Lords Sitting of 13 December 1960

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

PARKING SITES OVER RAILWAYS
2.35 p.m.
LORD BOSSOM: 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 there is great difficulty in obtaining suitable sites at ground level for large garages, there is any reason why, as there are no structural difficulties, the land now occupied by the nationalised railway controlled marshalling yards, and also some of the areas now occupied by railway tracks at the approach to many of the larger stations in the cities, should not be covered with one or two or more parking platforms—an arrangement which has been most satisfactorily adopted in some countries.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, there is certainly a need in most towns for more off-street parking space. The provision of parking facilities is a matter for local authorities and private enterprise; and the British Transport Commission are prepared, where railway operations permit, to discuss the leasing of sites. If, therefore, they can make mutually satisfactory arrangements to increase such facilities in the way suggested, my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport would welcome it.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for his promise that if and when a proposition is put up to him he will see it is carried forward, as far as his position enables him so to do, may I ask whether he is aware that this arrangement has been carried out in Chicago where they have steam trains and in New York where they have electric
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trains, and probably in a dozen other places, and we cannot find the land available anywhere to carry it out by any other means?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, might I ask the noble Lord, before he replies to the noble Lord's supplementary question, whether this could not well be one of the questions to which Her Majesty's Government are addressing their attention in the proposals for the reorganisation of the British Transport Commission and its operations in the near future?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, may I take Lord Lucas of Chilworth's supplementary question first? I should not have thought that this particular aspect was entirely appropriate for that discussion, but it is certainly among other aspects that might well he considered, as he says, in the forthcoming considerations.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Would the noble Lord accept it from me that one of the deterrents to rail travel in the country as a whole is because one cannot find room to park one's motor car at some of the main line stations?
LORD CHESHAM: I think the noble Lord is becoming a little confused between station car parks and the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Bossom, for utilising railway space (if we may call it that) in other places by building car parks over it for the benefit of the public at large, and not necessarily in any way connected with the operation of the railways. I think that is so. My noble friend has already kindly drawn to my attention the benefits to be obtained by this scheme and, as I have said, should there be any good schemes put forward, the British Transport Commission would be ready to consider them.
LORD BOSSOM: I thank the noble Lord very much.

FAMILY PLANNING ASSOCIATION POSTER
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in rising to ask this Question, I should like to explain that it was originally put down in the name of Lord Jessel, who, unfortunately, is indisposed and has asked me to put it.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the action of the British Transport Commission in ordering the removal of a perfectly harmless Family Planning Association advertisement and, if so, whether such action has their approval.]
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I am told that the poster in question was withdrawn by the British Transport Commission because it was controversial on religious grounds. The responsibility for such decisions rests with the Commission, and Her Majesty's Government do not seek to influence or express any opinion on them.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, is it not remarkable that this advertisement, which had no controversial or objectionable matter in it, which had been fully accepted by the Board four or five months ago, and which was issued by a very responsible organisation, should now be removed, bearing in mind that dubious advertisements are still being shown on the railways in London? Does the noble Lord not remember that a similar attempt was made in this House to prevent the Family Planning Association from appealing for funds on the B.B.C., and on that occasion the Board of the B.B.C. stood firm? Is it not against all tolerance that this should happen, and is it not more an arrogant attack on liberty?
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I should like to put some supplementaries.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I think the noble Lord should be allowed to answer one set of supplementaries before another is put to him.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I do not believe this is an arrogant attack on liberty at all. So far as I am aware no one has suggested—at least, I have not been told so—that this poster was in any way offensive in itself. Indeed, I have seen a copy of it and I have one here. The poster itself is not exceptionable, but I am informed by the British Transport Commission that they have received letters objecting to the poster on religious grounds. I think I should remind the
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noble Lord of Rule l8 of the Commission's regulations regarding advertisements which they cannot accept. Rule 18 deals with posters
"which refer to religious or sacred subjects in a manner which might give offence or contain matter or illustrations likely to he construed as religiously controversial".
Evidently this poster was so considered, and the British Transport Commission, it appears, saw fit to withdraw it on those grounds.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, as I said, I should like to put some supplementary questions to the noble Lord. As there are several of them, I propose to divide them into two sections in order that he may be more easily able to remember them. Before doing so, perhaps I ought to admit to an interest of sorts in this problem, as I have the honour to be a Vice-President of the Family Planning Association. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether any reasonable man, looking at that advertisement, could possibly say that there was anything objectionable in it. It is said that it is the Roman Church which is conducting this vendetta against the Family Planning Association. I would ask the noble Lord whether the Government have any information which supports that view, which is so commonly held, and whether he is aware that this is at the present time causing intense anger among a large number of citizens, many of whom have had most valuable help from the Family Planning Association in regard to their family problems. I would also ask the noble Lord whether the Government do not think that at this time, when the most reverend Primate the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury has been conducting a goodwill mission, so to speak, to Rome and the Pope, it is most unfortunate that this sort of matter should be raised in this way. II want to ask some more questions, but those are the first.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I really think that the questions which the noble Lord has asked are not matters upon which I can comment. They are matters upon which, as I said in my answer, the Government do not seek to influence or express any opinion; they are decisions which are the responsibility of the British Transport Commission. And I really cannot go any further than that.
LORD CHORLEY: Would the noble Lord say whether the information of the Government is that it is the Roman Church which is conducting this vendetta? We know that it was so in connection with the British Medical Association handbook that was censored. Quite apart from this vendetta, do not the Government feel that pressure brought by minorities, whether the Roman Church or any other minority, on public institutions like the Transport Commission is very dangerous in the public interest? Do not the Government think that the law ought to be tightened up in order to prevent it? Over recent years we have been passing Acts of Parliament to prevent restrictive practices on the part of industrial concerns.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, this is introductory to the question, whether the Government do not think that something of the same sort should be put on the Statute Book to prevent this pressure from being brought to bear, which I suggest is, in its own way, just as dangerous as industrial pressure.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, there is no question, however controversial, which cannot be discussed in Parliament, but I do not think it is fair that my noble friend should be pressed to answer questions on this matter which do not arise quite out of the original matter, when he has already disclaimed Government responsibility. If the noble Lord wants to pursue questions of this sort, it is open to him to put down a substantive Motion and then time can be allowed for it, if the House desires it.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, it is all very well to ride away behind this immunity of public Corporations to have their decisions questioned in your Lordships' House, but it is obvious—and I am sure that the noble Viscount will agree—that very soon we shall have to have an actual Resolution debated in the House on this matter, because it goes from Corporation to Corporation now on the very matter which is being discussed. In the last few weeks some of us Protestants have been denied access to make a statement of our case on public broadcasting, and if that sort of thing continues the Government must surely expect to get a great deal of trouble.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I do not know that the Government need have any trouble at all. If the noble Viscount desires to put a Resolution down on the Order Paper, it is within his power to do so; and I am sure that if the House wishes to discuss it, it will. But I feel also that the House will support the Government in not desiring to introduce the Government into matters for which the will of Parliament, not the Government, is responsible.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I put a final question to the Minister concerned? May I have confirmation that the poster displayed conformed in all possible respects with the rules and regulations laid down by London Transport?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I am not sure that I understand the full import of the noble Lord's question. I seem to have got myself into slightly deep water in this matter, through endeavouring to be helpful and to give the noble Lord all the facts I have available in order to help him with his question. I have told him what I have been informed was the reason for withdrawing the poster, which is the question that he asked. That is the reason and, so far as I am aware, there is no other one.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I think that this is a matter which will have to be raised outside Question Time.

