Lords Sitting of 28 April 1960

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD TERRINGTON on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Leicester
The Earl of Cromer—Took the Oath.

BRITISH PRE-WAR CLAIMS AGAINST JAPAN
3.5 p.m.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, since March 22, 1960, the approximately £1,000,000 pre-war claims of British nationals against Japan, which were filed in 1946, are any nearer settlement.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): No, my Lords. We are still hold up over the terms of the discharge.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I thank the noble Marquess for that Answer. May I ask him whether he remembers that when the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Kishi, was here last July, the joint communiqué, and also Mr. Kishi, at a Press conference, stated that these long outstanding claims were to be settled at an early date? Has the noble Marquess anything to say about that?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I cannot remember what the Japanese Prime Minister said at the Press conference, but I well remember the terms of the joint communiqué, and Her Majesty's Government are certainly well aware of the time that has elapsed.

CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
BUDE-STRATTON URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

PROCEDURE OF THE HOUSE
3.7 p.m.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of the First Report from the Select Committee.
The Committee reported as follows:
1.—PEERS ACTING IN A PROFESSIONAL CAPACITY
The Committee record their opinion that it is undesirable for a Peer to bring forward, promote or advocate in the House any proceeding or measure in which he is or may have been acting or concerned in a professional capacity. The Committee do not, however, feel that it would be necessary to frame a Standing Order or pass a Resolution in this connection.
2.—PRIVATE NOTICE QUESTIONS
The Committee recommend that—

(a) Peers who give Her Majesty's Government private notice of their intention to ask a Question on a matter of urgency, should submit their Question in writing to the Leader of the House by Twelve noon on the day on which they propose to ask their Question:

(b) The decision as to whether the Question is of sufficient urgency to justify an immediate reply should rest in the first place with the Leader of the House and ultimately with the general sense of the House.

3.—PRECEDENCE OF PUBLIC BILLS OVER NOTICES ON MONDAYS
The Committee recommend that proceedings on Public Bills and Measures should in future have precedence over other Notices on Mondays, as well as on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and that Standing Order No. 35 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be amended accordingly.
4.—ACCOMMODATION ON THE CROSS BENCHES
The Committee recommend that the two benches at the lower end of the Barons' Bench (beside Black Rod's box), together with the Cross Benches, should be considered to be the place in the House for Peers who have not aligned themselves to any political Party.
5.—AMENDMENTS MADE BY SELECT COMMITTEES
The Committee recommend that, where a Public Bill has been referred to a Joint or Select Committee, the practice of agreeing formally to the amendments made by the Select Committee at the outset of the Committee of the Whole House stage should be discontinued. They consider that in future the Bill before the Committee of the Whole House should be the Bill as amended and reported by the Select Committee. The House would then be able to hold an unrestricted Committee stage on the

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Bill without prejudicing the powers of the House to review and, if necessary, vary the amendments made by the Select Committee (including the amendments, if any, made in an Unopposed Bill Committee).
The adoption of this procedure would bring the practice of the two Houses into line.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now considered.
Moved, That the Report be now considered.—(Lord Merthyr.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now agreed to. I think that it is drafted in fairly full terms and may possibly speak for itself. But, needless to say, if any of your Lordships wishes to ask any questions about any one of the five parts in the Report I will do my utmost to answer them, and any other points that may be raised.
Moved, That the Report be agreed to.—(Lord Merthyr.)
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am sorry that I was unable to be present at the Select Committee, but I understand that the feeling behind this Report is fairly unanimous. I should like to ask a question on Item No. 1, "Peers acting in a professional capacity". Reading this, it looks as if it is intended to confine that to a professional class of Peers. Is that right?
LORD MERTHYR: Yes.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Nevertheless, it is so worded that it might even be extended on occasion. Is it to be understood that all that is being covered by this paragraph is where a Peer is acting in a professional manner for a fee in regard to the particular item to be brought before your Lordships?
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, I think the noble Viscount is quite correct. It is thought by the Committee that if it were to go beyond that it would be too wide. It is intended to be limited to cases where a Member of the House who has acted, or is acting, in a professional capacity, and is therefore a member of one of the professions, is dealing in the House with a matter which is the subject of his professional conduct.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I am a member of the Select Committee, but unfortunately I was unable to be present when this matter was discussed. This paragraph strikes me as going far too wide. There seems to be no limit to the matters about which a person acting in a professional capacity is debarred from speaking. For instance, if I may quote a personal case, I act in a professional capacity in town planning matters. Am I therefore debarred from speaking in the House on the kind of town planning problem with which I might be dealing professionally? It may be that that is not the intention of the recommendation, but that is how it reads. It says:
"The Committee record their opinion that it is undesirable for a Peer to bring forward"—
well, one would not bring forward—
"promote or advocate in the House any proceeding or measure in which he is or may have been acting or concerned in a professional capacity."
It might even go to the length of my being precluded from discussing, say, the Town and Country Planning Act, 1959. As it stands, does not this paragraph go too far? I should have thought that if it were limited to bringing forward or promoting, but left out advocating, then, subject to the person advocating doing what is normal in this House—that is, declaring an interest—that would be all right. It is the advocating of something in which the Member has a professional interest that I think makes the thing too wide.
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, perhaps I may reply to the noble Lord before dealing with any other points. If the noble Lord was acting as a town planning consultant or adviser for a fee, then, in my view, this would, in the opinion of the Committee, render it undesirable that he should raise in your Lordships' House a particular matter which was the concern of his client paying him the fee. If, on the other hand, the noble Lord was a town planning consultant and took part in a debate in the House on a Town Planning Bill, there would be no objection whatsoever. I hope that I have made some sort of distinction between what is and what is not intended to be covered. I would underline the words "in a professional capacity". Yesterday we had a debate in which a number of professional

