Lords Sitting of 18 November 1959

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chichester

VISCOUNT DUNROSSIL
The right honourable William Shepherd Morrison, M.C., Q.C., having been created Viscount Dunrossil, of Vallaquie in the Isle of North Uist and County of Inverness—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
Several Lords—Took the Oath.

SAHARA NUCLEAR TEST
2.48 p.m.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government if they are able to say whether the radio-active content of the atmosphere in Western Europe and other countries is likely to be affected by the threatened French nuclear explosions in the Sahara Desert and, if so, within what radius and to what extent.]
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Hailsham I will answer this Question. I am advised that it has been stated on behalf of the French Government to the Political Committee of the United Nations General Assembly that the French nuclear test in the Sahara Desert will have an explosive power less than that of 100,000 tons of conventional high explosive. For a nuclear bomb, this is very small, amounting to less than three-thousandths of the power released by all nuclear bomb explosions during 1958 alone, and to less than one-thousandth of the explosive power of all
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nuclear tests so far held. I am advised that the effect of such an explosion on the radio-active content of the atmosphere, whether of Western Europe or of other countries, will be very small indeed.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, would not the noble Earl agree that the use of the word "threatened" in the Question of the noble Earl is unfortunate and that the words "proposed nuclear explosion" might, in the circumstances, have been happier words to use?
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I have no responsibility for words used by noble Lords when they put down a Question.

THROWING OF OBJECTS FROM M.1 BRIDGES
EARL HOWE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether their attention has been drawn to the potential danger to drivers using M.1 from objects thrown from the many bridges over the motorway; and, if so, what steps they propose to take to abate the nuisance.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, there have been a few reports of people throwing objects from bridges on to the motorway. It is difficult to visualise any physical alteration to the bridges or any system of police supervision capable of preventing altogether this dangerous nuisance, which is of course an offence. It seems likely that the nuisance will diminish or disappear when the motorway is no longer a novelty.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he would examine the possibility of having wire netting over the roadways, going over the bridges, and that sort of thing, in order to prevent stones from being thrown, which will undoubtedly be the next thing?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, could I ask the noble Lord whether his attention has been drawn to a report from various police authorities that the parapets on these bridges

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are too low for safety? Is the Minister taking any action in this matter, and would that in any way assist in the difficulty which the noble Lord who put down this Question envisages?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I think that on this subject I would not agree at the present stage on the essential necessity to put up a large degree of unsightly wire netting, although I am quite as aware as the noble Earl is of the tremendous danger which could be involved to individuals, if not perhaps to more people than that, by objects being thrown over. Even pieces of paper, in certain circumstances, plastered across one's windscreen could be very dangerous in answer to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, I have seen the report in the paper, but that report has not yet come to my right honourable friend. No doubt it will do so in due course, and when it does it will, of course, be considered. I should like to add that my right honourable friend is very anxious—and is thinking very hard about it at the moment—to learn the lessons of the motorway in all respects, so that any defects can be put right on this one, if necessary, and to see that any weak points are not repeated in the future.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, has Her Majesty's Government's attention been called to the fact that the motorway is apparently being used by cars going at 120 or more miles an hour; and does this not constitute a danger to other users of the motorway should there be any mechanical or tyre failure at that speed?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, speed is relatively a dangerous thing in any motor car. A very small motor car with a top speed of 70 miles an hour doing 69 miles an hour is just as capable of creating havoc as a car built for the purpose of doing 120 miles an hour. There are, so far as I am aware, no particular widespread complaints of very excessive speeds. There no doubt have been individual instances. I would agree, certainly, that if you are going to drive a car fast you have to know how to. But unless and until there seems to be a real problem—and my right honourable friend and everyone concerned will be watching for everything—I do not think there is any more to be done.

LIGHTING OF PEDESTRIAN CROSSINGS
2.53 p.m.
LORD HAMPTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
I To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the great difficulty sometimes experienced by drivers of motor vehicles in seeing pedestrians at night waiting to cross a pedestrian crossing, where such crossings are situated in areas unlit by nearby street lamps or shop windows, they will consider advising lighting authorities who have such crossings in their area to fit shaded lamps facing directly downwards upon the standards of Belisha beacons for the greater safety of pedestrians and drivers.]
LORD CHESHAM: Yes, my Lords. The possibility of amending the pedestrian crossing regulations to enable local authorities to improve threshold lighting, very much in the manner suggested by the noble Lord, is now being considered by my right honourable friend.
LORD HAMPTON: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and am very glad to hear his reply.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, would the noble Lord convey to his right honourable friend the suggestion that, as pedestrian crossings have largely lost their effect in thickly populated areas, they should be re-sited and in future have traffic lights to regulate the crossing of pedestrians, which has proved beyond all shadow of doubt the correct way to do it in America?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I will most certainly convey the noble Lord's suggestion, as any other suggestion. What my right honourable friend will think of it I am not too sure.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, would the noble Lord like to jog his right honourable friend's mind with the reminder that the same suggestion was made to him over the weekend, when he had, as reported in the Press, consultations with American traffic experts?
EARL HOWE: My Lords, cannot we have an English solution to this problem without having to go to America?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I think it is quite unnecessary for me to jog my right honourable friend's mind about anything.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I would inform your Lordships that the House will meet to-morrow, Thursday, at two o'clock, and not at the customary hour of three o'clock, in order that the Service Departments Supply (No. 2) Order may be taken and also the Prayer on the Service Departments Supply (No. 1) Order.

THE HOLIDAY SEASON AND AUGUST BANK HOLIDAY
2.56 p.m.
LORD GIFFORD LORD GIFFORD rose to call attention to the economic and social benefits arising from the extension of the holiday season, and to urge Her Majesty's Government to introduce legislation to change August Bank Holiday from the first Monday to the last Monday in August as a major contribution towards this end; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, My motion is really in two parts. The first is in general terms, and calls attention to "the economic and social benefits arising from the extension of the holiday season." May I first remind your Lordships that the whole pattern of holidays has altered completely in the last 20 or 30 years. Because of the greater prosperity, and the fact that nearly everyone receives holidays with pay, more and more people take their holidays away from home each year. It is estimated that 25 million, or nearly 50 per cent. of the population, do so at the present time. Unfortunately, far too many people try to take their holidays during the peak period; that is, in late July and early August. This causes appalling problems for anyone connected with the travel industry. The British Travel and Holidays Association have played a leading part in co-ordinating the views of interested bodies, and I should like to quote some of these.
In May, 1958, under the auspices of the Board of Trade and the British Travel and Holidays Association, an important conference was held at the Board of Trade at which every subject in con
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nection with tourism was discussed; and I think I am right in saying a Minister presided at each session. The whole of one of these sessions was devoted to the problem of spreading the holiday season. The discussion was opened by Mr. Cooper-Key, M.P., the chairman of the All-Party Tourist and Resorts Committee. He stressed the enormous cost of re-equipping industry to-day with modern machinery, and pointed out that this was economical only if the machinery was made full use of by adopting the shift system, and so on. In the same way, my Lords, hotels cannot possibly afford to modernise and buy new plant if they are going to use it fully for only about two months of the year.
Mr. Victor Feather, the Assistant Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, stated that his view and the view of his colleagues on the T.U.C. was that the present period with regard to holidays was ridiculous: that for six to eight weeks boarding-houses were full to overflowing—often including the bathroom. He knew of cases where two married couples, complete strangers to each other were asked to share, and did share, a double room. The prices at that time are at their highest and comfort is at the lowest. My Lords, we can hardly blame the landlady, who has to make in a matter of six or eight weeks a livelihood to last her the whole year: it is very tempting to her to squeeze the orange as hard as she can, when she can. At any rate, Mr. Feather took the view that within industry itself there would be support for what the T.U.C. thought ought to be done about the holiday season: that is, to extend it over June, July, August and September, rather than having to grapple with it in the last two weeks of July and the first three weeks of August.
Various representations and suggestions were made. The first was that efforts should be made by propaganda to overcome the conservatism (I use that term not in a political sense) of the British people, whose minds tended towards August as the holiday month. Managements also tended toward the traditional idea of a works holiday at that time. Help was required from the education authorities and in this respect it was understood that the West Sussex authorities are arranging to stagger their holidays—and this is a step in the right

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direction. In this respect, incidentally, Mr. Feather went further than I do. He favoured a fixed holiday on the second Monday in June, instead of Whit Monday, and another fixed bank holiday in September, instead of the August one.
The Association of British Travel Agents, at their convention at Harrogate last month, made what was called "the spreading of the holiday season" one of the main themes. They unanimously passed the following two resolutions, which I should like to read. The first was:
"That this Association, having regard to the economic and other benefits to be derived by holidaymakers generally from a steady deployment of holiday facilities throughout a full holiday period, favours all possible action to encourage the taking of holidays outside the existing peak period. Furthermore this Association would call for assistance from all other bodies who may be concerned with this matter, or who may by Their own decisions be able to help to encourage a spreading of the holiday season".
The second resolution, my Lords, was this:
"That as a contribution towards the spreading of the holiday season, this Association would support efforts to change the August Bank Holiday from the first to the last Monday in August".
The Council of this body, of which I am a member, intend to pursue the whole question energetically, and they have asked all members of the Association to make every effort, however small it may seem, on their own initiative to further the common cause in the general interests of all.
British European Airways have made strong representations in favour of spreading holidays. They say that it would make a vast difference to their economy if they could fill empty seats in May, June and September with passengers turned away in July and August. I will not weary your Lordships by quoting any more views, but will add only that many other bodies have given their support. In fact, I do not believe that anyone in his right mind could disagree with the contention that spreading of the holiday period would be of general benefit.
My Lords, we now come to the much more difficult point of how this desirable state of affairs is to be brought about. There are a number of proposals which have been made, and which I intend to mention briefly. Some of them can be
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brought about by propaganda; some by inducements, such as cheaper prices in hotels and cheaper fares. Encouragement can be given to industrialists to spread their works holidays; and in this I feel that the British Employers' Confederation might well give a lead. Education authorities, as I have mentioned before, can help by staggering school holidays and allowing children a limited amount of time off during term time for the purpose of going away on holiday with their parents—not of course when they are just coming up for examinations, but in cases where it can be done without undue detriment to the child. I might say that in this matter of holidays a number of European countries have gone further than we have.
Some of your Lordships may not be aware that an Act to fix the date of Easter on the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April was passed in 1928 and can be brought into operation by an Order in Council approved by both Houses of Parliament. A fixed Easter would greatly help the tourist industry, and I suggest that this matter might be given further consideration, since it is more than 30 years since the Act was put upon the Statute Book. There is also the question of extending Summer Time to the end of October, a matter which is, I understand, being considered by the Government. It has always been slated that the main objection to any extension of Summer Time is the opposition expressed by the agricultural community. The National Farmers' Union have, however, stated their readiness to accept an extension of Summer Time for two or three weeks in October if the Government think fit, in the public interest, to take such action. Perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, will be good enough in his reply to say something about this point.
In the second part of my Motion, I am asking for Government action on only one specific point. I have done this because it seems to me that the alteration of the date of the August Bank Holiday is the simplest and most straightforward of all the measures which can be taken to ease what I have tried to show is an appalling problem. In the case of the August Bank Holiday, there are no religious aspects such as might complicate the taking of action in regard to Easter Monday or Whit Monday.

