Lords Sitting of 13 November 1958

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers
The Viscount Brentford—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his brother.

SOVEREIGNTY OF FORMOSA
3.5 p.m.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government: (1) whether China ceded Formosa to Japan by the Peace Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895; (2) whether, in formally proclaiming herself in a state of war with Japan on December 8, 1941, and at the same time declaring the abrogation of all treaties including the Treaty of Shimonoseki, she recovered her sovereign rights over Formosa; and (3) whether anything has since occurred, and, if so, what is its nature, to deprive her—from the point of view of International Law—of those sovereign rights.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): My Lords, in answer to the first part of the Noble Viscount's Question: Formosa and the Pescadores were ceded to Japan by China in the Shimonoseki Treaty of 1895. In answer to the second part: according to International Law, a State cannot merely by unilateral declaration regain rights of sovereignty which it has formally ceded by Treaty. China therefore could not, and did not, regain sovereign rights over these territories by the unilateral denunciation of this Treaty in 1941. In view of this the third part of the Question does not arise.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg to thank the noble Marquess for his Answer, on which of course it will be necessary to solve certain points of interpretation. Is the noble Marquess aware
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that, as reported in The Times of January 6, 1950, Mr. Acheson, then Secretary of State, made it clear that, whatever sort of China was recognised, Formosa should be regarded as part of it, and that the United States was not going to alter its opinion on this subject merely because those in control in China were not friendly to the United States. Following that, is this not the view which has been consistently maintained by the United States Government, and, if it is not, then their Treaty with the Republic of China of December, 1954, would consequently be invalid.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I do not think it would be for me to interpret American ideas. But perhaps it might be helpful if I reminded the noble Viscount of a reply which has been given to a similar question in another place, to this effect: that under the Peace Treaty of 1952 Japan formally renounced all right, title and claim to Formosa and the Pescadores. This, however, did not operate as a transfer to Chinese sovereignty, whether to the Peoples' Republic of China or to the Chinese Nationalist authorities. Formosa and the Pescadores are therefore, in the view of Her Majesty's Government, territory the de jure sovereignty of which is uncertain and undetermined.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Marquess, but in view of the conflict of opinion between the United Kingdom and the United States on this particular matter, would he consider taking it for interpretation to the International Court of Justice?
LORD SHEPHERD: Might I ask the noble Marquess whether the Formosan people have lost completely their sovereign rights?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I have done my best to answer a factual question. As all your Lordships are aware, this is a complicated and delicate matter, and I would appreciate it if your Lordships would put any further Questions down so that they might receive full consideration.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, might I ask the noble Marquess who has the sovereign right over the Island of Formosa?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Viscount heard my suggestion; that was, that perhaps he would be kind enough to put the Question down.

CHILDREN'S HOSPITALS
3.9 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is their policy to act on the unanimous opinions of the Report, dated 1957, of the Pædiatric Committee of the Royal College of Physicians in relation to the care of children in hospital, and, in particular, to have regard to the view of the Committee that "there is no doubt that special children's hospitals offer the best service for children, because the staff, at all levels and in all departments, is attuned to the special needs of the sick child ".]
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, my right honourable and learned friend fully recognises the merits of special children's hospitals, but does not consider that they should necessarily override all other considerations. He certainly does not rule out the use of children's units in general hospitals, as is also envisaged by the Pediatric Committee of the Royal College of Physicians. The right form of provision in a particular area would depend on the circumstances of the area and would be a matter for decision by the hospital board concerned in the first instance.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Earl. Could he give your Lordships an idea of what considerations would lead the Minister to override this unanimous recommendation of the most eminent members of the medical profession?
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, I think the answer in general to the noble Lord would be that in particular areas where it was more suitable to have a children's ward in an existing hospital that would be the case, and at the same time, of course, the staff looking after the children would be specially trained. I know that one of the considerations that my right honourable friend would take into account is the question of visiting. I think all your Lordships would agree that probably one of the most important things in the care of children is that the parents should be able to visit them whenever possible, and a small children's hospital in an area which might be accessible to the few but not the many would not really achieve what the noble Lord, I know, wants.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that this is the first time that we have heard of this reason for having the beds in a general hospital —so that parents may visit? Is not the fact that children should be looked after by staff accustomed to looking after children much more important than that parents should visit them?
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, I am sorry if I did not make it clear to the noble Viscount. I tried to point out that the staff in those wards in a general hospital would be those who are trained to look after children.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, would the noble Earl bring to the attention of his right honourable friend that there is considerable concern about a hospital, which is I think in the Croydon area and which has for a long time been wholly a children's hospital, with all the tradition and all the intensified experience of a children's hospital, but into which the regional board propose now to introduce adult patients? It will make it most difficult if there is a sudden outbreak of illness or epidemic among children.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, I will certainly bring that to the notice of my right honourable friend.

BULLET-PROOF VESTS FOR CYPRUS SERVICEMEN
3.12 p.m.
LORD MILNER OF LEEDS: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the continuance and extension of murderous attacks on individuals in Cyprus, especially by shots in the back, the provision of bullet-proof vests for those Servicemen and others specially exposed, may be reconsidered.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF PERTH): My Lords, a supply of bulletproof vests is held by the Security Forces in Cyprus and issued to men who are engaged on duties which make them particularly vulnerable to terrorist attack. These men include escorts, certain patrols and members of administrative units. A further supply of some hundreds is being sent out shortly.
LORD MILNER OF LEEDS: My Lords, whilst thanking the noble Earl, may I ask whether I am to understand that bullet-proof vests are in fact in issue in Cyprus? Because I have a letter from the Secretary of State at the War Office, written only a week ago, in which he gave reasons for not adopting such a course.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I am puzzled by the letter to which the noble Lord refers, because they are in Cyprus and are in use.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, do I gather that there is confusion about the situation? Can we have the assurance of the Minister of State that the jackets are in course of issue now? Would he also tell us whether any special conditions are attached to the armament of civilians? If they are to be sworn in as special constables and the like, will they also be issued with the same protection?
THE EARL OF PERTH: MY Lords, I think there is no doubt that bullet-proof vests are being used at the present time. They are not being used by everybody. They have been used for those who have special and hazardous duties. As to whether they should be issued to civilians, that clearly must depend on the circumstances and the judgment of the Governor and the Director of Operations.
LORD MILNER OF LEEDS: My Lords, is there not a lack of co-ordination in the various Government Departments, in view of the fact that the Secretary of State, in his letter written to me as recently as November 3, said:
" We have decided that the disadvantages of this type of equipment outweigh the advantages "—
and goes on to say—
" We shall keep this question of protective clothing very much in mind."?
Does not that quite clearly indicate that the War Office are apparently not aware that these vests are in issue?
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, the only thing I can suggest is that perhaps there are two types of bullet-proof vest. Indeed, I know that in that connection there is a further type of bulletproof vest which is thought to be even more effective than the one that I am talking about. It is still going through its tests. These vests have pot yet been passed, so it would be too early to talk of issue. But the other bullet-proof vest to which I have referred is being used at the present time.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, in view of this appearance, at least, of confusion, could we ask the Minister of State to make it a matter of special inquiry and to come to the House and make a statement on the matter?
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I should be only too pleased to make a special inquiry, and if what I have said is incorrect or there is any confusion I will see that it is cleared up.

NUCLEAR INSTALLATIONS (LICENSING AND INSURANCE) BILL [H.L.]
3.18 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE MINISTER OF POWER (LORD MILLS): My Lords, I beg to move that the Nuclear Installations (Licensing and Insurance) Bill be read a second time. As your Lordships may be aware, on February 10 last my honourable friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power announced in another place that the Government intended to introduce by legislation a system of licensing and inspection in order to make nuclear reactors on land effectively subject to control in the interests of safety. This legislation would also place upon reactor owners a liability, similar to that of the Atomic Energy Authority, to pay compensation for personal injury or damage to property by radio-activity, even when due to unavoidable accident, but subject to a limit of £5 million for each occurrence. The owner was to be required to cover this liability by insurance or other means. The present Bill is the measure foreshadowed in that announcement.
As is well known to your Lordships, several nuclear power stations are under construction for the Electricity Boards, and others are at the planning stage. One research reactor in private industry —that of Associated Electrical Industries, Limited, at Aldermaston—has just begun to operate. Though the Atomic Energy Authority are acting as the consultants for each of these projects and are advising the owners about the requirements of safety, it is nevertheless in the interests of all that the ultimate liabilities and obligations of the owners should be defined without delay.
Let me now outline to your Lordships what the Bill is intended to do. Under Clause 1 no person other than the Atomic Energy Authority (whose position I shall discuss later) may use a site for building or operating a nuclear reactor unless the Minister (in Scotland the Secretary of State) has granted him a licence. The Minister is empowered to include in the licence such safety conditions as are appropriate. These may refer particularly to the design, siting and construction of
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the reactor, as well as to its operation and maintenance, and may require the licensee to maintain an efficient monitoring system for detecting and recording, the intensity of any radio-activity which it gives off. The disposal of radio-active waste from the reactor site which is necessary from time to time will be subject, as in the case of the Atomic Energy Authority, to authorisations issued by the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Minister of Agriculture (in Scotland the Secretary of State), after consultation with the local bodies concerned.
For the present the only installations likely to be affected by the Bill are nuclear reactors, but with the advance of atomic science and its progressive application to industry it may become necessary to extend safety controls to other types of nuclear installation. The Bill enables this to be done by regulations jointly issued by the Minister of Power and the Secretary of State, subject to Negative Resolution by either House of Parliament. The Bill does not apply to reactors used as propulsion units in ships, vehicles or aircraft as these give rise to separate problems of their own.
I now come to the liability of every licensee under Clause 3 to compensate all, including the licensee's own work-people, who suffer personal injury or damage to property because of radio-activity given off from the reactor or from irradiated nuclear fuel being taken away by him for reprocessing. With an important difference, to which I shall be coming, this liability to third parties is to be of the same kind as that of the Atomic Energy Authority. In other words, the licensee alone will be liable and will have to pay compensation whether he has been negligent or not.
The object of these provisions is to facilitate the settlement of claims, first by ensuring that all claims are channelled to the licensee, thus avoiding a multiplicity of claims between, for example, injured persons and contractors or one contractor and another; and, secondly, by requiring the claimant to prove only that the cause of the injury or damage was radio-activity from the licensee's reactor. The claimant is thus spared the difficult, if not impossible, task of proving that the licensee was negligent in allowing the radio-activity to be given