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men took part who are also Members of your Lordships' House. But I am quite certain that no one, whether this recommendation is agreed to or not, would take any exception to that. As I understand it, it is only if a professional man seeks to promote or further the interests of his client who has paid, or will be paying, him, than objection could possibly be taken.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I fully accept the explanation of the noble Lord. But I am afraid that the explanation is not entirely consistent with the wording of this paragraph. If it said that he ought not to further the interests of a particular client, I would absolutely agree with that. But this goes much further than that; that is my difficulty. There is no urgency about this. Would it not be as well to look at the wording again?
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I should like to add my support to what the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has said. The words here are:
"… any proceeding or measure in which he is … acting …"
It is not any particular case. A proceeding may be a very lengthy affair, in which the particular Peer who is giving his advice to the House may be one of the best people we could have to give that advice. It is obviously wrong for a Peer to promote or bring forward such a proposal; but to advocate it, provided that he makes his position quite clear and declares his interest, would seem to me to be in the best interests of this House.
Why should professional men be singled out? Here in your Lordships' House we have Peers who are farmers or landowners, or interested in the steel trade, in shipbuilding, aircraft supplies or aircraft use. They come along and they advocate that large sums of public money should be paid to them or to their industries from which they take a direct benefit. Apparently that is quite permissible, and is often done. We make no objection, because we know that they have a point of view and are expressing the point of view of an industry; and it is right, provided we know their interest, that we should hear it. I fail to see why a professional man should be singled out for this treatment whereas industrialists, farmers and others who are Peers are free to express any point of
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view, whether or not it is to their own advantage.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I must apologise for not having been here at the commencement of the debate. I did not know that this matter was coming on to-day, and I have only just seen the Report. I do not think it came to us with our Papers this morning. If I may say so, one ought to know what is in the Vote Office. I do not rememher seeing this on the Pink List. I think it would be convenient if Reports coming up in the House could be sent to us automatically, without our having to go and search for them. Perhaps the Whips could see to that.
I think it would be well to look at this matter again. There is no great hurry about it. I was concerned very closely with my noble friend the late Lord Addison, when he was Leader of the House, on the question of what was to happen about members of the National Boards. We arrived, with, I think, complete agreement, on what the formula should be. I think there is a clear distinction between the professional man and a Peer who has an interest simply because he is a landowner, a farmer or a steel-maker. We should be completely limited in the field of discussion in this House if we said that nobody was to talk about anything in which he had an interest. Discussion would be confined to those noble Lords who knew very little about the subject on which they were speaking, and it would be a great pity if landowners, farmers, doctors—and even lawyers—were not able to express an opinion. The form is quite clear—a noble Lord declares his personal interest when he speaks. As I see it, what is aimed at is this. A professional man is somebody who is briefed by another person to represent his interest. That is quite proper: that is what he is there for. A lawyer, whether he be a solicitor or a barrister, or some other form of consultant, is retained by a particular client in order to represent his interest. The commonest example, of course, with which we are acquainted here is the Parliamentary Agent who is promoting a Bill.
I should have thought there was a clear distinction: it is clearly undesirable that a professional man who has

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been, quite properly, retained to represent a client's interest should, in his other capacity as a Member of this House—although of course he declares his interest—advocate his client's interest by speaking in this House. I say that for this reason. It is difficult to draw hard and fast lines (for example, of the difference between day and night) but we know a distinction pretty clearly when we see it, and for a Peer to act in this way would be, I think, going much too far. Moreover, it might lead to a man outside (though I am sure Peers would be wrongly so regarded) saying, "I think I had better retain so-and-so"—somebody who is either a Member of the House of Lords or another place—"as my professional adviser". That, I think, would be wholly undesirable. I think, for those reasons, that there is a perfectly clear distinction between a professional man and the ordinary case of someone who has an interest. If that be, as I conceive it is, what was in the minds of the Committee when they drew up this Report, if the wording as it stands does not clearly express it, then by all means have another look at it. But if this matter is to go back or be adjourned I hope that it would be the sense of the House that in what I have said I have expressed the common view of all noble Lords and that all we want now are the appropriate words.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I want to apologise to the House, the Lord Chairman and the Committee for being absent from the last meeting of the Procedure Committee. I was not very well, but I could have been there and ought to have been there, and I am sorry. With regard to the point under immediate discussion I should like to say that I have been ransacking my memory of the last 25 years and I do not remember any single case in this House which would have necessitated paragraph 1 of this Report before your Lordships. I do not remember any single case of a Peer doing anything such as the noble Earl has just mentioned.
There is, however, one other point upon this subject which I do not think should pass without your Lordships' notice, Whether you refer paragraph 1
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back to the Committee or not, I am quite sure the Government will wish to pass paragraph 3 at this particular Sitting. We do not know how many Mondays they have in store for us. As we sit on Mondays only when there is great pressure of Government business and it is important to get Government business transacted, I acquiesce in the findings of the Committee about paragraph 3.
There is one point I would make which often passes without your Lordships' notice, and that is this: that your Lordships' House is perhaps the last place where a private person can get a wrong from which he has suffered, or thinks he has suffered, thoroughly threshed out, brought before the Government and ventilated, and the Government can have an opportunity of answering it and answering it fully. As things are, we know and we acquiesce in the fact that the Opposition really have first call on Wednesdays and take them up very much with their own Business. There is considerable pressure from the Opposition for Notices of Motion on Wednesdays. While we must naturally acquiesce in the Motion before your Lordships, it ought to be noted by your Lordships that this precedence of Motions on Mondays which has hitherto existed, which has given the private citizen an opportunity which he would not otherwise have of getting a wrong thoroughly ventilated, may on some future occasion have to be reversed.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I do not think we want unduly to prolong the discussion, but I should like to say that I am in complete agreement with what the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, has said as to what he understands to be the intention of the Committee in putting forward this recommendation. What I have contended is that I do not think that these words carry out the intention of the Committee. I think they go very much further. I think they go so far beyond the intention of the Committee as to inflict possibly a hardship, and certainly great inconvenience on the House itself. So I should be content if paragraph 1 were referred back. I have no comment on the other paragraphs at all.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend the Leader of the House, may I say that it would,

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of course, be perfectly in order to refer back the first paragraph and pass the Report with that deleted. I think I should say that the Committee undoubtedly had in mind exactly what Amy noble friend Lord Swinton has outlined. But they felt that it was not necessary to go so far as what I might call the "Addison declaration" of some years ago on nationalised industries. If the House would prefer something as definite as that, I am quite sure the Committee could produce it; but in the circumstances think that the right thing would be to refer this first paragraph back to the Committee for further consideration.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I have nothing to say about the matter immediately under discussion, but I have one or two words to offer about the Report in general. Speaking as one who was for many years, 37 I think, in the House of Commons, and 19 years in your Lordships' House, I find very noticeable the immense difference between the procedure here and there. Whereas there the procedure is always a contest for advantage, here there is a spirit of accommodation which is aimed at giving the fullest use to this House to the great amount of ability and experience contained in it. There is one thing I notice which gives me considerable gratification, and that is in paragraph 4. The Cross-Benches are reserved for people who do not desire to associate themselves with a political Party, particularly with the Government.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Why?
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I notice paragraph 4 points out that the Cross-Benches are becoming overcrowded and it is therefore necessary to allot another part of the House for those who wish to sit and mark their disapproval in this silent way. There are a great many practical difficulties. I do not know who orders the seating, but who is going, for example, to evict the noble Lord, Lord Amwell, under paragraph 4 if he sits there. Suppose he will not go.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: The noble Viscount cannot count. The noble Lord, Lord Amwell, is sitting on the third Bench.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: How many Benches are you going to give for the overflow of dissidents?
EARL ST. ALDWYN: According to the Report, two.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: Then so long as Lord Amwell does not come down one it is all right. But if not, who would evict him? I do not know whether there is any power, a tipstaff or anyone who comes along and tells you where you may or may not sit.
To my mind, the most interesting and practical part of the Report is that it deals with Questions. There is the greatest difference in the world between questioning in the House of Commons and questioning in your Lordships' House. Questioning in the House of Commons has two purposes. One is to express the opinion of a representative. A man who is a Member of Parliament speaks and brings up a point because he is representative of somebody. Nobody here is representative of anybody and therefore that part of the status of the questioner has disappeared. The other point about the Question is that it really is an extension of the Commons principle of grievance before Supply. A Member asks his Question and pushes his point because he knows that the Commons as a whole have a right to control the Government by means of Supply. Here we have nothing at all to do with Supply. Therefore, a Question in the House of Lords is something much more like a debate and much less like a House of Commons Question.
There has been an idea that in regard to Questions, we should expand on the basis of the House of Commons. I do not agree. In Standing Orders and the Companion Questions are hardly mentioned—I do not know whether they are mentioned at all. How should we foster this development of debate? We can make a speech on the Motion for the Adjournment; we have the Private Notice Question; we have ordinary Questions and we have Written Questions. How can they best be used for bringing into full play the ability that exists in this House? I do not suggest any restrictions or rules. If one looks at Erskine May one will find a compact body of restrictions about putting Questions: you must not be vituperative; you must not make an insinuation, and you must not even be artistic. But everybody knows that the Table here receives many Questions which are meant in fun, or at any rate