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I have been modest in my request, and am asking merely that this Bank Holiday should be postponed until the last Monday in August. A date at the middle or end of September would be even better for the object in view, but might cause difficulty with regard to school holidays. August is a month, when families traditionally go away together. Another small point is that if the bank holiday remained within the month of August there would be no need to change the name.
My Lords, when the Bank Holidays Act was passed in 1871 only a very few people took a long holiday away from home, so that the fact that August Bank Holiday came just after the end of the school term had no real significance. Gradually, however, August Bank Holiday has become the central date to which the public relate the times of their annual holidays. The reason was, first, an economic one: that holidays were unpaid, and workers preferred a week when, in any case, they lost one day's work. With the coming of holidays with pay, the economic reason has disappeared, though many people like to stretch their week's holiday to ten days by taking the period just prior to bank holiday.
It is generally considered that a change such as I suggest, to the last Monday in August, would tend to split the present high peak at the end of July—this enormous high peak—and would create two lesser peaks, one at the beginning of August and one at the end, which would be easier to cope with. Moreover, such a change would separate the August Bank Holiday week-end traffic from the main traffic of people going away for their longer summer holidays. Surveys made by the British Travel and Holidays Association show that a large number of holidaymakers during the peak period were not tied at all to any particular holiday date, and the measure recommended would undoubtedly influence this section of the public.
I need hardly enlarge on the difficulties of the present arrangement. They must be quite obvious to your Lordships; hotels and boarding-houses uncomfortably crowded; packed trains; queues for buses and coaches; above all, traffic jams and nose-to-tail driving on all roads to the coast. With more
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and more people buying their own cars, this situation will get rapidly worse, and may easily result in a complete freeze-up on the roads unless some drastic action is taken.
Full support for the proposal I am putting forward has been given from many quarters, and I should like to read some replies to a memorandum on the subject sent out by the British Travel and Holidays Association. The first is from British European Airways. They say:
"This recommendation has B.E.A.'s full support and you can depend on us to help you in any way with negotiations with the Government or any other body. You may quote B.E.A. as saying that if we could break our peak, particularly on such routes as the Channel Islands, we could reduce our fares, which would, of course, be not only of great benefit to the travelling public but also the hoteliers."
The British Federation of Hotel and Boarding House Associations say:
"The British Federation of Hotel and Boarding House Associations will support you to the full in your efforts to induce the Government to make this change. A resolution to this effect was passed unanimously at our Annual Conference held in Paignton last October; as a matter of fact, the subject has figured on the agenda for our Conferences for the last three or four years, so you will see from this that my Federation would welcome a change very much indeed."
The British Transport Commission say:
"You are quite at liberty to quote the B.T.C. as supporting your representations."
I will quote only one more, from the Workers Travel Association. They say:
"The Annual Meeting of shareholders of the Workers' Travel Association, held on April 4, 1959, passed the following resolution:
'That this Annual Meeting of the members of the Workers' Travel Association, convinced of the advantages to be derived from taking holidays away from home at times other than July and August, calls upon Her Majesty's Government, local and public authorities, and all interested organisations, to introduce measures designed to encourage more people to take holidays outside the peak periods; and further urges Her Majesty's Government to introduce legislation changing the date of the August Bank Holiday from the first to the last Monday in August'".
I think that I have said enough to convince your Lordships that my proposal is a sound one and has widespread support from many influential bodies, particularly those who have first-hand knowledge of the subject. The extension of the holiday season would not only result in a more prosperous holiday industry,

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better able to provide modern facilities, but provide to the holiday-making public a wider range of services at more economical prices, enabling a greater proportion of the population to take holidays away from home. As a first step towards this desirable end, I commend to your Lordships the proposal on the Order Paper, which I trust will meet with the approval of Her Majesty's Government. I beg to move for Papers.
3.14 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships will welcome the action of the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, in putting this Motion down for discussion to-day. It is a useful discussion and one which we can all approach, for once, from an entirely non-Party angle. However, we are not necessarily all agreed with the overall proposals that the noble Lord makes. He has suggested many factors which would be strongly in favour of a reorganisation of the general holiday arrangements in this country, but when I look at this in a wider sphere I assure the noble Lord that he will find a great many other contingent factors which would have to be overcome before any Government could get unanimous consent to any drastic legislation.
I am sure that most of us agree with the general observations that the noble Lord has made, but he was not clear about what period of the year he wants to cover. Would it be two or three weeks on the earlier side of the summer, or two or three weeks at the end of the summer, and only those periods; or does he want to spread it over the year in such a way that the travel industry—airways, railways, steamships and the like—are expected to get the benefit in their overall annual traffic? The noble Lord has not brought out clearly what he is really after. Alterations of this kind lead to much opposition. Mr. Willett had a long struggle, as noble Lords like the noble Earl, Lord Winterton, will remember, before he achieved the much smaller contribution to the general problem of introducing Summer Time. Many different factors were presented by different interests at that time, and I can assure the noble Earl who is going to reply to the debate that there will be many differences of opinion in the individual approach to
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this non-Party question which the Government will have to study carefully. I daresay that in our own ranks there are two or three varied opinions about what is best to be done.
The ordinary working-class household will want to do what they themselves want, and not something that has been engineered in order to secure facilities either for the hotel and boarding house industry or for the travel industry. They will want to do what they are accustomed to doing. Those workers who are largely confined during work will want to be able to secure their holidays in the best part of the year for the English climate. Moreover, industry has to take into consideration the economic question. I should be interested to learn from the noble Lord how it is proposed to do this. It was a great achievement for the trade union movement in this country when—first. I think, in the case of the Wakes in Lancashire—agreernent was reached between the trade unions and the employers to arrange the annual holiday periods so that factories and plant could be closed down economically.
The question of staggering holidays is an interesting one. Anybody who has had experience of the arrangements for staff holidays made by big offices, county councils and the Civil Service will be aware that every personnel officer or departmental head has been accustomed to staggering holidays for generations past. The list is passed round and members of the staff put down their preferences, although they do not always get the periods they desire. Nevertheless, the staggering of holidays in relation to departmental work is made. That side of it seems to be all right, but it appears to be much more difficult to arrange for the staggering of holidays on a national scale, unless there is overall agreement between industries so that every industry could close down at a time which would ensure the least possible economic loss.
If we look at the proposal from the point of view of travelling, this might be a desirable reform in some circumstances. My noble friend Lord Latham, who could not be here to-day but who would have liked to speak—I am a stopgap substitute for him in this debate—was at one time, as your Lordships will remember, Chairman of the London

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Executive, and in the course of that period there was a careful inquiry made in 1949 as to how this matter would spread. In case the noble Earl who is to reply does not happen to have this particular set of figures—although I am sure that he has been amply briefed in general by the Department—I will quote them. This inquiry was first held in 1949, and it showed that those who started their holidays in the months of January to May, or later in October, represented 13 per cent. of the population; that in June it was 14 per cent., in July, 29 per cent., in August, 30 per cent. and in September, 14 per cent. That was a survey over the period from January to the end of October.
The inquiry showed that the reasons given by people for taking their holidays in July and August were as follows. The first was that that was the time in which their place of work was closed for the purpose of giving factory holidays; and that accounted for 22 per cent. of the people who were taking holidays in these two months. Holidays by roster (that is, the kind of staggering arrangement I have already mentioned) accounted for only 9 per cent. of those who took holidays in these two particular months. Those who took these two months because of the disposition of school holidays also numbered only 9 per cent. of the total—that figure rather startled me, but it is so. Those who went at this period in order to fit in with other members of the party—that is, those who contributed to collective efforts for arranging the holiday period and going away together in parties—were 21 per cent. of those going away in July and August. Those who had other reasons for going at this time numbered 27 per cent. of the total going away in July and August, and only 12 per cent. had no special reason to go in that period. So the task of getting down to a further staggering of that arrangement is not so easy as it looks.
While I am certain that all noble Lords in the House would desire the Motion to be carefully considered by the Government, I think it would be less than honest for us not to point out, as individuals—and I speak solely as an individual—that there are certain snags to be overcome. Lest some noble Lords
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who are in general support of the noble Lord's Motion may think I am talking about something ten years old, I would repeat that we have ascertained through my noble friend Lord Latham, by consultation, that there was a further survey in 1955, only four years ago, and there has been practically no change in the proportions who select the months of July and August: that is, 29 per cent. and 30 per cent. respectively in the two months, or 59 per cent. total.
Generally speaking, therefore, while there is a great deal to be said for trying to stagger more and more the holidays, in the interest of the economic position of travel associations, looking at it as one interested in the distributive trade, for example, and as one who knows something about the general position of seaside resorts, as well as other types of populations, I am not so sure. Although the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, has quoted an important resolution from the Hotel and Boarding House Keepers' Associations I think that if we went too far in spreading this business there would be some areas of holiday resorts in this country which would not have a very good time.
LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, the noble Viscount will forgive me for interrupting. He spoke of the economics of the hotels and the travel people being affected. I would respectfully submit that it is also the economics of the holidaymakers themselves, because they can get cheaper prices for holidays in May, June and September than they do at the height of the season. So it affects the holidaymakers as well as the hotels and the travel people.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I have some little experience of looking at statistics of that. The old Workers' Travel Association and the Co-operative Travel Association have long since amalgamated into what is called "Travco". They have their hotels and their boarding houses all over the country—incidentally, I spent a pleasant holiday in a "Travco" hotel in Llandudno; and we are not on television, so your Lordships will forgive the small advertisement. But if you look at the charges in general of all who insert advertisements, how much difference do you see between April 1 and September 1? I have studied this carefully. You