ACCOMMODATION AT THE LAW COURTS
2.48 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: 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 if they will consider building an extension to the Law Courts in the Strand upon the bombed site adjacent to the Divorce Courts, and so improve the accommodation available to Her Majesty's Judges.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, this proposition is very much in my mind and I fully realise the need to improve and increase the existing court accommodation. Indeed, outline plans already exist for extending the Law Courts in this way.

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But these plans were made some time ago and would not now meet all the requirements. I am in consultation with my right honourable friend the Minister of Works on the matter, which raises difficult questions, architectural and financial, and which may well decide the future of the Royal Courts of Justice for the next fifty years.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, may I thank the noble and learned Viscount for his very helpful answer? I am sure that he will absolve me from any desire to be impertinent in pointing out to him that, if his hopes can be realised, it will fulfil at least one of the basic principles of British justice: that justice should not only be done but also be seen to be done. The present accommodation in the Courts of Justice in the Strand really prohibits the public from seeing it, for if they find their way to the top attics, which are supposed to be courts of justice, when they get there often they are denied admittance because of the physical impossibility of getting them into these small rooms. I am sure that what the noble and learned Viscount has said will be received with great satisfaction as one step forward.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, may I ask the noble and learned Viscount whether he will have a look at the question of utilising the vast central hall in the Law Courts? So far as I am aware, it has always been considered an architectural white elephant, and I do not think it has been filled since Queen Victoria opened the Law Courts. Is it possible that some use could be made of this valuable space?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I have considered the matter, and I have it very much in mind. There is only one minor correction of fact that I would make. When a much less important person opens the Law Courts at the beginning of each year that hall is always full. That is not really relevant to the noble Lord's point, but I thought I would mention it.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, does not the noble and learned Viscount feel that it is rather a scandal that nearly 20 years after this destruction was done by the enemy this ground should still be in the condition it is?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I dealt with this matter in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, who raised it earlier. I said that the position which one can secure in the queue for building and expenditure is a difficult matter. I am not going into details, but I think everyone has felt that to get the priorities right in regard to houses, schools, factories, hospitals, technological institutions, universities and many other projects is a very difficult matter indeed. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Chorlery, that I do my best to get a reasonable position in the queue, and I shall go on trying.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, perhaps I may be allowed to ask this quite simple question. If the Lord Chancellor's worst fears are realised, would he consider it proper that the vacant site should be disposed of for development and sold for the benefit of the taxpayer?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, at the moment my fears are not as bad as all that, and I hope they will not be. If they really descend to these terrible depths I will communicate with the noble Lord.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, does the noble and learned Viscount think that if a Resolution of this House were passed to the effect that it is felt, not only here but in the legal profession as a whole, that the situation is in fact scandalous it would help him to get the priority to which he has referred?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am not a great believer in the use of adjectives.

CONFERENCE ON CENTRAL AFRICA
2.54 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government a Question of which I have given them Private Notice: Whether the Government will make a statement on the withdrawal of the African delegates from the Federal Review Conference at Lancaster House yesterday, and on the postponement of the Central African Territorial Conference?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, as I believe the noble Viscount knows, there is to be a parallel Question in another place in similar terms, and I am hoping that my noble friend the Duke of Devonshire will be available to answer the noble Viscount's Question a little later in the Sitting, if that is convenient to your Lordships.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, we have made good progress on the Weights and Measures Bill, but in view of the fact that we now have on the Marshalled List more Amendments than when we started the Committee stage (I do not lay the blame for that on any one section of the House, because the Amendments have come from all sides) I am afraid that it will be necessary to continue the Committee stage of this Bill to-day and on Thursday and again on Monday and Tuesday of next week; and it may be necessary to sit late on Tuesday.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Earl (I cannot use his long title), the Chief Whip, for this information. We will gladly serve on Monday to provide extra time for the consideration of this important Bill. But I think the Government will agree that in the way in which the matter has panned out the House has not been backward in giving strict and disciplined attention to the matters so far dealt with in what is a very technical Bill. If the Amendments keep on coming in—and not only from this side, but from all noble Lords Who are really interested in the Bill—we cannot guarantee that we shall get it through before Christmas. We will do our best, given time, but I should like the Leader of the House, who is a very experienced Parliamentarian, to consider this fact. In another place in Standing Committees they usually spend two hours in the morning, and they may adjourn and spend another three hours in the afternoon on special occasions when dealing in Committee with a Bill. Here, noble Lords, who have little of the assistance offered in another place, have to sit in full session for very long hours, and in the case of this side of the House with not too many of us to share the burden; and to sit for long hours a day on a
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technical Bill of this kind is a great strain. I hope that, when thinking of the arrangements for Business, the Government will bear this in mind. In the meantime, as I say, we shall be glad to meet on Monday, and we will do all we can to expedite the Bill, so long as we can deal with each of the Amendments.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAIM: My Lords, I am sure the Government are grateful to the noble Viscount for the help he has given and for what he has said, and we will certainly bear those considerations in mind.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, I think it will be for the convenience of the House if I ask your Lordships to approve the Sunday Entertainments Act Orders en bloc. I beg to move that these Orders be approved.
Moved, That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Borough of Todmorden, be approved;
That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Borough of Wrexham, be approved;
That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Urban District of Penistone, be approved.—(Earl Bathurst.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CUTLERY AND STAINLESS STEEL FLATWARE INDUSTRY (SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH LEVY) ORDER, 1960
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, this is an Order under the Industrial Improvements and Development Act, 1947, which enables a levy to be imposed on people engaged in an industry for certain purposes, including scientific research. The levy imposed on the cutlery and stainless steel industry in this Order is calculated to raise about