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have an element of fun in them, which is strictly forbidden in the House of Commons. I do not think that we should restrict Questions. The noble Earl, Lord Arran, the other day put down for debate a Motion to call attention to the Press. That is about as wide a subject as anything could be. I thought about putting down a Question to ask the Government whether it would be fine for Bank Holiday. I do not think the Table would have the least power to restrict me in putting such a Question.
That is the great difference between the House of Commons and the House of Lords. In the House of Commons there is, first of all, a Speaker with definite and undisputed authority, who is surrounded by a bastion at the Table. I tried to put down many Questions in my time in the House of Commons, and it was not easy to get by the Table. Once the Table has said "No", it is "No". But here there is no such power exercised by the Table. I think that that is a good thing. I shall be delighted to hear what Lord Arran has to say in calling attention to the Press, or to the weather or anything else. We had not long ago Lord Ailwyn's Question about the habits of animals and lamp-posts. That was a most stimulating, although brief, debate. I think all this makes for interest, and is one of the reasons for the increase in attendance which has been most noticeable in this House in the last six to eight months.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Viscount for one moment? I think he will find that the Table has a great influence and power in this House, but that it is silently exercised.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, I am sure that the Clerks at the Table, and the Clerk of the Parliaments, who I am sorry is unable to be present, will be most gratified at that unsolicited testimonial. I think myself that the freedom of Questions should be permitted. That brings me in particular to a recommendation which I greatly welcome—namely, the recommendation touching Private Notice Questions. One or two things are made quite clear in this definition of a Private Notice Question. One is that the rights of all Members of the House are equal: that is to say, that there is no
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Member designated with a special right to ask a Private Notice Question. We all have the right, subject to the matter being one of urgency. In the first place, the decision in that matter is in the hands of the Leader of the House. Speaking for myself, and I believe for others, with that I think we are entirely satisfied. Whereas if the Speaker in the Commons says that it is not urgent, it is not urgent, here if the Leader of the House says, "I do not think this is urgent", then the Member, if he considers it is urgent, has the right to make representations, and the Leader is enabled to fortify his judgment, as he can easily do, by a general appeal to the House.
But on the matter of Private Notice Questions there are certain special elements worth noticing. What is urgency? A thing may not be urgent on Thursday but it may be most urgent on Tuesday. To give an example, a conference is going on touching the powers of the Rhodesian Government. We read about that in the papers. Sir Edgar Whitehead is to leave for South Africa on Saturday. If I wish to ask a Question about that (though I may be perfectly satisfied with the efforts being made by the Government) I must put it to-day, because if I do not put it to-day the Question has no relevance at all. Therefore, relevance in regard to urgency is rather a different thing in this House from urgency in the other House.
As regards general debates I have a number of ideas, but I do not know whether they would commend themselves to your Lordships: for instance, a fixed hour for the rising of the House. Perhaps that might be convenient. I do not know. However, there are plenty of opportunities, if they are used with discretion, for private Members to express their views before your Lordships. I entirely agree with Lord Saltoun that we have something which is beyond price—namely, the right to say what we like if we think it is right that we should say it. One can truly say, in Shakespeare's famous words, that this House
"wears yet a precious jewel in its head."
3.37 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Merthyr answers, may I say that I should like to support the general sense of the House which has been expressed to-day in respect of paragraph 1. I think it is quite obvious

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that the general meaning of the Committee is fully understood and appreciated, but that the wording needs some alteration. I have no doubt that the Lord Chairman will take the necessary action. With regard to paragraph 2, about which we have just been addressed by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, who I think regards himself as not representative of anybody. I would point out that the members of both his Party and mine feel that the present electoral system is rather out-dated, and there is no reason to think that Members of this House are not any more representative than are Members of the other House.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, I am an older member of the Liberal Party than the noble Lord; but just because they are pulling down the premises opposite, which were the great fortress of Liberalism in the old days, one should not abandon Liberal principles. Our case has always been that this is not a representative House.
LORD REA: I take that view from the noble Viscount; but, if I may say so, I rather think that his views are a little behind the times, especially as he seems to support the newspaper to which he referred the other day. With regard to paragraph 3, which deals with the precedence of Public Bills over Notices on Mondays, I should like to agree with Lord Saltoun that while Government Business should be given precedence on Mondays, we should not make this the prerogative of the Government, but should restore to individual Members the use of Mondays for Private Business.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I just say that if the Chief Whip thinks it is essential to get this Report through as a document to-day, I do not mind so long as there is to be a reconsideration of paragraph 1, perhaps with the exclusion of the word "advocate" in this particular sense; and having looked at the debate that we have had and the views that have been expressed, the points that were put by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, will be met.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I have inquired and it is perfectly in order for us to pass the Report of this Committee with the deletion of paragraph 1,
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which would then be referred back and brought forward again in due course.
3.40 p.m.
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, if I may say just a few words in conclusion, I should like to assure the House that, whether this wording is good or faulty, the intention of the Committee was to make a sharp distinction against the professional man who has accepted or will accept a fee in his professional capacity from promoting the cause of a client in the House. Your Lordships may think it would be undesirable that a person outside the House, by seeking the services of a Member of this House, should therefore gain an advantage over another person who did not do so. I should like, therefore, to give the assurance that that is the intention. Whether or not the wording carries out that intention is another matter, and I am perfectly prepared, if your Lordships wish it, to take this matter back and look at it again, and to ask the Committee to do so—because it is the Committee's Resolution.
As I understood him, the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, did not like the distinction between the professional man acting in that capacity, on the one hand, and the businessman advocating the general interests of his business on the other. It is a matter of opinion for the House as to whether there should or should not be this distinction; but I just wanted to make clear that the intention of the Committee was that they should make the distinction, as has been put so clearly by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton.
I am very glad that it has now been made perfectly plain that the noble Lord, Lord Amwell, will not be unseated and that he will be able to continue to sit in his accustomed place, which we all know so well, without any embarrassment whatsoever. I hope that the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, will forgive me if I do not comment on his very interesting speech, because in the course of his remarks he did not, I think, ask any questions or raise any point calling for a reply from me. After what has been said I should like, if I have the permission of the House to do so, to amend my Motion and to move now that the last four paragraphs of this Report be agreed to.
On Question, Motion, as amended, agreed to.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