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will find a few stray things here and there, but when it comes to April 1 and Easter, you may get a slight recession for the last two weeks of April and the first two weeks of May, but after that, no.
LORD GIFFORD: I can assure the noble Viscount that if he came into our travel office and spoke to one of our clerks he could show him any number of instances where the holiday is much cheaper.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I have no doubt that a clerk in the noble Lord's office is an estimable person, but I make my judgment on the published rates. So I think we have to be careful in our approach to the matter. I am sure we shall all approach this question as individuals and not as Parties; and as individuals I am sure we all desire to get the best possible arrangement in regard to spreading the holidays. But, first of all, it must be in the interests of the workers as much as in the interests of the travel associations; and whether it could be done on an economic basis for important industries, to maintain their employment at the highest state of production and efficiency, has also to be taken into account.
I think the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, talked rather light-heartedly, if I may say so, about the transfer of dates of recognised bank holidays. We know the old controversy, as he quite generously called it, about the fixed Easter. I do not think that that is by any means settled in people's minds at the present time, but what I do say, from my long experience of the working class, is that they look upon their fixed bank holiday periods as something sacrosanct. They want their bank holiday: and when you say, "Oh well, now they have holidays with pay it does not matter as much as it used to", believe me, because they have holidays with pay now they do not go without their free period with pay on the bank holidays.
LORD GIFFORD: I never suggested doing away with any bank holiday; I suggested only shifting the date.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: But shifting the date also happens to interfere often with long-fixed practice in organised labour life. It may be that on inquiry and examination you may get even working-class associations
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to agree to the noble Lord's proposals on that matter. But I speak personally, and I am not yet completely convinced upon it. Therefore, my point of view as an individual—and, as I say, I approach this as an individual—is that while we should make what approaches we can in securing what is best for the people and for our industry as a whole, we should be careful not to do it solely from the point of view of easing the problems either of travel organisations or of hoteliers and boarding-house keepers. I have a great affection for the right of the English holidaymaker to choose, and I hope he will choose as far as possible holidays at home. It is good for our country and good for him that he should be able to choose those parts of our rather variable English season which will give him the greatest amount of sunshine and open air and the greatest amount, therefore, of body-helping strength as well as real leisure well spent.
3.30 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, I rise also as an individual, and should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, for bringing forward this most interesting subject before your Lordships. The noble Viscount who has just spoken has suggested that the fixed practice among most people to go away on the first weekend of August is a sacred date which cannot be altered. That strikes me as rather a conservative attitude which I would not have expected from the noble Viscount.
Another view is that there is a long gap between the first Monday in August and Boxing Day which is the next bank holiday. I feel that most people in what we used to call the working-classes would not necessarily jib at an exchange of the first Monday in August for a Monday perhaps three weeks later, which would reduce that long period of work without any holiday at all. The noble Viscount also referred to the August holiday as being always the best weather. I am not sure about the statistics in that respect, but in the holiday part which I happen to know best, in the North-West of England, August is the worst month in the year for holidays. I notice the noble Lord agrees with me on that.
I will not say any more, except to ask the noble Earl who is to reply whether he could give a little information on a

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related point. I do not want to anticipate what he is going to say, but I imagine he might say that he is not convinced that there is any public demand for this sort of thing. It is much easier for the Government and those with the Government to find out what is in public demand than it is for those who are not in power. I wonder whether he could indicate to the House what steps are taken in questions like this which are put to the Government to find out whether public opinion is behind it or not? We can talk to our friends and to various people, as I am sure many of your Lordships have on this matter, and almost invariably we get the answer, "Yes, it is rather a good idea and should be tried out, particularly the bank holiday point." It is not long ago since I suggested that the political programme of this country should be altered so that the Members of both Houses might be given a holiday in June and July, and come back a little earlier to work in the autumn. Of course, the fiscal year would have to be changed, too. So far as I can make out, that received support from many quarters in which I put it. The reply which I received, which was a most courteous reply, of course, was that there was no indication that there was any demand for this. It was said that the Government would not mind looking at it again if there was a demand. Unless I go on pressing it I know the matter will be dropped and we shall hear no more about it.
It is only a few weeks ago since I addressed to the noble Earl who is to answer to-day the Question whether international relations and the prestige of this country would not be immensely improved by the abolition of the travel allowance, so that people could be on a better level abroad and should not be in the ignominious position in which many Britons find themselves. The answer was that this could not possibly be done; it was too difficult and the theory must be dismissed from my mind. That got a few lines in the newspapers. About a week ago Her Majesty's Government had the wonderful idea that it would be a good thing to abolish the travel allowance. That blazed on the headlines, and that is part of the Conservative Party programme for which they will take great credit. I am asking if the noble Earl could indicate to the House whether
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the Government can take steps to ascertain what public opinion is, without necessarily going to the country for a General Election.
3.34 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, has raised one of the most important subjects that we as a country have to face, and that is the whole question of how to even out the humps and bumps of the load on traffic. I am very grateful to him for doing it. I am certain that something has to be done. I could have understood his case better if he had advocated the abolition of all bank holidays, or at least three of them, Whit Monday, Easter Monday and August Bank Holiday, and had added three days every year to the annual holiday period.
I agree with what my noble friend has said. Folk must choose their holidays when it suits them best and when the weather is best. When is the best part of the year? I was hoping my noble friend was going to tell us, but he did not venture as far as that. It seems to me that the best part of an English summer varies every year. But there is a serious side to this question. If your Lordships will take your minds back to August Bank Holiday week-end of this year, you will recall that then we had an all-time accident peak. Must we look forward to breaking that record every bank holiday, or every other bank holiday? Surely it is not beyond the wit of man to even the load upon our roads better than this. I know that people will rush down to Brighton on a Sunday when the sun is shining. Some folk think that an ideal way of spending the day is to take four or five hours to get to Brighton, with their radiator on the exhaust pipe of the motor car in front. That is not my idea of pleasure, although it is, and will continue to be, for many people.
What we should try to do is to remove the artificial siphoning of traffic. How far can we do that? What would be against removing the three artificial funnels—the August Bank Holiday, the Whitsun Bank Holiday and the Easter Bank Holiday? Perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, will think of an answer, because I have not been able to think of one quickly. I can understand retaining Boxing Day and Good Friday, but I

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cannot understand retaining the others. Of course, the staggering of work is very difficult, as my noble friend has said. In Lancashire, they have got over the difficulty by the system of Wakes Weeks. If everybody in Lancashire went to Black-pool in the same week, it would be a pretty serious matter. They have had the sense there to stagger their holidays. The experience of the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, with regard to hotel prices is different from mine. They always seem to me far too high whenever I stay in a hotel, and they never seem to get less at any time of the year. Perhaps I stay in the wrong hotels.
I would ask the Government whether, in conjunction with all sides of industry, they can think of a method to even out the holiday load. That is what the noble Lord is really trying to get at. One has only to experience the Birmingham holiday fortnight in the Midlands, with the exodus from the West Midlands during the first fortnight in August, to appreciate the need. The roads are blocked. Take the seaside places. Some people think it nice to go down to the seaside and stand up on the sands because they cannot find room to sit down. We have had it in debate in your Lordships' House that you cannot get anywhere near a West Country watering place in the height of the holiday season in August. Surely that is bad for everybody. It is bad for safety, and it is bad for economics.
I do not believe in dragooning people to have their holidays at a particular time. I do not know what inducement you could make to persuade them to take their holidays in certain periods, but I think you might do away with the artificial funnelling of people. When they take their holidays in the August Bank Holiday period they usually get three extra days tacked on to their fortnight's holiday; that is why they do it. What schools could be induced to stagger their holidays? I know the answer is that if you stagger school holidays, then the teachers and staffs of schools will never get any holiday themselves.
I am not going to put forward any solution because I have not got one, but I think it should be within the wit of perhaps the Government to think, as someone has to think one day, how the traffic on the road system of this country (and that is what I am particularly in
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terested in at the moment in connection with the noble Lord's Motion) can be evened out—the traffic which at certain parts of the year and certain parts of the day creates these huge traffic jams, while at other parts of the week and other parts of the year and other parts of the day the roads are almost deserted. It may be that something can be done and that the new Minister of Transport will think of something, such as allocating various times for various sorts of traffic. I am not going to make that suggestion now, because that would be rather outside the noble Lord's Motion; but I hope, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, said, that the Government will not just wave this away and say that there is no public demand for it. There is a public demand for the better use of the roads and there is a public demand that those roads should be made safer for those who use them.
3.42 p.m.
THE EARL OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE: My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate, but having heard what I have I felt it incumbent on me to say a word or two in support of Lord Gifford's Motion. We heard the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, mention the staggering of holidays. I think that that is a very important point, if only, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, mentioned, with regard to the question of traffic problems. This business of traffic is a very difficult one, and I do not want to refer too much to it to-day because it is not really concerned with the debate. But this year I went by road for a short while to Devonshire and Cornwall. I was fortunate in that I went in the middle of the week, but even then the traffic was difficult and one was held up at such places as the turn off to Newton Abbott from, I think, A.38, the road to Plymouth. One was held up a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. I well remember seeing in the papers following the bank holiday the queues, 18 miles long (I think I am right in saying), on either side of Exeter. I do not want the House to accept that figure because I may be wrong, but it was several miles long.
I believe the staggering of holidays would be a big help. I believe, too, that there is a point here; that people might perhaps consider taking their

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holidays from the middle of the week rather than the end, say, starting the holiday on Wednesday and finishing on Tuesday or Wednesday, again partly to avoid congestion on the roads. Here, if I may, I should declare an interest as President of an Association which runs a number of small hotels, the People's Refreshment House Association. While we are not affected quite so much by the holiday traffic as a number of other hotel associations are, it does affect us. I would suggest that it might ease the traffic problem if the change were made to Wednesday rather than Saturday. May I support very strongly what the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, said in his speech about the right of individual workers, and others alike, to choose the day on which they take their holiday? I think it is important, because they would consider beginning their holiday in the middle of the week rather than at the end. A number of them own their own cars and I am delighted that they should, and it might help ease the traffic problem in such places as Devonshire and Cornwall.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I too had not intended to say anything in this debate. It seems to me that all the speakers so far have forgotten the fact that in Scotland there is no August Bank Holiday as such: each town adopts a different Monday throughout the holiday season and declares it a bank holiday. That system seems to work very satisfactorily North of the Border, and I cannot understand why much the same sort of system could not work down here. Also in Scotland, from the weather point of view, the best months seem without any shadow of doubt to be the first half of June and the first half of September. Year in and year out, August has the worst record from the point of view of rain. I do not know why there is such enthusiasm to visit Scotland during August. Another advantage of visiting Scotland in June and September is that hotel prices are 20 to 25 per cent. lower than in July and August. For all those reasons I think it would be a very good thing if the Government would consider either moving or making the August Bank
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Holiday a variable date during the course of the six holiday weeks.
3.46 p.m.
LORD GEDDES: My Lords, I also had not intended to speak, but following on the remarks about Scotland I should perhaps say that both as a member of the Scottish Tourist Board and the British Travel and Holidays Association I strongly support the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Gifford. Not only has Scotland no August Bank Holiday, but, following on what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, said, Scotland has no Easter Bank Holiday, and no Whitsun Bank Holiday; nor is Good Friday observed as a holiday. Scotland has organised itself without these narrow funnels of holidays, and it seems that these things can be done in a pattern different from that followed South of the Border.
As regards widening of holidays, Scotland has made a very serious attempt to widen holidays, not only for a period of two or three months but for the whole twelve months. The economy of the Highlands has to some extent become dependent on the tourist industry, and the Highlands are finding that the idea of holidays at any time in the twelve months is becoming a practical possibility. The ski-lifts are being built, and the roads going in, and the tourists are beginning to come North and enjoy that tourist climate which the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, did not have in mind when he was referring to the summer months. It is of the utmost importance to the economy of the Highlands that the holiday season should be widened to the greatest possible extent, and that the crofters should be given the chance to gain the additional income which they must have for survival by bringing in tourists over four, five or six months and again in the winter months. The Scottish Tourist Board, with the help of Mr. Fraser, is now seeking to develop a widening period of tourism in the Highlands, and I would strongly support the Motion that everything should be done to widen the tourist season as much as possible.
3.49 p.m.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, I feel that I ought to ask for your Lordships' indulgence in replying

