Lords Sitting of 13 May 1958

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD TERRINGTON on the Woolsack.
Prayers
  SOUTH LANCASHIRE TRANSPORT BILL [H.L.]
  Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

  KENT COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
  2.36 p.m.
  THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, No. 91 of the Standing Orders of the House on Private Bill Procedure reads as follows:
  "The Chairman of Committees may, if he thinks fit, direct the attention of the House … to any special circumstances relative to any Private Bill which may appear to him to require it."
  In my opinion, there are in relation to the Kent County Council Bill certain special circumstances which it is desirable that I should bring to the attention of the House so that the House can, if it sees fit, take any action it wishes to take.
  This Bill is a Private Bill; it has had a Second Reading in your Lordships' House, and is now in Committee, but has not yet had a Third Reading. I will, if I may, quote some figures and statistics concerning the Bill, and I should like to say that if, perchance, any of these are not quite accurate, which I am afraid may be the case, the reason is that clauses have been struck out of the Bill and other clauses have been added—in fact, it is almost true to say that daily the number of clauses is different. As deposited, the Bill consisted of 442 clauses and six Schedules. In my view, for reasons which I hope to relate later, this Bill is in part objectionable. One thing, in particular, that I want to emphasise is that I have not the slightest objection to the Bill on account of its length. I am sure your Lordships agree that it would be utterly wrong to object in any way to any part of the Bill merely because it was a long one. It
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  would be just as wrong to do that as it would to pass a Bill into law, irrespective of its merits, just because, as I am perfectly satisfied has happened in this case, an immense amount of trouble had been taken in the preparation and drafting of the Bill by a panel of experts who had worked tremendously hard and for a long time upon it. And I should like to pay tribute to those who have taken such great trouble over this Bill.
  The real point I am trying to make this afternoon, my Lords, is that this Bill confers powers on authorities other than the Promoters, admittedly not in a manner which is unprecedented, but to an extent and on a scale which I venture to say is unprecedented. To justify the attitude which I have taken up, I should like to quote a few more statistics. This Bill consists of 17 Parts, and it can be truthfully said that only one of those 17 Parts is the sole concern of the Promoters—the Kent County Council. Only 46 of the 442 clauses exclusively concern the Promoters. Of the other clauses, 136 are in part the concern of the Promoters and in part the concern of other authorities. An example of that is to be found in the clauses dealing with highways which would enable the district councils to do certain things on highways, the Kent County Council being the highway authority; and as the Kent County Council is the highway authority, it can truthfully be said that the County Council is interested in those clauses. But 238 other clauses—that is, rather more than half the Bill, in terms of clauses—confer powers on other authorities exclusively, and not upon the County Council at all. Then, in terms of the number of powers conferred, this Bill altogether confers 519 powers on somebody, only 93 of which are conferred upon the Promoters, the remaining 426 being conferred upon other authorities.
  I have ventured to quote those figures to try to show the scale of the problem under this Bill. In Kent there are 56 districts, including boroughs, and 251 parish councils, all of which are concerned with the Bill. In passing, I would also make this point, which I think is significant. Out of the 56 districts there are 38—namely, the urban districts and the boroughs—which, under the Local Government Acts, would have had to hold town meetings, in order to get the powers which they are getting under this

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  Bill; but they do not have to hold them because they are getting the powers under this Bill. In other words, by getting those powers in this way they escape the necessity for holding town meetings. The whole question of town meetings is one upon which strong views are held by both sides, and I am not going to say what my views are about them; but I think it right to mention that the necessity to hold town meetings is escaped by this process under this Bill. Whether that ought to be so is a matter of opinion.
  To this question to which I am referring this afternoon there are two sides; and, unfortunately for my own peace of mind, I must admit that I find some of the arguments for these clauses attractive. That is what makes the matter more difficult. May I mention some of the arguments that are put forward in favour of these clauses being allowed in this Bill? First of all, I confess at once that there is nothing in this Bill which is not precedented. I cannot point, I own, to a single clause in this Bill which has never been in a Bill before. That I admit; but I am going to say that what matters is not the fact that there is precedent but the fact that, as I have said before, the scale of this is something quite different from what we have been accustomed to in the past.
  The story of this matter begins in the year 1921, when two clauses in a Private Bill promoted by the Middlesex County Council began the process of conferring powers by one authority upon others. That process has been greatly expanded, until to-day we are confronted with this Bill which does that on a scale never before contemplated. Precedents, of course, properly guide the House, but, as I understand it, they do not bind the House. The House is not bound by the precedents of another Bill as, for example, a law court is bound by the decision of a court higher than itself. Then it is said that if these clauses are allowed it will be an economy; that to do this by one Bill will save a great deal of money, as compared to, let us say, having fifty-six district council Bills. That, on the face of it, is an impressive point; but, of course, there is no saying that many of the fifty-six districts would have promoted Private Bills if this Bill had not been doing it for them. And, of course, one must observe that
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  if it is an economy to have one Bill instead of fifty-six in the county, it would be still more of an economy to have one Public Bill to do it for the whole country.
  Then it is said that this process will conduce to uniformity—uniformity within the county. On the face of it, that again is an impressive point. But in the country, as opposed to the county, it will, in my submission, produce the opposite of uniformity, because, as I shall mention in a moment, what we shall have if this process goes on—and let us face this fact—is in England and Wales at least, if not in Scotland, a different law in every county. Finally, it is said, among other things, by the Promoters, that the good government of the county is the concern of the County Council. One can understand that sentiment, but I can find nothing in the Local Government Acts to support it. There is nothing which shows that in 1888, when county councils were formed, it was the intention of Parliament to make that the function of the county councils. So I suggest that, however attractive that view may be in theory, it is not really the national policy that county councils should undertake this work and become, in effect, miniature Parliaments.
  I turn to the case against the clauses, and I repeat, with emphasis, that the length of this Bill is not one of the points against it. But, as I have said, there has been nothing like this on the scale and in this degree before, and in my view that makes it desirable for the House to reexamine the procedure that it is sought to adopt. Let me, if I may, begin right at the beginning and put this proposition. Petitions for Private Bills are requests for exceptions to the general law to be made for the benefit of the authorities or persons who present the Petitions to Parliament. If that is a sound proposition, your Lordships will see that we have come a long way from it when we consider this Bill. May I give an example of a genuine Private Bill such as was contemplated when this process was first begun? To-morrow afternoon your Lordships will be invited to pass into law a Bill to authorise the closing of a churchyard, a single churchyard in a single city, and the erection upon part of that churchyard of a building. The Bill is necessary because under the general law that would be illegal; and so a Private Bill is sought to be passed by Parliament to authorise it.

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  That, as I conceive it, is a genuine example of a Private Bill. But how different is that from the present Bill that we are considering!
  There is another principle that I must mention which is very well known and observed in Parliament: that the exceptions to the general law are justified only if there is proof of local need. That is a doctrine which has always, as I understand it, pertained in both Houses of Parliament since this business began. I would go so far as to say that this doctrine of local need is the very cornerstone of Private Bill legislation, and that there is a likelihood of that being knocked away by the passage of a Bill such as this, if it is allowed to proceed in its entirety. I have said something about precedents; but the precedents for this that have happened before are a mere trickle compared to the flood that will be allowed to run if these clauses are allowed in this Bill; and if they are allowed there is no knowing what other Bills may follow, promoted by other counties. This much is sure: if this flood is allowed to run, there will be no stemming it, no damming it in the future, because it will be said that it has been allowed now.
  So I justify this intervention in your Lordships' business by saying that if this process is to be terminated it must be now or never. I can see that it may be right that it should not be, but I think your Lordships will agree that it is at least worth considering whether it should be. In this Bill, the Kent County Council Bill, no one pretends that there is local need, proved by all the authorities, for all the powers which the Bill gives them—I do not think anybody really contends that for a moment. So it brings us right up against a breach of this well-worn principle.
  My Lords, I come to another principle that I should like to put before the House and it is this: that the local need to which I have just referred should not be proved by one party on behalf of another. Again I admit that there are precedents to the contrary; I cannot deny it. But I say that that is a principle which still pertains and is observed, at least when possible. This Bill offends that principle in a great many respects. If these clauses are allowed, as I have suggested before, we may reach this situation; that it could truthfully be said that in this country there was a different law in every county,
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  just as one says now, I think with truth, that in the United States there is a different law in every State. I would ask the House whether that is a situation which it desires to bring about. I ought to mention that also before your Lordships' House now are two other county Bills, promoted by the Counties of Surrey and Essex, both of which, although to a very much smaller degree, contain clauses of exactly the same description. It is said that if this process is allowed it will produce complexity of administration, and that that is in itself an undesirable result. It is fair to say that the Promoters' argue that the contrary will be the case, but I will leave your Lordships to judge who is likely to be right on this matter.
  I should like now to quote one example of a clause in the Kent County Council Bill which illustrates what I have been trying to say. I will refer to Clause 168 of the Bill, which is a clause to confer upon all the parish councils in the county—that is, 240 bodies—the power to provide life-saving appliances. We shall all agree that, taken by itself and out of its context, that is probably a very desirable thing to do. But, save in one town in the country, which happens, curiously, to be in Kent, I am informed that that power is not exercised by any local authority and certainly not by any parish council. The question arises whether it is right for Parliament to give the power to all the parish councils in Kent, and at the same time not give it to any other council in any other county; to have it in Kent but not in Surrey or Sussex, the adjoining counties.
  The question must be asked: If this is a desirable power why should it not be put in a Public Bill, applying to the whole of England and Wales, at least? It is often said, with some justice, that there is little or no chance of Parliament or the Government or a Ministry producing a Public Bill to do this, that or the other. But I would remind the House that in the last Session of Parliament there was introduced a Public Bill which conferred powers upon all the parish councils in the country: that was the Parish Councils Act, 1957. It conferred seven new powers, but the power to provide lifesaving appliances was not one of them. My Lords, it could have been, but nobody suggested it; nobody moved an Amendment to that effect. That is the point I

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  am trying to bring home. Now we have, in the very next session of Parliament, this request that this power should be granted, not to all parish councils but to parish councils in one county only. This Bill confers sixteen new powers on the parish councils of Kent. The Parish Councils Act of last year, more modestly, conferred only seven on the parish councils of England and Wales. I will mention very briefly one other clause, a clause with which we shall all have sympathy, I feel quite certain, and that is the clause to give the parish councils power to plant trees. Nobody, or hardly anybody, would deny that that is in itself desirable; but, again, why only in Kent?
  I think I have said enough—I hope I have—to justify me in asking your Lordships to consider this point before we go further. I ought to say here that it is my intention, subject always to the decision of the House, to make this rule in respect of this Bill:
  "A county council should not confer on local authorities or any other authority functions in which the county council has no interest."
  I would emphasise those last three words, "has no interest." They, of course, admit clauses in which the county council has some interest, however small it may be. It will be my endeavour to interpret this rule, if it is to apply, broadly and liberally; to consider every clause in the Bill in accordance with it, and in borderline cases to give the benefit of the doubt to the Promoters. Any clause with any county council interest will receive sympathetic consideration, but it is no use my denying that if this rule is applied a fair number of clauses—it is impossible to say how many—will not be allowed. Therefore, I thought I ought to draw the attention of the House to the fact.
  My Lords, I ought to add that I have not done this without consultation with the Chairman of Ways and Means in another place. I have consulted him about this proposition and about this Bill, and he has authorised me to say that he is in complete agreement with what is proposed and with the policy which it is intended to pursue; and he is making a statement to-day to the Members of another place (I think it will actually be a written statement), in accordance with the custom of the House. So that, whatever be the merits or the demerits of it,
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  at least I can say that on this point the two houses are at one so far.
  SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: The two Chairmen.
  LORD MERTHYR: I beg your Lordships' pardon—the two Chairmen; I accept the correction.
  My Lords, I apologise for taking so much of your Lordships' time this afternoon, but as your Lordships know, I am not very experienced in this duty and I thought it right, before taking any irrevocable action, to tell the House what the intention was. I realise that the final arbiter in this matter is the House itself; I was going to say that in conclusion. It is what the House says that will be done. There it is. I thought it right to make this statement before going any further.
  THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, may I ask one question before the noble Lord sits down? Some of us who have some experience of these Bills are, I think, a little confused in our minds as to what is the procedure the noble Lord is asking the House to follow.
  LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, I am not asking the House to make any change of procedure; I am merely making a statement. I am acquainting the House with something of what is going on, because I felt that I did not want to run the slightest risk of being criticised later (I will be quite frank with the House), after something had been done, if it was considered wrong. I am not moving anything; I am merely telling the House what is happening in respect of one particular Bill before the House which I thought of sufficient importance to justify that course.
  3.4 p.m.
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, we are very grateful to the noble Lord for having made this statement. He has made it in a lucid and balanced manner and I think we understand exactly what he has in mind. The difficulty that we on this side find ourselves in is that we have had no warning of what the noble Lord was going to say; and he will, I am sure, agree that what he has said is extremely controversial in many respects. I do not propose to-day to enter into any controversy on most of the subjects that he has dealt with, but I would instance, for example, the Standing Order that he is