PAYMENT OF WAGES BILL
3.43 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, the purpose of this Bill is to enable wages in certain circumstances and under certain conditions to be paid by methods other than by cash. Of course, the only thing that prevents that from being done now is the Truck Acts. I refer to the "Truck Acts" collectively as the Act of 1831 together with certain lesser Acts which have been passed since that time. These used to prohibit wages from being paid by cheque unless the recipient was within fifteen miles of a bank which issued its own notes. Now there are no such banks in England, and it is only in Scotland that that would be possible. The Truck Acts as a whole are still in many respects necessary. In other respects they are obsolete; and in some respects they need improvement; and in July of last year a Committee was set up by the then Minister of Labour under Mr. David Karmel, Q.C., for the purpose of considering what changes ought to be made in the Truck Acts. It has been asked: Why cannot we wait until that Committee have reported before bringing in this Bill? But we do not know how long the Committee are to take before making their report.
In the meantime there seems to be general agreement about the desirability of this Bill. Several Private Members' Bills which were introduced in order to achieve the same purpose have, for one reason or another, never reached the Statute Book. On the National Joint Advisory Council of the Minister of Labour there was agreement that the measure now before us was necessary, and in fact in the time of the former Minister, the right honourable gentleman Mr. Iain Macleod, the National Joint Advisory Council helped a great deal and played a great part in preparing this Bill. I hope that
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it is neither contentious enough nor complex enough to take up more than a little of your Lordships' time.
The main clause of the Bill is Clause 1, which provides that under certain conditions wages may be paid other than by cash; and it insists very strongly on the condition that the wage-earner must make a request that this should be done. In fact, Clause 1 of the Bill begins with the words:
"If an employed person requests his employer to pay his wages in a way specified in the request,"
In subsection (4) it is said that:
"Any request made by an employed person as mentioned in subsection (1) of this section shall be made by notice in writing given to his employer."
The employer is not required to reply in writing. He may signify his agreement either by writing back or simply by paying the wages in the way specified by the employee's request. In subsection (3) the methods of payment authorised are

(a) payment into an account at a bank, being an account standing in the name of the person to whom the payment is due, or an account standing in the name of that person jointly with one or more other persons;

(b) payment by postal order;

(c) payment by money order;

(d) payment by cheque.

Payment by cheque has been permitted in the Bill in case this should be convenient in certain cases. But your Lordships will easily see that it is not very likely that that will be made use of in many cases, because if a wage-earner has a bank account of his own, obviously he will prefer that his money should be paid directly into his bank account instead of being given to him by cheque, putting him to the trouble of sending it to the bank.
If, on the other hand, he has not a bank account he will have to cash his weekly cheque, and obviously it would be more convenient for him to be paid in cash by the employer in the ordinary way. Payment by cheque has, however, been permitted in case it may be found convenient. Your Lordships can easily imagine that payment in the other two forms mentioned—by money order and by postal order—might be convenient in other cases. It is paragraph (a)—"payment into an account at a bank"—which I believe is most likely to be

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made use of, by mutual agreement. A wage-earner earning a high wage may often find it more convenient not to be given a large sum in bank notes each week. It may be safer, it may save trouble, and may help saving, too. It is sometimes easier to save if one does not know that the money is actually in one's pocket, or if some member of one's family does not know that it is in one's pocket.
Clause 2 and the Schedule to the Bill between them require that at the time when any such payment is made the employer shall furnish to the employed person a written statement showing his gross wages, the amount of any deductions and the net amount payable; and the Schedule, which can be altered by order by the Minister, tries to cover all the different methods of wage ascertainment which are customary in different industries. Clause 3 enables the arrangement to pay wages by one of these methods specified in Clause 1 to be terminated by not less than four weeks' notice in writing by either party.
Clause 4, I think, is the only one about which there has been any contention, because it is perhaps rather more for the convenience of the employer than of the wage-earner. What it provides is that if the wage-earner does not, or cannot, turn up at the usual place of payment—if he is perhaps ill and cannot come—and his wages need to be sent to him by post the employer may, without any written request, send him his wages, not by cheque but by money order or by postal order. What happens now is that bank notes have to be sent in a registered envelope, and it may be preferable in many cases to send a money order or postal order. But the clause did not give universal satisfaction in another place because it did not have to be preceded by a written request from the employee. However, an Amendment was accepted, and is now in the Bill, to the effect that if the wage-earner wrote stating he did not wish his wages to be paid by money order then the employer would still have to send them by cash, as he does now. I do not know whether your Lordships will think that that is a satisfactory solution; but, so far as I know, it seems to have satisfied everybody in another place,
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and I think there is now general agreement on the subject.
Clause 4 of the Bill comes into effect one month after the Bill is passed. The remainder of the provisions of the Bill come into effect six months after the Bill is passed. That is to give employers and wage-earners time to make their plans if they want to take advantage of the provisions in this Bill. There is one exception, and that is the payment by cheque. The provisions concerning payment by cheque, as distinct from postal order, money order or paying into a bank account, do not come into effect until my right honourable friend the Minister of Labour decides on an appointed day. The reason for this indeterminate delay is the fears which have been expressed, and which I think were mentioned in a debate your Lordships had on this subject last year, by shopkeepers about the possible consequences of payment of wages by cheque.
What the shopkeepers, or some shopkeepers, are afraid of is that if a great number of wage-earners get their wages by cheque they may want to cash the cheques the day after pay day, and they will expect grocers and other suppliers to cash their cheques for them. They are not obliged to, but if they do not the customer may go to another supplier who will. They are afraid that every week they will have to put an abnormally large amount of cash into their tills to cash all these cheques which they expect their customers to bring them; and this will be not only inconvenient but an obvious temptation to robbers to come and attack them. I have already given the reasons why I do not think that in practice wages are likely to be paid to any great extent by cheque. If a man intends to cash a cheque he obviously will not ask his employer to pay him by cheque. He will obviously prefer to be paid in cash. It is much better to be paid in cash at the pay office than to get a cheque and cash it at a shop. I therefore do not think it is likely to happen, but in view of these fears my right honourable friend wants time for more discussion with tradesmen before he brings it into effect. That is the reason for the indeterminate date. I think this Bill will serve a useful purpose in bringing wage payments up to date and more into conformity with

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modern conditions. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Dundee.)