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to this debate, because it is always a little difficult for a Scotsman to understand why the English have this habit of taking a universal holiday on the day on which all the banks are shut; but I am a little encouraged by my two noble friends behind me, who have just made such useful contributions, if I may say so, to your Lordships' discussion.
The Bank Holidays Act of 1871 does establish five Bank Holidays in Scotland. One of them is the first Monday in August, and another is Whit Monday; but a Bank Holiday in Scotland means exactly what it says: it means a day on which the staff of all the banks in the country are given a statutory holiday. But nobody else in the country engaged in other occupations feels under the slightest obligation to keep them company. Public holidays in Scotland are fixed locally by the magistrates on a series of days throughout the spring, summer and autumn, and they are always arranged in such a way that the public holiday of one town does not coincide with the public holiday in any neighbouring town. I think that is a very good arrangement because it prevents an abnormal congestion at any given time. Even the Glasgow holiday does not create so much of a jam as it would do if it coincided with the public holidays of all the other cities in Scotland.
When the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, asks me whether I cannot think of some contribution towards solving this problem, I feel rather embarrassed. It it not for me to make the suggestion—I have no authority to do so—but would it not be possible for the English to consider doing what we all do in Scotland? There is, of course, one universal holiday in Scotland, which is New Year's Day, but that happens at a time of year when not many people want to travel, and there are sometimes a few of them who find it more convenient to spend the day in the same place in which they have seen in the New Year on the previous night.
When I looked up the English Statute Law on this subject I had at first supposed that there must be some statutory obligation in the Bank Holidays Act which entitled everybody, as of right, to have a holiday on the same day as the banks. But I found that that is not so at all; it is a purely voluntary
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procedure. I do not know whether it arises from some generous English impulse to prevent the bank managers from feeling lonely on their holiday, or what the reason may be; but anyhow, it is an English custom which is generally observed; and so long as the English persist in this determination to make their holidays as uncomfortable as possible, I doubt if it will make a great deal of difference whether this discomfort is endured in the first week of August or in the last week of August. Whichever date is chosen, it will, I think, very soon become impossible for an Englishman to get much further than his own front doorstep on an English bank holiday.
But the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, is anxious to mitigate this discomfort so far as possible, and I entirely sympathise with him in trying to do so. The changes the noble Lord proposes are supported, I think, by all the bodies and organisations representing the hotel industry, the catering trade and the travel agencies. They are supported by the British Federation of Hotel and Boarding House Associations, by the Workers' Travel Association, by the Caterers' Association and by the British Travel and Holidays Association, of the Council of which the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, is a member. He has referred to a conference on tourism which was held last year at which there seems to have been a fairly general consensus of opinion in favour of the change which the noble Lord has just advocated. Mr. Victor Feather, the assistant secretary of the T.U.C., was among others who argued in favour of eliminating the August Bank Holiday and establishing another fixed bank holiday in September. I do not think that any views contrary to what the noble Lord has said were expressed, and I think that the noble Lord and other noble Lords who have supported him have certainly made out a very substantial case.
What are the arguments on the other side? Your Lordships must often have noticed that when any change is being demanded by a number of people in the country, and when the Government show absolutely no sign of doing anything about it, the people who want the change to be made are the only people who do any talking. But as soon as the Government show any signs of yielding to the

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pressure, then all the people who are against the change begin to intervene in the debate, and public opinion no longer appears to be quite so unanimous as it was before. I think perhaps that among the interests that might possibly be adversely affected by a change such as the noble Lord has suggested is agriculture, which has a particularly busy time about the end of August. There are also a large number of sporting events which, for a long time, have been traditionally synchronised with the August Bank Holiday period at the beginning of the month, and which it might be difficult to alter.
Then, as the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition said, while organisations like the British Travel and Holidays Association, who are largely supported by Government funds and whose advice we always treat with great respect, are undoubtedly in a position to judge what in theory is best for the holidaymaker, we must also consider the views of the holidaymaker himself—the ordinary householder and his family who want to do what they have always been accustomed to do. The great bulk of English holidaymakers are, I think, apt to be conservative; a great many of them like going to places where there are holiday attractions arranged at a certain season, even if they have to suffer a certain amount of discomfort. I think we need to make quite sure that the majority of holidaymakers, who are the people most affected, would really think it worth while disturbing their accustomed holiday routine in order to gain what might perhaps be only a small mitigation of their annual discomfort—perhaps only a few drops of water to relieve the sufferings of the purgatory which they have imposed upon themselves—by shifting bank holiday to the end of August, when the weather may be just as bad as it usually is at the beginning of August, and when the evenings are beginning to get a good deal shorter.
I think the last occasion when legislation on this subject was proposed was at the beginning of 1952, when Mr. Keeling introduced in the House of Commons a Bank Holidays (Amendment) Bill to do what the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, suggests, but the Bill did not get as far as its Second Reading.
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A few months before that, in 1951, when the Labour Government were still in office, Colonel Lipton asked a Question [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 491, col. 237] of the Minister of Labour, who was then Mr. Robens—perhaps I should mention that at that time the Ministry of Labour was concerned with this matter, but it is now the Board of Trade:
"Whether, in order to ensure the more efficient staggering of holidays, he will introduce legislation to alter the dates of the Whitsun and August Bank Holiday to the last Monday in June and August, respectively."
Mr. Robens replied:
"No. There is no general demand for such a change, and it is extremely doubtful whether it would in fact result in a greater staggering of annual holidays."
Perhaps on the second part of that reply your Lordships might want to distinguish between the staggering of annual holidays, of a fortnight or whatever it may be, and week-end holidays. I believe that Mr. Robens was right in saying then, and that we should still be right in saying now, that a change in the date of the bank holiday would not have much effect, so far as we can see, on the staggering of annual fortnightly holidays; and the figures which the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, gave us a moment ago, which were drawn up in 1949 and confirmed in 1955, appear to strengthen that conclusion. I do not think it would make much difference to the staggering of such holidays.
When, however, we come to weekend holidays there is, of course, a little more to be said, because there are millions of people—and their numbers, I believe, are growing—who like to spend some weekends away from home; and one of the weekends which they are generally apt to choose is a hank holiday weekend—either Whit Monday or the first week in August—because the weekend is then lengthened by having the Monday added on to it. This means that the August Bank Holiday weekend produces an exceptionally large number of weekend holidaymakers who are superimposed upon the peak period of fortnightly, or long-term, holidaymakers at a period of the year when there is the maximum pressure not only on the roads but on hotels and boarding house accommodation. If we were to transfer the date of the bank holiday from the beginning

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to the end of August that might not relieve pressure to an enormous extent, but it would certainly relieve it to some extent, because the number of long-term holidaymakers at the end of August is not quite so great as it is at the beginning.
How are we to ascertain whether there is enough real demand among the public, the holidaymakers, who are the people whose interests are most affected, in order to justify contemplating a change of this kind? I am glad that my noble friend Lord Gifford referred to the question of Summer Time, although it is not on the Order Paper for this Motion, because it seems to me that the steps which Her Majesty's Government are now contemplating to ascertain public opinion about Summer Time might possibly form a precedent for a similar census of public opinion about this question of the bank holiday.
Recently—on November 5 —several Questions were asked in another place of the Home Department about their attitude to the demand for an extension of Summer Time. The reply which was given by my honourable friend the Under-Secretary to the Home Department was [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 612 (No. 11), col. 1176]:
"Further soundings of opinion seem desirable, and we propose to seek the views of a wide range of bodies concerned with industry, including the tourist industry, commerce and agriculture."
If this can be done about Summer Time, perhaps a similar inquiry might also be held to ascertain public opinion about the date of the August Bank Holiday. It would, of course, have to include a much wider range of bodies than those which have already been mentioned, and perhaps even a cross-section of individuals. I have consulted the two Departments which I believe would be most concerned with this—the Board of Trade and the Treasury—and I am informed that both these Departments see no objection to such an inquiry being held. As it would cost a certain amount of money, they would naturally like to feel a little more sure that they would not be entirely wasting their time by bothering a great many people with questions in which they are not interested and which they do not wish to answer; and I feel that the greater is the public interest that is shown in this question, the more likely are Her Majesty's Government to take some action on these lines.
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I was interested to hear the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Rea, in this debate. Incidentally, he seemed to think I had given him a very discouraging reply about travel allowances some little time ago. I do not think he quite represented the sense of what I told him then. Although I could not tell him that what he wanted was immediately going to happen I thought I left him with a reasonable amount of hope in his mind; and in regard to this question I will certainly do my best to see what can be done.
I feel it is significant that in this debate the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, has taken a balanced and impartial view—he has not come down against the idea—and all other noble Lords who have spoken have been, from one angle or another, in favour of some change being made. I will certainly represent that to my colleagues. I do not know whether or not your Lordships' debate will receive any publicity in the Press. I rather hope it may, because it would be interesting to see whether there is any public and Press reaction to what your Lordships have said, and whether there is any sign of strong public feeling in the matter.
What we all want to do—and what Her Majesty's Government most certainly want to do—is to take whatever action will give the greatest amount of pleasure to the greatest number of holidaymakers. We are anxious to consider the interests of everybody who is concerned, and I will certainly undertake to ask my colleagues to consider whether, on the evidence which your Lordships have provided in this debate, and the evidence they may have from other sources, they would feel it justifiable to conduct some inquiry into public opinion on the same lines as that which is now contemplated in regard to Summer Time.
4.9 p.m.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I suppose that I ought to have spoken before the noble Earl the Minister. I have listened with great interest to this debate, and I am very glad that my noble friend Lord Gifford should have put it down. There are just one or two ideas which I believe will help in this whole situation. I entirely agree with the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, and the noble Lord,

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Lord Geddes. I believe that the Scottish way of dealing with this matter is worth pursuing and investigating a great deal more down here than it has been so far.
I do not know whether your Lordships have had the same experience as I have had, but I think that this trouble on the roads is going to cure itself. I know many people near where I live who, like myself, could not possibly be induced to go on the roads on certain days in the week or on these public holidays. They say that they have an absolutely miserable time doing what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has referred to, with their bonnets sticking against the exhaust pipe of the car in front, and hours of waiting; and I think they will do what I do. I do not go on the road more than I can possibly help. If I want to go any distance away I go by train, because then I do not have all that anxiety—and it is real anxiety. I drove the other day from where I live down to Southampton. I shall never do it again. I am very glad to be here after the dangers I went through, the frightful catastrophies that I just escaped. And it was not because I was going fast or because I was dodging about; it was the fault of the other people on the road.
So, my Lords, do not let us be in too much of a hurry about this matter. I think we should study the Scottish idea and find out whether that cannot be applied a great deal more down here than has been thought possible. Moreover, I feel sure that as the years go on we shall find that this fearful anxiety and misery which so many people go through will cure this terrible congestion on the roads. I hope that my noble friend who answered for the Government will rub in rather more than he has done what we do in Scotland, in the hope that that idea may be adopted here. I am very glad that my noble friend has raised this question, and it may go some way to help us out of the great and genuine difficulty. There is no Party question in it; we are all in the same boat on this matter, arm we are not rocking it at all.
LORD AMWELL: My Lords, there is one interesting point in what the noble Earl said—I should like just to put my
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observation in the form of a question: What does he mean by "consulting public opinion". How does he propose to get hold of that kind of information without a kind of organisation which might be open to abuse if carried too far by any Government? I mean by my question, would the Government propose to go in for the business of Gallup polling?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I do not think I had better go beyond the words in the reply given last week by my honourable friend at the Home Department. He said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 612, col. 1176]:
"In these circumstances"—
he was speaking on the question of extending Summer Time—
"further soundings of opinion seem desirable, and we propose to seek the views of a wide range of bodies concerned with industry, including the tourist industry, commerce, and agriculture."
I do not know the precise form in which those views would be sought, but I imagine that it would be by means of a questionnaire; and my suggestion to your Lordships was that I should ask my colleagues to consider a similar kind of questionnaire being sent out in regard to this question of the date of the bank holiday. It seems to me that if one thing were done the other could equally well be done.
LORD AMWELL: My Lords, it is rather an innovation, is it not? I understand consulting and finding out the opinions of various bodies where they have contact with the Ministers and so on. But it can go further and create a kind of Government-sponsored attitude with regard to even more important questions than this.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord is not against it simply on the ground that it is an innovation.
4.15 p.m.
LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, I am most grateful to noble Lords who, from all parts of the House, have given me their support to-day, and particularly for the sudden and unexpected flanking movement from Scotland, which was most effective. I am afraid, very desirable though it is, that we should find it difficult in England to get our people