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  proposing to put to the House. I imagine that he proposes at some future time to invite us to pass a new Standing Order.
  LORD MERTHYR: Not necessarily.
  LORD SILKIN: Well, I thought he suggested that a county council should not confer on any authority functions in which the county council has no interest I would suggest straight away that, whether he does it by way of inviting us to approve a new Standing Order or whether it becomes a principle upon which the Standing Committees will act, it is extremely controversial, and I should like as long an opportunity as possible to consider it, to consult with our colleagues in another place (because, as the noble Lord has said, they are as much affected as we are) and to be able to come to a conclusion before any irrevocable step is taken, either on the Kent County Council Bill or on any other Bill.
  Perhaps I ought to make one or two observations. The noble Lord has given Hi what purports to be a balanced statement. I have heard a good many balanced statements presented in this House and eventually the authority has come down on the wrong side; and it can happen in this case as well. But, fundamentally, I can see no objection at all to a county council coming to Parliament and asking for powers which no other county council has. It seems to me that it is a most desirable thing. When the noble Lord told us in the beginning that he was not complaining about the number of clauses or about the length of the Bill, I presume he meant that he was not complaining about the number of new powers that were being sought, otherwise his statement has no meaning. If these powers are desirable powers—I took him to say that—then it means that there is no objection because there happen to be a large number of them. The question therefore is whether it is desirable that the Kent County Council, or any other county council, should have these powers on their merits.
  LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord for one moment, because that is not quite what I was trying to say. The question is not whether the Kent County Council should have powers which no other county council has. The question is whether the
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  other authorities in the County of Kent should be given by the county council promoting the Bill powers which no other authorities in any other county have. I hope I have made that clear.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, if I may intervene, I think we are in danger of getting into a debate where there is no Motion before the House. Under Standing Orders the Chairman of Committees has properly reported to the House what he was intending to do. The Standing Order, as I read it, says that the Chairman
  "… may, if he thinks fit, direct the attention of the House, or the Committee to which the Bill is referred, to any special circumstances relative to any Private Bill which may appear to him to require it."
  He has done that. I do not believe that the noble Lord opposite is in fact going to enter into a debate, but I should have thought the proper way, if we are to have a debate, would be either for the noble Lord, after consideration, to put down a Motion on the general principle raised by my noble friend, or else, when the Bill is reported to the House, to have a debate at that stage. I think it would be much better to have a debate when there is something before the House than to have it now.
  LORD SILKIN: I appreciate that, and I agree, with respect, that that is the proper course. All I was trying to do in the few remarks I wanted to make, was to give a few illustrations of the sort of thing which we might raise on the occasion of a debate. I want to emphasise the fact that there might be considerable controversy about this point, and not really to debate the matter. I would ask the Government to give us an assurance that they will not take any irretrievable step, in connection with the Kent County Council Bill and of course generally, until this House has had an opportunity of debating the matter fully. It may well be that the best step would be, before even a recommendation is made on the Kent County Council Bill, that the general question should be settled. I think that that would be more satisfactory than to try and get the point settled on a particular Bill. The Kent County Council Bill would then have to be dealt with in accordance with the principle which this House will have

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  settled previously, rather than that it should be the other way—having a debate on the Kent County Council Bill which would also settle the principle. I hope the noble Earl the Leader of the House can give us an assurance that it will be possible to have a debate at some reasonable time, with ample opportunities for everybody to say what they wish, which will deal with the whole question at issue and into which the Kent County Council Bill would fit.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I am certainly not going to debate the merits of the Bill at this stage—that would be most undesirable and I believe it would be out of order, if there is any order under Standing Order No. 91. But obviously here is a matter of great importance. The merits of whether or not these powers should be given is, in itself, a pretty big question, but much more important, as I see it, is the constitutional question of whether in a Private Bill promoted by some undertaker there should be taken a power which, at least on the face of it, raises very broad general questions and would be much more appropriately the subject of a Public General Act of Parliament. At any rate, that is certainly arguable.
  It is very embarrassing. I do not know under what power we take a general debate on an abstract Motion which is all occasioned by and arises out of a specific Bill at the actual time when it is going through Committee. I do not see how we can debate in the full House a Bill which is in Committee; and as the noble Earl the Leader of the House has said, the next occasion on which we can discuss the broad merits and provisions of this measure is when it comes back to the House on Report.
  That is not very convenient, however, because in the meantime, the Committee upstairs will have taken cognisance of the Bill. I do not know what the Committee will be doing—whether perhaps 200 authorities are appearing before it. It may be taking all kinds of odd decisions which this House or another place may or may not like, and all its work may be abortive should this House decide that it has gone far beyond its powers and that a great deal of what it has debated—at great length and great expense to everybody concerned—is properly the subject of a Public Bill.
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  I believe the Lord Chairman is right to have reported this matter to your Lordships but I would ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House why it was not raised before your Lordships on Second Reading, because that seems to me to be the stage at which these grave issues should have been raised, before the Bill was sent to a Committee to debate the details. The House would then have been in a position either to throw out the Bill, which is an extreme case, or, as is often done, to give some direction to the Committee. I would ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House and the Lord Chairman of Committees: Is there a procedure by which a Bill of this kind, which raises these grave issues, can be brought before the House under Standing Order No. 91, or in some other way, on Second Reading, so that the House can have an opportunity of discussing the constitutional issues raised before the Bill goes to the Committee?
  THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, in answer to the question of the noble Earl, I believe that this is a new situation and one that has not really faced us before, when, by means of a Private Bill, very wide powers may be taken. I should like to consider first of all whether this matter should or could have been raised on Second Reading and then what should happen on future occasions. I feel that the Parties should consult together as to the line to be taken in future. I believe that the Lord Chairman of Committees has done quite rightly, for no irretrievable step has been taken yet. Again, I should have thought that, because this is new and we want to take the right constitutional steps, the best course would be to consider the form of Motion which might be put before the House at a comparatively early date; because it would seem preferable to deal with this matter through a Motion, if that is properly framed, rather than to wait until the Bill is reported. Perhaps we might have consultations through the usual channels and arrange the most appropriate machinery.
  LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, may I ask the Lord Chairman of Committees whether he will do as I understand he says he intends—that is, to turn down at any rate a number of the clauses in this Kent County Council Bill—before this

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  House has had time to discuss the new principle which he has put before the House? After all, as the noble Lord has himself said, the Bill as it stands is based on precedent. I gather that there is no new invention in any of the clauses but only that one thing which again has happened frequently—that one authority is asking power for other authorities. So far as Kent is concerned, something vital may occur before the House has taken a decision which might be quite otherwise.
  LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, with regard to the point raised by the noble Lord opposite, if the normal processes of the Bill are held up in any way that will be only to the detriment of the Promoters, because time is an important factor and the Bill has yet to go to another place before the end of the Session. I suggest, therefore, that it would be in nobody's interest for the present proceedings to be adjourned in any way. I feel perfectly certain that the last people who would want that would be the Promoters. But I believe that, happily, there is a method by which the House can assert its own will in any way it pleases: that is, that it is possible to have this Bill recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House at a later stage. I am instructed and advised that that could be done, and I feel sure that it would be the best way of meeting the point made by the noble Lord, if that is desired.
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, that is not really satisfactory, because the noble Lord has already expressed a view—admittedly a balanced view. If this Bill is to be dealt with in accordance with the view that he has expressed, then it will be to the detriment of the Promoters of the Bill: we should be treating this Bill as if the principle which the noble Lord wants to enunciate had been accepted by the House. Surely it would be possible for the House to express its views about the principle before anything is done with this Bill on the basis of the principle that the noble Lord wants to accept. In other words, what the noble Lord is suggesting is, "I will do the damage and it may be possible that it can be put right on some other occasion." That is not very satisfactory.
  LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, I do not know what other alternative to suggest. With respect, if the noble Lord
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  thinks that there is an alternative, would he please make a suggestion?
  LORD SILKIN: I had thought that the noble Earl the Leader of the House had suggested that there should be talks through the usual channels, and I suggest that those discussions should embrace what should be done with this particular Bill and how it should be dealt with.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I appreciate the possibility of recommittal but that would seem to be holding things up for a long time. The Bill goes through Committee upstairs, which may take some time, and then comes here and we recommit it, I am not sure whether a recommittal (which is really a Committee stage of the Whole House at which we discuss Committee points) is the best way of dealing with a great point of principle which, in the case of a Public Bill, is discussed upon Second Reading. When a Private Bill comes up for Second Reading, it is the practice that a Motion can be put down giving the Committee a direction to pay particular attention to particular clauses, or to do this or that when considering the Bill.
  I entirely agree with the noble Earl the Leader of the House that there should be immediate consultations on how we should deal with this issue. But we want to achieve two things. We do not want to prejudice the Promoters, who may have quantities of useful provisions in this Bill; at the same time we certainly do not want to sacrifice the position of this House on a constitutional issue. Is there any way in which, if a Motion were put down and the opinion of the House taken on the question of principle, while the Bill is still in Committee, we could do what we could certainly do on Second Reading: that is, to give a direction to the Committee that they either do not deal with certain clauses or that they pay particular attention to certain clauses, as the case may be. Would that be in order?
  THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I think that we cannot go on discussing this matter in full generally in the House. The only thing to do is to get the usual channels to agree on the best way to handle it. And, if necessary, with the leave of the House, I will make a statement to-morrow on the agreed way to handle the situation.
  LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, while agreeing with what the

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  Leader of the House has said, may I put one point which I think is exercising the minds of many Members of your Lordships' House?—it is certainly exercising mine. The noble Lord the Chairman of Committees has told us certain views of his with regard to the Bill; but what follows from that? As I understand it, he is telling us that if the Committee now dealing with this Bill accept his point of view they will do certain things with regard to the Bill, and they will report in a certain way. The question is: What is it that the Committee, under the direction of the Lord Chairman, are proposing to do? Are they going to kill the Bill? Are they going to recommend hostility to the Bill, or what? Until we know that, which follows from the noble Lord's speech—until we know what they propose to do—I do not think we are in a position to say whether we approve or not.
  THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, this is a matter that has come quite suddenly upon us; it is quite unexpected, and I think that before we go further we must have consultation and decide how to deal with this novel situation. And that is what I propose to do at once.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, may I ask this question: Supposing this Bill, on the grounds urged upon us by the Lord Chairman, is rejected, do the Commons ever see the Bill, or is it finished with?
  THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I think it would have the same fate as any other Bill that is rejected here; but I must have notice of that question. All these questions we will go into this afternoon, at a later hour.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, I am not an expert at all, but I have a long experience of London self-government, and I remember the shocking record of this House in obstructing progressive proposals as regards the London area.
  LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, the only possibility of the Bill being rejected by this House is now on Third Reading, and that will be on the Floor of this House.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: Yes, I know.

  THE TAY ROAD BRIDGE SCHEME
  3.24 p.m.
  THE EARL OF DUNDEE: 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 on what dates, at what places, and under what conditions they are proposing to hold the census of traffic which the Secretary of State for Scotland has decided upon, to provide evidence of the need for a road bridge across the Firth of Tay.]
  THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD STRATHCLYDE): At a meeting on May 20, 1957, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland agreed that the technical, financial, and economic implications of the Tay Bridge Scheme should be examined. Accordingly, Dundee Corporation and Fife County Council, at his suggestion, propose to hold an origin and destination survey of traffic for a week during August at the Tay ferry and at suitable points on the Perth—Dundee and the Perth—Forfar—Stonehaven roads. The detailed arrangements have not yet been settled, but the object is to obtain information about the long-distance traffic which might use a road bridge at Dundee.
  THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, will the Government bear in mind that a census of the number of vehicles trying to use the present obsolete and slow methods of transit is a very poor guide to the number of vehicles that might use a modern bridge? In view of all the preparatory work which has been done locally on the subject, can my noble friend say what is the earliest date on which a Provisional Order Bill to enable the bridge to be constructed would receive facilities?
  LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, no; I could not give the noble Earl any definite date as to when a Provisional Order might be promoted. I understand that such a Provisional Order is in the meantime under consideration by the town council of Dundee, but I do not know when it will come before this House or before Parliament. As to the other point, there are in existence at the present

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  moment censuses of the number of vehicles using these roads, but that is not the point we are trying to get at. What we are trying to get at is the number of long-distance vehicles that would be likely to use this bridge, and the only way in which one can get at that is by taking the census to which I have referred.

  RADIOACTIVITY LEVELS OVER THE UNITED KINGDOM
  3.27 p.m.
  LORD AMULREE: 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 was the date on which the latest information on the level of radioactivity over the United Kingdom was given to them by the Medical Research Council and what that level was.]
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, the Medical Research Council, together with the Agricultural Research Council, is, through a joint Committee, responsible for collecting information about the levels of radiostrontium in biological materials in the United Kingdom. Reports on radiostrontium in soil, grass, milk and bone in the United Kingdom have been laid in the Library of the House, and a further one will, I hope, become available about the middle of the year. Measurements of radioactivity in the upper atmosphere are made by the Atomic Energy Authority. There was a significant rise in short-term radioactivity in the upper atmosphere late in March, but this activity was due to short-lived products of nuclear explosions which do not constitute a health hazard.
  LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Viscount for his Answer to my Question. I will consider: I think it supplies me with the information I require.
  VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I hope so.