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off. The ordinary law will, however, operate to reduce the licensee's liability to the extent that the claimant is shown to have been negligent himself. For any non-radio-active injury or damage caused by a nuclear occurrence persons such as contractors will continue to be liable for negligence under the common law.
The nature of the licensee's liability differs from that of the Atomic Energy Authority in that, without the special decision of Parliament in every case under Clause 4 (3), the liability is limited to £5 million for any one occurrence. The reason for setting a limit to a licensee's liability, as my honourable friend pointed out on February 10, is that the licensee is to be required to take out cover by insurance or otherwise, against this liability, whereas the Authority, which is almost entirely dependent on public funds, does not ordinarily insure.
The Government are advised that the figure of £5 million should he much more than adequate to cover any risk that may reasonably be expected. Claims arising out of the Windscale accident were, as a matter of fact, under £100,000. However, the Government have decided that in the highly unlikely event of claims exceeding £5 million Parliament should be required to determine how they shall be dealt with. The cover which the licensee takes out, whether by insurance or otherwise, must, under Clause 4 (1), be approved by the Minister with the consent of the Treasury. This approval is necessary in order that the Minister, after taking advice from the Treasury, may be satisfied that the cover is adequate to meet claims.
The way in which the licensee's cover is to be related to particular occurrences, or reinstated after an occurrence likely to give rise to a substantial volume of claims, calls for some explanation, and I will try to show, as briefly as possible, how this Part of the Bill is intended to work.
Normally, for each site, the amount of cover is to be a total of £5 million spread over the whole period of the licensee's responsibility—that is to say, the period, as defined in Clause 2 (3), beginning with the grant of the licence and ending either when the Minister considers the site to be free from dangerous radio-activity or when a licence for the site is granted to someone else. If, on the other hand,
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there is a dangerous occurrence the Minister may issue a direction under Clause 5 (6) requiring the licensee to take out fresh cover. Thereafter the licensee's former £5 million cover is regarded as earmarked to meet claims arising out of that occurrence, or out of any other minor escape of radio-activity attributable to the site before that occurrence.
The new cover will relate to claims arising from incidents during the period beginning with the date specified in the ministerial direction and ending either when the Minister issues another such direction, because of another dangerous occurrence, or when the licensee's responsibility is at an end. Each period for which separate cover is required is referred to in the Bill as a "cover period". Under existing English and Scottish law, claims for personal injury must be presented within three years. For damage to property the period is six years, in English law, and, in Scottish law, twenty years.
Having regard to all the features of the scheme which the Bill provides, to the time which diseases like leukæmia might take to develop after exposure to radiation, and to the difficulty of estimating what claims on account of radioactive injury or damage originating now might cost to settle twenty years hence, the Government decided that the fairest period to fix within which all such claims must be made is ten years from the date of the occurrence. In order that persons may establish prima facie evidence of their presence in the vicinity of a reactor when an accident occurs, and so assist the settlement of claims, Clause 5 (5) empowers the Minister to arrange for them to be voluntarily registered as having been there at the time. This provision is the more important in view of the ten-year period which, as I have just explained, the Bill provides for the presentation of claims.
So much then for the two main purposes of the Bill—safety control by licence and absolute liability on licensees up to £5 million for injury or damage by radio-activity, with an obligation to take out proper cover. I now invite your Lordships' attention to some of the Bill's more important ancillary provisions. Clause 6 enables the Minister or the Secretary of State to appoint properly

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qualified persons as inspectors to assist him in the administration of the Bill. As your Lordships will have already gathered, it will rest on the Minister to decide the conditions to be imposed under licences. These will involve decisions on the safety of the site, the design of the reactor, its construction, operation and maintenance. It will be for the Minister to determine whether an occurrence at the reactor is such as to necessitate new cover on the part of the licensee.
Obviously, the Minister cannot discharge technical functions of this kind without expert advice. The question of how inspectors are to be appointed is engaging the attention of my Department, the Treasury and the Atomic Energy Authority. So long as the Atomic Energy Authority continue to be the leading United Kingdom organisation in the field of nuclear research, there will always be types of work relating to nuclear safety which they alone will be equipped to do. In any event, therefore, close contact between the Authority and the Minister's inspectors will be imperative.
Apart, however, from the staff required for the day-to-day working of the Bill, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I have decided to appoint a Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee, consisting of nuclear safety experts of the highest standing. We regard such a committee as necessary for the time being, because nuclear science and engineering are making rapid strides and the attendant problems of safety are continually evolving with them. The responsible Minister must therefore be in touch all the time with the latest ideas about nuclear safety, so that, when necessary, he can put them into effect through the inspectorate. In making appointments to the advisory committee, we intend to consult, among others, the Atomic Energy Authority, the manufacturers of nuclear plant, insurers, the owners and operators of major nuclear installations (this means for some years, of course, the Electricity Boards) and organised labour.
My right honourable friend and I wish to establish this committee administratively rather than by Statute, because developments in the industry are hard to foresee, and might eventually necessitate fundamental changes in the constitution of the committee or of their terms of
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reference. It is desirable to be able to make such changes without recourse to Parliament each time. Our intention, however, is that the composition of the committee shall be such that in matters of nuclear safety its views will be acknowledged as carrying the greatest weight.
My Lords, I mentioned at the beginning of these remarks that the Atomic Energy Authority is not to be subject to licensing under the Bill. The Authority's work is mainly experimental. To assess the hazards to which it gives rise would mean that the Government inspectors would have to be in far closer day-to-day contact with the work in progress than would in the ordinary way be necessary for commercial installations. If the Authority's installations were subject to the inspection provisions of the Bill, the size of the inspectorate would have to be a good deal larger. Otherwise, there would be delays and the work of the Authority would be hampered. The inspectors would also have to be as expert in advanced research as the scientists of the Authority itself—a requirement which the Government consider to be unnecessary, if not impracticable.
Since Section 5 (3) of the Atomic Energy Authority Act, 1954, places on the Authority an absolute duty to prevent the occurrence of injury or damage by radio-activity from their installations, and since they are carrying out the Fleck Committee's recommendations for the improvement of their safety organisation, the Government decided that in the case of the Authority's installations licensing was not called for. It is proposed, however, that a direction should be issued by the Prime Minister to the Authority, under Section 3 (2) of the Atomic Energy Authority Act, 1954, requiring them to observe, so far as practicable, the codes of practice laid down by the licensing department and to keep the licensing department fully informed of their activities from the safety point of view.
A Government Department which operates a reactor will not be subject to licensing, because it is not the practice for one Department to license another. The intention, however, is that Departments should follow the safety principles evolved between the Minister, the Atomic Energy Authority, and the Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee. A Department will be under the same liability to third

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parties for injury or damage by radioativity given off from its reactor as the Atomic Energy Authority—that is to say, the liability will be absolute and without limit of amount.
Unlike licensees, the Authority and Government Departments will be liable even where the injury or damage is attributable to enemy action. On the other hand, they will have a right to sue a contractor whose negligence has given rise to third-party claims against them. It has been necessary to extinguish this right in the case of a licensee in order to avoid litigation which would arise if insurers or other financial guarantors of a licensee tried to exercise any rights they might have against contractors or subcontractors responsible for building reactors or supplying parts. But the Authority or a Government Department does not normally insure, and, seeing that the taxpayers' money is involved, it is considered proper that in their case the right to sue a negligent contractor should he preserved.
The Bill includes provisions for enforcement, for reporting occurrences, and for inquiries into accidents. It will come into force on such date as may be fixed by Order in Council, so that the persons affected may have time to apply for licences and take out cover against their liabilities. The Government of Northern Ireland wish the Bill to extend to the six counties, subject to the adaptations set out in Clause 11. The responsible Minister will be the Minister of Commerce for Northern Ireland. The Bill, when it becomes law, can also be extended by Order in Council, with or without modifications, to the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
My Lords, I hope that I have said enough to apprise your Lordships of the main purposes and implications of this Bill. The nuclear power industry is in its infancy. It is in these formative years that we have the opportunity to establish a sound tradition of practice and experience in nuclear safety which will stand the industry and the country in good stead as this form of power becomes more and more widely used. I believe that this Bill will enable us to reduce risks to the minimum, without unduly impeding the industry, and will, at the same time, ensure that any who do sustain injury or damage are fairly compensated.
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It is in this belief that I now commend the Bill to your Lordships' House. I beg to move.
Moved, That this Bill be now read 2a. —(Lord Mills.)
3.49 p.m.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: My Lords, my noble friends on this side of the House and myself are very glad to note that the Government are giving this matter serious thought, and although I am not sure that we can welcome the Bill the fact that this thought has gone into it, and that the purposes are very much in mind, is a very desirable thing. I should like to thank the noble Lord, the Minister of Power, for his clear explanation of the Bill as it stands, but, reading the Bill as a layman, I think it makes some surprising assumptions and is open to grave objections at this stage. This afternoon I wish only to indicate broadly the nature of these misgivings, which I think must be scrutinised carefully between now and Committee stage.
This is an important matter the scope of which it is impossible to envisage at this time. As I understood the noble Lord, so far as he can see into the future this Bill is going to apply to reactors only, and the owners of reactors are to be limited to the electricity boards, who have constructed or are constructing them, to the Atomic Energy Authority and possibly to other Government Departments, with one exception—although this is news to me—the private enterprise research station at Aldermaston. Leaving the last one out, because it may be a special case to be dealt with apart from this Bill, it seems to me that the regulations for providing the necessary safety at all these public installations could have been dealt with under the 1954 Act. If I remember that Act, it made provision for the Atomic Energy Authority (which is exempt from this new Bill) to enable other organisations to do work of a like character; and if that is so (I think the power is in Section 2 (2) (e)), this Bill is not an extension of the provisions for public safety but a curtailment of them, because under the present Act the electricity authority and any body working under their wing are subject to no limitations in liability.
I think that this matter should be cleared up explicitly and early. At the moment the noble Lord admits that he

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sees no applicants for licences other than the public Departments, the Authority and the electricity boards, which, after all, are public authorities. Therefore, I would ask why this Bill is brought forward at this time when the future of atomic energy and its practical application is still very obscure and the form of installations and their risk is still a subject of much conjecture, as is shown by the reports made by the United Nations Scientific Committee and the Medical Research Council's investigations and observations. There is so little that is known, so much that has to be found out. Enough, then, to know that the risks are almost limitless, and these must be known and limited. I would ask the noble Lord, if he does not see the possibility of private operators coming forward and asking for licences, why introduce a Bill for that very purpose long before we really know what the Bill ought to contain?
The noble Lord said that the Bill applies only to reactors, but in Clause 1 (b) it goes rather wider than that. It says:
" any other installation of such class or description as may be prescribed, being an installation designed or adapted for, or for the carrying out of any process preparatory or ancillary to, the production or use of atomic energy or for the storage, treatment or disposal of nuclear fuel or other radio-active matter,"
Is this going to apply to hospitals which are using radio-active pharmaceutical materials? Are the protections herein to apply to hospital patients and staffs, to their neighbours and to the public generally? Are they going to apply to the manufacture of radio-active pharmaceutical ingredients, which are being used on an increasing scale, and to all those directly or indirectly concerned with them? Are they going to apply to research stations set up by technical colleges and universities embodying some radio-active production or material? It is difficult to come to any judgment on this Bill before we know the answers to these questions. I understand that it is going to apply to radio-active materials in transit in certain circumstances, but not in foreign ships. I think that the Minister ought to say more about that, and no doubt he will at a later stage.
After these preliminary matters have been looked into, the first question that
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arises is: Are we really going to contemplate widescale production of atomic energy by private enterprise in this country? I had thought that the Atomic Energy Act, 1954, envisaged that this production of power was of a nature that required it to be undertaken by public authority.
The second question is about liability. I had been waiting eagerly to hear what the Minister would say about liability, because it seemed to me, as a layman, that the Bill was rather obscure on this point. In reading the words in the Bill, I thought that liability was unlimited, and it was only when I came to the insurance provisions that I found that there was a £5 million limit. Whatever be the answer to that, it seems to me most undesirable that a £5 million limit should be arbitrarily chosen and written into the Bill when it is impossible to tell what is the range of liability. We know from the Windscale disaster of last year that there was an increase in radioactivity even in London as a result of that event, not, it is said, to any dangerous extent; but the Minister in another place did say that even so far as London the increase in radio-activity was observed and measured. We cannot possibly conceive what are the limits of damage in an accident of this character in the future, in developments which we cannot foresee. Therefore, to pick on a limit of so many millions of pounds is completely unrealistic.
It seems to me to be foolish to apply the same limit by rule of thumb to every site, no matter what its location or nature. Some sites may be so remote from habitation and so placed in relation to wind or tide as to be comparatively free from real risk. In that case, the £5 million insurance cover would be a burdensome and unnecessary thing. On other sites—and we know of some—where there is a growing surrounding population and where industry is being attracted to the area by the very presence of the energy plants, there are risks immeasurably greater in extent than this figure of £5 million.
The provisions for dealing with excess in this Bill seem to us to be clumsy, obscure and difficult to understand. What does it mean when it says that nothing can be done until Parliament has considered the matter? That is in the clause