PRIVATE CREDIT RESTRAINT
3.55 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I apologise for intervening before the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, which I am greatly looking forward to, but I think it might be convenient to your Lordships if I now read the statement which is being made at this moment in another place by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. My right honourable friend's statement says this:
"In opening my Budget I said that the time might soon arrive when it would be right that we should take other steps to restrain further expansion of private credit.
"One of the possibilities I had in mind was that it might become necessary to exercise some restraint on bank advances. As the House will recall, when the restrictions on bank advances were lifted in July, 1958, I announced a new arrangement under which the Bank of England would, if need be, call for Special Deposits. The Radcliffe Committee showed a preference for an alternative method but, having re-examined the matter, I have decided that this is the most convenient one.
"In the light of the figures for bank advances in recent months, and particularly those for the month ended April 20 last, the Bank of England, with my approval, have made an initial call on the London Clearing Banks and the Scottish banks to make Special Deposits with them on or before June 15 next. In the case of the London Clearing Banks the initial special deposit is to be one per cent. of each bank's total deposits; in the case of the Scottish banks whose present circumstances are different, the figure is one-half per cent.
"At the same time the Government have decided that some restraint should be placed on the growth of credit extended under hire purchase.
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For this purpose orders have been laid to-day by my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade. Their purpose is to restrict the terms on which cars, wireless and television sets, kitchen equipment, furniture and a wide range of other consumer goods may be bought on hire purchase. The initial deposit will be 20 per cent., except for furniture and some other items, for which it will be 10 per cent. The normal period of repayment will be two years, except for a small number of items for which the period will be four years. Capital goods are in general excluded from the order.
"These measures, together with the Budget, will act as a check on the tendencies making for overstrain on the economy, while not preventing the continuance of sound and steady expansion within our resources."
3.58 p.m.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, in common with your Lordships, I have heard the statement that has been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and which has been repeated to your Lordships this afternoon in this House. Those of your Lordships who were here on Tuesday last will remember that I reported that there was an opinion in the City and among bankers that this action might be taken, and last Tuesday I expressed my opinion that it was a better means of restricting credit than an increase of bank rate, and of course that is my opinion at the present time. Therefore, provisionally at any rate, I welcome this decision, if it was necessary in the interests of stopping inflation to make a monetary change. I regard what the Government are doing as very much better than raising the bank rate.
I also approve that, in addition to the Special Deposits scheme of the banks, it has been decided to make other limitations with regard to hire purchase. That, I think, was also the opinion of the Radcliffe Committee. But they, of course, went further than that and suggested that some action should at the same time be taken with regard to other forms of liquidity throughout the country. The Chancellor has not seen fit to go as far as that. Perhaps he will consider in the

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course of time whether it would be desirable to do something of that sort. But, provisionally, I support what is being done. This matter has been discussed by members of my Party in another place, and, if my recollection is right, they have given their general support to the idea. Therefore, I think I can claim to be speaking not only for myself but for my Party in giving at any rate provisional support to this proposal.
LORD REA: My Lords, may I join with the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, in thanking the Government for this statement, and for the moderate and careful way in which they have approached this difficult problem? I would agree with the noble Lord that the step that they propose to take in the first place with regard to deposits is much better than an increase in the bank rate, which I think would have much more of a shock result overseas than a gentle measure of this sort.
If I might say a word on the question of hire purchase, first not exactly declaring an interest but explaining that I have had an interest in hire purchase, having been for a time the chairman of an organisation which comprised all the leading motor hire purchase companies, I should like to say that in my view—and I am not speaking for these people but for myself, and from my ten years' experience of motor hire purchase—it is desirable that there should not be hire purchase without deposit. The responsibility of making a deposit, as is suggested in this statement, is a good one, morally and financially, and most reputable hire purchase companies would, I am sure, back this view.
There is a mistaken view (and it has been a sort of traditional view for far too long) that hire purchase companies make their money by claiming back goods that have not been paid for. My Lords, I have had personal experience of this business over some time, and that has shown, without a doubt, that, over the whole picture, it entails a dead loss to have to repossess articles Which have been bought on hire purchase and where the payments have not been kept up. Of course, there is the occasional case where you get back a fine article that has had a great deal of money paid upon it, and then you may or may not make a profit on it; but to work on that
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basis is against the principles of all the best hire purchase companies. It is not done, partly from ethical reasons, but also from very practical reasons. From that point of view, therefore, I welcome this imposition of a minimum deposit of 20 per cent., which I am quite sure is a good thing.
LORD GREENHILL: My Lords, may I ask two questions for the purpose of elucidation? I think the statement describes this Special Deposits call as being an initial call. Are we to understand this to mean that other calls may be expected? Secondly, as to the difference between the one per cent. of the London Clearing Banks and the one-half per cent. of Scottish banks, which we are told is due to some difference in the Scottish banking system—
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: A difference in the circumstances.
LORD GREENHILL: —in the circumstances, would the noble Earl be good enough to indicate, as broadly as he can, what those differences are?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, with regard to the first supplementary of the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill, as to the word "initial", No, it does not mean that further deposits are going to be called for. But, of course, it does not preclude them if it should become necessary. We shall have to see how the the situation develops. With regard to the noble Lord's second supplementary, he will find a very full description of the difference between Scottish and English banks in the Radcliffe Report, paragraphs 149 to 165, beginning at page 52. If I might perhaps mention one difference, an overdraft is more expensive in Scotland.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I greatly welcome the statement of my noble friend, and I think the steps might well have been taken even a month ago, perhaps. But could I ask whether the Chancellor has received any assurance from the banks that they will finance these Special Deposits from a reduction in advances, and not from further sales of gilt-edged securities?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, we are not making any conditions, but, so far as we know, it should be possible