  CORPORATION OF THE SONS OF THE CLERGY CHARITIES SCHEME CONFIRMATION BILL
  Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
  READING ALMSHOUSE AND MUNICIPAL CHARITIES SCHEME CONFIRMATION BILL
  Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
  ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN CHARITY SCHEME CONFIRMATION BILL
  Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
  ST. JAMES'S DWELLINGS CHARITY SCHEME CONFIRMATION BILL
  Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

  SLAUGHTERHOUSES BILL
  3.29 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL ST. ALDWYN): My Lords, this is a small Bill but an important one, which, as many of your Lordships will be aware, has been the subject of considerable debate in another place. As a result it was substantially amended and, among other improvements, has, I am assured, been made easier to understand. I am afraid that it is still a little complicated, but this is largely unavoidable in a Bill which has to amend other Acts of Parliament.
  The main provisions of the Bill were foreshadowed in the White Paper on Slaughterhouses published in May, 1956. The Government have three chief aims in legislating about slaughterhouse conditions. First, we want to ensure that stock are slaughtered humanely. Secondly, we want to see that the highest standards of hygiene are maintained in slaughtering and the processes that follow it. Thirdly, we want to ensure that there are satisfactory conditions for slaughterhouse workers. The problem the Government had to face was how to secure satisfactory slaughterhouses while at the same time ensuring adequate facilities, both local and national, for the needs of the meat trade.

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  Previously these aims had been thought to be attainable only by strictly limiting the number of slaughterhouses to some 400 or 500 in England and Wales, compared with the 12,000 in existence before the war, and placing them according to a centrally prepared national plan. This may have seemed right while the Ministry of Food still had central control of the marketing and slaughtering of home-produced livestock, but after decontrol in June, 1954, developments occurred in the meat trade which called for a fresh and more flexible approach to the problem. For instance, organisations of producers like the Fatstock Marketing Corporation and other big central organisations of meat traders began to emerge. These operated over wide areas of the country, and they needed slaughterhouses under their own management and control and situated in the districts best suited to their class of trade.
  After consulting all the various interests, we came to the conclusion that the best way to achieve the basic aims of slaughterhouse policy would be to lay down strict standards for slaughterhouses and to ensure that these standards were reached as quickly as possible, but without dictating just where the improved slaughterhouses had to be or laying down arbitrary limits to the number. With this in view, the Bill has three main features. First, it provides for new and strict minimum standards for the construction and equipment of slaughterhouses—a matter dealt with in the construction regulations, which have already been published in draft. New slaughterhouses will have to conform to these standards from the outset. Existing premises will have to be brought up to the new standards as soon as this can be done, without reducing the available facilities in any area below the minimum required.
  Secondly, the existing system, under which local authorities are responsible for licensing private slaughterhouses and for providing public slaughtering facilities, where necessary, will be preserved, but with a few additional safeguards for the trade. Thirdly, the aim of modernisation and improvement of slaughterhouses will be achieved in two stages. The first will consist of a period of from about one to two years, during which, broadly speaking, traders will be free to establish slaughterhouses where they like, so long
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  as they comply with normal town planning requirements and conform to the new standards. After that a measure of control over the granting of licences will be introduced.
  I will now run briefly through the main clauses of the Bill. Clause 1 amends the present law on the licensing of slaughterhouses. In the first place, to allow the initial period of freedom, it removes certain powers which enable restrictions to be placed on the granting of licences. Local authorities will no longer be able to refuse licences just because they think there are adequate existing slaughtering facilities in their districts; nor will it be necessary during the period of freedom to get the Minister's consent to the licensing of a new slaughterhouse. On the other hand, the clause obliges local authorities to refuse licences if slaughterhouses fail to conform to the standards of structure and equipment designed to promote hygienic handling of carcases and meat. At present their power to do this is permissive.
  Clause 2 deals with the licensing of slaughterhouses where this is restricted because there is a public slaughterhouse. Although, as I have just said, we propose to repeal the power of local authorities to refuse new licences where there are adequate private facilities, we do not intend to do this where a public slaughterhouse has been provided. This is because we recognise that local authorities have an ultimate responsibility to provide public slaughtering facilities if other facilities are unsatisfactory or inadequate. Clearly we could not ask them to do this, if we were going to expose them to the risk that the public slaughterhouse might be made uneconomic through unrestricted building of private slaughterhouses in the district. However, there will now be a right of appeal to the Minister against the refusal of an application for a licence.
  Under Clause 3, every local authority will be required to review the slaughterhouse facilities in its district and make a report to the Minister. The main purpose of this will be to provide the Minister with information to enable him to decide when the new slaughterhouse standards can be applied to existing slaughterhouses in the district. These reports will also affect the length of the period of freedom, since the date of submission by a local authority will fix the

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  end of the period for that particular district. To make sure that the period is neither too short nor too long, the clause fixes the earliest and latest dates by which the reports must be sent in. Clause 4 provides that once a report has been submitted any new licence applied for thereafter will need the Minister's approval. This reintroduces some measure of control over the granting of licences.
  Clause 5 deals with the controversial subject of the licensing of slaughterhouses some part of which is used as a dwelling. Its effect will be to stop any new slaughterhouses being used if the slaughterhall—the place where animals are killed or carcases processed—is connected to a dwelling. This will also apply to any existing slaughterhouse where the use of a part of the slaughter-hall as a dwelling has been discontinued for an appreciable time. I know that some will object that this does not go far enough and that all slaughterhouses connected to dwellings should be abolished. This might, however, create unjustifiable difficulty and hardship in certain circumstances, particularly in rural areas, and we believe that the present proposals, coupled with the existing powers of planning authorities under the Town and Country Planning Acts, should be enough to enable the really objectionable places of this sort to be eliminated.
  Clause 6 deals with delays in preparing premises for use as slaughterhouses where they are covered by the freedom period, and enables local authorities to refuse licences where the delay is unreasonable. In Clause 7 we deal with the measures to safeguard the safety, health and welfare of the workers. This is done by extending the definition of a "factory" in the Factories Act, 1937, so as to make it clear beyond doubt that all slaughterhouses and knackers' yards are covered by the provisions of the Factories Act.
  Clause 8 and the Second Schedule make changes in the Slaughter of Animals Acts, the most important of which will allow the use of anæsthetisation by carbon-dioxide instead of mechanical methods of stunning to render animals unconscious before they are killed. This is a modern method which is already used abroad for pigs and is one which, after consulting the bodies concerned with
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  animal welfare, we think should be allowed for pigs here so long as suitable safeguards are prescribed. Other changes in the Acts are made to facilitate their consolidation.
  The most important feature of Clause 9 is that it will allow officers of the Ministry to enter slaughterhouses in order to see that hygiene regulations are enforced. As my right honourable friend the present Chancellor of the Exchequer explained when moving the Second Reading of the Bill in the other place, we do not intend to duplicate the work of officials of the local authorities. We do believe, however, that slaughterhouse hygiene is such an important subject that the Ministry ought to be able to keep in touch with the work of local authorities in this field, and we were reinforced in this view by the strong recommendations of the Food Hygiene Advisory Council. We feel that local authorities should be helped, rather than hindered, by the provision.
  The remaining clauses deal with comparatively minor matters which can be better considered in Committee, but perhaps I ought to remind your Lordships that, since there is to be a separate Slaughterhouses Bill for Scotland, the present Bill deals only with England and Wales, except that Clause 15 applies to Scotland the provisions in Clause 7 relating to the safety, health and welfare of workers.
  That, my Lords, is our Bill. Let me admit that there are clearly some people with doubts about it: the debates in another place have shown that all too clearly. Some maintain that it will lead to more, rather than fewer, slaughterhouses than the 4,400 we have in England and Wales at the present time. That is not our view. We believe that the Bill will achieve the primary aim of securing better and more hygienic slaughterhouses, and that we shall get rid of the old, unsatisfactory premises, without the need for arbitrary direction from the centre. We think this is a much better way and more likely to lead to satisfactory results. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
  Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.—(Earl St. Aldwyn.)
  House adjourned during pleasure and resumed by the Lord Chancellor.
  3.44 p.m.
  LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord St. Aldwyn, has told us that this is a small but important Bill, and I agree with him. I have been interested in this subject for a matter of twenty years or so, and during that time the situation has become increasingly urgent. Some of your Lordships may not be aware of what happened just after the war, when the Balfour Committee said:
  "We were shocked to learn that contracts for the supply of meat for the United States Forces in Europe could not be arranged from this country direct because our slaughterhouses fall short of the standards demanded by the American Veterinary Corps."
  As a result, livestock was sent to the slaughterhouses which reached the proper standards in Rotterdam and The Hague. I am informed, too, that commerce in livestock which your Lordships' House has from time to time discussed is largely due to the same fact: that Continentals will not accept meat if it has been slaughtered in this country, since our standards are too low. I think it important that your Lordships should be seized of the urgency of this problem, and you will then be in a position to judge to what extent and how quickly—and I think speed is the essence of the matter—this Bill is likely to improve those conditions.
  The noble Earl has said—and no one will disagree with him—that we should all, wherever we sit in this House, have the same objects in mind when discussing the question of slaughterhouses: humane conditions and methods, good conditions of work, hygiene and, finally, efficiency and economy. But none of these things, I suggest, can be attained without what has come to be called (it has now become something of a catch-phrase) moderate concentration. No doubt we should differ one from the other as to what is meant by moderate concentration, but I suggest that what it means basically is the construction of large slaughterhouses to deal with probably the vast bulk of our supplies of meat and smaller slaughterhouses in particular places in which there is special need for them. I think that that would be a fair definition. The policy of moderate concentration has been accepted by both the main Parties, and, so far as I know, by all three Parties.
  In that connection, I should like to read the terms of reference (I think it is important that we should all be aware
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  of this) of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Slaughterhouses which was set up in 1953. The terms of reference were:
  "To prepare a plan recommending in what localities, subject to a policy of moderate concentration, slaughterhouses (other than in bacon factories) should be sited for the slaughter in England and Wales of cattle, sheep and pigs; to recommend an order of priority for new works and major reconstructions; to make recommendations on the general principles of siting and the facilities that should be provided at these slaughterhouses; and to report on the changes that may be necessary in existing legislation to secure the central regulation of siting and design of slaughterhouses".
  That, I suggest, is a direction which might have been given by a Minister from either side of this House.
  The Inter-Departmental Committee reported, and in connection with their Report it is interesting to read the White Paper which was issued in 1956, a year after the Committee reported. I would here say (I think the same thing was said in another place) how much all who are interested in this Bill appreciate the draft regulations which have been put out by the Ministry. They have enabled us to take a far more informed and, I think, intelligent view of the likely working of this Bill than we could have taken if they had not been made available. I think it is worth while for any of your Lordships who are interested to compare the terms of the White Paper with Appendix II of the Report. One gets the feeling, inevitably I think, which is strengthened by the draft regulations, that the Government, without saying so, have had something approaching a change of mind. The thing is slight, but there is far less accent on the basic principle of concentration which I suggest is essential if we are going to attain the other four main objects of slaughterhouse policy.
  I suggest to your Lordships that without concentration it is impossible to obtain satisfactorily the humane conditions, the good conditions of work, the hygiene or the efficiency of slaughterhouses. Possibly it is easier, in the circumstances envisaged by this Bill, to obtain the humane treatment than to obtain good conditions of work. Incidentally, I do not begrudge the noble Earl the credit which he took to himself for the clause dealing with conditions of work, but of course he is aware, as are all your Lordships, that the Bill was overtaken by a recent decision, and therefore