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£10,000 and this, together with an appropriate grant from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, will be spent on scientific research with the purpose of improving the competitive power of the industry in its export trade. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Cutlery and Stainless Steel Flatware Industry (Scientific Research Levy) Order, 1960, be approved.—(The Earl of Dundee.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

TRUSTEE INVESTMENTS BILL [H.L.]
2.59 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be again in Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Dundee.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
(The Lord MERTHYR in the Chair]
Clause 2 [Restrictions on wider-range investment]:
On Question, Whether Clause 2, as amended, shall be agreed to?
LORD CONESFORD: I should be grateful if one of my noble friends in charge of the Bill would enlighten us a little further on one point in Clause 2 of the Bill. This clause lays down that advantage is not to be taken of the Bill unless the trust fund—and then I quote the words in subsection (1):
"has been divided into two parts ".
This division is of great importance throughout the rest of the Bill, and I want to be a little clearer about what is meant by the division. Is the division a physical division or is it purely notional? If, as I assume from the absence of any subsequent provisions in the Bill, it is a notional division—that is to say, something that exists in the minds of the trustees—I wish to know whether the fact of the division and the particulars have to be recorded, and, if so, when they have to be recorded, and whether the information has to be given to anybody. I think the Committee would desire that we should be a little
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clearer on what is meant by this division.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The division has to be recorded in the annual accounts of the trust. In these accounts it has to be shown which securities are in the narrower-range half and which in the wider-range half of the trust. All the beneficiaries of the trust are entitled to see the annual accounts, so that they will be aware of the position and will have an opportunity of examining which securities are in which half. Once this division has been made it is, as my noble friend is aware, a permanent division, except as provided for by the Bill.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 [Relationship between Act and other powers of investment]:
LORD CONESFORD: In this Amendment I am moving to omit subsections (4), (5) and (6) of this clause because I do not know what they mean, and I find that my inability to understand them is very widely shared. The Committee will, I hope, agree that the provisions of a Trustee Act ought to be comprehensible to trustees. I am moving to leave out these three subsections in order to encourage my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor to do two things: first, to tell us what each of these subsections means; and, secondly, to show us that each is necessary and wise. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 22, leave out subsections (4), (5) and (6).— (Lord Conesford.)
LORD HAWKE: I think it would be convenient at this stage if I put forward a few propositions, of which I have given my noble and learned friend notice, and which, if he can confirm them, will stand on the record as showing what the Bill does in relation to several basic forms of trust, because these are things that are worrying trustees up and down the country. First of all, I understand that a trust with adequate existing powers need take no notice of the Bill at all. Secondly, a trust with inadequate powers and with no existing investments allowed under the Bill divides into 50 per cent. narrower-range investments and 50 per cent. wider-range investments. It can

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invest more than 50 per cent. in the narrower range, but not more than 50 per cent. in the wider range. Thirdly, there is the trust with no power to hold equities but power to retain investments which are not authorised under the Bill—for instance, land, shares in a private company, foreign bonds or foreign shares. The trustees of such a fund can carry on under their existing powers, but if they wish to invest in equities they must divide the fund. Their unauthorised investments will be put in the wider half, and sufficient funds must be raised and invested in narrower-range securities to provide a matching narrower-range half. After that, if they wish to buy equities, they will have to receive from the wider-range half enough to pay for those equities plus an equal amount of narrower-range securities to match those equities.
Fourthly, there is the trust which has power to retain or invest in unauthorised securities—lands, et cetera—but which has divided its funds and has taken advantage of the Bill in order to buy some equities. If this trust receives a gift or legacy of unauthorised securities which the trustees wish to retain, they must put the gift or legacy into the wider-range part of their fund and must receive sufficient cash from the wider-range part to buy an equivalent in narrower-range securities to put into the narrower-range part. In practice this means 50 per cent. of the value of the gift. Finally, if those same trustees want to invest in an unauthorised security under these special powers, the same procedure will have to be adopted. If my noble and learned friend can confirm that that reading of this clause is correct, and it gets on to the official Record, it will do quite a lot to clear up the doubts of some of the trustees up and down the land who are bombarding the would-be experts with questions which at the moment they cannot answer.
LORD SALTOUN: There is a question in my mind, but perhaps I have not quite understood my noble friend correctly. I should like to know whether it is the case that, if the trustees of a trust which is empowered to hold land wish to buy some equities under this Bill, they have to bring in their holding of land and real property as part of the wider-range
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investments before they buy the equities. That seems to me an extraordinary position.
LORD SPENS: That is the point which I took on the Second Reading: what happens where a trust under the existing powers of the Settled Land Acts or otherwise has land and has an invested fund? I suggested on Second Reading that the trustees were entitled to take into account the value of the land in order to try to get at a "fifty-fifty" division so as to take advantage of the power in the Bill to invest in equities, if they have not already got it. Of course, many of the old strict trusts in this country have not got investment powers.
On Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Dundee said that he thought land did not come into the trust at all. Since then I have had the advantage of making inquiries and considering the matter, and I have been informed that in fact where land is held on exactly the same trust as a number of investments, then it is one trust, except in so far as under Clause 4 part of the land is used as a dwelling-house, which has to be kept as a separate trust. Otherwise, the land can be valued and the trustees, if they want to take advantage of the powers in the Bill, can in fact take it into account in deciding how much of the invested funds they can put into equities. I hope that that is the position. Certainly I think that a great number of trustees whose trusts have land want to know how they stand.
3.8 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I shall be pleased to do my best to deal with the three points that have been raised by my noble friends. May I first deal with the general point raised by my noble and learned friend Lord Conesford? The three subsections which the Amendment would delete are a necessary part of the clause which is concerned with the relationship between the powers conferred by the Bill and those conferred by the trust instrument. The aim is to secure that a trustee may, first, use exclusively the powers conferred upon him by his trust instrument; secondly, use exclusively the powers conferred on him by the Bill; and, thirdly, use jointly the powers conferred by the trust instrument and those conferred by the Bill, but with the proviso that the two sets of powers should not be cumulative.