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to accept the Scottish idea that a bank holiday was merely a holiday for banks and their staff. I am grateful also to the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, for confirming my statement about reduced hotel prices in off peak months, which certain speakers seemed to doubt. I should like to assure the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, that when I said "spreading"—and I thought I made it clear—I meant only a spreading over those months of the year in which there is a reasonable chance of our having good weather: the second half of May, June, July, August and September. I was not for a moment suggesting spreading over the whole of the year. I am very glad that the proposition to abolish all bank holidays came from the other side of the House, because I feel that if it had been part of the Conservative Manifesto it might have caused us to lose the Election.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I did not make the proposition to abolish all bank holidays.
LORD GIFFORD: I know that the noble Lord wanted to add three days holiday to the long holiday instead.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: No. If the noble Lord wants to enter into the political controversy, I do not. I said that I could have understood his case better if he had wanted to abolish, not all the bank holidays, but the three—Whit Monday, Easter Monday and August bank holiday.
LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and I accept his explanation. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, for the very helpful answer that he has given. I do not think that one would have expected it would be possible for him to reply at once that the Government would bring in legislation to shift the bank holiday. But he has said that the Government will consider making inquiries; and they would, of course, be on a much wider scale than those that any semi-official body such as the British Travel and Holidays Association could make. I thank your Lordships for listening so carefully to this debate, and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

THE CHISWICK FLYOVER AND THE NEW STAINES BRIDGE
4.17 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM LORD WINDLESHAM rose, first, to call Her Majesty's Government's attention to a statement made to the Press on September 30 by the managing director of the main contracting firm for the Chiswick Fly-over to the effect that it could have been built in half the time and at half the cost, and to ask whether the Government are satisfied that there is no truth in this allegation; and secondly, to ask whether the Government are satisfied that the decisions arrived at by the Ministry of Transport regarding the new Staines bridge and by-pass will result in this highly important work being completed at the earliest possible moment, and whether they consider the target date of May, 1961, to be acceptable. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I feel a little diffident in asking the Government the Questions on the Order Paper, for two reasons. One is that I am aware that almost exactly similar questions were asked on November 4 in another place and answered by the Minister. His answers, however, in my opinion, were not very satisfactory. At least, they did not satisfy me, and it is for that reason that I left my Questions on the Order Paper. I am aware that Question 'rime in another place is rather different from what it is here. There are a lot of questions that have to be answered very quickly, there is little time, and it is not suitable that questions should be answered at any great length; so I am not cavilling at all about that.
On the same day the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, in your Lordships' House made, if I may say so, a very good speech. I read every word of it, though most unfortunately I was unable to be present here on that occasion. I was particularly sorry not to be present on that day which was, of course, the date of the Motion of my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth, but I read twice through every word of that debate, and I can assure your Lordships that I have no intention of taking up time repeating many things that have been said already—and a great deal was said, as will be known by your Lordships who were present on that occasion. I shall try very hard, therefore, to confine my

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remarks, which are generally in amplification of my Questions, to one or two specific matters which were not dealt with. Nor do I intend to indulge in destructive criticism, which gets nobody anywhere. Anybody can do that. I shall try to make my criticism, wherever it asserts itself, constructive. I think we are all behind the Minister in this matter. He is a comparatively young man, an energetic man, who has proved himself already; and he will no doubt be most ably supported by the noble Lord who is to reply this afternoon, who is young by political standards nowadays, and has no doubt a broad back which, before he has finished, he will probably need.
May I start with one or two small matters of detail in connection with my Questions? I know that the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, replying for the Government on November 4, said that he had counted up to fifty-seven suggestions and had then given up. I can see that he must have had a very tiresome afternoon; but it is possible that the fifty-eighth suggestion would have been the very one which he might have liked best, so perhaps I may try just one or two more. My Lords, the first Question which I have put down deals with the Chiswick Flyover. In another place on November 4 the Minister said that, in view of the allegations made by Mr. Dayton, the managing director of the Alderton Construction Company, he had suggested that the whole matter be referred to arbitration. Perhaps the noble Lord could tell me later: Will this matter be referred to arbitration; when, and who is likely to be the arbiter?
The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, also said in his speech on that day that the deciding factor in the time of completion of the Chiswick Flyover was the traffic problem. Having endured this thing year in and year out, trying to get to the Airport and back, since I live no less than 325 miles from your Lordships' House, I can see exactly what he means by "the traffic problem". But, as I understand it, that is the responsibility of the Commissioner of Police—or primarily so, as there are other authorities concerned. I have a suggestion to make in that connection in a minute or two. Mr. Dayton also said in his statement to the Press that it took six months to move some stallholders from the
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Brentford Market. My Lords, in a project of this sort, that seems a most extraordinary thing. I know that the Ministry spokesman later said that alternaive accommodation had to be found for them. Of course, they had their rights. Why not? But surely it should not take six months. Mr. Dayton then went on to say that the property consisted of a few old orange boxes which they immediately burned. Mr. Dayton might well have been overstating the case at that point; nevertheless, six months seems an absurd time to take to find alternative accommodation for some stallholders. But perhaps that statement is incorrect.
Now here is the suggestion that I should like to make to the noble Lord—and I doubt whether it has been made before. During the war years and immediately afterwards, when we were pursuing the Germans up Italy and later into Germany, the destruction of the roads and bridges was obviously very considerable. But in no time at all the traffic began to flow again because the Royal Engineers employed means which were instantly effective. They used Bailey bridging. Bailey bridging, as your Lordships may or may not know, is a sort of grown-up Meccano set. Anybody can build a Bailey bridge: and you can make it a small one, a medium-sized one, or a big one capable of carrying very considerable weights for quite a long time. They also used a thing called Summerfelt track, or Army track. Again, for those of your Lordships who may not know, that is a sort of great roll of rabbit wire, though much stronger than that, which is unrolled and pegged down with great steel pegs; and in normal circumstances of weather, and on a fairly flat piece of ground it will carry fairly heavy traffic for quite a long time. That is how the advancing armies were kept on the move. They could not have done it otherwise.
I remember a Bailey bridge which was built in Germany just after the war, in the summer and autumn of 1945. For all I know, some of it may be there now; it was certainly there in 1948, when I left. A Bailey bridge, capable of carrying normal traffic—a thing of no beauty, my Lords, but that is another matter altogether—is a temporary expedient, and when the bridge proper has been built the Bailey bridge can be

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taken down and returned to the Royal Engineers' stores. It is possible that the suggestion that bridges of this sort should be used when there is an immediate bottleneck or an immediate traffic difficulty would not be well received in some quarters. I think your Lordships know what I mean, and I will not say what quarters, because it would only start comment. But it would surely be an immediate, practical thing to do. Apart from anything else, it would give the Royal Engineers extra training, which perhaps they are a little short of in this country in peace time.
My Lords, the British genius for improvisation which emerges in war time—to the great discomforture of our foes, I might say—seems to stop dead in peace time. The moment that peace breaks out, as the saying is, nobody can do anything. A new idea or a new man is automatically suspect. It is said, "No, he is a dangerous man. It is much better to do what we have always done". But not so in war time. I look upon this as very nearly a national emergency. It is possible—and this, I think, is no exaggeration—that within a year or two, unless most drastic steps are taken, circulation in this country can come very near to a standstill; and if that is not a national emergency, I really do not know what is.
Before I leave the question of the Chiswick Flyover, I would refer to one small matter, which seems to me to be a matter of taste and which I would not have mentioned had I not been asked to do so by one or two people, including one or two noble Lords. People have resented the fact that a project of this sort, costing £6 million of public money and taking a very long time to build, when it eventually was completed, was not opened by some prominent British citizen. One can think of a considerable number of people who could have opened it. I may be wrong, but my information is that the then Minister of Transport was asked to do it, but, that, as it was getting near Election time, and he was busy electioneering, he declined, with the result that it was opened by an American film actress (against whom I have nothing) who is not exactly famous but who, I suppose, can at least be described as prominent. In any case, the occasion seems to have received a certain amount of adverse publicity; not because
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of the lady herself, but because, frankly, it seemed to make this project ridiculous in a sort of way. And I must say that there seemed to be a lack of taste on somebody's part. It is possible that the Construction Company had the final word: that may well he so, in which case I am handing the noble Lord who is to reply an "easy one." But I think that, even under those conditions, the Ministry could have prevailed upon those responsible to have the Flyover opened by somebody of a little more standing, and a British citizen at that.
LORD DERWENT: May I interrupt the noble Lord one second before he leaves the Chiswick Flyover, because I am going to return to this question? Where would he have put the Bailey bridges?
LORD WENDLESHAM: I had no intention of putting a Bailey bridge anywhere near the Chiswick Flyover, where it would have been quite unsuitable. The Summerfelt track, on the other hand, could well have been used around the site. Instead of clogging up side roads with traffic, which had to be kept moving, with mountains of equipment and rubble thrown about all over the place, it would have been possible, for a matter of 50 or 100 yards, to make a little diversion using the Summerfelt track. My remarks on the Bailey bridges were general, but I think there are many places where they could be used.
My Lords, I have no intention of indulging in a lot of argument or of taking up a lot of your Lordships' time on the subject of engineering, or on the æsthetic aspects of bridge-building, about which I know nothing, or about as much as anybody else, which is very little: because all these points, in my view, obscure the main issues—which is the question of time and, to a lesser extent, of cost. The late Minister, Mr. Watkinson, in a speech last summer, used the following words:
"We welcome new ideas, now techniques and new ways of getting the maximum mount of construction at a minimum cost."
Sound words, with which we shall all agree. But the result is that we have a 20-year-old design adopted for the new Bell Weir Bridge, which will be the first over the Thames for twenty years. Many noble Lords will be familiar with the heavy built-up area around Windsor