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  this is what I believe is technically called declaratory. However, we welcome it.
  In connection with humane conditions, may I venture to put a question to the noble Earl? This is a matter which was discussed in another place, and reading the Reports of the debate I found myself in something of a quandary. Perhaps the noble Earl can explain the matter to me. It was there suggested that new instruments for use in slaughterhouses might receive approval from the Ministry. Indeed, an Amendment to this effect was moved, and the Minister in reply rejected the Amendment on what seemed to me the rather curious ground that this might establish monopolies. I have had contact with manufacturers of machines or instruments of this kind, and their opinion appears to be quite contrary—that they would consider it a great convenience if they could submit any new instrument which had been invented to the Ministry, and receive the Ministry's approval. It would seem to me that those who run the slaughterhouses would also be in a better position if, when they were ordering equipment, they knew that that equipment had already been approved. I cannot sea that any monopoly would be in the least likely to be set up in that way. Surely, any other manufacturer would be perfectly free to produce other instruments and submit them for approval. I raise this point because if the Minister can answer it now, it may save us time on the Committee stage. I may add, incidentally, that the Weinberg pen is such a contrivance, and it did, in fact, receive approval.
  In connection with the operation of the Factories Acts in slaughterhouses, may I ask the noble Earl whether he or the Ministry have given any more consideration to a point which was raised in another place—and which was not, I believe, definitely settled before this Bill left that place—which had to do with the definition of slaughtering. It is a small, but not unimportant, point. Finally in this connection, may I say that we regret that the power for regulation is not wider. I fully appreciate that we shall be told, if we criticise the Factories Acts, that this Bill is no place in which to amend them. But the fact remains that the Factories Acts will be insufficient or inadequate to cover conditions in slaughterhouses. I suggest to Her Majesty's Government that it
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  would be desirable to give wider scope, even before any basic change is made in the Factories Acts. I think I am right in saying that nowadays, when passing enabling legislation under which other orders can be made, it is usual to make the field very wide and to allow the small definite points to be brought up in the orders and discussed in Parliament in that way; whereas, of course, the Factories Acts date from an earlier period and go into what nowadays would be considered rather old-fashioned detail.
  I come to the third of the desiderata of which we have both spoken: that is, hygiene. It is really on this ground that I feel the deepest disquiet. I cannot conceive that it will be possible adequately to inspect slaughterhouses if they exist in even the present numbers. I am aware that there are something like 4.500 slaughterhouses in this country, as compared with 12,000 before the war, but I do not believe that even that number, with the present staff of inspectors—and Her Majesty's Government will be aware how short we are of inspectors—can possibly be satisfactorily, adequately and constantly inspected. Not only will it not be possible, I believe, properly to inspect the actual factories; far more difficult will be the inspection of meat. I suggest to your Lordships that this is a point on which the Government should have second thoughts. The Minister in another place admitted that to the best of his belief 20 per cent. of the meat sold in this country had not been inspected. I have heard that figure put as high as 50 per cent. I think it is quite impossible to expect that the meat coming out of these thousands of small slaughterhouses can possibly be adequately inspected.
  In this connection, I should like, if I may, to quote the remarks made in 1951 by the Inter-Departmental Committee on Meat Inspection, at a time when I think there were in all in this country something like 400 slaughterhouses, and not 4,000. The Committee reported:
  "The present deficiencies are often due to slaughterhouses being too small, badly constructed and inadequately equipped. In such circumstances it is impossible to secure the observance of reasonable standards of hygiene."
  I know the noble Earl will say: "This is what all our regulations are aimed at—to get those standards of hygiene." But I do not believe it will be possible to do that with this very large number of small

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  slaughterhouses. I heard, of course, what the noble Earl said about dwelling houses, and this indeed increases my disquiet, because these are the most undesirable slaughterhouses of all. These are places in which in many cases slaughtering is actually done in the basement of houses. I should have thought that it would have been possible, without decreasing seriously or in any important way our supplies of meat, to lay down immediately that slaughterhouses should not be either attached to or actually in dwelling houses. I must confess that it depressed me to hear what the noble Earl had to say on that subject.
  Finally, I come to the point of efficiency and economy. Here I think there can be no question at all that both efficiency and economy and, as I have also already suggested, hygiene, good conditions of work and humane conditions, can be best obtained in the larger slaughterhouses. It is economical to do your slaughtering in large slaughterhouses, because it is only in them that you can conserve and get the benefit of the by-products, the glandular materials and so on, which are obtainable and which in the smaller slaughterhouses are absolutely lost. It is essential for these materials. Which are extremely perishable, that the place in which they are to be treated should be adjacent to the slaughterhouse; and it is only in the larger slaughterhouses that it is possible to have these facilities at hand and also to have the necessary conveniences for separating and profiting from these materials.
  Again, the slaughtering in large slaughterhouses costs very much less. The cost per cattle unit in a slaughterhouse catering for a population of 60,000 would be 33⅓ per cent. more than in a slaughterhouse of a size to supply half a million persons. These figures I take from the Inter-Departmental Committee's own Report; I have merely changed the figures, which are probably no longer valid, into percentages. I think the difference is very striking. In addition, I should like to quote from the Annual Report of the Fatstock Marketing Corporation, published after the Inter-Departmental Committee had reported. The Corporation say this:
  " Although improvements are envisaged by the Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee, we are of the opinion that only by means of a new construction programme,
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  planned and executed by experts on the scale we have in mind, can slaughtering practice in this country attain the desired standard of efficiency, economy of operation and hygiene."
  Her Majesty's Government presumably hope that the less desirable slaughterhouses will, by the conditions which they are laying down, be put out of operation. I hope that may be so. They presumably also hope—if they still believe in moderate concentration; I am not quite sure about that, though they have not publicly denied it—that some, at any rate, of the larger slaughterhouses mentioned in the Inter-Departmental Committee's Report as being the most modern development of slaughtering will come into existence. I wish I could share their optimism. I am at a loss, if indeed this is their policy, to understand the provisions which they are proposing under this Bill.
  The noble Earl has said that there is to be a period of from one to two years when there will be no impediment put in the way of licensing new slaughterhouses, although they will have to conform to the regulations. The noble Earl spoke as if two years were a maximum. My understanding of the statement made in another place was that the minimum under the Bill would be nine months, but that the Minister expected that the period would be actually considerably longer than that—probably at least one to two years. But he did not, if I have understood correctly, say that two years would be the maximum. We may therefore anticipate, I am afraid, that the period may be. in certain areas, longer than two years. But in any case I do not understand why, when one is trying to co-ordinate the slaughterhouses of this country, one should have a free-for-all for two years. It seems to me quite incomprehensible, unless what the Government really want is a large number of small slaughterhouses all over the country and no new and truly efficient slaughterhouses. Thereafter we are to have the local authorities' reports to the Minister on conditions in their areas; after which, as the noble Earl has said, they will be granted licences only when special need can be shown to exist in the neighbourhood.
  In another place the Labour Party on Third Reading voted against this Bill. We do not intend to divide the House on Second Reading, but do not let the Government suppose for one single

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  minute that our restraint in this matter is any measure of approbation of this Bill. We believe that not only is it likely to prove a defective Bill, a Bill of small utility, if any, but that it may even prove a bad Bill, because during the free-for-all period many slaughterhouses may well be opened— indeed, Her Majesty's Government seem to expect this—and with the opening of any single one of those the problem of finally dealing in an intelligent and intelligible way with the slaughtering policy of this country becomes more and more difficult, if not impossible.
  4.6 p.m.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords. I am sure we all greatly appreciate the sincerity and deep knowledge from which the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, speaks on this subject, which is to many people, perhaps, a rather distasteful subject—one of those necessities of life which many of us wish did not have to be. But for one, do not share the noble Lord's pessimism about this Bill. I believe that it constitutes a real and appreciable advance towards the good slaughterhouse policy which is the common aim, and which, as the noble Earl who moved the Second Reading of this Bill explained, is set out clearly and fully in the White Paper issued in 1956. It has set out clearly what we ought to aim at and what I think it is common ground we are all aiming at. In the first few lines it is set out that policy must be not only to ensure adequate slaughtering facilities, but also to secure the slaughtering of stock in humane conditions, to maintain the highest standards of hygiene, and to have regard to the interests of traders and slaughterhouse workers. I am sure there is none of us in this House who is not wholly agreed that these are the aims. They are common aims, but our trouble has been, over many years in dealing with this difficult subject, over our methods of approach.
  It has already been mentioned that in another place records were broken by the length of time and columns of the OFFICIAL RECORD that were—I would not say wasted, but expended, on this difficulty of the divergent approach. And though it would be dangerous to try to summarise or simplify such a complex and difficult subject, I believe that the real divergence arising between us
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  here is whether we are to aim at a detailed central planning. which would have the effect of having a very few—perhaps only a few hundreds—publiclyowned abattoirs, or whether, on the other hand, the policy should be to have strict standards laid down by legislation, which would inevitably lead, I think, to a few more slaughterhouses—perhaps a few thousand—partly public and partly private, and to leave our local authorities and the private industry concerned with this work to work out the details of the size, the type, the number and the location of these slaughterhouses within this rigid framework of strict standards and regulations. My Lords, I think the Government have wisely adopted the latter approach to these common aims, and that is the basis of the legislation in this Bill.
  In the last two decades conditions have, I think, been quite abnormal. We must all admit that immediately before the war, when there were these 12,000 slaughterhouses about which we hear so much, agriculture was in a most depressed condition, a quite abnormal condition as we should now all agree, so that we cannot really base anything on that. During the war, when there were only 400 public slaughterhouses in operation, the conditions were again obviously quite abnormal: one had rationing of meat, and distribution was no longer in private hands. I am quite sure that it is the fact that these two previous periods have been so abnormal that has led us into a good deal of our difficulties. It was out of the two abnormal periods, neither one of which we want to return to, that this curious phrase to which the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon has referred, "moderate concentration", came to be born. I think I am correct in saying (and I seem to recall that the Minister confirmed it during the debates in another place) that the Government still believe in moderate concentration. Perhaps the noble Earl who is to reply will just reaffirm that.
  The question with a phrase like that is, what does it mean? What is "moderate concentration"? If I may take a rather homely example, a glass of whisky and soda water to some people might be considered to be immoderate concentration. To a teetotaler it would

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  be wholly intoxicating and quite wrong; whereas to a really heavy drinker, the like of which I am sure there is none in your Lordships' House, it would be quite, shall I say, ineffective. I believe that this Bill gives no comfort either to the teetotaler or to the really heavy drinker. We are not going to find here an absolute concentration of slaughterhouses with this few number of publicly owned abattoirs; nor are we going to have this tremendous dispersal which will lead back to the 12,000 figure of before the war.
  If I may refer briefly to one or two of the specific matters in this Bill, I should like to mention for a moment Clause 2, because it is, I think, the most important of all: it is the general clause about licensing. I think that, in the changed circumstances which now obtain, the Government have taken a wise decision in rejecting the advice of the Inter-Departmental Committee which reported in 1955. The Inter-Departmental Committee recommended the Government not to allow local authorities absolutely to reject new slaughterhouses. In my view, however, the Government have done wisely in retaining the power for local authorities to restrict private slaughtering where they have provided a public slaughterhouse. It might have thrown an unfair burden on the ratepayers to have public slaughterhouses rendered uneconomic by unrestricted competition. But here we have a good escape clause, because there are new developments going on all the time, and in such a restricted area, as I believe it is called (it is a little complex), or an area where restrictions are in force, if somebody wanting to put up a new and modern slaughterhouse, perhaps with the idea of using new methods is refused permission, he has a right of appeal to the Minister; so there is not a blank refusal. That incorporates a most important point in this Bill.
  The other specific point that I should like to refer to is in Clause 3, and concerns this matter of reports. I think that is an extremely important matter. It may mean, in the first place, that some extra work will be put on to local authorities, but I believe they will accept it gladly, for it will clearly be of the most extreme advantage that there should be these reports and that the facts as to the
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  facilities in a district should be known before these regulations come into force and have to be imposed. The other clause which is of great importance, although it may be called declaratory, is surely Clause 7, under which, at last, and for the first time, the workers in this industry have the full protection of the Factories Acts.
  Therefore, my Lords, I believe that this Bill represents a valuable and constructive advance on the three fronts of good slaughterhouse policy that we all want. Different people will differ in regard to the order of priority. For myself, I would put them in this order. I would say that the human being should come first. Now, for the first time, there will be national standards for the strict control of slaughterhouses and the equipment that is used in them, designed to ensure proper hygiene for the health of the people and in regard to the food that we eat. The second priority I would give is to the worker in this, it must be said, somewhat unpleasant industry of slaughterhouse work. Now, for the first time, should this Bill become law, such a worker will have the full protection of the Factories Acts. I think that that is overdue. Thirdly in my order of priorities would come the animal that is to be slaughtered. This Bill constitutes an advance in humane methods of slaughter, and I am sure that your Lordships will welcome it in the form in which it now comes to this House.
  4.20 p.m.
  LORD DOWDING: My Lords, in reading the text of this Bill and in listening to the speeches this afternoon I have been greatly struck by the fact that, except for the last sentence of the noble Earl who spoke last, the interests of the animals have not been mentioned at all. We have been given references to White Papers up to and including 1956, but there has been no mention of Command Paper 243 of August, 1957. That Paper sets out to give protection against fear and pain to animals which are to be slaughtered for our needs. I want to ask the noble Earl to tell us, in replying, how the provisions of this Command Paper are to be incorporated in the Bill and how they may be debated; because it does not follow that everybody will agree without debate to what is contained in that Paper. Are these provisions to be included in the Act