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The proviso which I have just mentioned is important. Without it, many trustees would get powers greatly in excess of those intended by the testator or by the other authority which made or amended the trust instrument. For example, a trustee might quite recently have obtained authority from the courts to invest, say, 60 per cent. of the trust fund in equities and the balance in securities comprised in the present trustee list. In other words, the courts would have taken a positive decision that the right proportion of equity investment for the fund in question was 60 per cent. Without the proviso which I have just mentioned, the trustee would be able, after the passage of the Bill, to invest the whole of his fund in equities. That is to say, he would first be able to make use of the powers contained in his trust instrument to invest 60 per cent. in equities, and as the balance of his fund was less than 50 per cent., he would be able, under the provisions of the Bill, to put the whole of it into equities. That would be wrong anti that is why the proviso has to exist. Subsections (4), (5) and (6) of Clause 3 are no more than machinery to implement that proviso; they prescribe rules which a trustee must observe if he makes use of both the powers conferred by his instrument and those conferred by the Bill. The observance of these rules will prevent the cumulative effect and will thus ensure that the intentions of a testator or of the courts are not frustrated.
If your Lordships will bear with me (because I want to try to make this clear) I should like to explain the matter a little more. As your Lordships are aware, many trustees who may wish to make use of the wider powers granted by the Bill may already have investment powers going beyond the existing trustee list, and this clause lays down how such other powers (referred to as "special powers") fit in with the Bill's powers. To take an example, the special power may be a power to postpone, at the discretion of the trustees, the conversion into authorised trustee investments of securities in the hands of the trustees at the time of the creation of the trust; or it may be a specific power to invest in the securities, perhaps the shares, of named companies or a class of companies; or again, as is common, it may include a power
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to invest in land. Such powers may have been granted in the original instrument or, as I said, they may have been granted by the courts or by Parliament as the result of a bid by the trustee for freedom from the trustee list.
The Bill, therefore, offers the trustee the following choice. First, he may at any time rely solely on his special powers. In that case, if the fund has been divided under Clause 2 (1) the restriction imposed by Clause 2 (2) on the type of investment which may be bought with property held in the narrower-range part of the fund is lifted. Secondly, he may at any time use the bowers conferred by the Bill. Thirdly, if he uses the powers under the Bill to buy or retain wider-range investments then any investment, other than narrower-range investments, bought or held under a special power must be held only in the wider-range part of the fund in other words, Clause 2 (2) becomes effective again.
If my noble friend would be kind enough to follow me through the clause I should be grateful. Subsection (1) explains that the powers granted by the Bill are additional to, and do not derogate from, existing special powers. Subsection (2) allows special powers to be used to invest or retain narrower-range property in investments other than narrower-range investments; that is, contrary to the general rule in Clause 2 (2) that the narrower-range part may be used only for narrower-range investment. So much for the provisions of the first of my three propositions which I put a moment ago.
Subsection (3) provides that where a special power was granted, before the passing of this Bill, to invest in trustee investments, such power shall have effect only subject to the same limitations as a power granted under the Bill. This is to make clear that a special power, for example, to invest in "investments for the time being authorised by law for trustees", which by the passing of the Act will authorise the investments in the First Schedule, may authorise such investment subject to the limitations contained in the Bill, and not without regard to them. I think that is clear.
The remaining three subsections are simply machinery to enforce my third

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proposition. May I remind your Lordships that my third proposition was that if the trustee uses the powers under the Bill to buy or retain wider-range investments, then any investment other than narrower-range investments bought or held under a special power must be held only in the wider-range part of the fund; in other words, Clause 2 (2) of the Bill becomes effective again. It shall have effect, as I said, only according to the Bill. Subsection (4) requires that if the special powers are used to invest or retain narrower-range part property in investments other than narrower range (as permitted by subsection (2)), the property so invested must forthwith be transferred to the wider-range part. This is no more than machinery to earmark an amount of property which has contrary to the general rule in Clause 2 (2), been invested in investments other than narrower range. I hope that is clear: that if you use the special powers to invest or retain narrower-range part property in investments other than narrower range, then you must earmark them. That is the effect of subsection (4).
Subsection (5) causes the same thing to happen to similar property accruing to the fund which the trustee is entitled to retain under a special power. Subsection (6) lays down what must happen when either of the foregoing subsections has effect and the powers under the Bill are used to invest in or retain wider-range investments. I will take a case. When subsection (4) has had effect (for example, the special powers were used to invest narrower-range property in investments other than narrower range), subsection (6) requires that before the powers under the Bill are used to buy wider-range investments, property shall be transferred from the wider-range part to the narrower-range part equal in value to the property which was transferred to the wider-range part when subsection (4) had effect. In other words, the value of the earmarked property must be returned to the narrower-range part. There may, of course, have been a gap in time between the effect of subsection (4) and subsection (6).
When subsection (5) has had effect, a similar transfer of property must occur before the powers in the Bill may be
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used to buy or retain wider-range investments, except that in order to achieve the right allocation of property to each part on accrual—perhaps the noble Lord will look at Clause 2 (3) (b)—property equal to only half the value of the earmarked property, at the time of accrual, is transferred to the narrower-range part. I should be very doubtful about giving an example, because it is so difficult to make an example clear by word of mouth, but if I may take a simple one I hope it may help my noble friends. Take the example of a trust deed which permits the trustee to retain such shares in the family business as he has in his hands at the death of the testator—that is, a special power under subsection (1) of this clause—and otherwise to invest the trust property in trustee investments.
I will assume, for the sake of my example, that the trust property consists of £6,000 worth of shares in the family business and £4,000 of gilt-edged stock. Having that £6,000 in the family business and £4,000 in gilt-edged, the trustee decides to make some wider-range investment for reasons that seem good to him under his Bill powers. He first divides the fund into two—that is under Clause 2 (1). Then subsection (4) (a) of this clause insists that if any of the family shares are allocated to the narrower-range part, they must forthwith be 'transferred to the wider-range part. That is the first step, so that his division would be divided "fifty-fifty ", and consist of £4,000 gilt-edged and £1,000 family shares on the narrower side and £5,000 worth of family shares on the wider side. The next stage, of course, is that he would have to place the 1,000 family shares in the wider range, so that he would then be faced with the position that in the narrower range are £4,000 gilt-edged, and in the wider range are £5,000 family shares, and the other £1,000, making £6,000 of family shares in all.
Before the trustee can buy the wider-range equities which he wants, on my hypothesis under the Bill, he must first transfer back from the wider-range to the narrower-range property equal in value to the property previously transferred—that is under subsection (6) of the clause. In this case, therefore, there being no lapse of time between the operation I have just mentioned and this transfer, he switches back the same