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and Maidenhead. There is a six-mile stretch between Windsor Bridge and Maidenhead Bridge where there is no means of crossing the river. We are now confronted with a 20-year-old design. I have no intention of getting involved with it, because I think it is better to leave these matters to the experts; but it seems to me odd, to say the least of it, that it is necessary to adopt, even though it may be adapted, a design made as long ago as that.
As regards the time of construction, the estimated target time is 21 months. I wonder whether this time allows for possible flooding in winter. Those are the only points of detail, and I would now move on to the major pleas which I want to make to the noble Lord. I know that he has heard them before, said in different ways, but I believe that the situation is so urgent and important that they cannot be said too often. There may be a tendency, now that the Election is over and the speeches have been made on the gracious Speech, that things will go back to what they were before, and civil servants will say with relief, "Well said." I think we must try to avoid that, whatever happens.
First, I should like to ask whether the noble Lord will not agree that the whole machinery is too cumbersome. There are 1,056 different road authorities—county councils, borough councils and urban district councils, not to mention the Ministry itself—all operating at the same time, and, one supposes, some operating a good deal better than others. On November 4 the noble Lord said in this House that the present process of acquiring land is being considered with a view to doing anything desirable to speed it up. It seems to me that "desirable" is the operative word, and in this context I should think anything, or nearly anything, is desirable.
The noble Lord went on to say [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 219 (No. 7), col. 414]:
"We are quite prepared to bulldoze our way through the many physical difficulties, but we cannot bulldoze our way through the rights of the citizen."
I do not advocate for a moment that motorways should be built in the way Hitler built them, with slave labour; and in the way Mussolini (although admittedly he did not use slave labour)
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got his autostradi built quickly, by means that we should hesitate to adopt here. But motorways are built in the United States at a remarkable rate, and not across a desert island; and I do not think that the United States citizens are any less interested in their rights than the citizens in this country. I can assure noble Lords who do not know that part of the world that if you leave New York to go out to Long Island for a week-end to play golf and go back the next weekend, from one week to the other the countryside is barely recognisable. Road building goes on at such a speed that frequently you think you are on the wrong road or have lost your way. And I do not believe that the rights of the American citizen are being pushed aside as they were in Germany.
I think that it is an easy thing to hide behind "the rights of the citizen". Of course, we all want our rights, but during the war it was considered unpatriotic to harp on that theme. When the military arrived to put up some installation on your tennis court, you said, "Come on then," and helped them. It was the right thing to do. And this is an emergency, too. Perhaps that is something of an exaggeration, but I suggest that that attitude of mind would be popular. Some people would not like it, but some people do not like any kind of change. Generally speaking, I think that the Government would make more headway by being ruthless in this matter than by exaggerating this question of the rights of citizens and going through all the democratic processes of sub-committees and ad hoc committees and all those other bodies in the jungle of officialdom which clog the works and which, however hard the noble Lord and the Minister may try, will probably beat them in the end.
In the course of the debate on November 4, the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, referred (col. 370) to:
"… public bickering over obsolete plans which the Ministry of Transport have produced from their pigeon holes."
We know what the noble Lord means. He always puts his views shortly and to the point. And I think that he "had something" there, if I may use that expression. Both the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, and the noble Lord who moved the Motion suggested a Director of Road Construction. There might well be something in that idea, provided that there

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was the right plan. He would have to be a very strong-minded individual. And in this connection, I would advocate no extra staff, or at any rate a very small additional staff, since big staffs produce complications. Will the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, on behalf of the Minister, undertake to take immediate drastic action? Whether it is to the most junior clerk in the Ministry or to a senior civil servant within a year of retiring, with a pension, and perhaps a knighthood, to the county of Surrey, will he undertake to say, "This is an emergency. This is what we have decided to do. If you cannot go our speed, you are out."
I have a suggestion to make; it is one that has been made before, but I took the trouble of consulting one or two construction companies on their reactions to it. Between the months of May and September, broadly speaking, why should it not be possible to work two shifts a day instead of one—in other words, sixteen hours against eight, or eighty hours against forty, or whatever is the week agreed with the unions? For the last hour or two of the second shift in spring and autumn the men might have to work under are lamps, but why not? There seems to be no difficulty in that at all. There are parts of the country where there are still pockets of unemployment, where I think that such a suggestion would be well received.
En passant, I should like to tell your Lordships that when I was in Manchuria two years ago I went over several steel mills and cable factories. The Chinese have a great problem on their hands, and they are solving it in their own way, by working three shifts all round the clock. The men on the third shift get no overtime, but they get extra transport facilities, extra rations and things like that; and actually there are more volunteers for that shift than for the others. Obviously, three shifts would produce certain difficulties in this country. For one thing, it would be so revolutionary that I do not think that anybody would comprehend it. But working a second shift would not be an impossibility. Reduced to a matter of simple arithmetic, it presumably would halve the time of construction. If we are agreed that time is everything, then millions of pounds are being lost to industry daily by the present system. I
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myself trade in a small way, and I know the appalling frustration experienced. When you hire or buy materials, the story is always the same: difficulties over delivery date, so and so. "Oh, that seems very long." "Ah, well, we cannot get it". If it is not roads, it is something else. There is always difficulty in circulating goods.
So perhaps the Government, or the noble Lord on behalf of the Government, will accept that in all this there are four basic "musts". None of them is new, but I should like to repeat them once more. First, the machinery for the overall control to produce a nation-wide road system must be set up at once—not after prolonged negotiations; that may be too late. This, of course, involves new powers for the acquisition plan, the ordering of the necessary demolitions and so on. The present powers would appear to be totally inadequate for this purpose, and were never designed to deal with an emergency of this sort. Secondly, if the Minister finds obstruction and inefficiency, or even lethargy, at any level, he must deal with it. Thirdly, the money must be made available. Here again, there is the old cry: "Look what it is going to cost." Even the biggest sum that has ever been put forward in this connection would not run a war for more than about a week. So the sums are not as astronomical as some people try to make out.
Finally, will he employ the best engineering grades? I have no axe to grind in this matter; I do not know a single man employed in road construction. But one begins to suspect that possibly there are people in the country who could be used but who are not being used. Perhaps they do not belong to (and the noble Lord will know what I mean) the "Old Boys' Union"—one does not know. It has been well said—I cannot remember by whom or when—that the eventual collapse of Great Britain will come on the day on which it is "Muggins's turn". I very much hope that where this tremendous problem is concerned it will never be "Muggins's turn".
4.42 p.m.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, I do not know whether I am the only Peer, but as one who has earned his living for the last thirty years as a contractor's agent and a contractor's

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engineer I must be in a very small minority among Peers. I must state that I have no interest now in the engineering world, with the sole exception that I am an Associate of the Institute of Structural Engineers; but that is a loose thing, and I am not a consulting engineer in any shape or form. It so happens that I was trained by the eminent firm of Dorman Long, who built the Sydney Harbour Bridge and countless other bridges all over the world. The next firm I worked for was Holloway Brothers. I may say that all the bridges built over the Thames in this century, with the exception of two, have been built by those two firms. So one has had a little experience in these matters.
I am not going into this controversy in any detail. Personally, I think it is a great pity that it happened, and certainly that it happened in the way it did. My opinion is that it is not up to the contractor to criticise the engineer or the customer he is working for, at any rate not in public: he can do it privately, but not in public. Still, it has happened. Unfortunately it has had a great deal of publicity, and the distressing aspect of it, as I think, is that it could be inferred that British engineers are not up to scratch and that we are behind the times. I think a contractor is in a fairly good position to judge that. During his working life he carries out work, not for one consulting engineer but probably for upwards of one hundred consulting engineers on different jobs and in a great many parts of the world. I myself have worked in countries other than this. That does give you an overall picture, and, I think, the possibility of coming to a judgment based on some facts: it may not necessarily be the right judgment. At any rate, it gives you a chance of weighing the thing up more than if you had not had any experience. I want to say quite categorically, as my judgment on that point, that when British consulting engineers are given a free hand—and I emphasise the words "a free hand"—they cannot be touched in the world to-day. I have some figures of which I I may quote about six which I think support that contention.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, the noble Viscount did say, "when they are given a free hand".
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: I will carry on with that; do not worry. I must apologise to the noble Lord the Minister who is to reply if he considers that I have strayed too far from the Question, but I feel that a little should be said on account of the unfortunate effect of this publicity. Therefore, I hope he will bear with me; and I will be as quick as I can in what I have to say now. I think the real question (not the Question on the Order Paper: the Answer to that one is, of course, "Yes" and "Yes" if it is not "Yes" and "Yes", nothing on earth will get any other Answer out of the noble Lord) is not whether the Government are satisfied, but whether the country is satisfied that their money, not the Government's money, paid in taxes, is being spent to the best advantage considering all points of view. That is the crux of the question. If it is too wide, I apologise but unless the noble Lord prays that I stop, I am going on.
I think this aspect should be carefully reviewed and thought over by the Government, in conjunction with their engineers and with the institutions of the two main engineering groups, possibly the architects, and certainly—and in saying this maybe I am prejudiced—the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors: they are the boys who do the work. Frequently, if you are going to save money, the time you can save it—and it has been done with the greatest goodwill in the past, in my experience—is on the happy occasions when the consulting engineer is able to call in the contractor in the early stages of the job and the temporary works and the method of construction is tied up with the design, which is not the contractor's pigeon, but the consulting engineer's job. When those two can be welded together to the mutual benefit of everybody, the most happy results come about. That can be done without any transgression of professional etiquette or anything of that sort. I have had experience of that happening both with British consulting engineers and in South Africa, too. I do feel that real thought should be given to that point by the Government. I know that there are all sorts of difficulties in the way of these things, but difficulties can sometimes be overcome by discussion, and if all the people who know something about it are consulted

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sufficiently, then something might come out of it.
With the greatest respect, I think the suggestion that the Minister of Transport should take a trip to the Continent with an unspecified gang of young men and show them what is happening in the engineering world should be resorted to only as an absolute last resort. The reason why I say that is this: that every large project on the Continent, in America and all over the world is fully reported in the engineering Press; papers are read before all the learned societies and it is almost a matter of going to the bookstall and buying it and reading it. The idea that you are going to cast a slur on British engineers by saying, "You are not up to date anyway", and taking them on a Cook's tour round Europe to show them what they ought to do, and then tie both hands behind their backs, to me just does not make good sense. I am sorry to be so forthright on that matter, but I think it is a thing that should be done only as a last resort.
If your Lordships would allow me, I should like to quote the figures showing the state of British engineering. My source of information is the Import-Export Group, and this is the value of contracts carried out and completed in the fiscal year, 1956–57, by British contractors overseas. In that year it was £102 million worth of work. In 1957–58, when one might believe that we are getting so out-of-date that the figures would fall off, it is £114 million worth of work. In 1958–59, when the decay should have set in, £120 million worth of work was carried out by British contractors overseas.
Now the other side of the fence: the value of design work carried out overseas by members of the Association of Consulting Engineers in this country. To be different, they quote their figures—and they take a lot of finding, because they do not like advertising—to January 1. To January 1, 1956, £500 million worth of work was obtained in competition with the whole world; to January 1, 1957, £550 million worth of work; and to January 1, 1958, £630 million worth of work—a gradual rise. Unfortunately, owing to the printers' strike the 1959 figures are not yet published, but I know that they are comparable with 1958. I do not think you can "laugh that one
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off". Although consulting engineers are not at liberty to advertise, I think that that is an achievement which is worth noticing.
What can one suggest as a possible constructive suggestion? When a project is carried out on behalf of the Government, there are normally three sets of engineers, all of them competent men. There are the Government's engineers in a Government Department who, by the very nature of their employment, are in the least favourable position to be in daily contact with modern innovations, just because they happen to be, through no fault of their own, in a Government Department. That is a fact. They are subject to all sorts of frustrations, their ideas are pigeon-holed, and so on. My heart bleeds for them. Then there is the consulting engineer. He is responsible for the stability and safety of the structure. And finally, there is the contractor who has to do the job to the satisfaction of everybody.
There may well be a difficulty in this, but careful thought, I think, should be given to it. So far as I know, when Her Majesty's Government put out a major job they have innumerable permits to get and all the things we have heard about, and dozens of people have a say in the matter. A little bit has to be given to this chap, and a little bit to that chap. Her Majesty's Government then finally produce a line design of a bridge they want. They take that line design to a consulting engineer and say, "This is the bridge we want"—and here is the point—"Now you do the detailed design and produce this bridge." When Her Majesty's Government are good customers and require, say, a Rolls-Royce, I think it is asking too much of any consulting engineer to expect him to turn round and say: "I do not think you want a Rolls-Royce really; you would be much better with a Ford 10." That may be stretching the matter a little, but it is in that direction.
I cannot help feeling that the Ministry engineers would be only too thankful if it were possible for them to go to a consulting engineer and say, "We require a bridge over such and such a river, in such and such a place. It must carry two lanes of traffic, and both lanes must be 36 ft. wide. It must be up to Ministry of Transport loading. We want

