, even if they are worn out and serve no useful purpose and have no artistic or historical interest whatsoever. A very detailed inventory was drawn up in 1917, and no articles numbered in that inventory can be disposed of in any circumstances whatever. In the light of this, the power to dispose of chattels is no more than is reasonable and necessary.

  65
  It is, I believe, subject to sufficient qualifications to ensure that it is not unwisely used. I believe that your Lordships will agree that with these safeguards, and bearing in mind the composition of the body of trustees, we need have no hesitation in granting these wider powers to them.
  I should add that the trustees have it in mind, if this Bill is approved, to sell to the Forestry Commission some 200 acres of woodland to the east of the house, and provisional arrangements have been made to this end. They also contemplate the sale of certain smaller parcels of land which do not affect the amenities of the house and grounds and the sale of which will render the estate as a whole more manageable. Two of these, in the south west and north west fringes of the estate, will be sold subject to restrictive covenants to ensure that their present character is preserved and that building development will not be permitted.
  Finally, in commending the Bill to the favourable consideration of your Lordships, may I say that these proposals have been the subject of consultation with the Opposition, and in their present form embody the views not only of the Government but of the Opposition also. This is only right and proper, I think, as any matter affecting Chequers should be above all Party considerations. The trustees have expressed a strong desire that the new arrangements should be brought into operation at an early date, sine they are faced with certain financial questions which cannot be satisfactorily dealt with in the absence of the new powers proposed. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will be able to agree that the Bill should proceed, and so enable this unique trust to play its important part in our national affairs with greater ease and efficiency. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Mancroft.)
  5.37 p.m.
  LORD LATHAM: My Lords, we on these Benches desire to do nothing to impede the speedy passage of this Bill to the Statute Book, especially having been informed by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, that the terms of the Bill have been substantially agreed by the Government and the Opposition. One can well
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  understand that in all the changing conditions affecting land and property, as well as the value of money, there should be a need for the relaxation of the terms of a rigid trust deed which was drawn up so many years ago. The noble Lord, in his clear exposition of the terms of the Bill, has given the assurance that it is not intended in any way to impair the full exercise, and indeed the full enjoyment, of the original purpose of this Trust. What is sought is greater freedom for a limited number of trustees. We are told in the statement made by the noble Lord that an undertaking has been given that the Prime Minister will consult with the Leader of the Opposition in the case of any question of a sale of any substantial portion of the estate or of any substantial portion of the assets of the estate.
  An interesting question occurred to me. Now that the Trust is to be supported out of moneys provided by Parliament, I wonder whether the financial activities of the Trust will come under the review of the Auditor General and be subject to question by the Public Accounts Committee, and whether the trustees will be under obligation to submit a report to Parliament which, like the reports on other nationalised properties, can be debated in another place and in your Lordships' House. Perhaps the noble Lord who is responsible for the Bill can give some indication about these three points. Subject to the answers in that respect, we will do all we can to speed the passage of the Bill.
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his friendly reception of the Bill. I think that I can assure him that the public will still have the power of keeping a watchful eye on the finances of the trust. Even though the financial arrangements will be considerably improved by the arrangements proposed in the Bill, it will still be necessary for the taxpayer, via the Exchequer, to supplement the income and expenditure of the trust; and in that way, of necessity, these moneys will be subject to Parliamentary scrutiny and the taxpayer will be able to see still what is effected by the trust. I am afraid that, as yet, there are no means of making the trust self-supporting.
  LORD LATHAM: My Lords, I gather that up to the present the finances have not been subject to Parliamentary supervision—or have they?
  LORD MANCROFT: Yes, my Lords, in a way they have, because as the Exchequer has had to support the trust, in many respects those sums (they would have to delve fairly carefully into the account to know where they were, no doubt) were technically subject to public scrutiny.
  LORD LATHAM: My Lords, I gathered from what the noble Lord said that the funds which had been provided in supplementation of the trust had been provided under the Appropriation Act in a way which was, I will not say illegal, but irregular.
  LORD MANCROFT: Certainly it was not illegal; and I do not think it was even irregular. It was merely undesirable that this method should continue. It is far better to get it on a more orthodox footing.
  LORD LATHAM: Perhaps one could go so far as to say that it was unusual.
  On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

  PIER AND HARBOUR ORDER (SHEERNESS) CONFIRMATION BILL
  The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn: the Order made on July 2 last discharged, and Bill referred to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
  SHELL (STANLOW TO PARTINGTON PIPELINE) BILL
  The Queen's consent signified, and Bill reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.

  WALTHAM HOLY CROSS URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
  Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: the said Amendments considered and agreed to.
  House adjourned at nineteen minutes before six o'clock.