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dealing with the Minister's powers to direct that further cover be undertaken, and I should like the Minister to tell us what it means. I think it is dangerous to lump together three sites if they happen to be the property of one owner and to say that they can be regarded as one for the purpose of insurance cover. That again seems to me to be a most unnecessary and dangerous provision.
Then there is the question of the limitation of claims in point of time. The Minister claimed some credit for extending the normal statutory limit from three years to ten years; but ten years in this new hazard is a very short time. If he will look at the Report of the Medical Research Council—we do not want to exaggerate these things, but we must take note of them—he will see that the evil effects of over-radiation caused by some accident or mishap in such plants may be made manifest only after perhaps twenty years. The gravest effects of these accidents are the very long-distance ones, and to limit the liability to a period which medical science, even at this date, can show is completely inadequate is something which I feel your Lordships will have to scrutinise closely. The same is true of property damage. The nature of property damage likely to arise from these mishaps may well be a long time in some cases in manifesting itself. Then I do not like the wording of the provision for the voluntary registration of persons in the vicinity of an accident. I should like to be sure that the failure to register will not be a handicap in making a claim; and I should have thought that there were much better ways of dealing with this matter.
There is also the question of work-people in these installations and their ancillaries. The Minister told us that they were included in the provisions made for the public at large. I should like to ask him whether that is so in every case, and whether in every case and in every way workpeople are in no worse a position under this Bill than they would be if the Factories Acts, workmen's compensation and the general Common Law provisions applied. I do not wish to detain your Lordships upon the Second Reading of this Bill, because the general purpose of it is certainly one which we must consider and the Bill demands a Second Reading. But I feel that we all lime a great duty not only to scrutinise
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these provisions in their minutiæ, but to ask ourselves whether this is the time to lay down a code of law for something which is in its absolute infancy, in which private enterprise has not emerged, and in circumstances which we cannot yet foresee.
4.5 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I hesitate to address your Lordships to-day on such a complex and highly technical subject, and I feel rather like the proverbial fool who rushed in where wise men feared to tread. The sole reason for my taking part in this debate is that I feel that, as the Minister has said, this new form of power is in its infancy, and it is right that younger Members of your Lordships' House should take part in debates which deal with it. The Minister has covered in great detail the main objects of the Bill, and I want to refer to only two aspects of it—namely, the building and control of reactors and nuclear power stations. I should first like to pay my tribute to the scientists and technicians who have throughout the years developed what is now known as the Calder Hall type of reactor; that is to say, a gas-cooled, graphite-morderated reactor. That this policy was a wise one may be borne out by the fact that recently the United States Atomic Energy Commission have asked for proposals to be made for the provision of a similar type of reactor, and I believe they intend to build a prototype. I feel, therefore, that we may have a lead in the world in that respect.
Another field in which we certainly have a lead is in the manufacture and exports of radio isotopes which are being used to an ever-increasing degree in industry, agriculture, research and the medical sphere. At the moment the figures are small: we are producing radio isotopes only to the value of £600,000, and approximately two-thirds of that is being exported. However, that amount is greater than all the exports of similar radio isotopes of all other countries put together, which would seem to indicate that we have a definite lead in that respect.
On the question of reactors, the attitude of the Euratom countries is quite different from our own. I believe I am right in saying that they are considering and providing other types of reactors—in

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other words, the pressurised water reactor and the boiling water reactor; and I might mention that the "Nautilus" submarine is fitted with a pressurised water reactor. The attitude of this country would appear to have been governed by the fact that the object of our reactors is to produce electricity. In the case of a gas-cooled, graphite-moderated reactor it is not necessary to close down the plant should a defect be detected in any of the fuel elements; they can be changed while the power station is on full pressure and full temperature. I believe I am right in saying that that is the only type of reactor where one can do that—in other words, one does not have to close down for several days.
The lessons learned through the Wind-scale accident have certainly proved of great assistance to the designers of the four power stations which are at present being built. These are Bradwell, Berkeley, Hunterston and Hinkley Point. I believe Hinkley Point is considered to be one of our foremost atomic power stations. I am not going into any technical details, but I believe that a saving of 20 per cent. in capital cost of the reactor has been achieved compared with the cost of the Calder Hall reactor. I should imagine, and perhaps the Minister would be able to confirm, that the advances made in the Hinkley Point type of reactor have been incorporated in the A.G.R. project, or advanced gas-cooled reactor project, which I believe is due to he completed in 1961.
Here I should like to ask the Minister if he could give us any information as to whether it is considered a feasible proposition in this country to use enriched uranium. It is quite true that in the United States the supply position is different, but uranium is manufactured in this country at Capenhurst and plutonium is manufactured at Windscale, Calder Hall and Chapelcross, not forgetting the fissile materials that will be made available by the breeder reactor at Dounreay in Caithness. It is interesting to remember the remarks that were made by the "Three Wise Men" last year when they visited this country and the United States: that to achieve their programme of 15,000 megawatts by 1967 their requirements in fuel would be annually 6,000 tons of natural uranium, but only 18 tons of enriched uranium.
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That is why I should like to take this opportunity to ask the Minister what are the Government's intentions with regard to the use of enriched uranium in this country.
This brings me to the question of the safety aspect in these up-and-coming nuclear power stations. I am advised that the cost of complete safety in these stations by reactor instrumentation is 2 per cent. of the total cost of the station. That might seem a fairly high cost, but certainly not too high for complete safety. I fear that accidents may still occur. Clause 1 (3) states:
" the Minister may at any time by instrument in writing—
(a) attach to the licence such conditions as he may in the interests of safety think fit, including, in particular, conditions—
(i) for securing the maintenance of an efficient system for detecting and recording the presence and intensity of any ionising radiations from time to time emitted from anything on the site or from anything discharged on or from the site."
That is why I should like to ask the Minister whether it is his intention that radiation exposure records should be kept for the workers individually at these nuclear power stations, and also whether it is intended that radiation exposure records should be kept of the results of site monitoring. I think it is interesting to recall the concluding remarks of the Medical Research Council's publication The Hazards to Man of Nuclear and Allied Radiations. These remarks endorsed the 1954 recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection—namely, that the dose received by any individual should not exceed 3 roentgens weekly, averaged over a period of thirteen consecutive weeks. I hope the Minister will be able to answer some of my questions.
4.17 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Mills, replies, I wonder whether he would be good enough to inform us a little more as to how this £5 million figure was arrived at? That is by no means an excessive figure for any kind of disaster insurance, which any large undertaking is liable to take out in any case. If the only probable risk is going to be under £5 million, a reasonable increase, up to, say, £50 million, would be a negligible insurance cost and would be readily accepted, I

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understand, by the ordinary underwriting procedures. It would be of some interest to your Lordships, I am sure, to know how it is that this £5 million figure has been regarded as an adequate one for all possible purposes in the future.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, some of us are very puzzled about this Bill. We do not understand at all in what circumstances this Bill is going to come into operation. What kind of private undertakings is it proposed to license? If the noble Lord has no private undertakings in mind, what is the purpose of the Bill at all? We are completely in the dark as to what this Bill is all about, and what the noble Lord intends to achieve by it.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: My Lords, I asked the Minister a question, and I did not give him the reference. I should like to remedy that omission now. I want him to tell us what Paragraph 6 of the Memorandum means. That says:
" If the Minister considers that the licensee's liability for hurt or damage by radiation from any occurrence is likely to exceed five million pounds, he is required to certify accordingly by statutory instrument …"
Before anything happens, he has to take a view of what is likely. If he thinks it is likely that any accident could cause a liability of more than £5 million he is requited to certify by statutory instrument. The note goes on:
" and thereafter no claims in respect of that occurrence are to be dealt with until Parliament so determines."
It seems to me that that is obscurity.
4.20 p.m.
LORD GREENHILL: My Lords, may I also express my own little bewilderment about the purposes of this Bill? It seems to me that we who are laymen cannot express any worth-while opinion upon this Bill because we wonder what its purpose really is. For example, in to-day's New Scientist there appears a profile of Sir Christopher Hinton, in which there is a reference to the discussion about the site. I should like your Lordships to bear with me while I read it. In talking about the use of atomic energy, Hinton, who was interviewed by Sir Oliver Franks, said that he would take the job only if peaceful uses could be exploited also. Then the article goes on to say:
" The original plan was for a graphite-moderated, water-cooled reactor. There was
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inherent in this the possibility that if the water supply failed the reactor could become supercritical. There was some disagreement on the safety distances that should be kept. Hinton was insistent that no conceivable risk should be incurred. The result of this was that the only site in Britain which appeared suitable was on the beautiful stretch of coastline in the Western Highlands between Arisaig and Morar. To Hinton the idea of spoiling one of the finest pieces of country in Britain was almost intolerable."
That is the point of view of one very eminent man in the nuclear reactor profession. What I ask myself, therefore, is this: in the case of sites, who is to determine where the site is to be; what is to be the function of the inspector in determining where the site should be, and is his word final?
Reference has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Mills, to the Windscale incident. In a lecture which had nothing whatever to do with the production of nuclear energy, but in which the speaker was dealing with the mental health aspects of problems involved in the peaceful uses of atomic energy, the lecturer, Dr. Soddy, said this:
" … perhaps the most frightening is that of a tremendous power that may get out of control at any moment, as the public outcry following the ' Windscale ' reactor incident showed, with its incredible confusion of abandonment of milk supplies and the dramatic taking of safety precautions that the Authority itself repeatedly stated were quite unnecessary because there really was no danger at all."
There is an indication that the public at the moment are so ignorant, so alarmed at possibilities which may or may not exist, that one would like some kind of assurance that what we are doing to-day is really aimed at coping with a situation about which we are on the whole completely ignorant. It seems to me that this allaying of anxiety about possibilities of danger is a matter that the Government ought to take into consideration before embodying any proposals in the kind of Bill we are presented with to-day. It is that kind of bewilderment upon which I should like some assurance from the noble Lord.
4.25 p.m.
LORD MILLS: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wilmot of Selmeston, for his questions in regard to this matter, and I will do my best to answer them, as well as the questions raised by other noble Lords. The main theme of the remarks of the noble Lord,