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the most economic bridge you can design, or one that can be erected with the maximum speed. Get on with it. Submit your design to us." Whether it would be possible to ask two or three consulting engineers to do the same thing, I do not know, but I cannot help feeling that if that were possible—and that could be arrived at only by consultations between all the interested parties—and negotiations carried out with very good will indeed, spectacular results would come from it.
4.56 p.m.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I want to take up only two or three points. First of all, I should like to support my noble friend when he talks about consulting engineers and their abilities. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, did not mean to give the impression—though he tended to do so—that our leading consulting engineers were not being employed and that, if they were, they were perhaps not so good as they might be. I am sure he did not mean that, but it rather sounded like it. If anyone has any doubt, he has only to ask abroad about the capabilities of our consulting engineers. I think my noble friend overstressed a little his case about consulting engineers of calibre being told exactly what to do. Considerable consultations go on between the engineering staff (I am not talking about the ministerial level) of the Ministry and the consulting engineers. By and large, I should have thought the consulting engineers got 75 per cent. of what they wanted. I agree that sometimes it may be a pity that they do not get 100 per cent.; but I do not think they are quite so bullied as the noble Lord made out.
I rose to speak on one point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, when he talked about a statement by the Minister that the rights of the public must be upheld. He went on to talk about slave labour and the German or Italian methods of doing things before the war, and so on. With all respect, that is not what the Minister meant. What he meant was that if you are going to take somebody's land away you must give them a right to argue. I think he meant that, and nothing else. But of course, whether somebody is obstructive or not depends on one's point of view. If a man who
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owns the land says, "You are offering me too little", he may be said to be obstructing. It depends upon which side of the bargain you are.
But my Lords, with respect, I do not believe that, in itself, this looking after the rights of the public is what holds up matters. I believe that, if you rode roughshod over everyone, the obstruction might be so fierce that you would get nothing built at all. In my view, what holds things up is the machinery. The machinery is out of date. It is not entirely the fault of the machinery, it is also the fault of qualified staff, and I would refer particularly to the legal side. The machinery of using the legal side of acquisition, conveyancing, is, I think, much too slow. I have gone into this question fairly carefully and I still do not know quite what the answer is. I know that the Treasury Solicitor is as worried about it as everyone else. Although much of that work could be decentralised, there seems to be a certain resistance on the part of country solicitors to handle additional work without additional conveyancing clerks. It is the machinery that is holding things up.
What is holding them up more than anything else is the quite inadequate sums granted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, even on the new basis, for constructing a modern roadway system which is already years out of date and is not yet catching up with the increase of vehicles. If the Minister of Transport were promised more money ahead—he has quite a bit now—if he were promised about three times the amount, we might in some of our lifetimes have a more adequate road system. The sums coming forward at the present time for new road construction, and to the local authorities for maintenance of roads, are completely inadequate for the problem with which we are faced. I do not believe that it is the preservation of the rights of the public that is holding up progress: it is the machinery for dealing with those rights, and, above all, as I say, lack of money.
5.3 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, the few observations I intend to make are not going to be centred upon the rights or wrongs of the Chiswick Flyover. As I said in a speech I made

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in your Lordships' House on November 4 (which the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, must have read from his remarks this afternoon), thank goodness! it is at least carrying traffic. I also do not intend to enter into the technicalities, as the noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven, did, and I am grateful to him because I thought his was a most useful contribution to the knowledge of noble Lords.
I want to centre my few remarks on the enemy of it all, which is delay. I am quite willing to trust the Minister. The Minister in this House, the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, made a very forthright speech when he replied to the debate on my Motion on November 4. I think he will do it. But he has a major task, because the system that has grown up in this country for the road construction of this country is so clogged up it can hardly move itself. It is not a question of shortage of staff—I would tell the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, that quite frankly. It is not a shortage of engineers; it is not a shortage of conveyancing staff over the country. In the Treasury, yes, if they have to do an inordinate amount of work at the same time. But the Treasury Solicitor, who gave evidence before the Select Committee, said
"Our staff is adequate if you will give us time; but if you want us to do five years' work in a month we cannot do it."
If all the legal departments of all the county councils and all the local authorities who have to convey all the land wanted for every road that is built, except trunk roads, are harnessed, there is plenty of staff.
One of the troubles with the Ministry of Transport—and I speak from experience—is that what they do not know is not knowledge. That is the trouble. This thing has got too confined. First-class engineers in the employ of county councils have precisely the same qualifications as those in Berkeley Square; but they have to submit every detail. That is one reason. Another is the lack of planning. The noble Lord will remember (I think it was before he was appointed, or about the same time), the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, making a speech in your Lordships' House—which I thought was excellent—on the Address to the Throne. What did he say? He said that all the £50 million worth of
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equipment and machinery that had been marshalled to build that M.1 had to be dispersed because the plans were not ready for the Yorkshire extension of the M.1 to be carried on. I questioned whether the noble Earl was making an authoritative statement. I have since found out that it was true. What a colossal waste of time and of the taxpayers' money! That is what I want the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, to underline—the need to get these things moving by logical planning, as industry has to do. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, that the whole fault lies with the Treasury. It is impossible to build the road system this country wants by handing out a few coppers every 12 months. I made that point very strongly on November 4.
When I hear a Department say, "Of course the real cause of delay is that we must defend and look after the rights of the common citizen", cold shivers run down my spine, because my experience has been that more sins of omission and commission have taken place behind that screen than any other. Of course, we, as a democratic Parliament, are not going to stand for the rights of the citizen being trampled on. No Department has to tell us that. What we want is the job got on with, not left; and that is what is happening. All these huge concerns that built up what is, I suppose, the finest piece of organisation this country has ever known, to build one of the finest roads this country has ever known, now have to disperse it because of a lack of foresight and a lack of planning. I know that that all occurred before the noble Lord arrived in office, and before the present Minister was there. Let us at least learn from these omissions and ensure that they do not happen in the future.
I have one other point to make, and it is this. I am worried about some of the aspects of the progress of the new Staines bridge. I am also worried about the activities of the anonymous individual who crops up every now and again in every Government Department known as the "departmental spokesman," who appears to say anything that comes into his mind that will hide or cloak something or give some reason for

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delay. It happened over the Staines bridge about consultation with the Royal Fine Art Commission. The Fine Art Commission were not consulted. The Minister, to his credit, contradicted that, and made an explanation. I thought in his reply in the other place this was characteristic of the Minister. He ended by saying this:
"I am sorry that there should have been any misunderstanding, and steps have been taken to avoid any such misunderstandings in the future."
Having some knowledge of the Minister, I accept that statement. Then yesterday, in your Lordships' House, in the questions and answers on Piccadilly Circus, I thought I again detected some sign of the Government's hiding behind the petticoats, if they wear them, of the Fine Art Commission. The Minister put all the responsibility for what some of your Lordships thought was a monstrosity on the Fine Art Commission: they had approved it. Then, when he was cross-examined, there was some qualification.
May I ask the Government this question? If in future they think it necessary to obtain the advice of the Fine Art Commission, will they publish precisely what the Fine Art Commission say? Then we shall know. I think I am right in saying that the Commission are appointed by the Government and paid for out of Treasury funds; so to some degree they should be responsible to Parliament—at least, Parliament should have details of their advice. I think that will perhaps curtail the activities of these anonymous departmental spokesmen who make some of these excuses. I come to this, my Lords. I am quite willing to leave this matter in the hands of the Minister. I do not mind whether he goes to Germany or where he goes—he is not going to Germany to cast any slight upon the engineers or contractors of this country. We all know their quality. I am hoping that within twelve months we shall see a radical change in the machinery for getting on with improving our road system. If we do not, then I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, will have what I promised him some time ago—a rather rough road.
5.12 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, it seems to me, having heard every word
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that has been spoken this afternoon, that, having had Part 2 of the original debate on Lord Lucas of Chilworth's Motion a week ago concerning roads in Norfolk, we now have come to Part 3 of that debate on the Chiswick Flyover—on the dual pegs, perhaps, of the Chiswick Flyover and the Staines bridge. I do not think your Lordships will expect me, on the whole, to take up every point that has been raised. It must be remembered that I came here to give Answers to the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham on the Question which he has put down on the Order Paper, and in a moment or two I propose to do that. I should not like anyone to think that I am ignoring these other subjects, but if I content myself with but one or two brief remarks I hope that that will be understood.
The suggestion that the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham made about Bailey bridges and Summerfelt tracks, is, of course, a good one. I am sure he will understand me when I say that it is not a new one. In fact we hold stocks of both commodities for the purpose. I am quite prepared to assure him that, like all good ideas, it will go into the melting pot (if that is the right expression) for consideration. I agree, too, that that idea was not one which was among the 105 suggestions—I analysed them fairly carefully—that were put forward by various noble Lords in the course of the original debate. Also, I do not know that the comparison in regard to the peace-time and the war-time speed for getting on with things is entirely fair, because in war time there are no statutory obligations to be gone into: you just go on, and you bulldoze over everybody's rights—and over everybody as well, if necessary. I do not really think that that is a proper comparison.
The noble Lord also made a point about double-shift working and getting on with the job generally. I do not think that that sort of thing is dictated from the top. The way to do it is to find the minimum time to do the job—to do it as quickly as possible. You then leave to the contractor how he does it. If he wants to work all round the clock he works all round the clock, and if he does not, then he takes that course. You have to use such time as would make it a reasonable engineering proposition. I should like to add, for instance in regard to the motorways,