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block of family shares, still worth £1,000; but Clause 2 (2) will then require him, as he is going under the Bill, to re-invest this £1,000 worth of property in narrower-range investments because it has come to the narrower-range side. The penultimate position is that he will have £5,000 worth of gilt-edged and £5,000 worth of family shares; and, then ultimately he must sell some more of the family shares in order to buy the wider-range equities that he wants.
I have tried to give a simple example, and I hope that shows how it works. I should like to tell my noble friend Lord Conesford that in the preliminary stages of devising this Bill, a process with which he is very well familiar from his ministerial experience, we went through a great number of other choices to the one that we have taken. I am not going through them again to-day, but I should like him to know that we tried, and we found grave objections to the other methods of dealing with it. I am most willing to explain them if anyone is interested, but I do not think I need at the moment.
Now I come to the "examination paper" which my noble friend Lord Hawke has been good enough to set me. Contrary to other examination papers of which I have the most disastrous memories, he set me the questions in advance, so that I have been able to do a little more research. I should like to deal with them. As to the first and second, I have no qualification to make, to the best of my ability, to what my noble friend Lord Hawke said. In the third question, in the last sentence which he read, he said that after that, if they wished to buy equities, they would have to receive from the wider half enough to pay for those equities plus an equal amount of narrower-range securities to match the equities. I have tried to explain that, but it seemed to me that there was a suggestion in that sentence that trustees can realise narrower-range securities to buy equities. This, if it is intended, is wrong. Once there has been a division, narrower-range property cannot be invested in wider-range investments. There is one exception. Under the Government's Amendment made yesterday to Clause 2—Amendment No. 4 on the Marshalled List—a gilt-edged security in the wider-
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range part is allowed to be exchanged for a gilt-edged security in the narrower-range part for the purpose of selling the latter in order to buy equities.
The only other matter—this is a small one—is that in example number 4 my noble friend Lord Hawke said that trustees must put the gift or legacy into the wider part of the fund and must receive sufficient cash from the wider part. I think the word "realise" instead of "receive" would be clearer, although I am not saying that "receive" is wrong.
LORD HAWKE: Yes.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think that deals with that point.
LORD HAWKE: Before my noble and learned friend leaves that point, may I say that I thank him very much for this, and that where he has queried my example number 3 it is because of my faulty draftsmanship. I fully intended that an amount of the wider-range should be sold sufficient not only to pay for the new equities but also to buy an equivalent of narrower-range investments; and I think my example is entirely on all fours with the one he gave my noble friend Lord Conesford.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think that point is clear now. I wanted to avoid misapprehension so far as I could. Now I come to the point which was troubling my noble friend Lord Saltoun, and was raised in greater detail by my noble and learned friend Lord Spens. Your Lordships will remember that in the Second Reading debate my noble and learned friend Lord Spens asked whether settled land can be a separate fund for the purpose of the Bill, or would count as a wider-range investment so as to limit the trustees' powers of investing in equities. As he indicated just now, the question is concerned with what is technically known as a strict settlement and typically land—for example, a family estate is settled on "A" for life with the remainder in tail; investments for maintaining the estate may be settled with him and, on the sale of any of the settled land, the proceeds of sale, technically referred to as capital moneys arising under the settlement, may be invested. This is what may loosely be described as one settlement, or contain both settled land and

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investments, and the question is whether the two form one fund or two.
In the normal case the question does not arise, for under the Settled Land Act, the settled land would be vested in the tenant for life and not in the trustees, while it is the trustees who will hold the capital moneys. But if the tenant for life is an infant, the land will be vested in the trustees of the settlement until he reaches his majority. But this will not prevent the settled land and investments from being separate funds, for under Clause 3 (2) of the Bill there must be separate funds unless the purposes and powers are identical. I believe my noble and learned friend will agree that this is not so, for while the trustees have the powers of a tenant for life over the settled land, they have (under the Settled Land Act, or the terms of the settlement) a different set of powers given for different purposes over the investments and capital moneys.
LORD CONESFORD: I believe my noble and learned friend referred just now to Clause 3 (2) whereas no doubt he meant Clause 4 (2).
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am much obliged to my noble friend and I apologise. Subsections (3) and (5) of Clause 4 would in some cases make this settled land a separate fund, but only if all the estate were occupied by the beneficiary—which is unlikely in the case of a large agricultural or town estate. My noble and learned friend has also asked whether trustees should not be given power to invest in land, and I believe that that matter has been in the minds of many of your Lordships. Land may be a very good investment and it is not uncommon for trust instruments to contain power to invest in it; but there are often special problems and responsibilities which go with the holding of land, even for investment purposes, and, further, it is not readily marketable in all circumstances.
While therefore—and I hope your Lordships will follow the differentiation I am making—such an investment power may be perfectly suitable for a particular trust, I do not think the investment powers of trustees generally should be widened in this way, for the reasons I have given. There is only one point
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about which I am not sure I made myself clear. I do not know that I was absolutely right in what I said in my exchange with my noble friend Lord Hawke, for it is very difficult to be clear in an exchange of words; but I want to make clear that once the wider-range part has been set up it can be used for reinvestment in equities without any balancing purchase of gilt-edged. I believe my noble friend understood that.
LORD HAWKE: Yes—because there has been no fresh influx into it.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes. I hope that that is now clear. I apologise for taking up so much of your Lordships' time, but I have tried to give an exposition of the law as it is.
LORD SPENS: Is the position the same with land settled under a trust for sale? That is a very common modern form of settlement, compared with the old strict settlement. One gets land settled on trust for sale and investment with exactly the same beneficiaries and, I suspect, more or less the same powers. There would then be a trust in which it would be necessary to take in the value of the land to get the "fifty-fifty" position.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I should very much like to look into that again, and I will write to my noble friend. I ought to give the caveat that I have been very free with legal opinions this afternoon. I believe that I am right, but it is only to the best of my knowledge and belief for, despite your Lordships' helpful interpositions, I have not really had the case argued in front of me. I must make that qualification. But I have given my account of the law as it seems to me, and in the firm belief that it is right.
EARL WINTERTON: Before the noble and learned Viscount sits down may I ask him a question which I believe is pertinent? I understand that an association known as the British Insurance Association, which represents the interests of the insurance companies, who are very much concerned with trustee work, is in the main satisfied with These clauses and, indeed, agrees with everything that my noble and learned friend has said. Have there been consultations of which my noble and learned friend is aware?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I believe that that is so, and I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Winterton for what he has said. As he has raised the point of reinsurance of opinion, as well as dealing with insurance funds, I would say also that my noble and learned friend Lord Cohen, who unfortunately cannot be with us to-day, as he has another very important engagement, authorises me to say that he is in agreement with the views I put forward. My legal friends will know what a tower of strength that is to me.
LORD SALTOUN: As my noble and learned friend must know very well, in Scotland, as well as in England, many businesses are carried on by a company which is unlimited, and the trustees who 'have to administer such properties get special powers in their trust; and whether it is legal or not they do, in fact, hold these shares. Although they are valued for estate duty they have no market value, because one cannot sell a share in an unlimited company to a stranger. I should like to know whether I am right in taking it that such trusts would be absolutely precluded from making any use at all of this Bill when it becomes an Act, or whether there is any way in which they can do so in handling their affairs.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My noble friend Lord Saltoun has mentioned the words "special powers in the trust", and one would have to look at that and see what powers were given. I should not have thought it was beyond the wit of man to dispose of such shares according to the method which, in my experience, is usually laid down in the articles of the company. They can dispose of them only in a certain limited way, but usually there are provisions as to the valuation of shares in that way. I should like to look at that point again, however, because I cannot put myself forward as an authority on Scots law, much at it interests Mme and deeply as it runs in my blood; and therefore perhaps I might write to my noble friend when perhaps I can give him a better answer.
LORD SALTOUN: That occurs in England, too, of course; there are such companies here.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes, but I should like to cover the Scots position, too.
LORD CONESFORD: The Amendment that I put down to omit these three subsections has produced an admirably careful exposition from my noble and learned friend who has greatly enlightened the Committee. That was the aim of my Amendment. Those who are interested will certainly wish to study in the pages of Hansard what my noble and learned friend has said, because there may be Amendments which, at a subsequent stage, we may wish to move. Meanwhile, I thank my noble and learned friend very much for the exposition which he has given and ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: As my noble friend the Duke of Devonshire is now in a position to answer the Question put earlier by the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition, I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved, That the House do now resume.— (Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and House resumed accordingly.