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Lord Wilmot of Selmeston, was: why is this Bill necessary, and to what end is it directed? I should have thought he would know quite well, because he took part in the nationalisation Act in relation to our great electricity undertaking. I have always regarded it that the purpose of that Act was not to make Government Departments of the electricity undertakings, and of the other industrial activities which were nationalised, but to give them a charter to bring the different units together and to get them, within the terms of the Act, to operate as businesses. I should find it exceedingly difficult to follow that thought, if it is correct, if these businesses are to have an unlimited liability on them.
The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 made the Atomic Energy Authority completely and absolutely liable to an unlimited extent for the result of any of its operations and for any period of time. I do not think that one can expect a business which has to balance its accounts, taking one year with another, to operate under such conditions, and we considered it necessary to introduce this Bill in order that the nationalised authorities and private industry, if and when they come to build reactors for any purposes (and there is already one small one), should be able to insure their risk, and that we should define what that risk should be so far as the limit of their liability is concerned.
This Bill does not cover the question of hospitals or the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, and I was very glad to hear the reference made by the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, to what is being done by this country in the export of radio-active isotopes. All I can say in regard to that matter is that, if and when the manufacture of such pharmaceuticals, calls for special measures, I have no doubt proposals will be laid before your Lordships' House. But the purpose of this Bill is two-fold. It is to prescribe the conditions under which reactors, and installations of that type, which might give rise to radio-activity, can be constructed and operated. We thought it well to set a limit to the liability on any one occurrence. The liability has been discussed with the insurance world; advice has been taken from all those who are competent to give advice. It has been discussed internationally, and the con-
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census of opinion is that £5 million should be adequate to cover any occurrence that is likely to happen. Whether the proper figure is £5 million, or any other figure of that order, is a matter of opinion; but that is the best advice that we can get on the subject.
LORD SILKIN: It is the general idea of limiting the liability to any figure that we are worried about. We have no means of saying whether £5 million, if that is going to be the limit, is a right figure or not. Why limit the amount at all?
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: May I remind the noble Lord that private enterprise carries full responsibility to an unlimited extent for damage or hurt that it may do. The noble Lord is lifting the liability.
LORD MILLS: I understand the position well. But this is an unusual and a new kind of liability, and it is necessary to require cover in order that compensation can be paid. I have no reason to think that we should anticipate such a thing, but if we are thinking of something like a national disaster, then the fact remains that the Bill provides for the matter to come before Parliament, which will decide what shall be done. I suggest that that is a wise provision.
The noble Lord, Lord Wilmot of Selmeston, also raised the question of foreign ships. When we get into that realm we are in the realm of international convention, and we cannot for ourselves decide what shall happen, except for ships plying between British ports. That matter will have to be, and will be in due course, the subject of international discussion and convention. The noble Lord was also, I think, under some misapprehension because the Bill excludes, rather than includes, the Atomic Energy Authority and other Government Departments where the liability is unlimited, and where there is no question of insurance, because that is not ordinary practice. But in the case of the Generating Board and any private installations, the Bill provides that there shall be either insurance or some form of cover—no doubt setting aside liquid assets—sufficient to cover this liability of £5 million.
That brings me to the point raised by the noble Lord: that where three or more sites are held, we should be content with sufficient cover for two sites. That does

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not apply to insurance. Where it is decided to take out an insurance policy then, however many sites are held, every one must be covered. But I think it would not be very wise to compel a licensee to set aside sufficient money to cover the liability for each reactor, because the Minister has power to require further cover—as he undoubtedly would as soon as an accident occurred. As regards the question of time, that matter also has been the subject of careful inquiry, both by experts in this country and in international discussion, and it was felt that ten years was a fair time. There again, another view may be held, but expert opinion has enabled us to put in the Bill the period of ten years from the date of the occurrence.
The noble Lord, Lord Wilmot of Selmeston, raised the question of work-people in installations. They are covered completely, just like any other member of the public, and they retain all their rights in everything for which they are covered. This cover, however, is confined to damage through radio-activity. The question of voluntary registration was also raised by the noble Lord. That is intended only as an administrative convenience and as something in favour of the public. Failure to register would have no effect whatever. The man or woman, if they could prove their case, would still have a good claim, even if they had not registered.
The noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, raised the question about enriched uranium and the breeder reactor at Dounreay. I do not think that has anything to do with this particular Bill, but I should be most happy to give the noble Lord, such information as I can. The noble Lord, Lord Greenhill, raised questions about the siting of reactors. Again, that is a matter that has nothing to do with this Bill. This Bill has to do with safety, and merely enables the Minister to say that a particular site is not suitable from a safety point of view. The other conditions in regard to amenity and so on, can all be determined at the public inquiry held under the Electricity Acts.
LORD SILKIN: Is the noble Lord going to answer my question as to what sort of undertakings it is proposed to license here? He has referred to statutory undertakings. But will the Bill apply also to private concerns?
LORD MILLS: My Lords, it will apply to industrial undertakings where nuclear energy is used—generators operated by the Generating Board, research stations put up by industry, and the like. It is not intended to cover the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, or ordinary university research or anything of that sort. If and when those activities require cover fresh measures will be put before Parliament.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: My Lords, do not certain pharmaceutical products fall within the definition in Clause 1 (1) (b) relating to the words "radio-active matter"?
LORD MILLS: My Lords, I am quite aware of what is said in Clause 1 (b). It may be necessary to alter that wording in Committee, but it is not intended to cover pharmaceutical and similar matters.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: thank the noble Lord.
LORD MILLS: My Lords, we came to the conclusion that such a Bill was necessary to define the liabilities of operators, to enable the Minister to prescribe safety conditions and see that they were carried out, and to provide for compensation in the event of untoward occurrences. I commend the Bill to your Lordships.
4.41 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, we are very much obliged to the noble Lord the Minister for the manner in which he has dealt with this very complicated Bill. Far from conforming to the general idea that this was to be largely a technical Bill, concerned only with licensing and the like, it is obviously one which may affect wide public policy and may concern a vast number of people. We on this side will follow the usual practice which, I believe, has been adopted over late years in your Lordships' House of not dividing against the Second Reading of a Government measure. Nevertheless, between now and the Committee stage we shall have to examine this Bill, its usage and its possible effects, under a microscope.
I believe that the more we study the Bill and the speech which the Minister has made, the more we shall be concerned to see that such limitations are not laid down in the Statute as would leave any considerable part of the population insufficiently covered by insurance.

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If limits are to be laid down in respect of periods, will a person have to prove, for example, that he contracted a particular form of radio-active disease within a given period in a particular place before he is to be given any effective cover? All kinds of questions arise upon which we ourselves may be regarded as completely hazy at the moment—but surely not more hazy than has been the general presentation of the case in these matters to the House to-day.
Therefore, although I do not want to delay your Lordships, because I am particularly anxious that the noble and gallant Lord who is to undertake the next Motion on the Paper should not be unduly restricted, I want to say to the Minister that while we admire, as always, his great courtesy and attention to detail in his reply, we are not satisfied and we shall have to look at this measure very carefully; and perhaps because of the great general public interest that may be involved in this Bill, the noble Lord, the Minister, would not mind if we asked to have some interim consultation with him or his Department.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

OFFICERS' RETIRED PAY AND WIDOWS' PENSIONS
4.45 p.m.
LORD JEFFREYS LORD JEFFREYS rose to draw attention to the inadequate amounts of the retired pay of officers who retired before September 3, 1939; and particularly to the inadequacy of the present rates of officers' widows' pensions; and to move to resolve that in the opinion of this House the rates of both of these should be suitably increased. The noble Lord said: My Lords, may I say, in the first place, that in this debate I am intending to use the military ranks of officers and not the equivalent Royal Navy and Royal Air Force ranks; but my remarks will apply to all officers of all three Services who retired between nineteen and some forty-five years ago—that is to say, some 6,780 who are over 60 years old and some 845 who are under 60 years old but who did not serve in the last war; 7,625 officers, many of them
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now very old indeed; out of a total of 44,097 retired officers.
Those over 60 years of age have had very small increases made to them which do not adequately compensate for the increase in the cost of living. These officers come under a system of immutable pensions—which means pensions which cannot be altered. This is a very stupid Treasury rule which makes one wonder whether in these days we are governed by Parliament or governed by the Treasury. This very stupid Treasury rule amounts to saying that because the rates have never been altered, therefore they ought never to be altered. No allowances are made for inflation or for the cost of living, although, goodness knows!we hear enough about both these subjects in these days as applied to the population in general—and very rightly, too. We hear a great deal about the general population, but what we hear about them apparently does not apply to old retired officers.
The Report of the Advisory Committee on Recruitment says in paragraph 262:
" The biggest single impediment to the recruitment of officers is the length of career now offered."
Officers now normally retire when between 45 and 50. Then it is difficult to start in civil life. At that time children are at their most expensive age. The Committee have also recommended that officers should have the chance of retirement before 40 or employment up to the age of 60 or so. That is not one of the recommendations of the Committee which is endorsed by Her Majesty's Government. By that means they may be employed on sedentary jobs now performed in the War Office, the Admiralty and the Air Ministry by civil servants—and I would suggest to noble Lords that those recommendations are very suitable.
I would say, however, that the system is very bad from the point of view of the supply of officers. Some sons see the difficulties of their parents and sympathise with them, and feel that if they enter the Armed Services their own prospects are not very favourable. Retired civil servants are very much better off. They retire at from 60 to 65 and get a pension which is proportionate to their pay. That is a very big difference.
Let us think for a moment about inflation and the increase in the cost of living. What applies very much to the public at large applies most particularly to old, retired officers who have served their country, which most of the population perhaps have not done. The increase in the cost of living since 1913 is over 300 per cent.—it is actually 322 per cent.—and since 1950 it has risen over 45 per cent. So the value of retired pay bas fallen enormously in that time. Since 1909 civil servants have had terminal grams on the conclusion of their service, but not so the older retired officers. The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, unless I am misinformed, said in the debate on the Address that the people of Britain are consuming, eating, drinking and housing themselves better than ever before. But, my Lords, what about these old retired officers? They are not consuming or eating or drinking or housing themselves better than ever before; the reverse is, unfortunately, the case.
Many retired officers have had to commute up to half their retired pay for needed capital, for children's education and so forth. I would now make one more remark. A captain who retired after January 1, 1956, and all majors who retired before January 1, 1956, will get less retired pay than a warrant officer (I am hound to say, with 37 years' service, which is a long time) will earn after April 1, 1959. That seems to me to be wrong. Altogether many of these poor old men who have served their country are in a bad way, a very bad way indeed, and nobody appears to care what happens to them.
My Lords, I would now make a few remarks as to how the present system applies to retired officers. First, owing to the very low age of retirement of officers their retired pay is subject to erosion by inflation for some fifteen to twenty years longer than is civil servants' retired pay or pensions, and no allowance has ever been made for this. Some retired officers are on immutable basic rates which have remained unchanged for forty-five years. No other State pensioner is in this position. Civil servants have received terminal grants, which were introduced no less than forty-nine years ago, while no officer who retired before September, 1950, received a terminal grant at all. Full terminal grants are received only by officers retired after
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January 1, 1956. Many older retired officers were therefore compelled to commute up to half of their retired pay in order to raise capital to meet immediate needs. That means to say that if they commuted up to half of their retired pay, they have to live on whatever is supposed to be the interest on the amount afterwards. Between August, 1945, and June, 1953, alone there were 7,500 commutations by retired officers, and only five by retired civil servants. Many older retired officers are therefore living on about half of their original retired pay, and no allowance has ever been made for this.
Civil servants' pensions and their widows' pensions are a proportion of their final serving pay. That is a very important thing. When the latter is increased both their future pensions and their widows' pensions are automatically increased at the same time. In the Armed Services retired pay and widows' pensions are in no way related to serving pay. Armed Service pay was increased on April 1, 1958, but the last basic rates of retired pay were introduced on January 1, 1956, and widows' pensions on December 1, 1952.
We come now to widows' pensions. These remained unchanged for more than a hundred years, until in 1952 new rates, equal to about a quarter—I repeat, a quarter—of officers' 1950 rates of retired pay were introduced. Civil servants' widows' pensions are one-third of their husbands' pensions. That is a very considerable difference: the difference between one-third and a quarter. It is now proposed to bring only future officers' widows' pensions up to one-third of the husbands' retired pay—only future widows, not the present widows of whom there are a great many. This will not affect the 9,502 existing widows of officers, of whom 7,468 get less than £190 a year; and 2,477 captains' widows get £115 10s. a year—that is to say, less than National Insurance payments, which are £130 a year. Sixty per cent. of these cannot get National Insurance pensions because they are over 70 years of age and therefore cannot qualify for them. Many officers' widows, I would say, are in dire need—really dire need—and can apply only for National Assistance. It is suggested that all officers' widows should get one-third of the 1950 rates of officers' retired pay. Now only 2 out of