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  after it has been passed, without any discusion or debate—or how are they to be included?
  In case there should be no further opportunity to debate these provisions except on the Committee stage, I should like to bring to notice three paragraphs in this Command Paper which I believe are capable of improvement. The first is paragraph 2:
  "In these regulations a stunning pen ' means a pen or compartment which is suitable for confining a bull, ox, bullock, cow, heifer or steer while it is being stunned and which is constructed so as to confine without discomfort only one such animal at a time and so to prevent any substantial movement by the animal forwards backwards, or sideways."
  In that connection, there are two points that I should like to make. First, there should be a provision that the sides of the pen should be sufficiently high to prevent the animal from seeing out of it or being seen while inside. That is in conformity with the last paragraph of the Paper which reads:
  "The existing regulations forbidding the slaughtering of an animal in sight of other animals awaiting slaughter will be applied to all slaughterhouses without exception. It already applies to all knackers' yards. The existing regulation requiring the provision at all slaughterhouses and knackers' yards where horses are slaughtered of a separate room or hay for that purpose will be applied to all such slaughterhouses and knackers' yards without exception."
  That is one point.
  Another point is that the word "mechanical" ought to be inserted in the description of a stunning pen, otherwise it would be possible for a small slaughterhouse to knock up any kind of contraption of boarding and to say that it was a stunning pen. An adequate stunning pen is a rather complicated affair, because as soon as the animal has been stunned the sides have to open and the floor has to tip up so that the animal is immediately slid out on to the floor. I believe therefore that it would be a great advantage if the word "mechanical" were inserted in that place.
  The other point I should like to make on the Paper is in connection with the delay which is to be allowed before these conditions are enforceable. It is stated:
  "The provisions of paragraphs 2 to 5 inclusive of this regulation shall not apply in relation to any existing slaughterhouse where paragraph 1 of this regulation came into operation
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  in relation to that slaughterhouse after the … day of …"
  A footnote says:
  "The date to be inserted here will be four years later than the date in the first sentence of Regulation 1."
  Personally, I consider four years is too long and that it ought to be possible for any slaughterhouse, even the smallest one, to be provided with a proper mechanical slaughtering pen within two years. I understand that although the pens used by the big slaughterhouses are very expensive, costing perhaps £300 or £400, an adequate slaughtering pen can be constructed for about £150.
  The next point I want to raise is in connection with the electrical stunning of animals, particularly of sheep. A letter issued by the Assistant Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to county councils, urban district councils and others, casts considerable doubt on the efficiency of electrical stunning in all cases, and recommends that particular care should be taken especially in the case of sheep, where wool acts to some extent as a nonconductor. Among other things, the letter recommends that the wool should be clipped at both sides of a sheep's head before the electrical stunning tongs are applied.
  We have heard something about the shortage of inspectors in slaughterhouses, and I maintain that a provision of this kind would be impossible to obtain where large numbers of sheep were being stunned. The letter also indicates that the voltage should be not less than 75 volts—and that would be a provision very difficult to enforce. I know that a great deal of discussion and experiment is going on about the efficiency of electrical stunning and, for that reason, I hope that the regulations as finally agreed and passed into law may take very considerable notice of this point.
  I have here a letter from the Liverpool abattoir, which, I believe, is the biggest slaughterhouse in the country; at any rate, they slaughter about 250,000 sheep every year.
  It states that:
  "… the electric stunner is not entirely satisfactory, as the wool on the heads would appear to act as insulation and effective stunning is not 100 per cent. I have discussed this at great length with the engineer and eventually decided to use captive bolt pistols, if and when the line was used."

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  The reference to the "line" concerns a system of progressive slaughter of animals, in the same sort of way as motor cars are assembled—but this is for disassembling. The letter goes on to say:
  "To use the alternative method we usually need to purchase two more pistols and cartridges, at 90s. per thousand, which will amount to a considerable sum annually."
  The writer states that the electric stunner is provided and installed by local authorities, but that the captive bolt pistols and cartridges are not provided. It is quite true that the extra cost per carcase is very trivial, only a fraction over a penny; nevertheless, there it is. There is a tendency to cause a slaughterman to prefer to use the electric stunning to the captive bolt pistol. Another argument in favour of the captive bolt pistol is that it is possible for an inspector to see afterwards what has happened to the sheep, from the hole in the skull; whereas it is not possible at a later stage to form any opinion as to whether the electric stunning was effective or not.
  The last point I want to raise is in connection with the possibility of permitting independent inspectors to have access to slaughterhouses. I remember raising this point some years ago just after the war, and I was told that the position was quite all right because the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had the power of entry to slaughterhouses, and it was considered that that was quite sufficient and it was not desired to extend that permission to a number of other, small societies. As a matter of fact, so far as I know there is only one other society which takes much interest in the details of the slaughter of animals. But I should like to ask the noble Earl to tell us in his reply whether that independent inspection can be made in the future. It is admitted on all hands that the inspection facilities are inadequate; that the inspection staff are inadequate; that they are mainly concerned with the hygiene of the slaughterhouse, with the quality of the meat and so on, and that there is not much provision to look after the sufferings of the animals. But, as I say, my main question this afternoon is this: How are the provisions of this Command Paper to be included in the Bill, and what opportunity shall we have of debating them?
  4.34 p.m.
  LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, I will detain your Lordships for only a very few minutes. I want to ask the noble Earl one question. The noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, has rather criticised this term, "moderate concentration" for its somewhat vague meaning; and it seems to me that this Bill does very little to encourage the building of large modern abattoirs, which is surely what must be the ultimate aim. I had the opportunity of inspecting the Inglis abattoirs in Melbourne. The people there are very proud of them; they encourage visitors, and make what I think is a pretty just claim that absolutely no part of the animal is wasted. Parts of these abattoirs are almost like modern laboratories. In them are made the surgical gut and many other by-products that come from the animal.
  I am told that if we in this country possessed abattoirs of this kind the saving in waste would be enormous and, in fact, would pay many times for the construction of these large, modern meat factories, which is what they really are; and also that the saving would pay for a great deal of the meat which we at present import. Could the Minister tell us what plans there are for building really modern meat factories, and how many there will be? Are there any abattoirs in this country at the present time to compare with these wonderful places that one sees in the Commonwealth and, of course, in the United States? I am told by people in the meat world that we are almost behind the world in this sort of thing, as is probably instanced by the fact that during the war, as we were told earlier this afternoon by Lord Faringdon, the Americans would not allow their meat slaughtered here to be served to the United States Forces. It seems to me that very little is being done to encourage these really modern buildings, and perhaps the Minister could say something about this aspect.
  4.37 p.m.
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords who have taken part in the debate this afternoon, and I will endeavour to deal with at least some of the points that have been raised. The noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, raised a point which my noble friend Lord Gifford has just touched on again When he quoted from the Balfour

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  Report that the United States Forces would not have their animals slaughtered here. On the face of it that sounds very bad; but when one looks at the matter a little more closely the position, frankly, is not so serious as he would have your Lordships believe. There are certain conditions which our friends in the United States apply to all their slaughtering which just are not followed in this country, in any slaughterhouse: they are practices that we have not adopted. Possibly the most obvious one is their strict standard that all carcases must be hosed down with steam. Even in the most modern abattoirs in this country we do not do that, because it is one of those practices that we have felt from all sides was unnecessary or undesirable. They like it done. Frankly, I myself—I am no expert on this—wonder whether it might not have some effect on the taste.
  LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Earl knows how many other countries (because quite clearly it applies in the Low Countries) insist on the same procedure?
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, that I am afraid I cannot tell the noble Lord. All I can tell him is that it is one of those things we have never done here and that, to the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever asked for it. The noble Lord also raised a point about manufacturers being willing to have various instruments—I presume by that he means actual killing instruments—approved.
  LORD FARINGDON: Not necessarily. The noble Lord, Lord Dowding, was talking about the stunning pen. I mean any fitments.
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: Frankly, we feel it unnecessary to have any further control over the various implements used. We have no reason at all to suspect that faulty stunning pens would be installed by an irresponsible firm. We know that that trade is in the hands of very reputable firms who have already had a great deal of experience. We have had no form of complaint at all about captive bolts, and we are rather reluctant to add further controls unless there is a good reason for doing so. We are always willing to give our advice.
  LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting again, but the noble Earl is puzzling me. Surely the
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  Ministry is going to say whether they would approve certain instruments—for example, the electric stunner mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Dowding. Surely that could not be used as an alternative to the bolt without the consent of the Minister. It must come under the control of the regulations.
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: I understood that the noble Lord was asking that we should have regulations whereby all these instruments would be approved.
  LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I did not suggest regulations. What I suggested was that a manufacturer should submit an implement or piece of equipment he was producing to the Ministry to be tested; and, having been tested, it would then go out to anybody who wanted to buy it as one which had been tested and approved by the Ministry. It is not a question of control, but merely of convenience to the manufacturer and the purchaser.
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, as said, we are willing and anxious to help and advise manufacturers on any new suggestions that come along; and that we are doing. The noble Lord also raised the question of the length of the freedom period. He is perfectly right in assuming that two years is not necessarily the maximum. If the Minister approves the earliest date for the submission of local authority reports, the maximum could not exceed two years, five months.
  My noble friend Lord Waldegrave welcomed the Bill and touched on the point, which my noble friend Lord Faringdon also mentioned, of moderate concentration. I think that perhaps my noble friend has slightly misunderstood the situation. I said in my opening remarks that:
  "This may have seemed right whilst the Ministry of Food still had a central control of marketing and slaughtering of home produced livestock, but after decontrol in June, 1954, developments occurred in the meat trade which called for a fresh and more flexible approach to the problem."
  And that is what we have, a moderate concentration—but not such a concentrated moderate concentration as my noble friend had in mind.
  The noble Lord, Lord Dowding, asked me what chance there would be of discussing these regulations as presented

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  in the White Paper, Cmnd. 243, before they actually became regulations. Of course he will have an opportunity of praying against these regulations when they are laid, and I assure him that I will pay great attention to what he has said, though there are one or two points where I am afraid I cannot agree with him. I may have misunderstood him on the point which he raised about stunning pens, but I cannot see what difference it makes to the animal concerned, once it is dead, whether the stunning pen is operated mechanically or not. I understood that the noble Lord's main point was humanitarian.
  LORD DOWDING: My Lords, while it does not make any difference to the animal when it is dead, an inspector can get a good line on what is going on in a slaughterhouse when he sees the skulls of the animals that have been killed, if stunning is adopted in the slaughtering of every sheep that is killed.
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: If I may interrupt the noble Lord, I was referring to the stunning pens. I cannot see what difference it makes to an animal, once it is dead, whether the pen is operated mechanically or not.
  LORD DOWDING: My Lords, a great point is made that the captive bolt pistol does not kill the animal: it stuns it. And though consciousness does not return, reflex action sets in after a surprisingly short time—sometimes after a matter of seconds—and when the animal is hoisted up to be bled after being stunned, if reflex action has set in the work of the slaughterman becomes much more difficult. As I understand it, that is the object of a mechanical stunning pen from the point of view of the slaughterman. The high sides, of course, are for a different purpose—to prevent animals from being killed in sight of one another. But I understand that the mechanical stunning pen is to enable the carcase of the animal to be hoisted up from the floor and hoisted up for bleeding with the minimum of delay.
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that further explanation. I am still not quite convinced, but I will look into the point. The noble Lord also raised the question
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  of electrical stunning. I must admit that I listened with considerable interest to his remarks, which obviously proceeded from close study of the subject. I can assure the noble Lord that we will keep an eye on the use of electric stunners for sheep. We have sent this letter round to the local authorities and we shall continue to watch this with the greatest of care.
  The noble Lord, Lord Faringdon raised a point, which was also raised in another place, on lairages and the Factories Act. My right honourable friend did say in another place that it was the Government's intention that the lairages attached to slaughterhouses should come under the Factories Act, and that he would consider whether Clause 7, which I think is the one the noble Lord is worried about—
  LORD FARINGDON: No.
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: I apologise to the noble Lord. I thought when he was talking about slaughterings—
  LORD FARINGDON: In a sense, it is lairages. It is really the definition of the word.
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: Then I think we are on the same point, and in fact it relates to Clause 7. My right honourable friend said that he would consider whether Clause 7 did that, and that, if it did not, steps would be taken to ensure that lairages were covered before the Bill reached the Statute Book. We are considering this question, which has turned out to be a rather complicated one, and I can assure the House that, if the position is not clear, I will on the Committee stage introduce an Amendment to that clause to make it absolutely clear.
  The noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, rather suggested that I had taken more unto myself than I should have done in saying what I did about the Factories Act and this Bill. I would remind him that, although it did arise, to a certain extent, out of a judicial decision, that decision in itself was not binding; there was still room for appeal to your Lordships' House, and it might at some time have been upset. Therefore, feeling that these workers should be under the Factories Act, we took the initiative and put them into the Bill.
  LORD FARINGDON: I am delighted to give the Government full credit.
  EARL, ST. ALDWYN: My noble friend Lord Gifford rather suggested that we should have abattoirs somewhat on the scale of those in Australia. Frankly, we have none on that scale, and I do not anticipate that there will be any, for this simple reason: that the position in Australia, and in America, is that there is a great quantity of animals coming to one central place to be slaughtered and then going out in one direction. Here it is more a question of supplying the local need with what it requires. There is no question, for instance, of all the meat in the North of England being collected and sent to London. The vast majority of it is consumed locally. In the long run, I think it is more economical from everybody's point of view to have the smaller units distributed more in relation to the production and consumption of the meat.
  LORD GIFFORD: But surely there is a vast waste of by-products by using the smaller abattoirs?
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: In the very small abattoirs, obviously there is a loss; but in the more moderate-sized ones, I think we can make use of all the by-products.
  LORD FARINGDON: I am a little puzzled on this point. I should have thought that the London area and some of the larger conurbations would have been able to employ an abattoir, if not perhaps on the scale of that at Chicago, still on the scale I was talking about, to deal with, say, 500,000 inhabitants.
  EARL ST. ALDWYN: From the point of view of consumption, the noble Lord is quite right. He talks about Chicago. But there is there a vast area which is producing, and the whole of the produce of that one area is going into one place and then out to Chicago and so on. Here there is no area for which it can be said that all the meat is going to London. It is because we have not the wide, open spaces, such as they have in Australia and America, that we are in a rather different position.
  On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

  TIRBUNALS AND INQUIRIES BILL [H.L.]
  4.55 p.m.
  Order of the Day read for the Bill to be considered on Report.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, I beg to move that the Report be now received.
  Moved, That the Report be now received.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  Clause 1:
  Council on Tribunals
  1.—(1) There shall be a council, entitled the Council on Tribunals,—

  (a) to keep under review the constitution and working of the tribunals specified in the First Schedule to this Act (being the tribunals constituted under or for the purposes of the statutory provisions specified in that Schedule), and, from time to time, to report on their constitution and working;

  (b) to consider and report on such particular matters as may be referred to the Council under this Act with respect to tribunals other than the ordinary courts of law, whether or not specified in the First Schedule to this Act, or any such tribunal, or with respect to administrative procedures involving an inquiry or hearing.

  THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (1) (b), to leave out all words after "tribunal", down to the end of the paragraph and to insert:
  " (c) to consider and report on such particular matters as may be referred as aforesaid, or as the Council may determine to be of special importance, with respect to administrative procedures involving, or which may involve, the holding by or on behalf of a Minister of a statutory inquiry or any such procedure."
  The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, I rise to move the first Amendment standing in my name. Your Lordships will appreciate that this Amendment is an endeavour to meet what appeared to be the general view of the House, and especially the views expressed by my noble friend Lord Swinton. The purpose of this Amendment is to enable the Council on Tribunals, on its own initiative, to consider and to report on any particular matter of special importance concerned with any administrative procedure involving, or which may involve, the holding of an inquiry or hearing in pursuance of a statutory provision.
  Before the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, directed our attention to this

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  matter by his Amendment on the Committee stage, under the existing Clause 1 the Council's initiative was confined to keeping under review the constitution and working of the tribunals listed in the First Schedule. As regards other tribunals and procedures involving an inquiry or hearing, the Council could consider and report only on such particular matters as might be referred to it by the Lord Chancellor or the Secretary of State. That was a limitation which I think the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, was anxious to clear away. I explained that the reasons why the Council was not given general supervision of inquiries were that the implications of doing so for a wide and undefined range of inquiries had not been examined, and that the Franks Committee itself recommended only that the Council should have "certain responsibilities" in relation to inquiries (the formulation of codes of procedure and the basis for the award of costs). Again, that limitation on the freedom of the Council to comment on inquiries drew criticism from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, and from many of those who spoke on his Amendment.
  Then, your Lordships will remember that my noble friend Lord Swinton appeared to be speaking for the majority of the House when he suggested that the Council ought to have competence [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 208 (No. 57), col. 864]:
  " … if they thought there was some shocking matter of a procedural kind which had not been referred to them by the Lord Chancellor or the Secretary of State for Scotland, and without keeping everything under continuous review, to consider and report to him as a Council on that particular matter."
  I promised to consider that suggestion, and this is the result. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, was good enough to withdraw his Amendment on my assurance.
  The Government's Amendment gives effect to that proposal and empowers the Council to report on any matter of special importance concerning a statutory inquiry. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, will appreciate that the Franks Committee dealt only with those inquiries concerning land, and it was these with which the House was primarily concerned. The noble Lord's Amendment, however, extended to all kinds of inquiries, and the Government Amendment
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  has not been restricted to those concerning land. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, appreciates that I have tried to meet him in that way.
  It is necessary to define with some degree of precision the scope of the initiative now conferred on the Council, and the Amendment limits this to procedures involving, or which may involve, a statutory inquiry. The purpose of this limitation is to confine the Council's initiative to hearings of a quasi-judicial nature. Your Lordships will appreciate that it is necessary to exclude the ordinary processes of administration, for example, an interview with an official, on which it would be inappropriate for the Council to comment. The noble Lord may have noticed that "statutory provision" includes subordinate legislation, so there is no difficulty there. Also, the Amendment is drafted to cover cases in which the holding of an inquiry is discretionary. I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, that although he has not got everything he wants I have gone a great way to meet his Amendment, and I have tried to interpret, as fairly and as fully as I can, what the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, put forward as a via media. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 1, line 17, leave out from (" tribunal") to end of line 19 and insert the said paragraph.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  5.0 p.m.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, before I make comment upon what the noble and learned Viscount has so kindly said, may I refer to something which he said in reply to the Amendment which I withdrew, and for which this is a substitute, on the Committee stage of the Bill? I refer to Column 861 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of April 22. The noble and learned Viscount said:
  " The only slant of Lord Lucas of Chilworth's speech with which I should quarrel is the impression that he gave of arrogating to himself primarily the desire to see that the position of the individual is improved."
  If I was inadvertently guilty of conveying that impression, not only to the noble and learned Viscount but to any of your Lordships, I am deeply distressed, because it would exhibit a piece of impertinence of which I never thought I should be guilty. If I did that—and, as I say, it was quite inadvertent—I would offer, not only to the noble and learned Viscount,

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  but to your Lordships, my humble apology. With all your Lordships I share a profound respect for the fairness of the Lord Chancellor and his invariable desire to protect the rights of the citizen and individual, and that is why I would thank him very much for the Amendment which he has put down.
  Frankly, I cannot quite see the difference between his Amendment and mine. His goes almost all the way. There is only one thing I would say, and it gives me particular pleasure to say it—I do not like the drafting. As one who has suffered for years from having that said of my poor efforts, it gives me great satisfaction to say that I do not like the Parliamentary draftsman's drafting of this Amendment. But again I expect I am wrong, so if I have two questions to ask perhaps the noble and learned Viscount will forgive me. I hesitate to say I do not like the grammar, because again I may be wrong. The noble and learned Viscount's Amendment reads in this way:
  " to consider and report on such particular matters as may be referred as aforesaid "—
  that is, those already mentioned in the words of the previous paragraph. Then it goes on:
  " or as the Council may determine to be of special importance …"
  Would it not be clearer if the words were:
  " or other matters as the council may determine to be of special importance"?
  In my view it does not run smoothly to say:
  " to consider and report on such particular matters as may be referred as aforesaid, or as the Council may determine to be of special importance …"
  I should have thought that what we really want is for the Council to have jurisdiction on other matters as the Council may determine to be of special importance. That is my first point.
  My next point is that the Amendment goes on—and I hope I am not displaying an unduly suspicious mind—
  " or as the Council may determine to be of special importance, with respect to administrative procedures involving, or which may involve, the holding by or on behalf of a Minister of a statutory inquiry …"
  What about the procedures following an inquiry that has been involved? If the noble and learned Viscount can follow me, I have in my mind that he is anxious about administrative procedures which
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  may be carried out by the enactment of this Bill, by enactment of other legislation, or by other administrative procedure. I am anxious that the procedures that are put into force without enactment and done administratively shall also come before the Council. May I give the illustration of the circular issued by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government—the one I have quoted before? Here is a procedure which has been put into force administratively. Would such a procedure come under this paragraph which the Lord Chancellor now proposes your Lordships should agree to insert in the Bill?
  One last point. The Amendment of the noble and learned Viscount says:
  " the holding by or on behalf of a Minister of a statutory inquiry. …"
  He omits the words, "or hearing". As the noble and learned Viscount knows, many of these things can be done by hearing privately, and need not he a statutory public inquiry. Is a hearing included? Will this tribunal have the right to make suggestions or bring to the Lord Chancellor's attention matters with which they do not agree in the procedure hearings; or am I to understand that "hearing" is included in the words "or any such procedure"? That is why I did not like the wording. The noble and learned Viscount may tell me that the wording is quite good; that it is grammatically correct. But would he then give me an assurance on the points I have just raised?
  This is the Report stage, and I shall not have an opportunity of speaking on this Amendment again, so may I thank him very much for the trouble to which he has gone. I think that this Amendment to the Bill, in the sense the Lord Chancellor has described it to your Lordships, will do a great deal to take away the objection which was voiced in your Lordships' House to the position of the Council on Tribunals.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, may I apologise to the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor? He knows that I had to he at another meeting when he moved this Amendment, but as I was able to get here before the debate concluded I should like to join the noble Lord opposite in thanking him most sincerely for accepting this Amendment and drafting it in this form. If I may,

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  I would venture to congratulate him on the great trouble which he obviously took to produce so good a Bill as this on a very complicated subject, and for the constructive and conciliatory attitude he has adopted through the Committee stage and to-day in making it an even better Bill.
  LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, one does try to understand Acts of Parliament. I have been looking at paragraphs (b) and (c) of subsection (1), and they seem to me to read, leaving out unnecessary words:
  "to consider and report on such particular matters as may be referred to the Council … with respect to tribunals …"
  and, in the new paragraph (c):
  " to consider and report on such particular matters as may be referred as aforesaid, or as the Council may determine to be of special importance …"
  I have been trying to make something of it. Should it not be "or which the Council may determine", if I have interpreted the rest of the paragraph correctly?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, if I may come back to Lord Saltoun's point in one moment, I should like first of all to thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, and my noble friend Lord Swinton for what they have said. It is a great pleasure when one can meet the opinion expressed in the House. I have sought so to do, and I am very grateful for what they have said. As regards Lord Lucas of Chilworth's first point, I should only like to say to him that of course I fully accept what he said, in the spirit in which he said it.
  With regard to the drafting and the grammar, of course I will look at it, in view of what both noble Lords have said. But it is important to note (and this I think deals with Lord Saltoun's point) that the first line of the Amendment is
  "to consider and report on such particular matters as may be referred as aforesaid".
  These are the particular matters which I, in regard to England and Wales, or my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, in the case of Scotland, may refer. That is where we pick up the word "as" to which the noble Lord. Lord Saltoun, has drawn attention. Then we go on to say:
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  "or as importance Council may determine to be of special importance …"
  I do not want to lose the particular, but I want to give the Council the full power which I said. Perhaps I may have another look at the wording. I am always pleased to receive suggestions; I think that we have done it, but I will look at it again and I would not for a moment grudge the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth the riposte to-day, because, as he says, the Government has very often in the last few years made the same sort of point on Amendments of his, and riposte is always very proper.
  With regard to what I think was the most substantial point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, I am quite clear that the procedure is the whole process and there is no better way of involving an inquiry than to have it in the middle. I am quite satisfied that the noble Lord's point is met, and I do not think he need be in any fear as to that. The other point that he raised was about the extent of the hearing. I did say that I wanted to confine this—and I think this was the general view—to hearings of a quasi-judicial nature. What I do not want—I did mention this; I want to be quite frank about it—is that if a Minister sends a civil servant to see somebody that purely administrative procedure should be involved; and that is the line one has drawn. I think that would be an undue limit on administration. I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, need worry about the substance of his point, and with regard to the expression of that substance I will willingly have another look at it. I can only once again thank noble Lords who have spoken for what they have said on this Amendment, and ask the House to agree to it.
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Clause 2 [Reports of, and references to, Council and Scottish Committee]:
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, after subsection (3) to insert:
  " (4) Where, without any reference having been made to them, the Council report on a particular matter, then—

  (a) if the matter relates only to England and Wales, subsection (2) of this section shall apply as if the matter had been referred to the Council by the Lord Chancellor,

  (b) if the matter relates only to Scotland, the two foregoing subsections shall apply as if the matter had been referred to them by the Secretary of State."