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for the banks to make these Special Deposits by reducing advances entirely, and we think that giving them until June 15 should make it easier to do that. Of course, we cannot accurately predict the course of events, but we think that this will not result in the total present amount of advances being reduced: nor, indeed, need it prevent the total amount of advances from continuing to increase. All that it is expected to do is to slow down the rate at which they are now increasing.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether, in view of the fact that the last time there was a credit "squeeze" great hardship was caused to many small business men and professional men, he is satisfied that the same thing is not going to happen this time, and that the impact of this measure is not going to fall on the unfortunate small business man and professional man?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: There is no reason, we think, to fear that sound expansion will be discouraged. Of course, individual people are sometimes asked by their banks to reduce their overdrafts, even when there is no credit restriction.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl a further question? Now that the Chancellor has shown the big stick which he holds in his hand, will he see whether it is possible to come to such arrangements with the clearing banks and other financial institutions as will enable them to arrange their ratios, and so on, in advance, so that there is never again any reason to use these Special Deposits?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I rather deprecate the use of the phrase "big stick". This is not a big stick at all: it is a reasonable measure, not intended in any way to hurt anybody, but simply to prevent Mr. Rising Price from
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coming back into our economy again. The banks are fully aware of our intentions; of the economic policy at which we are aiming; and we are confident that they will co-operate in our aims in every way.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Earl for the care and courtesy with which he has answered the questions on this statement. It is a very important statement. My noble friend is quite right when he says that we welcome the fact that these steps have been taken, although we agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, that they might have been taken earlier. At any rate, it is bringing home to the public at large how careful they have to be, in spite of Government statements that they "have never had it so good". It is rather important to keep that in mind.
I should like to ask this further question. The penultimate paragraph in regard to hire purchase says:
"Capital goods are in general excluded from the order".
It is fairly well known that certain classes of machinery are regarded as capital goods—they are depreciated in a business up to as long as ten or fifteen years—and some of them are paid for by instalments. Is it intended to leave out expensive lathes and machinery of that kind from any kind of hire purchase or spread-over payments?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, the three Orders which I have here and which are being laid to-day—Nos. 762, 763 and 764—contain a full list of all the goods to which these hire purchase restrictions apply. There are a great many of them. In general, as I have mentioned in the statement, our intention is to exclude capital goods. Of course, people may not always find it easy to draw the line between what are and what are not capital goods, but the list of goods is given in these Orders.

LAW OF THE SEA CONFERENCE
4.10 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL WALDEGRAVE): My Lords, with your permission, I should like to make a statement that my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food made in another place a moment ago. I will use his own words:
"I should like to make a statement on the outcome of the Second United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. The House will already be aware that at the Conference the proposal put forward by the Canadian and United States Delegations on the breadth of the territorial sea and on fishery limits failed by a single vote to secure the necessary two-thirds majority. By this narrow margin a great opportunity has been lost of establishing a rule of law in this very difficult sphere. I am sure the House will share my own great disappointment that the efforts of the fifty-four nations who voted for the only possible compromise, failed when success was so nearly within our grasp. We must now consider with like-minded nations the situation resulting from the failure of the Conference.
"We recognised from the outset that agreement could only be reached if there was a genuine readiness to compromise, and for our part we made every effort to meet the desires and aspirations of other countries. The proposal put forward by Canada and the United States would have recognised a 6-mile territorial sea, and a 12-mile exclusive fishery limit, subject only to a 10-year period of phasing out for established fishing rights. Even this proposal was subject to qualifications which would have further safeguarded the interests of those States who are specially dependent on the fisheries off their coasts. But we supported it, as did many other countries from the Commonwealth, Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America.
"I have made clear throughout that this proposal would have entailed
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great sacrifices by our own fishing industry. But the industry were ready to make these heavy sacrifices for the sake of a lasting settlement. I would like to pay a very sincere tribute to the loyal support and encouragement which all sections of the industry gave me throughout the whole of the negotiations.
"In the absence of an international agreement, the Government maintain their former position on the breadth of the territorial sea and fishery limits. We will now have to examine the implications of the new situation with which we are confronted. We are well aware of the problems that will face our fishing industry, in particular the distant water fleets. To function efficiently, the industry must be able to plan for a long period ahead, and it is now faced with continued uncertainty. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I shall be discussing these very difficult problems with the industry as soon as possible.
"During the Conference we declared our readiness to negotiate an agreement with Iceland that would have given her more favourable treatment than the general terms of the Canadian-United States proposal. I also said that we would be willing to accept independent arbitration on this point. I am sorry that these offers had no response. We remain ready, however, to negotiate with the Icelandic Government but we do not recognise their unilateral claim for a 12-mile fishery limit, and our naval vessels will continue to give assistance to our fishermen. But as an earnest of our good will and our readiness to negotiate, our naval vessels will for the time being patrol only beyond 12 miles from Iceland."
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, we are much obliged for this statement. I am sure that the whole House must be exceedingly disappointed at the outcome of the Conference. We so often criticise that I think we ought to express our appreciation of the extent to which the Government went in an endeavour to obtain a compromise on this very difficult matter, one which has been discussed during the whole of my Parliamentary life. I think

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that the further offer to make a separate arrangement with Iceland, about which I had not known, also deserves our appreciation; and I feel that it is a very great pity, both in the interests of the economic needs of the general population and of avoiding actual conflict on these matters, that Iceland has not been more forthcoming. Like many of your Lordships, I have friends in Iceland and I am bound to say to them, as I am sure noble Lords will, that it is exceedingly disappointing. I do hope that they will think again.
LORD REA: My Lords, may I from these Benches offer our sympathy and congratulations to the Government upon what they have tried to do, and also express our sorrow that the negotiations failed by so narrow a margin. I hope that the matter will not be allowed to rest here, and that those concerned will not be discouraged. This matter was passed by so small a margin that I venture to think it may have shocked those who were instrumental in bringing it about. I hope that the Government will bear in mind that they have a great opportunity in this matter, and that they will proceed further and try to have this decision reversed.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, perhaps I should declare an interest in this subject. I have no financial interest in any fishing business, but I am a Scotsman, and all my life I have seen, with deep regret, the depredations on the fishing waters around Scotland, owing to the lack of power of our own Government to control them. Therefore I have an especially deep reason for regretting the failure of these proposals. I express my condolences to Her Majesty's Government, and beg them to try to get something on foot again as soon as possible. In conclusion, I regret the final part of the statement which says that we are going to continue the protection of our fishermen. I have great sympathy with their position in this matter, and think that it is a very tricky and dangerous operation on their part; but I am sorry to see that part of the statement and wish that Her Majesty's Government could have felt able to avoid it by coming to some agreement.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I appreciate
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most of what the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, has said, but when our fishermen are at sea they surely have the right to look to their own country to give them protection, if it is not being afforded by the people in whose territorial waters they are. Therefore I hope that the noble Earl will not be moved by the noble Lord's expression of regret.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I am very grateful for both the statements made by the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition. I entirely concur with his last remarks. I know that my right honourable friend will be grateful to know about the disappointment we all feel about the failure of this Conference by so narrow a margin.