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10 get Service widows' pensions of over £189 a year. Three out of every 10 get less than National Assistance rates per year; that is to say, less than £117 per annum.
My Lords, I would say that until the conditions of present retired officers and officers' widows are very greatly improved they and their children will have little confidence in their future prospects. There will be little confidence among young men and their parents in their future prospects if they follow their parents into the Services. It is very hard to make them believe that they themselves, if they follow their parents into the Armed Services, will not be in a similar condition in the years to come.
In conclusion, I would once again appeal for the old men who have served their country; and I do suggest that it makes a bit of a difference when they have served their country, and have served it in many cases in circumstances of danger and with evil results to themselves. The Government have agreed that Service pay and pensions should be reviewed regularly at intervals of not more than three years. But what about immutable pensions? If they follow the same rules as they have followed in the past, those immutable pensions will remain immutable and there will be no advance made in them. The Government may review the circumstances of officers, their conditions and their pay every three years; but if officers are on these immutable pensions they will get no increase. That is a very serious thing to think of, and it is a great handicap on all serving officers. My Lords, I appeal for these old men who have served their country and who, in many cases, not only are subject to an increase in the cost of living of 300 per cent. and more, but who have some sort of position to try to keep up, and who are very, very unhappy and very hard-up indeed.
Moved to resolve, That in the opinion of this House the rates of retired pay of officers who retired before 3rd September, 1939, and of officers' widows' pensions should be suitably increased.—(Lord Jeffreys.)
5.3 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, with all the background of
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his military service experience, has never given up the task he has set himself in the defence of the position of officers and their dependants, which is the basis upon which he has been speaking this afternoon; and although we may not always agree with him in every detail we always admire the persistence with which he pursues the objective he desires to attain.
In considering questions of this sort, and the spread of pensions, we have, of course, in these modern days, to take account of what is being thought and what is beginning to be operated in these circles over all sections of the population. I think that perhaps it does not help our case—the case of those who want to do better for the Service people—if we stick to the old line of making a very special appeal for those who have been in the Services, as if all those who have not been in the Services have not been in fact serving their country; and, indeed, I am quite sure that the noble Lord would not wish to suggest that. Certainly he has put certain aspects of pensions and matters arising out of those pensions to civil servants, but I have known people in the Civil Service—very great friends of mine; and great names, some of them—who at times almost sacrificed their lives in service to their country. Of course, I have also known cases where officers in the three Services, even when they have not been at the front, facing the enemy, have been working just as hard and have been just as self-sacrificing. They are giving service to their country in equal measure. We have to be very careful, therefore, exactly how we approach this particular problem.
I feel that the kind of scheme which the Labour Party have introduced, which would affect the population generally, is one that will inevitably have to be met by Governments; and it makes me wonder when I think of my own personal experience on a pension—and that from private enterprise which is not in any way reactionary—and when I look round industry to-day. Although in the directorial sphere, and in the highest managerial sphere, there are now some high pensions being arranged, it is a rare thing in industry to find any adjustment made upwards because of inflationary evils.
Nearly all these private pension schemes are, in fact, a matter of contract. They are nearly always based upon a policy

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covered by an insurance company, and I have never yet known an insurance company which has been willing to go back on it and make special allowances to people who receive pensions or to people who receive annual allowances under a policy covering a superannuation scheme. I am not saying that there are not also some very good employers who have made some adjustments in the amounts received by their old pensioners; but it does seem to me that where, as at the moment, we have the question of whether people should be allowed to contract out of certain aspects of pensionable receipts, pensionable cover, and the like, then we must bear one or two things in mind in respect of the Service rates of pay and pensions.
I am happy to know that the country feels that it can now afford to offer such high rates of pay and prospects for pensions, agreed upon, I think, by all Parties in the State, for future recruits to all ranks of the Services. I am certain that that will not only have a good effect upon recruitment but may produce a better adjustment of the national mind as to what kind of pensionable provisions ought to be made for the general citizen who also serves his country. But when one comes to the question of the particular classes of officers which has been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, then I am bound to say that I have a great deal of sympathy with them. We have arrived at 1958, and case after case has been cited this afternoon where the State has already taken into consideration (I think full consideration, although all my friends may not agree) the evils that arise from inflation in respect of those who for some years past have had to rely upon State-provided pensions which have no possibility of being adjusted.
If we take the other ranks in the Services to-day, I think that the alternative arrangements which have been made in certain circumstances have eased the burden upon them to a considerable extent—although even here, in my view, the position has not been completely met. However that may be, certainly in regard to the officer ranks I agree with the noble Lord that the same kind of provision or alternatives have not been provided. In the past, there have been adjustments from time to time, both with regard to civil servants and with regard to some officer
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ranks, but if we take the question of the widows, and so on, the Government must have some regard to what is the general practice in industry and in professions, and the like. I am the happy recipient of a pension. My own contribution for it, for nearly thirty years, was a premium of £65 per annum, with another premium of an equal amount paid by the employer. But the pension to which I looked forward with so much expectation has been almost nullified in its real value by the inflation, which, I agree with the noble Lord, is about 300 per cent. And there is no provision in it anywhere for a widow—none at all.
In the case of serving officers, it must be remembered that although perhaps the pension rates have had some influence upon the rates of pay whale they are in actual service, nevertheless, whether we speak of the Fighting Services or of the Civil Service, there is no heavy premium in cash to be paid for those pensions such as the ordinary member in an industrial concern has to pay under any superannuation scheme covered by an insurance policy. I think that in respect of the general level of pre-war 1939 retirement pensions there is a case for re-examination and for adjustment upwards, having regard to the inflationary increase in the cost of living which in other branches of national life has been met. I hope that the noble and gallant Lord will forgive me for having tried to give a well-balanced picture of the case which a Government has to face when it has to adjust its economic policy. I would say to him that, if he is going to divide the House—though I hope he will not need to do so—I am sure that we should be able to support him.
5.11 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I rise from these Benches to detain your Lordships for only a few moments to support the Motion of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Jeffreys. There was a time, many years ago, when I had to conform to his views whether I liked them or not; but those years have now gone by and I am under no obligation to agree with him if I do not want to. However, I do, and I have the support of noble Lords on these Benches in my view. A great deal has been said on this matter over the years by people much better qualified than I am to say it—and

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no one more so than the noble and gallant Lord himself. Therefore, I shall confine my brief remarks to one aspect of this matter.
The noble Viscount who leads the Labour Party in your Lordships' House has mentioned the comparable treatment of civil servants. This is an argument which has been raised again and again, and I would ask the noble Viscount whether he really thinks that there is any comparison whatever between the terms of service and treatment of a Service officer of any of the three Services and a civil servant. A civil servant lives at home, has his week-ends at home, has his children educated as and where he wants to, knows what his future is and lives a life of comparative security, for himself, his wife and his children. Compare that with the life of an officer, who may—and often does—find himself anywhere at a few hours' notice. The education of his children is upset. More often than not his health is impaired by being sent at short notice, especially in these days of quick air travel, to goodness knows where—to places, for instance, where he may be bitten by mosquitoes, or where anything else may happen to him. All this is not a great help to him as he grows older; and all these things he has to endure in peace and in war. The two positions may be comparable in terms of devotion to service and patriotism—I do not argue that; but where an officer's health is concerned, and where the conditions of his family life and the education of his children, which is of paramount importance, are concerned, there is no comparison at all. Therefore, I should like to ask your Lordships to discount that argument in this connection.
We are asking the Government to treat this matter not legalistically but in a kindly way, as a moral and ethical obligation to people who have little voice of their own. I believe that I should not be out of order in referring to the proceedings of yesterday evening, when a problem of an almost similar nature was debated at great length, and when the lawyers in your Lordships' House—the noble and learned Viscount the Lord President of the Council, the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor, and, to a lesser extent, the noble Lord, Lord Silkin—during the whole afternoon drew a series of legal red herrings across
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the main issue until it was almost lost sight of. The Government got home by a "photo-finish", by a very short head, at eight o'clock last night. If such a close finish is to be experienced again to-day, I hope that the Government will be on the losing end and that the noble and gallant Lord's Motion will be accepted by a majority of your Lordships.
5.16 p.m.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I rise to support the Motion proposed by my noble and gallant friend, Lord Jeffreys, whose flag I have followed on previous occasions on the same subject. Most of what I wanted to say has been better said by previous speakers, so your Lordships will escape a long speech. I support everything that was said by noble Lords who yesterday were standing up for those refugees from Cairo of our own nationality, and putting forward the reasons why they should be helped especially. I supported the Motion, and to-day I would appeal to those noble Lords to remember those arguments in considering the "immutable" cases of these former officers. Immutable!—what rot!There is no immutability about it, because Parliament can decide what it likes when it likes. But all these years, whenever they have applied to have their pensions increased, they have been told this. Is it not possible now, as my noble and gallant friend points out, to decide to have these pensions examined every two years? They must depend on the rates of pay, and they should. I regard it as utter unfairness to say that a lieutenant-colonel in the South African War or the First World War is not the same as a lieutenant-colonel now. In my opinion that is perfect nonsense.
I am speaking with some heat, my Lords, because it is my own generation that has suffered under all this "immutability" and I know of the great hardship that many of my friends are undergoing. If they had applied the same talents in other directions in civilian life, no doubt they would have got on much better. I have a friend who has three boys. He always used to say that the first was going to join the Army; the second, the Navy, and the third, the Air Force. The other day I wrote and asked him how they were getting on; and he replied that none of them was going into the Armed Services if he could prevent