  The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 might with convenience be discussed together, because they are both consequential on the previous Amendment. They provide for any report made by the Council of its own motion on a particular matter relating to administrative procedures covered by Clause 1 (1) (c) to be made to me if it refers to England or Wales, or to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland if the matter concerns only Scotland. These Amendments bring the Council's procedure arising from the previous Amendment into line with the procedure laid clown in the Bill for its other duties. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 3, line 12, at end insert the said subsection.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 3, line 16, at end insert (" or with respect to any particular matter falling within paragraph (c) of subsection (1) of the foregoing section and relating only to Scotland.")—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Clause 3 [Chairmen etc. of certain tribunals: appointment by Lord Chancellor or Lord President]:
  5.18 p.m.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, after subsection (1) to insert:
  "(2) Where under any statute the appropriate authority is enabled to make or confirm any order or make any determination which interferes with or takes away the legal rights enjoyed by any person prior to such order and before making or confirming such order is empowered to appoint an inspector or other person or persons to inquire or hear representations and report upon the matter the inspector or person or, if more than one are so appointed the chairman, shall be selected by the appropriate authority from a panel of persons appointed by the Lord Chancellor."
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, I put this Amendment down again in precisely the same form as I moved it on the Committee stage because, after the concerted pleadings of myself, the noble Earl, Lord Swinton. the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor said that he would take the whole
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  matter back and would consider it. This is the essential point: should the inspectors who hold inquiries set up under administrative procedures be independent of the Departments, or should they remain, as they are to-day, the servants of the Departments? I am not going to weary your Lordships with the whole of the arguments again. You have heard them in this House upon many occasions. I do not alter my view. I think my view was held by all the speakers in your Lordships' House, with perhaps one exception, and I put the Amendment down to ask the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor whether or not he will meet, either here or when this Bill goes to another place, the expressed desire of your Lordships in the same generous manner as he has in Clause 1. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 3, line 34, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am going to ask your Lordships indulgence to speak for a little longer on this Amendment in order to try to disembarrass your Lordships, because this is a most important subject and I promised the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, and others who spoke that I would give further consideration to the matter. I should like to deploy the reasons which have prevented my acceding to the Amendment, so that they are on record for consideration, and if they do not appeal to noble Lords I am sure they will be good enough to come and tell me the troubles they feel.
  We remain convinced that the change to put the inspectors in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government under my control would be a mistake. It is important to remember the reasons that have been advanced in favour of such a change by the Franks Committee. It was to increase public confidence in the procedure by
  "emphasising impartiality at an important stage of the adjudication."
  I quote those words from paragraph 303 of the Report. The Franks Committee recognise that such a change might seem to sonic to be a change in name only, but said that it is the appearance that matters. The Government say that such a change is not necessary and that it

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  would give rise to great practical difficulties.
  In considering the first question, whether a change is necessary, I invite your Lordships to look at what the problem really is. The inspectorate has grown up inside the Department over many decades, and it has established its present high reputation for impartiality and integrity from within the Department. Nobody has ever suggested, and the Franks Committee did not suggest, that the inspectors of the Ministry are subject to any influence in the recommendations they make, and, in fact, they are not. They are never given—nor would they accept—any advice about the conclusion that they should come to in any particular case. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, confirmed this when he said—I quote his words from the OFFICIAL REPORT of April 22, Vol. 208, col. 886:
  "I go further and express the belief that they are not even briefed."
  That also is true. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, to have this in mind. This is true, but it will be no less true now that their reports and recommendations are being published for all to see.
  The impartiality at this stage of the adjudication needs no emphasis; it has never been in doubt. But what has been in doubt—I think this was what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, had in mind—was what happens after the report is received. Publication of the inspector's recommendations, together with the giving of full reasons for the Minister's decision, whether in agreement with the recommendation of the inspector or otherwise, will, we believe, resolve any doubt. I repeat what I said on the previous occasion, that the Franks Committee did not suggest that a change was necessary. All they suggested was that it would look better.
  Now I come to the other point, which is most important—namely, that to alter the responsibility for the control of the inspectorate would give rise to serious practical difficulties. Again, it must be faced that the Franks Committee agreed that the inspectorate should be kept in close contact with developments of policy in the Departments responsible for the subject matter of the inquiries; and, indeed, nothing else would make sense.
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  In addition, the inspectors of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government must be in close physical contact with the Department. I ask your Lordships to appreciate this fact. With over 6,000 inquiries to arrange in a year, and over 100 inspectors travelling all over the country, the closest contact is needed between the Department who are receiving the appeals and the objections and the inspectors who are taking the inquiries, if intolerable delay and confusion are to be avoided. The process is—I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, would bear me out—that cases needing inquiry are streaming in the whole time and have to be fitted into the inspectors' tightly packed programmes. Dates for inquiries have to be settled with the parties, and it often happens, as those of us who are engaged in the law know from our own experience, that two or three dates have to be tried before an acceptable one can be found; then it may have to be altered to meet the convenience of one of the parties.
  This departure was tried—I do not know whether it was in Lord Silkin's time or not. The operations room of the inspectors was in a different building from the headquarters of the Ministry. But the difficulties and delays were such that that had to be abandoned, and this fact the Franks Committee accepted. If this arrangement is to be altered, the process of reaching decision, already too long, will take a great deal longer and, as I have said, the Government could not really tolerate it because it would be a denial of justice in itself. That applies especially to the smaller applicants who are waiting to know what the result will be because it affects their own private lives and their future.
  My right honourable friend is most anxious to shorten the time. This aim has been difficult to achieve because of the number of cases; but he is determined to achieve it. I would put to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, not only as a former Minister and so experienced a Parliamentarian, but as a business man, the difficulty I am in. If I took this duty over, how could my Department exercise any genuine control over an inspectorate seated, as it must be seated, in the Ministry of Housing and Local Govenment, in daily contact with the Ministry, as the Franks Committee

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  says they must be, and necessarily dependent on the Minister for arranging their programme? The management of such a business—that is, arranging the programme, the dates and the alterations, for 6,000 inquiries in a year—is not work for which my Department is, or could reasonably he, equipped. I would also say that it is work for which the Minister ought to answer.
  Without any desire to catch up or catch out the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, I crave in aid what he said on the last Amendment. The noble Lord was anxious that it should not be an isolated part of the procedures but should be the whole of the procedures which should be subject to inquiry. The difficulty that I see here is that if the Minister is responsible for the whole procedure and of making a decision in the end—the noble Lord, I am sure, had to make many decisions in corresponding matters when he was at the Ministry of Transport—then he must have some responsibility at this point, by seeing that all the steps necessay to give him the chance of arriving at a right decision are properly taken. I would suggest, therefore, that the inquiry is part—and a very important part—of the process by which he reaches his decision. The inspector makes his recommendation but does not make a provisional decision. I do not want that point blurred, because the Minister must take responsibility for the decision after having the argument put before him, with all the necessary information, by the inspectorate. It seems to Her Majesty's Government that the Minister who is responsible for the decisions arrived at by that process ought to be responsible and answerable for the functioning of the process.
  I hope the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, appreciates that there I have been dealing with the matter on the basis of the functioning of the process. As to the appointment of these gentlemen, they are, of course, to be appointed only with my consent, as I told the House on the last occasion. When they come up for appointment as inspectors I have to be consulted and to consent; and equally they cannot be removed without my consent. That is the argument.
  There is just one other point that I should like the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth to have in mind. Owing
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  to the Amendment with which we have just been dealing we have now further agreed that the Council on Tribunals shall be entitled to report on any matters regarding administrative procedures involving an inquiry or hearing in the sense that I explained to the noble Lord, which they may consider to be of special importance. Should the Council consider that the position of the inspectorate ought to be looked at as a matter of special importance they will be free to do so; and equally I shall be free to do so should the noble Lord find some reason to put before me and ask me to take that course. So it may be some satisfaction to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, to know that the Amendment which is in substitution for his Amendment has also produced a reaction on the position of the inspectorate and the possibility that that may be considered. I am extremely sorry to have taken up so much time but I feel that this is one of the matters which has most worried the House, and as I could not go further than I had gone I was most anxious to convince your Lordships that I had taken into consideration all the points which had been made.
  5.34 p.m.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Viscount for going to the trouble of stating the case he has. I say to him, with no disrespect, that, while I agree with the technical perfection of the case, I am not so much concerned with administrative convenience. I am concerned with the feeling of the people of this country; and I can only recall the words of the permanent head of his own Department before the Franks Committee. Sir George Coldstream then said that there was grave disquiet in this country upon the question of the impartiality of these public inquiries which are set up under administrative procedures.
  When the Report of the Franks Committee was first debated in Parliament it was debated in another place a week or ten days before it was debated in your Lordships' House. The Lord Privy Seal spoke on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, and what he said was the first Government pronouncement upon this

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  very thorny problem—I quote from the Commons OFFICIAL REPORT:
  "The Government further recognise the importance of emphasising the independence of the inspectorate."
  I am not so concerned with inspectors who sit and hear inquiries on behalf of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government vis-à-vis that Department or vis-à-vis an individual and a local authority. Let us be frank about this. The disquiet of the public has been over inquiries into the acquisition of land for the erection of pylons on behalf of a nationalised industry, the Central Electricity Authority—inquiries presided over by an inspector of the Ministry of Power. That has been the prime criticism over these last two or three years. The criticism has had this basis: that practically 100 per cent. of the objections received have been on amenity grounds, and as the Ministry of Power inspector has no knowledge of or authority in amenity matters, which rest only with the Minister of Housing and Local Government, there have been two inspectors presiding, as I have said rather facetiously more than once in your Lordships' House—like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. With those two rather fictitious folk conducting inquiries the bulk of the people of this country who have had to go to these inquiries and prosecute their case have felt that they have fallen between two stools.
  It would be impudence on my part to start to lecture the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack on the basis of British law and justice, but my elementary teaching was that not only must justice be done but that it must be quite apparent that it is being done; and that is the basis of the complaint of nearly everybody who goes to that type of inquiry. I know the difficulties, and I know that there is a good case to be made for the administrative convenience of a Department—and nobody could make that case better than the noble and learned Viscount. But as I have said, public administration is for the benefit of the public and not for the benefit of the Administration. What a Garden of Eden it would be for the bureaucracy of any country if they could ride roughshod over the rights of the common person! But they cannot; and the more difficulties that I can put in their way, the more I
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  intend to put in their way. That is the drawback of their trade.
  I would not quarrel with anything that has been said by the noble and learned Viscount, but nobody will convince the average Briton that there is any justice for him when he goes to what he believes is at least a quasi-judicial independent inquiry and finds it presided over by somebody who is really only interested in getting the policy of his master—in other words the Minister—through. However, I am not going to carry this matter any further. I am very glad that we have had this argument deployed, because this Bill goes to another place and we shall see what they think when they have to consider this point. I have read nearly every speech that has been made upon this subject, and in another place there was only one advocate for preserving the status quo. We shall see if they have changed their minds.
  I, my Lords, seize on what the noble and learned Viscount said in his concluding remark. That is why I welcome so gladly the Amendment to Clause 1. This matter will now come before the Council on Tribunals, and I do not expect for one moment that that has escaped the notice of the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack. I know that he will set up the Council, as will be his responsibility; and he will see, I feel certain, that the personnel of that Council are men who will have wide experience and will not be—I say this because I cannot think offhand of a better word—the basis of a bureaucracy. That would defeat its whole object. I hope that the Council on Tribunals will be renowned for their independence of mind and not for their dependence on the patronage of any Government, whichever Government it may be. If that is the Council we are going to have, I am perfectly prepared to rest content on that. I am not going to argue for one moment that the balance of argument is all in my favour. There is an argument, but it ill becomes me to argue. I know that perhaps I may earn the rebuke of the noble and learned Viscount that I rather chided him before. I do not put myself up as the only spokesman on behalf of the freedom of the individual, but I confess that I am more concerned with the freedom of the individual and the rights of the individual than with the convenience of either Ministers or civil servants; and I always have been, even when I was in the Ministry.

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  I do not agree with the noble and learned Viscount that what I am pleading for would in any way delay justice. I think that in the cases I have cited it would speed justice, because it would mean a quicker decision than in many of these cases where there are two inspectors who have to reconcile their differences. My experience as a Minister has been that if a Department want to delay a decision they have the most wonderful technique for delaying it. The "In" and "Out" trays of a ministerial office provide the most efficient method of delaying decisions; not inspectors' reports. I have always had inspectors' reports in the Ministry of Transport with great expedition, and they have all been independent. I have a great admiration for the railway inspector, independent; the traffic commissioners, independent—although the Minister has the last word. I have never known anybody grumble about one of those decisions, because they have always felt that the inspector, at least, has been independent.
  However, as I said, I am not going to ask your Lordships to vote upon this Amendment. I think it would be foolish in your Lordships' House to do that, because we hear the arguments. If Parliament in its wisdom wants to go on in this matter—that is, in another place—then we can only hope that this Council on Tribunals will watch the position very carefully. I take it—and perhaps the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor would be kind enough to answer this point, which I meant to ask on the First Amendment—that all these matters will be subject to a report to Parliament, as it was originally intended the Council should report to Parliament on its first procedure. I take it that, now that the noble and learned Viscount has, by his first Amendment, included the administrative procedures, they will be subject to a report to Parliament. I shall rest content if the noble and learned Viscount will give an assurance on that, and I will then withdraw my Amendment.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, certainly I give the noble Lord that assurance. The intention is that matters that the Council raise proprio motu should be in the same position as those referred to me, and should finish with a report to Parliament.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Viscount, and I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 8 [Appeals from certain tribunals]:
  5.47 p.m.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, after subsection (1) to insert:
  "(2) If any party to any inquiry or hearing as specified in subsection (2) of section three of this Act is dissatisfied in point of law with the order of the appropriate authority made after consideration of the report of the inspector or other person conducting the inquiry or hearing thereof given an or after the appointed day he may according as rules of court may provide either appeal therefrom to the High Court or require the appropriate authority to state and sign a case for the opinion of the High Court."
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, again this Amendment is put down because, owing to his regrettable absence through other and pressing business, the noble and learned Viscount could not be here when the matter was argued, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, replied for him. This is a simple point. I am hoping that the noble Viscount will accept the Amendment or, if he will not accept it in these words, that he will give it his consideration on its passage down to another place. If in any tribunal decision any appellant wishes to contest a point of law—I am putting it now in a layman's language—he has the right to go to a higher court. I desire to have precisely the same right given to the individual who is aggrieved on a point of law by a decision of the Minister after a local inquiry by an administrative procedure. I cannot, for the life of me, see why justice, as interpreted in this context, should be withheld from one individual and given to another.
  The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, in his reply did not contest this, but he said that it was really a matter that should be put in a planning Act. I do not know whether the noble and learned Viscount would like to tell your Lordships what chances there are of having another planning Act, but I should think that they are as remote as it is possible to conceive. All I do in this Amendment to Clause 8 of the Bill is to repeat precisely the words that are applicable to tribunals, as set out in the First Schedule, and apply them to administrative procedures. May I