CONFERENCE ON CENTRAL AFRICA
3.40 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMON WEALTH RELATIONS (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, as the noble Viscount the Leader of the House informed the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, at the beginning of the Sitting I should be, I am now in a position to give the noble Viscount an Answer to his Private Notice Question, which, with the permission of the House, I will give in the same terms as were used by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State in answer to a similar Question in another place:
"At the opening meeting of the Federal Review Conference on December 5, all delegates agreed that their proceedings would be confidential. I do not therefore propose to say anything about what took place at our meetings. However, honourable Members will have read in this morning's newspapers statements made outside the Conference by certain of

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the African delegates. From these statements it would appear that these delegates have decided not to attend any further meetings of the Conference.
"The Conferences to review the Constitutions of Southern Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia are of course closely inter-related with the Conference to review the Constitution of the Federation. It was therefore decided to postpone these territorial conferences, which were to have opened this morning, in order to provide an opportunity to clarify the position. The Federal Conference is, of course, continuing as planned and is at this moment in session."
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I am much obliged to the Minister for kindly giving us that reply. Is he aware that all Parties, I think, in the State will have seen with great regret what was reported in the Press this morning about this interruption, or partial interruption, of the Conference? It is not for us at this stage to make any comment whatsoever on that; I think it would be most unwise. On the other hand, I think it was quite reasonable to postpone the opening sessions of the proposed Conferences dealing with territorial questions relating to Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. But I am sure that the Government will not mind if we submit to them the anxiety we have and say that we should not like the very important possibilities of reforms in these two territories to be badly affected by the present situation. We hope that somehow a bridge may be found to pursue both desirable reforms.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Viscount for his helpful comment to my reply, and I can assure him that the territorial Conferences will open as soon as we are satisfied that there is a reasonable prospect of fruitful discussion.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Duke whether he and his colleagues in the Department will do everything they possibly can to get the Africans who walked out to come back in? May I ask him whether he is aware that it is the experience of many of us who have dealt with Africans that this
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does happen occasionally? When they come to what they consider to be a blank wall, they tend to walk out; and it may be possible for them to come back in if they are approached and if better counsels prevail.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, I am quite sure that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will take due note of what the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, has said. Naturally, Her Majesty's Government are as anxious as anyone that the Federal Conference should continue as fully representative as possible. And if, within reason, the Africans are prepared to return, they will be welcome at Lancaster House.
LORD REA: My Lords, may I underline what has been said, both on a Party line and on a non-Party line? This matter is viewed with the greatest concern not only in this country but elsewhere. Here is an opportunity of doing something. Might I ask the Government to give an assurance that they will (what I think is called) lean over backwards to see that the matter does not fall to the ground and that this great opportunity is not postponed for longer than necessary?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I am not sure if by leaning over backwards one stops from falling to the ground.
EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend the representative of the Commonwealth Relations Office, if I may put it without effusion, whether he is aware that the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition has most admirably expressed the views of all of us, I think, in this House who take an interest in African matters? And may I respectfully hope that we shall not pursue the matter further at this moment, because it will do only harm?

TRUSTEE INVESTMENTS BILL [H.L.]
3.45 p.m.
House again in Committee.
On Question, Whether Clause 3 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD HAWKE: We have had an excellent and most valuable debate on the meaning of Clause 3 and we now know what Clause 3 is intended to mean.

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But, bereft of the OFFICIAL REPORT, any trustee being presented with Clause 3 is liable to have very serious difficulty in discovering for himself what it means. In fact, as it stands I would suggest that Clause 3 is just a form of National Assistance for the Chancery Bar, with the proviso that the money, instead of coming out of the taxpayers' pockets, will come from trustees or trusts. I wonder whether Her Majesty's Government could have a look at the whole clause again to see whether in some respects it could be made a little easier to understand.
One point which is particularly baffling to the more simple-minded is the apparent contradiction between Clause 2 (2) and Clause 3 (2). We now see that there is no contradiction at all, because the noble and learned Viscount has given us an example of the arithmetic involved. But they were quite definitely arithmetical gymnastics, and I do not think that any trustee, reading the Bill, could possibly guess that that is what he is supposed to do. I hone that some attempt can be made, possibly by putting in another subsection somewhere, to make this clause clearer, particularly concerning the exercise of special powers and the way they react on ordinary powers.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I should like to say this to my noble friend. He has been most kind and most helpful in putting to me the points that he had in mind, and I have tried to deal with them. The point which makes for the difficulty in drafting is my point number three. It is easy if you rely on your special powers it is easy if you rely on Bill powers. But if you use the powers under the Bill for wider-range investments, then any other investment other than narrower-range investments bought or held under a special power must be held only in the wider-range part of the fund. My third proposition is one which it is very difficult to provide for the interaction, without going into the subsections which we have just been discussing. Of course we will have another look. It may well be that what has been said in this House will provide us with fresh inspiration. But I must say to my noble friend that, judging by the amount of work that has gone into the problem in the earlier stages, I cannot make any promises on this point. I hope that when he examines what I have said, and then re-reads the
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clause in the light of that, he may find that the difficulties are not so great as he first imagined. Of course, we never weary in welldoing, and we will try our best. But I feel that, when one has the problem, and one's approach to the solution of the problem, clearly in mind, the clause, in turn, becomes clear. However, as I say, I am quite willing to look at it again, but I do pose to my noble friend the problem which must be solved, and no clause that does not solve that problem really carries out what we want to do.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5:
Duty of trustees in choosing investments
5.—(1) In the exercise of his powers of investment a trustee shall have regard—
to the need for securing that investments of the trust are, so far as circumstances allow, sufficiently diversified as respects the descriptions of investment and, where diversification within a particular description would he prudent, as respects investments within that description;
(3) So long as a trustee retains any investment made in the exercise of such a power as aforesaid, he shall obtain and consider such advice as aforesad at such intervals as appear to him appropriate, and in any case at intervals of not more than five years.
3.51 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD LORD CONESFORD moved, in subsection (1), to add to paragraph (a):
"provided that, for the purposes of this paragraph, an investment in an Investment Trust Company or Unit Trust shall be deemed to he an investment in the underlying securities thereof ".
The noble Lord said: My Amendment is not prompted by any objection at all to the policy embodied in Clause 5, subsection (1). I do not question in any way the object of that clause, but I have some doubts whether the words at present in the clause, without some amendment on the lines of my Amendment, will achieve the object which the Government have in mind. Let me explain to the Committee and to my noble friends, very briefly, what my doubt is.
In my speech on the Second Reading I took the example of a very small trust. By the nature of things, it would be unable to have many investments: no competent adviser would advise the