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them. This officer had not enough money to bring up those boys.
Of course, as happened in the debate last night, little legal quips are introduced in order to defend the niggardly attitude of the Government towards those refugees. Have they not been niggardly in their treatment of all these men? A soldier, sailor or airman is sent out to meet death. He goes, without any option, whereas the refugees from Egypt, with whom noble Lords were so sympathetic, were going from this country of their own volition to a foreign country to make their living. I do not think the two can be compared. I deprecate all these allusions to the Civil Service. I am a great respecter of the Civil Service, and I appreciate the work they do and how essential they are. But that is no reason why the Fighting Services should not be properly treated. I would ask your Lordships to excuse any heat that I may have displayed. I would also ask those who stood up for fairness and justice, as against a small legal point, last night, to do the same to-night for the Services, in which most of your Lordships have served.
5.20 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I am naturally, as I think the whole House is, in sympathy with the Motion of my noble and gallant friend, but with one fairly strong personal proviso. I am averse—and in all honesty I should express the fact—to placing before Parliament an appeal on behalf of officers, separated or isolated from an appeal on behalf of the other ranks who served with them. I am not going to offend the House by seeking to debate a matter which is outside the stated terms of the Motion, but I hope that I may be forgiven if I make one or two observations on the wider aspect of this problem. Because although my noble and gallant friend spoke feelingly and factually on the plight of officers' widows, I think it should not be forgotten that until 1952 the widows of other ranks, except certain senior W.O.Is, were not entitled to draw any pension whatever, and even then the pension introduced was available only for the widows of W.0.IIs and staff sergeants. This was extended in 1956 to include the widows of sergeants and corporals and privates with thirty-two years' service. The pension for such privates' widows was at the
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rate of 10s. a week, and that is a good deal less than one-quarter of the pension which her husband would have been receiving had he been alive. Since then an extra 5 per cent. has been added, which for a private's widow means 6d. a week.
The Officers' Pension Society are claiming, as we have heard to-day, a widow's pension at the rate of one-third of the officer's scale. I sincerely hope that when this claim is met the equally strong claim of other ranks' widows for the same treatment will also be recognised. In 1956, when the pension of a private with thirty-two years' service was raised to 78s., his widow's pension remained at 10s.—that is to say, now, 10s. 6d.—and there is still no pension for the widow of a private with less than thirty-two years' service. As I have said, I am doubtful about the wisdom or fairness of claiming for officers what is not yet even spoken of for other ranks and their wives. I am sure it is right to claim that officers' pensions have been left behind in recent years, but there is still widespread resentment among other ranks who will not be affected by the improvements until they are 60 or until they are permanently incapacitated by a physical or mental infirmity from entering into full-time employment.
At the beginning of this week a case was brought to my notice of a former sergeant-major, living at Rochwell in Yorkshire, near my home, who retired in 1946 with a pension of 345. 3d., which is now worth £1 in comparative purchasing power. His is a typical case. I appreciate that this question must be regarded against the general problem of fixed incomes, but I would suggest, as my noble and gallant friend has already suggested, that the question of recruiting is closely bound up with the matter of pensions; and recruiting to the Armed Forces presents different problems from recruiting, let us say, to the Civil Service. I have said this before, but I think it bears repetition until there is no longer any need for it to be said. There is an impression that this country tends to forget its old soldiers once they are finished with, and I am sure that this has militated against and will continue to militate against successful recruiting. In a street where there is living an old soldier in needy circumstances, he may be taken

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as a lesson by the young men in the street not to go into the Army or into the other Services for which we are trying to recruit men.
I should like to say a word or two on behalf of some other ex-Servicemen, who might otherwise have no voice whatever in Parliament, but who are often in desperate need. At the end of the war some hundreds of thousands of foreign soldiers were serving under British command, and many of these were unable to return to their own countries, largely because of the service they had given to us. In 1945 there were, for instance, 200,000 Polish officers and soldiers in British formations. To-day I am happy to say that Polish ex-Servicemen are entitled to a disability pension at the same rate as British ex-Servicemen, and under the same conditions as those of the Royal Warrant. But one thing they do not share is the right of appeal. This, I think, is an indignity and an injustice that could and should be removed.
There is another injustice that I think your Lordships, including my noble and gallant friend who put down the Motion, may find more startling and disturbing. At the end of the war, among those Polish soldiers who could not return to their own country were a number of elderly and distinguished officers. Pensions were given by the Government to five or six of them; repayable loans of £3,000 were given to another eight—I believe that is the figure though I am not certain—and fifty-two were left to depend on National Assistance. But they could not qualify, and still cannot qualify, for old-age pension, since by the time they reached the age of 65 they had not resided for the necessary ten years in this country with contributions being made. As a result, they are obliged to-day to perform tasks which at their advanced age and against their distinguished background can only be looked upon as degrading. They think themselves fairly fortunate if they can be employed as night watchmen. Two former colonels are working in the sculleries of London hotels. There are others who have not even been able to obtain such work and must depend solely on National Assistance.
They are not only Poles. I do not know how many of your Lordships
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remember the day that Yugoslavia was taken out of the German alliance by a pro-Allied coup d'etat—I think the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition will remember it well. The alliance had been signed by Zwetkovic and Markovic, the Yugoslav Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the day, and the coup was launched by some pro-British, pro-Allied Yugoslav officers whose leader was General Bora Mirkovic. Those were the days when Sir Winston Churchill (Mr. Churchill, as he then was) said that "Yugoslavia had found her soul." Much of that soul has since been crushed, as it has in other friendly and courageous countries. But in those days it was inspiring to see what could be risked and what could be done by those who believed in this country and in its people. They were ready to throw their whole nation in the path of the advancing German enemy. Very terribly did they suffer, in consequence; but our position in Greece was given a respite, and many who are alive to-day in this country might have perished but for their action under a forgotten General who trusted Britain. But, my Lords, General Bora Mirkovic is in fact more than a mere name on a forgotten page in history: he is an old man, crippled with war wounds, living in North-West London with his wife, supported solely from a fund provided by his countrymen in exile who are more fortunate, but some of them only just more fortunate, than he.
Such people have a claim on us, and I would have said an irresistible claim. When politicians speak with pride, as they still do, of the time that we stood alone against Germany, it has always seemed to me a somewhat unjustified and ungrateful phrase. During that time—that is to say, after the collapse of France and before the entry of Russia into the war—it is true that we fought the Battle of Britain and attacked the Italians in the desert, but during that time also the Polish Home Army was in almost daily action with the enemy at close quarters, suffering losses at least equal to ours and inflicting if anything greater damage on the enemy than we were able to do at that time. This was the Home Army under General Bor-Komorowski which grew to 380,000 sworn and highly-organised soldiers, and which fought in the Warsaw rising when losses were 240,000 dead in sixty-three

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days. To-day General Bor-Komorowski lives in this country, whose freedom he fought for more successfully than for that of his own country. He lives here, honoured by those who remember the part that he played and who therefore give him their personal homage. But heroes cannot live on praises of their deeds alone, however well merited those praises may be.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I rise on a point of order. I would point out that the remarks now being made by the noble Lord are entirely away from the subject.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, I do not think a point of order arises, but in this House we do try to keep as near a Motion as we can.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I was hoping that the House and my noble and gallant friend would forgive me for pursuing a line of persuasion which he could hardly have foreseen. I am perfectly sure that he was right in bringing forward this Motion, but I submit also that it is right for all of us to remember what would be the position of those whom he is championing to-day, and, indeed, what would be his own position were he a Polish General who served with distinction in our cause. If he were fortunate, he might be peeling potatoes in an hotel in Park Lane. My noble friend who will reply was given little notice by me that I should be speaking on these cases and I cannot expect that he will give any specific hope for their relief. But a word of recognition and sympathy from the Government, and a promise to investigate such cases, might baring a gleam of light into the lives of some of the most gallant men and some of the most deserving friends that this country has ever had.
5.34 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, the very limited class of people for whom my noble and gallant friends Lord Jeffreys and Lord Cork and Orrery have spoken to-day will be grateful, as I am sure your Lordships are, to my noble friends for having brought this matter to our notice. It is not an unfamiliar matter,
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because they have stood for it before—and not unsuccessfully. I should like, if I may, to offer my particular congratulations to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Jeffreys, for having made his appeal in such a limited and sound manner. Appeals for consideration are all the stronger if they are based upon the realities of the case, rather than upon claims to some sense of justice or some sense of obligation which do not in fact exist.
I was pleased to notice that the noble and gallant Lord did not make the error which is made by some outside this House: of basing claims upon false premises. May I beg leave to examine the validity of this claim to see where it is weak and where it is strong, in the hope that by an appeal to reality one may be able to get the better consideration of it and make it more difficult for those who do not feel that they want to meet it but who want to knock it down? It is generally claimed, and generally believed, that retired pay and pensions, and other payments made to retired officers, N.C.Os. and men or their widows, is deferred pay. Indeed, that is one of the arguments used in a certain sense for relating what is to be given by way of deferred pay to the amount of the pay itself, so that where the pay is high the deferred pay will be high, and so on. But the fact that it is deferred pay links it to the service in the past. It seems to me that pensions can be had only in two ways. One is by earning them, and the other is by being given them ex gratia by the tax payers for some good reason—for example, a war disability. I will not enter into that field, because the considerations there are quite different from those which we now have in our minds, and to which we are addressing, ourselves.
It is said: "But who has earned the pension more than the soldier, the officer, N.C.O. or man who has gone out to the dangerous areas and lived away from home?" All those arguments were put very well by the noble and gallant Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, and are familiar to us all. But the fact is, my Lords, that the earning took place in an earlier generation, in entirely different circumstances; and it does not seem to me possible to say to the Government, or to any Government. "You must admit that

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there is a claim as of right, or an obligation that must be met, and which, if not met, would cause you to be dishonourable." Nothing of that sort is valid. These officers ceased their service ten, twenty or thirty years ago. Their service may have been different from the service of others, but it is certainly not different from that of the N.C.O.s and soldiers, and I do not think there is the same distinction that some people feel can be drawn between service in the Armed Forces and service in other spheres of life, or even in the Civil Service. All my life my special friends have been in the Armed Forces of the Crown, but that is not, in my judgment, a hand that should be overplayed. I do not believe that it gets them anywhere. The tragedy is that the service of a soldier is short because he has to be so active; he has to run so fast, and he has to do such disagreeable things so often that he cannot go on doing them after he is 50 or 55; or sometimes only 45.
What is to be done about this problem? Raise the rates of pay? I think they ought to be raised to quite high standards by comparison with service in the Civil Service and other services. It would follow then that the deferred element which was carried by that pay would be higher for the man in his retirement or, if his widow is to be included, for his widow. It is quite a new idea that widows should be included: as the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition has said, his widow would not be included in his pension. Five or ten years ago, no ordinary scheme in industry would have included widows, though it is now beginning to be the case that the occupational insurance schemes common amongst good modern companies provide that the widows shall get something if the husband should die soon after his retirement.
The way it generally works, as I am sure will be familiar to many of your Lordships, is this. After twenty, thirty, forty years you have paid in, and your employer has paid in, for so much, and you then have the option, at 60 or 65, of taking your pension, which (shall we say) is £600 a year, or £800 a year, for the rest of your life. That is a single annuity. Or you can take a double or joint annuity on the life of yourself and your wife, so that some money is paid to either of you. The amount of money
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paid is a question of division. If you want more while you are still alive, instead of £600 a year for life you might get £500, and your widow £100 when you die. If you are both prepared to take less you might take £350. It is a matter of bargaining and arrangement.
Your Lordships will see that what is paid to the widow is a deduction from what would otherwise have been paid to the man. If it is thought right that the widows of soldiers and officers should be provided for, not on the ground that the soldier has been killed in war or wounded in war, but simply on the ground that he dies of old age, then, if the widow is to be included, obviously the soldier must get less. It may not appear to be less if at the same time you raise the soldier's pay and his deferred pay, but it will in fact be less than he will otherwise get. Very likely that is a good thing to do.
But I think we must recognise quite clearly that this claim cannot rest upon any right to abolish the law of immutability. That is an inevitable rule. I do not know how you can re-write all the implied contracts back to the Boer War, and beyond—not for soldiers only, without applying the same to the Civil Service and Police and many others. It does not require that we should make an invidious comparison between one citizen and another to say that justice cannot be done for one small group, however deserving.
My Lords, may I turn now to the argument about recruiting? I think of the extraordinary response made to the appeal for people to go to Cyprus to work in N.A.A.F.I. They are not to be soldiers, but they are to be in a sphere where military action is all around them. They are to be operating under soldierly conditions and similarly to soldiers, and thousands of them applied to go. They would prefer to go there rather than in the Civil Service. They would prefer to go there than go on working as typists or telephone operators in Imperial Chemical Industries, Limited, or elsewhere. Why? Not because they are going to get good retirement pensions or good disability pensions if they are blown up—not at all; but because it is exciting and adventurous. I do not believe that recruiting is adversely affected by the prospect of the pension you are going to get twenty or thirty years later, or the