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that Laing's did in fact work round the clock when possible. Where something has gone wrong, such as flooding, or there is a subsidence, of course you cannot do it; but where it is possible it is normally done. I should like the noble Lord to know that I have a newspaper cutting here. I shall not read it all out, but it says, in effect, that officials from the Bonn Ministry of Transport are coming over here to find out how we built the motorway in nineteen months, because in Germany it would have taken three years. That is a most significant fact, and one which ought not to be overlooked in this connection.
My Lords, as far as the Fine Art Commission is concerned I have not much to say, except that I should hate the noble Lord to think that Her Majesty's Government sheltered behind the skirts of the Fine Art Commission. Surely, they have been set up as an arbiter, as far as one can set up an arbiter at all in matters of this kind; and, having been set up, presumably they should be made full use of. Apart from one other matter to which I am coming, I propose to deal with the subject of these constructions. The noble Lords, Lord Windlesham and Lord Lucas of Chilworth, both made a point, not for the first time, about urgency, and urgency in various respects.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: And it will not be the last!
LORD CHESHAM: It will not be the last—I have no doubt that it will not. No doubt nobody will ever work fast enough to suit the critics. I have said this before, but I say it again: at least we can try. What both noble Lords have said is not news to me. My right honourable friend and I, and the rest of us, need no urging at the present time. I cannot undertake on behalf of my right honourable friend what I think the noble Lord asked, that drastic action will be taken in about a fortnight, but what I can tell the noble Lord is that his suggestion is very much on the same sort of lines as our minds are running. I hope that that will be some small consolation if he cannot have his undertaking.
I think I might now come on to the subject of the Question. As your Lordships know, there has been a lot of controversy over the building of the
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Chiswick Flyover, which is now of course built, and the Bell Weir Bridge—I will call it that for the moment—on the Staines by-pass, which is in the course of construction. As the noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven, told us, there has been an unprecedented spate of publicity on the part of the Ministry's contractors for the flyover, which has included press conferences, television interviews, numerous statements and opinions from here and there, some qualified, some not. I do not know whether Miss Mansfield's opinion has been taken into account. I understand that she thought it was jolly good when she was invited there by the contractors, who took the opening ceremony into their own hands when the Minister was unable to go. There is one slight misapprehension that I want to correct. The cost of the contract price was just on £820,000 and not £6 million as stated by the noble Lord. I do not know where that figure came from. I just mention that in passing.
My Lords, my right honourable friend welcomes informed criticism. He has no desire to prolong this controversy. But I think that in view of the concern that has been expressed—possibly it has not been expressed quite so much this afternoon as I had expected; other things seem to have taken its place—I should take this opportunity to give your Lordships a little more information about it. As was said, the answer to the first question of the noble Lord is, Yes. The contract had to be carried out under the great handicap of somehow keeping 40,000 vehicles a day flowing through that junction. So far as anyone could see, there was no other way for traffic to go. This meant that there had to be very careful planning of each stage of the work and there was little latitude for adjusting the programme, either backwards or forwards. The need to deal with this traffic problem throughout the period of construction was fully explained to the Alderton Construction Company when they were awarded the contract. So was the fact that the work would have to be very carefully scheduled to avoid interfering with the traffic.
I agree that it would have been possible to have built that flyover cheaper and quicker if the traffic could have been totally ignored; of course it would—if we could have had the biggest traffic

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jam in West London, lasting about two years. Had we been prepared to put up with that, the work could have been done more cheaply and more quickly. But I do not believe that the thousands of people who use this junction every day would have put up with that, or regarded it as any form of good planning. In any case, the saving of time and cost which would have been achieved would have been far less than has been suggested by the contractors.
It was not only the traffic that constituted a problem, however, for there were difficulties with the foundations. Those difficulties were not quite so obvious as that of the traffic, and for the most part they were due to the proximity of an existing 48 in. diameter sewer 20 ft. below ground level, as well as other services, including a water main, in the neighbourhood of the actual bridge foundations. This meant that there had to be very careful work on the piles which supported the foundations, and that kind of work cannot be skimped or rushed. Had there been any damage to the sewer or water mains there could have been very serious consequences for a great many people.
The work was eventually completed almost to schedule, but that was achieved only after very considerable efforts on the part of everybody concerned. In particular, a very heavy strain was thrown on the consulting engineer, Mr. Harry Brampton, in supervising the contract on behalf of the Ministry. I know, for instance, that he had difficulty in keeping the contractors to the agreed schedule and that he had constantly to exert very great pressure to do this, but that even so, they were at one time some five months behind schedule in the erection of the main bridge. This, I think, contrasts oddly with the statement that the work could have been done in half the time.
While on the subject of time, there have been allegations about obstruction from the beginning. I believe the words used were:
"Every possible obstruction from the very early days."
So far as the Ministry are concerned, I can tell your Lordships that, in fact, the reverse is the case. However, the contractors have made certain allegations about causes of delay to their work, and
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on the basis of these they have submitted substantial claims to the Ministry. These claims are being referred to arbitration. My right honourable friend has already suggested to the contractors that the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers be asked to nominate an arbitrator, and I understand that the contractors have agreed to this. Consequently, for the moment, it is impossible for me to say who will be the arbitrator or when arbitration will take place.
In these circumstances, it would be inappropriate for me to say any more about these allegations of delay and, in fact, I regard myself as being inhibited from doing so; and I am afraid that that applies to two-thirds of the points raised by the noble Lord. I do not want to become technical or enter into discussion of that kind on the design of the Flyover but I should like to make two quick points which have a bearing on the cost. The bridge itself is one of the most advanced pre-stressed pre-cast concrete designs in the world. The approach ramps, which have come in for a certain amount of criticism, I know, with their brick-faced concrete retaining walls, showed appreciable economies in construction in comparison with the reinforced concrete viaduct structures which would be the logical alternative. While showing considerable economies they avoided the use of steel, which was relatively scarce at the time the design was prepared. I hope I have now said enough to show that the statement that the Flyover and its approaches could be built in half the time and at half the cost cannot be justified. For my part, I would reject it completely.
If we may come now to the bridge at Bell Weir, on the Staines By-pass, the answer to the question which has been set for me is again Yes, but perhaps I should explain a little of the background in relation to the design, which is important. The design was prepared in 1939 by the late Mr. H. W. Fitzsimons as consulting engineer and the late Sir Edward Lutyens as consulting architect. When the project was revived, in 1957, the possibility of adopting an alternative design was considered, but in view of the historic importance of Runnymede and the amount of work that Sir Edwin Lutyens had already done there, it was decided to retain the elevation of the original design.

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I should like to make this very clear because it is very important: it was the elevation that was retained. We are building no bridges to twenty-year old designs. The elevation was retained and the engineering structure was completely redesigned to modern standards by the consulting engineers, C. W. Glover & Partners, who had taken over, Mr. Fitzsimons having died. Your Lordships will probably know that the Alderton Construction Company submitted an alternative outline scheme for the bridge which they claimed could be built much more quickly and at much less cost. This was carefully considered both by the consulting engineer and by the Department's own bridge experts. In the view of both of them the outline scheme was unsound and unsatisfactory and therefore was completely unacceptable.
A noble Lord used some words about my right honourable friend's predecessor, saying that he welcomed new ideas and new people. This alternative design did not represent a new idea. There was nothing new about it. The principle has been in use for many years, so that there was nothing particularly new about it. I stick to the words used by the Minister at the time: that there is a welcome ready for new ideas and new people. But the new ideas and the new people have to be good. There is not going to be a welcome for them just because they are new. They have to be good as well as new; but there is nothing in the word "new" to prohibit them from receiving a welcome.
The bridge at Bell Weir (at the moment we are considering the possibility of calling it Runnymede Bridge, which seems rather attractive) is only part of the Staines by-pass and it is quite wrong to consider it in isolation. On the Middlesex side there are some two miles of new dual carriageway to be constructed, almost all on embankment, and the work includes five other bridges. On the other side there is a small section to be completed in Surrey. The estimate of the engineers was that the whole project would take twenty-four months to complete, and this was accepted as the contract period for the road works. My right honourable friend is satisfied that as two summers would be required for the work, this was the minimum that could reasonably be allowed for the scheme. The completion date of the scheme is November, 1961.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, is that for the whole scheme?
LORD CHESHAM: That is for the whole scheme. The successful tenderer for the Bell Weir (or Runnymede) Bridge offered to complete the work in twenty-one months. This was very acceptable, because there are tremendous advantages in having the bridge ready a little time ahead of the road works and my right honourable friend is convinced that all the contractors concerned will do their best to beat the completion dates if they can.
I hope, my Lords, that the noble Lord will feel that I have given him a proper Answer to his Questions. If he does I should then like to add two general points, because the Staines bridge and the Chiswick Flyover are not our only bridges. As part of the road programme we have a very large number of bridges designed both by independent consulting engineers and by county surveyors.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, is it now part of Ministry policy that bridges shall be built before the roads linking them? Because that will save a lot of time right over the country.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, it is difficult for me to affirm yea or nay that that is or is not a policy. But certainly it is, I would agree, desirable to do so, and we should naturally endeavour to do so wherever possible.
There are a lot of bridges being built and designed by consulting engineers and by county surveyors. I do not know whether any of your Lordships saw the exhibition of models, perspectives and photographs which were in the upper waiting hall in another place last week. They showed quite a lot of what we are doing at present. I am sorry that I was unable to arrange to bring the whole collection to your Lordships' House, but I arranged for a perspective of the Staines bridge to be on view in the Prince's Chamber. If any of your Lordships would like to see pictures of the other bridges (they are quite interesting) the exhibition is at the moment at the Institution of Civil Engineers, which is in Great George Street and only two or three minutes' walk from your Lordships' House. I can thoroughly recommend it.

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We are not complacent about this bridge business. I hope I have made that clear. We recognise that we have much to learn. My noble friend Lord Stonehaven attacked my right honourable friend's views about how to go about building bridges, and he himself said that his words were forthright. I thought, if I may say so with respect, that they were rather ridiculous. The idea of the Minister wandering about with a gang of apprentices over Europe, pointing to bridges and saying, "That is what you must build", is of course perfectly ludicrous. What he proposes to do—I recognise and share in his admiration for British civil engineers and designers—is to make sure that our bridge building policy takes good account of everything worth using in the world, not just what we do ourselves, and to pool the information and know-how here and from elsewhere, which will apply to technical designs as it will also to methods of obtaining them.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? He has not got what I said quite straight. First of all, I did not say apprentices; I said young men. I do not know at what age a man is "young", but I did not mean apprentices. The other point is this. It is not only the British engineering standards and achievements that are
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available without going abroad; it is achievements all over the world. So my observations were not quite so bad as the noble Lord has said.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, my noble friend gave me the impression of overdrawing a picture of the Minister engaged on a rather ludicrous task. He is going to see bridges and methods and also a great many other things. Perhaps if I could go on I would say this. He does not propose to take young men a few stages beyond their apprenticeship. He proposes to take independent, leading British designers, chosen from a panel which has been submitted to him by the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers—that has already been done—and until he has done that and made up his mind on what should be done, until he has been and then made his inspections, he does not want to commit himself to any particular method. What noble Lords have said, including my noble friend Viscount Stonehaven, will of course be borne in mind. When the Minister has assembled the evidence he will make up his mind as to the best methods. He will consider the different methods—open competition or any other method spoken about—which can be used. That is what he proposes to do.
House adjourned at twenty-three minutes before six o'clock.