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trustees to have many investments. In such a case, the best actual diversification (to use the expression in subsection (1) of Clause 5) would be achieved by having perhaps a couple of holdings in investment trusts. By that method, an actual diversification would be achieved which would be greater than any that would be obtainable by a number of shares in individual companies. I doubt, however, whether two investments in the same description of investment—that is to say, an investment trust—would in fact be a diversification at all within the meaning of paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of Clause 5. I therefore propose in the Amendment to add to paragraph (a):
"provided that, for the purposes of this paragraph, an investment in an Investment Trust Company or Unit Trust shall be deemed to be an investment in the underlying securities thereof ".
I think the object which I seek to secure by those words is quite clear. I do not think that that object conflicts with any object the Government have in mind, but they may take the view that my Amendment is unnecessary; that the matter is sufficiently provided for by the words as they stand. If they can give me any reason in support of the view that the words are satisfactory as they stand, and that the position of the small trust will be met—that is to say, that, in such a case as I have described, a trustee will be able to invest the whole fund in a couple of investment trusts—by the words as they stand, and that they therefore take the view that my Amendment is unnecessary, I shall, of course, be most happy to withdraw it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 27, at end insert the said words. —(Lord Conesford.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My noble friend Lord Conesford raised this point on Second Reading. He was not quite sure whether a couple of investment trusts would be a "diversification" within the meaning of Clause 5 (1). I replied that, with regard to the point of definition, I would prefer to leave it until later. I am advised that two investment trusts, or even one investment trust, might be regarded as a sufficient diversification, so far as the actual distribution of investments is concerned, though perhaps not with regard to the management. The word "diversification" does not
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signify numbers, but only, I think, width. If I tell my noble friend that I think he is a man of diverse and brilliant character, I do not mean that my noble friend is more than one man; that he is two or three men, or that he has two or three characters. I mean that he has one character which is rich in variety and free from monopoly; and I think that the same applies to an investment trust, which has a wide distribution of investments under this clause.
There is, however, another factor which a trustee should take into account. He should not only have regard to whether it is in one investment trust, or over how many different securities the investment trust has distributed its funds; he should also have regard to the size and management of the company or unit trust when reaching his decision as to the proportion of his funds which he might properly invest in this way. The Bill leaves this to the judgment of the trustees. It does not require that a trustee either shall or shall not treat an investment trust company or a unit trust as a single entity for the purpose of deciding whether or not it provides sufficient diversification. If there is any further doubt as to the meaning of the word" 'descriptions' of investment", I will certainly look into that again. I do not think that there is any doubt about it, but I see my noble friend's point: that there may be a difference between the distribution of investment and the descriptions of investment. I will make quite sure about that.
LORD CONESFORD: I think that in the last words of my noble friend he has got my point clear. My doubt is this. The actual words in the paragraph are:
"…sufficiently diversified as respects the descriptions of investment…"
If the description of investment is investment trusts, and if nothing else except two investment trusts is held, it is rather difficult to see that the investments can be described as "sufficiently diversified as respects the description of investment". That is precisely my doubt. But, on the undertaking of my noble friend, which I take to cover a consideration by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor also, I shall be most happy to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.59 p.m.
LORD HAWKE: This is really an Amendment suggested by my noble friend Lord Polwarth, who has had to go abroad, and who telephoned it to me from Scotland. Naturally, we were not able to discuss at great length the reasons for this particular period of two years rather than five, but I think your Lordships would agree that no conscientious trustee would allow his trust to lie unattended by good advice for as long as five years. In fact, he would probably take advice annually. For that reason, it seems reasonable that the term of two years should be inserted. I know some people would say that one year is the appropriate period but such a provision would sometimes provide unnecessary rigidity. It means one cannot extend the time for an extra month if the usual adviser is away, or something of that sort therefore I think two years is better than one year. Also two years is a great deal better than five years, so I hope Her Majesty's Government will agree to the Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 41, leave out ("five") and insert ("two").—(Lord Hawke.)
LORD KINNAIRD: I should like to say a word or two in support of my noble friend Lord Hawke. I have been a trustee probably longer than most Members of your Lordships' House, but I am sure that most of your Lordships who are trustees were surprised to see the term of five years in the Bill, and I trust the Government will remove it. If there are any lazy trustees, they can probably justify themselves in that the Government's advice to them is that once in five years is often enough. But I think that is very undesirable, and, as Lord Hawke says, that two years is better than five years.
I would suggest that one year is better than two. I do not think that Lord Hawke's problem about rigidity would really make things difficult. The intention is to have something like an annual report. I happen to be a trustee in Scotland as well, and if anyone wonders whether there is any precedent for an annual report I can say that in my country it is a very usual custom. I have made inquiries here, and I think the Public: Trustee will examine accounts annually or oftener. I believe particular
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institutions will examine their appointed trusts at least once in a year or oftener. To leave a term of two years in the Bill might be unfortunate, as well as leaving one of five years, as I hope the Government will agree. I think my noble friend Lord Hawke has difficulty in accepting my Amendment because the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, is away; but I would appeal to the Government, if I am in order, and to my noble friend Lord Dundee, and to the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor, to think about the matter again and to accept one year instead of two.
Might I also just mention a matter which is on the same point. There is a sentence in Lord Dundee's speech yesterday which bears on this point and on the question of an annual report being too rigid. The noble Earl said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 227 (No. 21), col. 281]:
"…this Bill is designed to cater primarily for smaller trusts and the many trustees whom it affects will not have access to expert advice of high quality."
I have been a banker, or have been connected with banks, for most of my life, and I should have thought one would query that remark. It is not totally true, is it? Most trustees or executors, when a will is made, will have a banking account, or they should have a banking account. Having got that account, they have the same manager, the same advice and expert opinion, as any larger trust has. I should have thought that all somebody need do to fulfil the obligations of this clause is to ask his bank manager to send him, at least once a year, a report and expert opinion. That can give rise to no difficulty of dates or holding meetings within the Government, and the bank would be responsible to give the trustee, free of charge, expert opinion annually, hope this Amendment will be considered.
LORD SILKIN: I should like to support, very briefly, what the noble Lord, Lord Kinnaird, has just said. I certainly agree that two years is a more appropriate period for review of holdings than once in five years. Indeed, I can see no safeguard for those on whose behalf a trust is held in having a review once in five years. All sorts of things can happen in the intermediate period, and there ought to be an obligation on the part of trustees to have a far more frequent review.