541
pension that may be given if you are blown to pieces.
My Lords, if you read carefully the Report of the Grigg Committee, you will find that it uses words that can be applicable to past widows. I believe that what the Grigg Committee Report is saying, in effect, is this: that since it is now becoming common practice for widows to be included in pension schemes, it would be wise for the Army to do it, but for the future. I cannot believe that is in itself a claim for doing it in the past. Where then is this claim? What validity has it? It simply has the sentimental validity that not enough is being done for these people, who noble Lords in all parts of this House, and also, I am sure, Parliament generally, would feel should have something done for them. These people have fallen between two stools: their history and circumstances are such that their previous status, though it has nearly all gone, is still left with them and is a burden round their necks. A grateful country should look after them better, and I very much hope that Her Majesty's Government will be able to make a statement to-day, even to the extent of saying that some of these cases will be given some consideration, which will make it unnecessary for us to divide on the Motion. I think it is most undesirable that we should vote on a matter of this sort, but that is only my view; and I am only a "new boy" here, and I apologise for offering a view.
May I say that I think the way this case should be presented is by deputation to the appropriate Service and other Ministers. If I—and I am sure there will be other noble Lords who will feel the same—can give any help to such a deputation, to the British Legion, the Officers' Association or those other societies, I shall, I am sure, together with other noble Lords, singly, severally or collectively, be only too willing to help. I greatly hope, therefore, that the Minister who replies will give some encouragement that during the next year or so this matter will receive the consideration of Her Majesty's Government.
5.47 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I have a very pleasant task to perform this afternoon. It falls to me to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, on his maiden speech.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDs: No.
LORD SALTOUN: In that case I will take the liberty of congratulating your Lordships on the acquisition of another Fraser. I do not know whether we have as many Frasers in your Lordships' House as there are Cecils, but I am very proud of the Frasers we have, and I beg your Lordships, if sometimes you find yourselves disappointed in the oldest Fraser of the lot, to ascribe some of the virtues of the others to that unfortunate individual and forgive him.
I turn to the subject of debate before us, and the proposition I wish to put before your Lordships is that the official view of this matter is really mistaken. A great deal has been said about comparisons between the Civil Service and a member of the Fighting Forces. I have here a large list of differences, but there are only a few I wish to bring to your Lordships' attention. The noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, pointed out that there were many civil servants, to his knowledge, who broke their health and sacrificed their lives really in the service of their country. I agree. I had a friend in Glasgow who was not in the Civil Service or the Fighting Services who by sheer overwork in the war lost his life just as much as anybody who was shot. None the less, it was a matter of agreement between the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, when he was First Lord of the Admiralty, and myself in a debate in this House that the question of danger does enter into consideration when one considers the life of a soldier or sailor. One is always supposed to wave aside all questions of danger; courage is supposed to be superior to it all. But that is a factor that has to be considered.
There is another factor which has been touched on already this afternoon, and that is security of tenure. The civil servant has great security of tenure. I do not know whether the early retirement of a civil servant is a Cabinet matter or not, but I do know in the past—the long past, perhaps—of civil servants who were great failures in their positions and who were not retired but were sent to other places, and their salaries were made up to that which they had been enjoying before they were removed. I do not know whether

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that happens to-day, but the soldier or the sailor has no such security of tenure.
The age of retirement has been mentioned. This is a serious disadvantage, because a man retires when all the cares of his family are still on his back. But the worst difference of all is this. A civil servant serves his life out until his retirement age or until death and then he gets his pension; the soldier or the sailor serves until he retires and then, if he goes into any other occupation, he is liable to be called upon to abandon that occupation at a moment's notice and return to the Colours. Some time ago I gave your Lordships details of such a case, and I will hurry through them now to show you the full import of what happened. At the time when the Liberal Government were declaring that universal and perpetual peace was practically established—that was in 1912—
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I remember the Parliament, but I do not recollect that policy—but no doubt!
LORD SALTOUN: The noble Viscount may recollect the speech of Mr. Lloyd George in 1914, in the Spring, when he said that there was no more propitious time for disarmament than at that moment. But I am going back to 1912.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: In the year to which the noble Lord is referring there was a desperate arms race going on with the Germans on the question of naval strength.
LORD SALTOUN: It was a time when we were singing out. "We want eight, and we won't wait". I do not want to go into that point except to say that a certain lieutenant with eight years' service—the equivalent of a lieutenant-commander to-day—had suggested to him that he should retire, and he was given a pension of £177. He went out to America where he did very well, and in 1914 he was earning an income of £1,000 a year, and also had made some very profitable investments in land. He had the misfortune then to lose the use of an arm. In 1915 he was called up, and he had to come. He abandoned his occupation and his property there, which others took over because he could not pay the taxes while he was away. I am told that those other people became millionaires. He served through the war and was awarded the
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D.S.O. At the end of the war he said, "I have been out of the Navy only two years. Can't you keep me?" They said that that was not possible but that his pension would be revised. His pension was revised, to the extent that he received £180—a rise of £3. He commuted, as he was forced to do. He commuted £30 of that pension and obtained some £600 worth of capital which he put into a business. In 1935 that business was earning for him £1,500; in 1938 it earned him £1,800. It was a one-man business and it was most successful.
Then he received a telegram asking him if he was willing to serve again. He served again and his business went to the winds. At the end of the war he realised that he was going to be extremely poor, and he went to a distant part of the country and bought a cottage where he could live most simply. Misfortune overtook him. His wife, on whom this one-armed man depended, had to have two major operations. It became quite impossible for them to live on the pension and on her small income. I took the matter up in your Lordships' House and I went to see the Departments concerned. The answer I got was, "This man is in receipt of everything that is due to him. We owe him nothing. This claim is monstrous." We fought it and, thank heaven!there was a First Lord of the Admiralty to whom I shall always be grateful, who screwed another £127 out of the Treasury. Of course that was not nearly enough, but I think it was an extraordinary and remarkable feat, and one which your Lordships will recognise.
This officer is being looked after in other ways now. The country called upon him to sacrifice first of all a fortune, then a competence, and at the end, without any compunction, has left him really to starve. That is the difference. When you can produce to me the case of a civil servant who is so treated, then it is fair to equate the two. Until that is done, I claim that the official attitude to retired soldiers and officers—I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, said—is utterly wrong and ought to be changed. I do not know who else was ashamed while I was fighting that case, but I can tell your Lordships that I was terribly ashamed at the official attitude—that anybody could say about a man who had so served what I

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heard said. Therefore I have great pleasure in supporting my noble friend Lord Jeffreys in this matter.
5.57 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, it fell to me yesterday to speak to your Lordships of one section of our people and the hardships which they are to-day suffering. To-day we are concerned with the tragedy of another section of our population. I think we have had a most valuable debate, illumined especially by a remarkable and characteristically courageous speech from the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, who speaks with almost unrivalled authority on this question. Of course, all he says is absolutely true. But that does not, as I am sure he will be the first to agree, lessen the tragic problems with which these particular people with whom Lord Jeffreys' Motion deals, are faced. I do not say, any more than he does, that they have an absolute right to receive a higher pension than they do, but I feel that we have a moral obligation to do rather more for them. I could not accept the argument that immutable pensions must always remain immutable. So I should like to appeal to the Government, briefly but most sincerely, to do what they can for these retired officers and their widows who are the subject of the Motion.
I know the difficulties which are facing the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, for I have had before now, more than once, myself to answer for the Government in debates on this particular subject—and most unpleasant I found it. I do not know anything that I hated more during the whole time that I was a member of the Administration. But if the situation of those officers was already unhappy in those days (and I think it was) it is of course worse still now, for, as has been pointed out, I think by Lord Jeffreys himself, the value of money has fallen since then, and the value of money is not immutable, even if pensions are immutable. We all know that the pensions, which were already cruelly small even then, will buy even less now. Moreover, these officers are older and, I expect, a great deal wearier than they were then and less able to find work to eke out their pensions—if, indeed, their doctors would allow them to take up work at all.
I quite realise that it is not only the Government's desire—perhaps it is not
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their desire but it is their obligation—to limit expenditure as much as they can. But at a time when, to use the Prime Minister's own words, the "British people have never had it so good", and when other pensions are, I believe, being further considered, surely the situation of these officers who have given such devoted service to their country, and their widows, deserves to be at least sympathetically reviewed. They are becoming older and feebler. As I believe the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Jeffreys, said, many of them are over 60 years of age. They are, unhappily, becoming fewer, for year after year death takes greater arid greater toll of them. The cost to the Exchequer, even if the Exchequer felt able to make some adequate concession, would not be large and is likely to become very much less with every year that passes.
I do not want to enter into the controversy of who have served their country better—members of the Armed Forces or civil servants. On the whole, my experience has been that they have both been pretty good. But looking merely at the Armed Forces, with whom we are concerned to-day, I feel that it is hardly possible logically to defend a position in which older people receive less in the way of pension than younger and stronger men who served in the last war. This is a very special case, as was said, I believe, by the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, as it applies to these pre-1939 officers; and I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, who was himself a serving officer, will sympathise; with the moving pleas that have been addressed to him to-day. I beg Her Majesty's Government to say this evening that they will do what they can to help these old servants of the Crown to whom we owe so much.
6.2 p.m.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I rise for a moment to make a brief point which I believe has not been made and which I should like to make now in favour of the Motion. With the greatest respect, I found myself in profound disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, for he accepted what I cannot accept—the theory of immutability in connection with pensions. For what, in fact, is a pension? Surely it is a part of the emoluments which induce a man to take up a particular employment. Surely it is not a set sum of money.