PAYMENT OF WAGES BILL
4.18 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, in case your Lordships have forgotten, we were discussing the Payment of Wages Bill, which perhaps seems insignificant besides the momentous topics about which we have just been hearing. I think that the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, showed that he himself did not feel that it was a very important measure. The main reason given for this Bill in another place was that it was for the convenience of manual workers. It is striking that no demand whatsoever has come from the trade unions and organised workers, and it is a little surprising, in this delicate field, that this Bill should have been introduced at a moment when the Karmel Committee are looking into the whole question of the Truck Acts.
As the noble Earl said, this Bill springs from the 1831 Truck Act, and there is no question that there is need for reform. Despite the lack of enthusiasm for the Bill, so far as it goes it is a moderately good measure. It puts right and improves upon a situation which has arisen purely by chance, the chance that in England banks do not issue their own bank notes any more. In Scotland this disability has not existed. I am a little surprised that the argument has not been put forward in support of the Bill that the situation in Scotland has been to that extent much more favourable. In fact, no evidence, so far as I know, has been given that

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any material or significant difference exists in Scotland in regard to the payment of wages. I shall be interested, when the noble Earl comes to reply, to hear from him, with his knowledge of Scotland, whether there is in fact a much more frequent use of cheques.
The truth of the matter is that this particular Bill, now and in the short run, will make comparatively little difference; I entirely agree with the noble Earl about that. But that is not to say that it will not be of importance in the future. The time may well come when it will be necessary for payments to be made, as they have long been made to the monthly paid worker, by means other than wage packets in which the money is placed. I think it should be borne in mind also that there are a large number of workers who are not, in fact, prevented from receiving their wages by cheque now, in the shops, for instance; and there are many large firms who are entirely untroubled by the Truck Acts in this matter and still pay their workers in cash because it is far more convenient for them. And it is the sort of service that, on the whole, the employer ought reasonably to be prepared to provide for his employees. There is not much advantage in providing a cheque which the individual worker immediately has to go and cash—indeed, it would be an absurdity, particularly in a big department store, for an employee to be given a cheque and then for him or her to go to the main cash desk and turn it into cash. The fact is that it will not make for much change in that direction. Nor will it make much change among many of the manual workers. I am sure that those who have been accustomed to receiving their wages in cash, whether they be miners or other workers, will regard pay as cash and will continue to exercise their right to receive wages in that form.
The real value of this measure lies in the future. It will be of value where the firm, particularly the big firm, is able to send a single cheque to its own bank and then, through clearing house arrangements, as they do with their salaried employees, have the individual accounts of their employees credited with the appropriate amount. It is common practice among all responsible employers—indeed, I should have thought it was general—for them to include a pay state-
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ment showing deductions made. Any noble Lords who have been in a salaried position will be accustomed to receiving a little monthly note, which can now be made available to the manual worker, who usually receives in his pay packet a pay slip saying what he has received and what the deductions are.
As this reform comes into effect there will be a need for the banks to give rather better service to the public at large. I am not suggesting in any way that the banks are failing at the moment, but there will be a need for them, as there will be for other service sections of the community, including shops, I believe, to provide services of a kind that will be convenient to the general public. However, I am now getting on to dangerous ground, more dangerous even than the Truck Acts, and I will not pursue it much further. At the moment, some of the banks are a little nervous about this reform. It could become quite a serious thing for them if they were now to receive and have to deal with a large number of weekly cheques, as opposed to monthly cheques, to which they are accustomed. There would be no advantage to the community if we merely, so to speak, shift the work from one section to another; in the long run, the community will have to pay for it. Despite these observations, I think it is desirable that the banking habit should be more widely extended, and I believe that it will continue to develop. It is already increasing. We know that the number of depositors and people with accounts with banks is going up all the time, and this Bill removes an obstacle to that natural development.
The noble Earl referred to one or two particular items in the Bill. I am sorry that he did not say anything about the fact that the Post Office Savings Bank is unable to provide the sort of facilities which I think it ought, if possible, to provide in the course of time. It is not reasonable to expect banks to open branches, and to have them continuously open, in every small hamlet and village; but there is practically always a post office or sub-post office of some kind. I hope that the Government will give attention to this point—and an undertaking was given in another place that, if necessary, some Amendment to this Bill relating to the Post Office Savings system might be brought about.

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There are two other small points to which I would refer. The noble Earl said that it will be an advantage to pay workers who are away sick by order, rather than by pay packet. Here again, the practice in many large firms is to send the pay packet by registered post, and it may prove to be just as convenient. After all, in many cases they are not required to do so, because some of their workers are not covered by the Truck Acts. There is a reference in the Bill to the Wages Councils Act. I take it that this particular Bill makes no alteration to the Wages Councils Act, 1945 (which I think is now consolidated in the 1959 Act), with regard to the payment of wages of those workers who are not covered by the Truck Acts and are covered by Wages Council Orders. It will not be necessary, I take it, to get agreement in writing of those workers to the payment of their wages, as they may be paid now in some cases, either by cheque or into a bank account. I raise this matter because the Wages Council Orders are a little blurred in their interpretation at the margin. It may affect managers drawing quite high pay, who may come within the ambit of the Wages Councils Act, and one would hope that it would not be necessary to alter the present perfectly satisfactory arrangements. I should also like to know whether in Scotland, where this system is already working, it will now be necessary to get the written permission which hitherto has not been necessary. Although these are really Committee points, I do not expect we shall spend much time on this Bill in Committee, and it would be of interest if the noble Earl could comment on them.
It is clear that the purposes of this Bill and the intentions of the Government are of the highest, and there is no deliberate trick; that it is designed, on the whole, to suit people's convenience; and that there will be no compulsion. I hope that in the instructions the Minister may issue steps will be taken to prevent any improper pressure of a kind that might be made by the occasional employer on the worker to receive his wages by cheque in preference to cash, if he prefers them in cash.
The other point that I think I should mention before sitting down is that this Bill again makes a contribution perhaps
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to abolishing the wholly unjustified, what one might call class distinction between the white-collar worker and the manual worker. I should be interested to hear if the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, with his tremendous experience of business administration, can find something better to say about the Bill than I have already said. With these rather lukewarm remarks, I none the less welcome the Bill, and I am sure that my noble friends on this side of the House will facilitate its passage into law.
4.30 p.m.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: My Lords, first I had better declare an interest, in that I am connected with a concern which is a large employer of labour in the country, and is one which has made an experiment on a provisional basis of this payment through the bank over the last two years. I would agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said: that this Bill will not have any great immediate effect. It will legalise certain things which have been going on already, and I think it will have a long-term effect. It has always seemed to me illogical that a large proportion of the working population of the country should be deprived of the facilities which many of us enjoy by being paid through a bank. When one gets used to being paid through a bank, one realises the great advantages of it and the many facilities which the banks provide.
I should like to disagree with the noble Lord in his statement that there was no evidence of any wish from the workers for this system to be tried, because in fact the experiment which was conducted in a place of which I know was done at the suggestion of the works council, which is an elected representation of the employees in that works. It was done, of course, on a voluntary basis. It started in a small way, and now about 2,000 people, about one-quarter of the people in that works, are paid through the bank. Very few have withdrawn from it, although they could easily do so if they wished. I understand that those few who have withdrawn have done so because there was no bank within their immediate neighbourhood.
From the point of view of the employer, it does not seem to me that there are any great financial advantages in