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  refresh your Lordships' memories? Clause 8 states:
  " Appeals from certain tribunals
  "If any party to proceedings before any such tribunal as is specified in paragraph 2, 3, 4 or 8"—
  and other paragraphs which it sets out—
  "of the First Schedule to this Act is dissatisfied in point of law with a decision of the tribunal given on or after the appointed day he may, according as rules of court may provide, either appeal therefrom to the High Court or require the tribunal to state and sign a case for the opinion of the High Court."
  All I ask in this Amendment is that that shall be repeated in subsection (2)—the noble Viscount is covered by his first Amendment—for any party dissatisfied
  " in point of law with the order of the appropriate authority made after consideration of the report of the inspector or other person conducting the inquiry … "
  It is a point of simple justice. In my lay mind, there could be conceivably a point of law. May I make the suggestion that there might be lack of evidence upon which the Minister has come to a decision after the inspector has reported? If an appellant to a tribunal can go to a court of law on a point of law. I cannot see why an appellant to a local inquiry set up by a Ministry cannot do the same thing.
  On Committee stage, when I moved this Amendment, I said that if my interpretation of the Franks Report was correct, it said this, in effect, from first to last: the courts in preference to tribunals and the tribunals in preference to administrative procedures. But as in this complex social system of ours we cannot go to the courts on every conceivable point of difference between the Executive and the individual, we must have tribunals and administrative procedures. Nevertheless, to my mind there is no need to deny the ordinary citizen the right to go to the courts on a point of law if he thinks the Minister or the tribunal or the appropriate authority have been wrong. So I hope that the noble and learned Viscount will either accept this Amendment or give it further consideration in the Bill's passage to another place. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 6, line 44, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)
  5.52 p.m.
  LORD DENNING: My Lords, may I say a word on this Amendment? I could not be here on the earlier stage. It is important that there should be some recourse to the courts on points of law. In the Franks Committee Report there is a specific recommendation in regard to certain matters on planning appeals. Let me give an illustration which occurred in the courts recently in regard to the Malvern Hills. There was a question of whether planning permission was necessary or not for the extension of quarries on the Malvern Hills, and this depended on the technical point of whether or not they had been previously authorised by an Act of Parliament. That matter eventually came before the courts on a request for a declaration, and it was argued on behalf of the Minister that there was no recourse to that procedure. Now the Franks Committee have recommended that there should be an appeal to the courts of law on points of that kind.
  Again, on questions from a Minister, a case arose from Bridgend, Glamorganshire, where a shoemaker claimed to be a mental health officer so as to get extra superannuation. Apparently he was engaged in giving mental patients occupational therapy and he could get a higher pension as a mental health officer. He wanted the question of law tested in the courts and brought proceedings for the purpose, but the court had to tell him that they could not help him. Therefore there should be recourse to the courts.
  The only question is one of procedure. I find that the Franks Report recommends something in the nature of certiorari for it. If reasonable decisions are given and it is made clear that the old procedure of certiorari applies, then it might not be necessary to have all the complete and perhaps too encouraging procedure of appeals extended. If we have reasons, which I hope we shall have in due course, perhaps that would cover the grounds which the Amendment is suggesting.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I should like to say that I yield to no one in my wish that the citizen should have access to the courts. As I said to the House the other day, after the Question of my noble friend, Lord Elibank, on

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  legal aid, I believe that the right of a citizen to establish his rights in court, either against another citizen or against the State, is one of the fundamental requirements of true democracy; and I want to make it quite clear that I could not feel more strongly than I do on the matter. But I want to deal with this point on the basis of what exists today and of what is the position with regard to planning, as my noble and learned friend Lord Denning has mentioned that point in particular.
  The Franks Committee considered the need for such an appeal as is proposed here in cases of administrative decisions relating to land which involve the holding of inquiries, as set out in paragraph 359 of the Report. They noted that the right of appeal already existed in most of these cases: first of all, decisions on compulsory purchase orders made by local authorities under various powers, which is probably the most important group; secondly, decisions by the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation under certain Acts relating to roads, which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, will remember well; thirdly, decisions by any Minister vested with powers of compulsory acquisition by Section 37 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947; fourthly, clearance orders under the Housing Act, and fifthly, approval of a development plan by the Minister of Housing and Local Government. I have not troubled your Lordships with the actual citations of the Statutes, but your Lordships may take it that these are already covered by various Acts which I could name.
  In these cases the appeal to the High Court lies on the ground that an order or decision is ultra vires or procedurally faulty, and it has to be made within six weeks of the publication of the decision or confirmation of the order. The High Court may suspend the operation of the order or decision or any part of it, pending their consideration of the matter. If satisfied that it is ultra vires or procedurally faulty, they can quash the order or decision or any part of it. The Franks Committee made no criticism of the adequacy of that form of appeal. I think that the substantial point is this—indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, presented it in this way—that they thought
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  "it should be applied to decisions on planning appeals in the same way as it applied to decisions in other cases relating to land."
  The Government accept this recommendation but, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has said, they consider that the appropriate way to give effect to it is by amendment to the Town and Country Planning Act.
  I must say that the noble Lord gave me a good thrust. He knows very well that no Minister of any Party can ever say in May what will appear in the next gracious Speech from the Throne. No doubt, if he chooses, he will go on describing the slaughter of the innocents and all the other Parliamentary terrorism which takes place with regard to future legislation. But what I want to put to the noble Lord is that there are certain other procedures under these Acts, besides the appeals, which should be considered in the same connection—for example, modification orders under Section 21, and orders relating to discontinuance of uses under Section 26. And therefore there is a case for saying that this could be better done in the context of the Planning Acts themselves. I cannot be specific, but I do not accept the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, that this would mean putting the matter off until the Greek Kalends.
  There are a number of points relating to planning procedures on which the Franks Committee made observations, and the Government wish to take action as soon as they can find an opportunity. The sort of points I have in mind are those raised in Recommendations 90, 91 and 93 of the Report. There is also the point that power will need to be taken to make rules giving effect to whatever the Council on Tribunals may say on planning procedures. So there are a number of points which might he usefully legislated upon in that field. What I think will be more important for the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, however, is that, so far as I can see, it is not correct to speak as though the subject had no recourse to the courts in any of these cases. The noble Lord asked on April 29 [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 208, col. 1105], and he has really asked again to-day:
  "Why deny the citizen … recourse to the courts of this land?"
  If anyone wishes to challenge a planning decision on a point of law he can apply

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  to the High Court for an order of certiorari to quash the decision; or, in an appropriate case, he can seek a declaration. I think my noble and learned friend Lord Denning will bear me out that there are cases where the remedies of mandamus and prohibition are also open to him. Therefore I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, that we are not leaving it to the position in which an individual is barred from the courts. We are saying that we shall take an opportunity of bringing planning appeals into line and of tidying the matter up, but in the meantime I am glad to think that the individual is not barred from the courts.
  My noble and learned friend Lord Denning drew anticipatory attention to the question of the giving of reasons. I do not think it would be a good thing to spoil whatever surprise I have for your Lordships at the time when that Amendment comes by saying any more now, but I have my noble and learned friend's point well in mind. For all these reasons I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, not to press the Amendment, on my assurance that there is that recourse to the High Court, which I hope will be better.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I gladly accept that assurance of the noble and learned Viscount, and also his assurance that the Government have it clearly in mind to give attention to this when the tidying-up takes place on all the other things. I should hope that he will be able to redeem his promise, if I may put it that way, in the not too distant future, because I have an unhappy feeling—perhaps I should not say "unhappy"—that if he leaves it too long he will not have the opportunity. However, on that assurance I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 10 [Extension of supervisory powers of superior courts]:
  6.6 p.m.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved to add to the clause:
  "(3) Where any tribunal specified in the First Schedule to this Act is empowered to make any order or determination or where an appropriate authority is empowered by statute to make or confirm any order or determination which interferes with or takes away legal rights
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  enjoyed by any person the tribunal or appropriate authority as the case may be shall state the grounds upon which the order or determination is made."
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is put down only to enable the Lord Chancellor to tell your Lordships the result of his deliberations upon the Amendment that was so well moved by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, on the Committee stage. This Amendment also was down on the Committee stage, and if the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, had repeated his Amendment to-day, I should not have put down this Amendment. As I say, it is moved only to allow the Lord Chancellor to tell your Lordships the result of his deliberations on this vital question of the giving of reasons I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 9, line 3, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, the noble Lord opposite has reminded your Lordships that at the Committee stage I had an Amendment down having the same effect as this Amendment. The Lord Chancellor was good enough to give me a certain assurance before the time had elapsed for putting down Amendments for this stage and, in confident anticipation of what he was going to tell your Lordships, I did not think it was necessary to repeat the Amendment.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I want to assure the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, that I have considered this point carefully. The way that my mind is moving (I do not want this to be held absolutely firmly against me; I only want to indicate it, because I should like your Lordships to know that I have been thinking the matter out) is that there should be inserted in the Bill a requirement to give reasons; that the requirement should come into force at a future date; that before that date I should have a chance of consulting the Council on Tribunals so as to get their views, and that, having consulted them, I should then have the power to exempt certain tribunals from giving reasons, but that that should be subject to Parliamentary approval, either affirmatively or negatively, so that anything I did in that regard would be subject to Parliamentary control.

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  At the moment, I think it would be a good thing for me to get the views on this point of the Council on Tribunals, as there are some matters that cause me great difficulty. I mentioned on Second Reading one kind of case where I could not find a point of law—the case of the Assessment Committees under the war pensions tribunals, where there is a tribunal which has a medical chairman and Service people sitting with him. The medical chairman examines a pensioner to decide whether he should be a 60 per cent. or 40 per cent. disability case. He goes through all the long records from the Ministry of Pensions, with which we are all familiar, and then examines the man himself; and having done so, he says that he thinks it is a 60 per cent. or 40 per cent. case. In many cases it is difficult to give reasons because it is a pure assessment. Or take the case to which the Franks Committee drew attention, that of the National Assistance committees. They say: "We think that Tom Smith earns £5 a week and should receive 38s. 6d." What he should receive is just an assessment of his need at that time and an assessment of his average earnings. It is very difficult to give detailed reasons.
  I have quoted those examples because I want your Lordships to know that I am all for tribunals giving reasons, yet I do not want to make it too difficult for the many thousands of admirable people all over the country who give their services on these tribunals by requiring them to give reasons in cases where the giving of reasons has not the same importance that it has in others. That is why I am considering whether there should be an opportunity to exclude some of those where reasons cannot be so important. I have said that only because I was hopeful that I should be able to come before your Lordships with the actual Amendment. The matter, however, needs some further consideration, and I give your Lordships the firm undertaking that an Amendment on this point will be placed in the Bill when it comes to another place. I hope your Lordships will think I cannot do more at the moment. But that is a firm and solemn undertaking, and I gladly give it.
  Lola LUCAS on CHILWORTH: My Lords, I am grateful, as I think both the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh,
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  and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, will be to the noble and learned Viscount for his assurance. We are perfectly prepared to leave ourselves in his hands, with thanks for the trouble he has taken. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 12 [Interpretation]:
  6.13 p.m.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, in rising to move this Amendment I need not detain your Lordships for long because, as your Lordships will see, it is to leave out certain words and to insert others. The first point deals with special bodies, and I do not think your Lordships would have any objection to the course taken with regard to them. It extends the definition of a Minister so as to include any Board presided over by a Minister, such as the Army Council or the Board of Admiralty. That is necessary because of the new paragraph (c) which was placed in the Bill by the first Amendment. I explained on a previous Amendment the importance of "statutory inquiry." The Amendment is really consequential, and I ask your Lordships to accept it. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 10, line 15, leave out from (" includes ") to (" and ") in line 16 and insert (" any Board presided over by a Minister, ' statutory inquiry ' means an inquiry or hearing held or to he held in pursuance of a statutory provision,").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS (REDISTRIBUTION OF SEATS) BILL
  Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
  ROCHDALE CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
  Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.

  CAMMELL LAIRD AND COMPANY BILL [H.L.]
  Returned from the Commons, agreed to with Amendments: the said Amendments considered and agreed to.
  House adjourned at a quarter past six o'clock.