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A pension is a standard of life which is offered to the young recruit—and I like the point made by the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald—
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, would the noble Lord permit me to interrupt him, if it is in order for me to do so? I believe he is wholly misunderstanding what I said. The pension, so far as it is deferred pay, is related to the past. Deferred pay is part of the pay which one does not get then but hopes to get after; and it is immutable because the man has ceased to serve. He cannot alter the pay that he had thirty years ago because that was thirty years ago, but I pleaded for ex gratia payments.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I take the noble Lord's point, but I do not think I was mistaken in it to start with because what I am contesting is exactly this point of immutability which he accepts and I do not accept. I do not believe that the pension is, in fact, a sum of money—one-third of what the retired officer's pay may have been or any other such sum. I believe the pension is a standard of living for the rest of his life which is held out to him by his employer—the State—when he enters into its service. I believe, therefore, that far from being immutable all pensions should be fundamentally mutable. At a time like the present, when inflation is so much with us, it seems to me that if the employer—in this case the State—is to do its duty by its ex-employees, pensions must necessarily, in their essence, be mutable.
6.5 p.m.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE EARL OF SELKIRK): My Lords, I am sorry that I have not had the opportunity of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, on his maiden speech—I had hoped that I might have done. But I should like to say how much I enjoyed listening to him, and I know it is your Lordships' wish that he should speak to us often.
As the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, has said, this question is a difficult one. I do not believe anyone would question that the way in which we treat older people in this country is very much of the fabric and quality of the civilisation
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to which we belong. It may safely be said that that is one of the standards by which a country—our own or any other—can be judged. It is one of the standards by which we live, and part of the quality of the civilisation of which we are members.
But I am afraid it is true, as the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, has clearly said, that this Motion cannot be viewed in isolation. There are others who have served this country in other spheres, both as Crown servants and, indeed, in private life; and it is quite impossible for me to accept this Motion, because it would mean a Pensions Increase Bill as such—which Her Majesty's Government are not prepared to face at the present time. I ask noble Lords opposite: are they really asking me now for a Pensions Increase Bill which would cover the whole range of retirement pensions? If that is what they want, let them vote for this Motion, but I ask noble Lords to realise what is involved. May I say to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Jeffreys, to whom we all listened with great care, for he speaks with such very real feeling on this subject, that if there is any category to which he would especially like attention given, or any part of the pension structure which he feels is not in line, I will undertake to look thoroughly at it.
If I may go on to deal rather more fully with some of these points, I would say that of course Service pensions are of an entirely different character from Civil Service pensions. We can compare them, as the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, has done; but they are for different services. A Service officer serves for a very short time, and I would ask, quite frankly, what does it mean when one hears these very harsh figures about pensions? Before the war a captain could retire after fifteen years' service. No one in his senses would imagine that after fifteen years in the Army a man need not do any more work. That is an absurd proposition. When a man retires after fifteen years, having risen to the rank of captain in the Army, is he to be kept by the Service for the rest of his life? That suggestion does not bear examination for a moment. This is not a retirement pension at all. It is partly a pension for services given and partly compensation for a foreshortened career—and it bears no comparison at all with

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the kind of pension which a civil servant gets.
One hears stories about commutation, but as a matter of fact a civil servant is not allowed to commute his pension, except in very unusual circumstances. So there is really no comparison at all, and I do ask noble Lords to realise that Service pensions must be put into a category entirely different from the Civil Service pensions. The noble Lord may ask whether the general level of pensions is right or quite wrong—and here I should like to refer to a Report we have recently had on this subject from the Advisory Committee on Recruiting, known as the Grigg Committee. That Report says specifically, at paragraph 204:
" The existing level of officers' retired pay is about right,"
The noble Lord may say, "Ah, yes, but that does not apply to some of the older officers." There is a further reference in this Report which perhaps I may read to the House, for this is the Report of a very authoritative Committee: any noble Lord may see that its members were people of great authority, who have been in the Service, in industry, in the trade unions, and so on. This is what the Committee say on this broad subject which has been raised by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Jeffreys—I quote paragraph 205:
"We have every sympathy for retired soldiers whose pensions have been eaten away by inflation, but we do not think that their claims can be singled out from those of others in a similar position."
The Committee continue, in paragraph 206:
" The cost of a comparable reassessment of other State and local government pensions would be about £40 million a year, of which £10 million would fall on the rates "
That is an assessment bringing pensions up to date. Added to £15 million for the Services it would be £55 million, raising the total State and local government pensions from £135 million to £190 million a year. The Committee do not think that that is justified, and they were there for the express purpose of examining the recruiting requirements of the Service in the future.
There has been a good deal of discussion on the question of mutability. I was extraordinarily interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, said on
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the subject. I do not know whether he is speaking with the authority of the high position he holds in the Labour Party or as one of the adventurous sort who sometimes speak from the Back Benches, which we welcome. But he says that all pensions should be on a sliding scale according to the cost of living. Is he speaking on behalf of his colleagues, or is he speaking on behalf of himself?
LORD FARINGDON: I am not speaking on behalf of anyone else.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: The real point is this. Pensions have always been regarded as final, for this reason: that if they are not regarded as final, then by moving them with the scale of the cost of living we are in fact increasing the likelihood of inflation. We are by that very act increasing the force by which, and the extent to which, inflation would be lifted. I am therefore certain that the Treasury are right, if I may say so, and that their economic theory is correct in saying that it would be wrong to move pensions with the cost of living. If we did that we should make the remedy worse than the disease we are trying to cure.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Earl would care to say whether he is trying to control inflation at the expense of perhaps the element in the population least able to afford it?
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: In my opinion we can never avoid having hardship with inflation. What is the noble Lord suggesting? Who is to pay these mutable pensions? They would be people with fixed incomes in the community, people who are equally hurt by rises in the cost of living and who then have to pay increased taxes to pay the increased mutable pensions which the noble Lord wants. That is precisely what he is asking for, and that is precisely why I think the proposal he makes is entirely wrong.
The State has taken a different line and recognised that from time to time there are hardship cases which have to be dealt with. That has been done. Here I can say that there has been a very close comparison between the lot of civil servants, on the one hand, and the lot of Service personnel, on the other. If anyone follows closely what has happened

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he will see that they have been treated very similarly indeed. The Pensions Increase Acts have numbered five since about the end of the war. There were two in the time of the late Government, and three in the time of this Government. They came in 1944, 1947, 1952, 1954 and 1956. The Government have from time to time considered the cases and improved the lot of those who are pensioners.
I should like again to emphasise that the real answer to this is to stop inflation. Here I should like to quote (and I am doing so only because I think I ought) what has been said only this afternoon by the Prime Minister. He said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 595 (No. 13), col. 566]:
" The best way to help all who live on small fixed incomes and the way we have tried to follow is to keep inflation under control. If everyone is to contract out of inflation, I fear this will not make the task of controlling inflation any easier."
It is for that reason that the Government regard inflation as the dominating problem of our economy, and I think it would be quite wrong at this time to contemplate a general Pensions Increase Act. My Lords, obviously, if in any special case the noble Lord wants me to look at the position I shall be only too glad to do so.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am not getting up to quarrel in general with the argument of the noble Earl—I do not want to do that at this stage. I tried to be fair in the presentation of the general case, but I feel that there are outstanding cases (I do not want to trouble your Lordships with them) of these fixed payments which should have been the subject of review in the last few years, because of the effect of the evils of inflation. I tried to make myself clear. If the Motion did no more than ask for this position to be re-examined in the case of all these officers—and I hope other ranks, too—who retired before 1939, then I should be glad to support it. I cannot understand why the Government cannot promise to-night to make that investigation, on the basis of comparability with the cases which have had some improvement in their situation.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I do not want to paraphrase the noble Viscount's
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words, but I have already said to my noble friend Lord Jeffreys something very close to that. I said that I would look at any cases or categories he cared to advance which are out of line with the general pensions policy. If he would care to advance those for consideration I will see that they are examined very carefully indeed.
I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, really wants me to answer now the points which he raised. Frankly, if there are any points he wishes answered, I think it would be very much better if he wrote to me. Certain action has been taken in this country with regard to the Poles who assisted us in the war, and I do not in any way differ in the general regard for the part they played in the Second World War. If the noble Lord writes to me I shall be glad to deal with his points.
There has been extraordinarily little said on the subject of widows of retired officers. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, said: that the inclusion of widows in pension schemes is a recent innovation. In fact, in Government service it has very largely come in in the last ten years, though I must admit that officers' widows' pensions go back much further than that. So far as the Civil Service is concerned, and local government, the police, firemen, the National Coal Board and other nationalised industries, widows' pensions have come in only during the last ten years. Previous to that a civil servant had no pension at all for his widow.
What has been done? If we consider the 1952 Act, we have stopped the means test on widows' pensions which was in being up to that time, and doubled the rate of pension at about that time. All pensions of widows are now on the same basis of rank of the officer who is deceased; and there was an increase of that pension in 1956. What I think it is important to remember is that, alone among widows' pensions, Service officers' widows' pensions are and continue to be non-contributory. That is a privilege they have by themselves and no others have it. I think—and I say it frankly to this House, and your Lordships may put what interpretation upon it you wish—when I look at widows' pensions, whether in private schemes or public schemes, that they never seem to be very large.

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That is true of all forms of widows' pensions which I have seen.
My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made a provision in this year's Budget which I think is not without significance to those in this particular category. That is in regard to the special exemption limit for old people which was further raised for single persons and married persons. That is the sort of provision which I suggest is not without importance. I think that it is fair to say that not only have we done something about this problem—and I have said that we will look further—but also we have taken action in regard to the future. As the noble Lord is aware, the Grigg Committee has recommended that a one-third pension be payable to officers' widows in the future. We have accepted that, and I think it was right that we should. I will just add this, if I may: I emphasise that we have still the dominating objective in our economic policy of trying to stop inflation. After all, a Pensions Increase Act would cover not only many deserving cases such as those emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, and those brought out by the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, but also inevitably others. Is it wise, at the present juncture, that the House should press for this particular form of development to take place?
I will very gladly take up the points, as I have said. What I have tried to say to the noble Lord is that as the Motion is framed I cannot view it in isolation. On the whole the nature of officers' pensions is such that it is not possible to give a long-term pension such as the noble Lord suggests, but he will see that the recommendation of the Grigg Report to give long employment is being considered. But the noble Lord must be fully aware that the soldier's job is essentially a young man's job.
Finally, I would say that we have done something to help those who are least well off, and the record will, I think,
show that the various pensions increase actions which have been taken have been of some effect. I shall be glad to examine any case where there is a disparity in an existing pension or where there is any category out of line, but I would ask the noble Lord, frankly, having regard to the general strength of our country to-day, not to press this Motion to a Division.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, before my noble friend ends his speech, I apologise for being thick-headed but I do not quite understand what he is offering my noble friend Lord Jeffreys. Is he offering to see whether the whole category of these officers' pensions is out of line with modern pensions, or is he saying that he will examine them case by case?
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: If I thought that my noble friend's question was prompted by curiosity—
LORD DERWENT: It is.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK:—I would explain it at great length; but what he is trying to do is to get me to expand what I have said, and that is what I am exceedingly reluctant to do.
6.24 p.m.
LORD JEFFREYS: My Lords, I confess that I am not impressed by what the noble Earl has been telling us. We have to bear in mind the fact that if the Government increase the pensions of this very limited body of men there will be practically no expense worth talking about caused to the country. You might increase quite appreciably the pensions of these old men and yet the expense would be very small indeed. It is a small class, and it is also a class that will be reduced annually by an appreciable amount. I beg to press my Motion.
On Question, That the said Resolution be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 38; Not-Contents, 26.

CONTENTS

Salisbury, M.

Selborne, E. [Teller.]

Birdwood, L.

Burden, L.

Albemarle, E.

Alexander of Hillsborough, V.

Derwent, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Crookshank, V.

Faringdon, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Stansgate, V.

Geddes of Epsom, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Gifford, L.

Lucan, E.

Ailwyn, L.

Grenfell, L.

Morley, E.

Balfour of Burleigh, L.

Hastings, L.

Hewke, L.

Pethick-Lawrence, L.

Stonham, L.

Jeffreys, L. [Teller.]

Russell of Liverpool, L.

Swanborough, Baroness.

Leconfield, L.

Saltoun, L.

Williams, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Sandys, L.

Wilmot of Selmeston, L.

Newall, L.

Sherwood, L.

Windlesham, L.

Pakenham, L.

Silkin, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Kilmuir, V. (L. Chancellor.)

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Ellenborough, L.

Selkirk, E.

Elliot of Harwood, Baroness.

Hailsham, V. (L. President.)

Waldegrave, E.

Forbes, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Lansdowne, M.

Colville of Culross, V.

Mills, L.

Bathurst, E.

Margesson, V.

Pender, L.

Gosford, E.

Poole, L.

Home, E.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Robins, L.

Onslow, E. [Teller.]

Ashton of Hyde, L.

Sandford, L.

Perth, E.

Chesham, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Resolution agreed to accordingly.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before seven o'clock.