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making payment through the bank: and the main advantage, from the employer's point of view, is the fact that he does not have to move large quantities of cash about the country. I am sure that the police would welcome that. From the point of view of the work which is saved, the work of actually putting pay into pay packets has been highly systemized and does not amount to much. It is largely offset by the inconvenience of having to have two systems—one for those men who are being paid in the orthodox way and one for those who are being paid through the bank. There is also the problem created by the fact that the pay roll has to be prepared earlier, because one has to allow the banking organisation to take its course, so that the money is in the man's bank account when pay day comes. The acceleration of the pay roll by a day is something that may be difficult with existing machinery.
I should like to emphasise, too, what the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, said: that this is primarily a payment-through-the-bank Bill. I cannot conceive of any purpose in having payment by cheque. There may be a particular purpose in particular conditions, but in the main I see no advantage in it. It is inconvenient for the man receiving the money, as has already been said; it is inconvenient for the traders who may have cheques presented to them for cashing, and it is also inconvenient for the employer, because, without going into detail, it costs him quite a bit more to prepare cheques than to use the system of payment through the bank. I would appeal, too, to the banks to look at the long-term view of payment through the bank. I am afraid that some of them may look at the immediate prospect and see a great number of what they may think are unremunerative clients. But I believe that in the long run people will get used to being paid through the bank; they will realise the services which the bank can provide and the great conveniences it can mean.
The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, also made reference to the Post Office Savings Bank. I think that point has to be looked at in relation to this scheme, and I would also include the Trustee Savings Banks. I suggest that the whole position
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of those banks should be looked at in relation to present-clay needs. The Truck Acts were originally introduced to prevent exploitation of the worker by unscrupulous employers. The Truck Acts have become largely obsolete, and in parts they form a fossilised incubus of progress. They have done in this particular respect and also, I think, in some other respects. Let us make sure that in this Bill we are now discussing we do not do something of the same sort.
I was glad to hear something which had escaped me when I read the Bill, which is that the Schedule attached to it can be varied at the instigation of the Minister. As it stands at present, it appears that there are one or two snags attached to it. For instance, a common system which is allowed in general in the Schedule is for standard deductions to be shown to each worker on a card issued to him annually, only variable deductions being shown weekly. Such a system is quite common and, at any rate, to my knowledge in one place the works council have asked for it to be adopted, as against the presentation of the separate figures each week. It is also a common practice in industry for employees to have regular deductions made of, say, £1 a week for payment into their savings bank account. It seems to me that that is a desirable practice, and one that should continue. But under the Schedule as it is at present—at least, as it is interpreted to me, because with my inexperience I have difficulty in understanding some of these things—I am informed that if a regular deduction is made for a deposit in a savings bank it is necessary to show that figure each week to the man on his pay slip or whatever is given to him. If that is so, it seems to me that it merely involves endless repetition which the man probably does not want, and may in fact be difficult to provide in an existing mechanised system. I hope the Minister will look at that point before the Bill actually comes into operation.
To sum up, my Lords, I welcome this Bill. I do not think that it will have any startling effects immediately, but I believe that in the long run it will have great effects, both on industry and, in particular, on the welfare of the people working in it.
4.38 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, for his most well-informed and valuable speech, with all of which I am in full agreement. I will certainly inquire further into the detailed suggestions which he has made, some of which I think he may find are covered by the Bill already. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, asked a few questions. He wanted to know why the Wages Council Act has been brought into this Bill. It is mentioned at page 7, Clause 6 (4). The only reason for that is exactly the same reason as that for which the Truck Acts are mentioned. I have not got the Wages Council Act with me, but it does somewhere identify remuneration with cash, and the provision here is simply to make sure that anyone who is subject to the Wages Council Act and who may want to avail himself of the facilities provided in Clause 1 of this Bill shall not be prevented from doing so by the wording of the Wages Council Act.
With regard to Post Office and Trustee Savings Banks, which the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, also asked about, in the interpretation clause (Clause 7) it is made clear that Trustee Savings Banks are included in the definition of the word "bank", and that the provision of Clause 1 (3) authorising payment into an account at a bank, et cetera, therefore can apply to Trustee Savings Banks. With regard to the Post Office Savings Bank, inquiries were of course made to see whether it was possible to include it, but the Post Office Savings Bank did not feel it could undertake this kind of business. They do, of course, cash money orders and postal orders at post offices but they do not feel they could undertake the banking business envisaged in Clause 1 (3) (a).
With regard to Scotland, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, asked me whether there was any practical difference in Scotland. I only mentioned the legal difference as a matter of interest under the Truck Act of 1831 as it would apply to modern conditions, but in practice the difference is non-existent. Wages in Scotland are paid exactly as in England; normally they are paid in cash; and I do not know that there are any examples of wages being paid by cheque to people who go and cash them less than fifteen miles away. The position in practice is the same, because that
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particular part of the Truck Act has one of those provisions in it which are really now out of date. I do not know whether the noble Lord meant to give that impression, but it seemed to me from his speech that he thought the main purpose of the Bill was to authorise payment by cheque. Of course it is not. That is only a very minor provision which is brought in incidentally. As I took the trouble to explain in my opening remarks—and the noble Earl, Lord Courtown also said the same thing—it is very unlikely that a great number will want to be paid by cheque, because if they have got to cash the cheque it is far better they should be paid in cash. We do not contemplate much use will be made of this provision. Money orders and postal orders we think will be of much greater convenience than cheques, but the main purpose of the Bill is to enable wages to be paid into bank account.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, if the noble Earl will permit me to say so, I think he is doing me a slight injustice. I said that this was the main advantage of the Bill, and gave examples how it would then work.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I am very glad the noble Lord has said that, but he did spend some little time in talking about the comparative uselessness of paying wages by cheque, which I think I had already done myself. The noble Lord rightly said that there had been no great demand for this on the part of wage-earners. I hardly think it is the kind of thing on which you would expect any great demand; to get paid your wages by an order to put it into your bank account, instead of being paid in notes, is not the kind of thing which impels people to send deputations to London or organise marches or anything of that kind; it is not the kind of thing you would expect agitation about. But the trade unions have agreed to it. Their representatives on the National Joint Advisory Council have co-operated in preparing this Bill, and the fact that there has been no strong or universal demand for this to be done does not mean it may not be a great convenience.
I am told in the United States of America the proportion of workers comparable to those under the Truck Acts here who prefer to have their wages paid

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by a credit to a bank account and not in cash is about 40 per cent. That is quite a high proportion. Of course, the general level of wages in America is a bit higher than here and it is reasonable to assume the higher wages you earn the more convenient it will be to have them paid in credit and not cash. But some wage earners here are now earning pretty high wages compared with what used to be the case not many years ago, and I do not think it is only in the remote future, but, I think we may expect, in the imme-
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diate future, that a considerable number of them will benefit by the convenience provided under this Bill. I am grateful to both noble Lords who have spoken for the support which they have given to the Bill and I thank them for the speeches which they have made about it.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at thirteen minutes before five o'clock.