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However, I am wholly in support of Lord Kinnaird that even two years is too infrequent, and that a yearly review is a reasonable period, especially as that can be done without putting any excessive burden on the trustees. Banks are usually prepared to give such a report as that required under the Bill. Indeed, the Bill requires very little that is onerous; it merely requires a trustee to obtain and consider proper advice. It does not even define what that advice is, but obviously, a bank would be quite adequate to give such advice. I believe that in the White Paper it was more closely defined as to whom one ought to go for advice; but I see that that has been rather widened, and it merely states "proper advice", and I think that is quite satisfactory. I think the Amendment is an improvement to the Bill, and I myself would have gone further and supported the noble Lord, Lord Kinnaird, in making it one year instead of two.
4.7 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I am very sorry that Lord Polwarth cannot be here to move this Amendment, but I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Hawke, Lord Kinnaird and Lord Silkin, for their advice. On the Second Reading of the Bill, I said that on any trust for which I was responsible I should certainly have a review much more often than once in five years. I think my noble friend Lord Hawke said that all good trustees should insist on a review at least every two years. I would agree that most good trustees on most trusts should; but if you try to apply it to all trusts, you may have some difficulties. For example, the Charity Commissioners have reminded us that there are many small perpetual trusts where the only consideration is the maintenance of income, for which frequent review would be little more than a formality and would involve the trust in unnecessary expense.
Of course, in some ways, the less likely they are to change their investments, the more likely they are to have to pay a fee for professional advice. If it were a trust which was always changing its investments, naturally the broker would give his advice free; but if it were merely a question of looking over the thing and saying, "We do not
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recommend any changes", possibly a fee might be charged. Besides the small charity trusts, as probably we all know, there are very small private trusts, too, whose only purpose is to see that Aunt Mary gets her£400 a year from the Canadian Pacific Railway, or whatever it may be. It might be an unnecessary burden on them to compel them every so often to consult professional advisers as to the condition of the investments.
I should like to do what I can to consider whether the present position can in any way be improved. Of course, the five years in the Bill is intended to be a maximum, a kind of long stop. What we felt was that if we had a period such as two years, there might be more danger of that being regarded as the minimum period at which it was desirable to review investments, whereas it might be desirable to review them every six months. We thought nobody could possibly imagine that five years was anything more than an extreme precaution. But I should like to look at the matter again, with your Lordships' advice.
Possibly the best course might be to omit any mention of a specific period and lay the onus of deciding when to obtain advice fairly and squarely upon the trustees. After all, trustees are not compelled to accept any advice which they get. They are required under the Bill to take advice, without being compelled to accept it. Maybe it would be more reasonable to lay upon trustees the duty of obtaining and considering this advice at such intervals as appear to them to be appropriate, without laying down any period at which they should exercise that duty. But I shall be glad to consider the matter further and hear any further representations from those noble Lords who are familiar with the management of trusts. It is not at all a question of compelling the trustees to do anything. What we want to do in this Bill is to try to persuade trustees to take advice at reasonably frequent intervals. I shall be glad to consider any improvements which noble Lords think may be made.
LORD SILKIN: Would the noble Earl consider the suggestion of having both in the Bill—namely, at such periods as the trustees think right and in any case not less often that a period of two or

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three years. This would not mislead any trustees into thinking that three years, or whatever period is put in the Bill, is the right period, but it would give an indication to them that they must have this review as often as they think necessary.
THE EARL of DUNDEE: But that is in the Bill now. The words
"such advice as aforesaid at such intervals as appear to him appropriate,"
are followed by
" and in any case at intervals of not more than five years."
The question is whether we should put any maximum and, if so, what the maximum should be.
LORD SALTOUN: There is one thing I do not quite understand and should like the noble Earl to explain. Would this period be limited to those trustees who adopt the Act? Surely trustees who put their money into fixed-interest securities, probably irredeemable ones, would not have to adopt this Bill in any case.
LORD HAWKE: I am grateful to my noble friend for his sympathetic reply and because he is going to look into this matter. I think I am justified in pointing out that it is not necessarily a stockbroker who may be asked to give the advice which is required but anybody who is reasonably believed by the trustees to be able to give advice. I would regard many of your Lordships as qualified and able to give such services for nothing. Moreover it seems that one of the trustees can be one of the persons giving advice to his fellow trustees.
The one argument which I did not bring closely enough against the period of one year is that in a small trust it is probably likely to happen that the appearance of the annual accounts is going to be the time for the review of investments. These accounts may be audited by a spare-time auditor or by a very busy firm when it can find a little time to spare and often the accounts come out at irregular intervals. I should not like to put the onus of having an annual review on a trust whose accounts perhaps come out thirteen or fourteen months after the previous accounts. At any rate, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 5 shall be agreed to?
LORD CONESFORD: I only wish to raise one question, having regard to something which has just been said. I should like to hear from Her Majesty's Government whether they agree with the suggestion that the provisions of Clause 5 (1) are not a general addition to the law of the land. I see nothing whatever to confine the words to those who are making use of the particular powers conferred by this measure. It seems to me that the words of the first subsection are not confined in any way to those using the special powers conferred by the Bill. Obviously, this is a question of some importance and I think that we should know what the answer is at some stage.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I agree with my noble friend's reading; indeed, it had never occurred to me to consider that there might be any other interpretation. But I will certainly make sure that we are right.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I should like to be clear on this point. It would be absurd for the trustees of trusts whose funds are put into gilt-edged securities to go into the investments every two or three years to see whether the portfolio was ample. I should think that what the noble Earl said applies only to cases where the trustees are using this double schedule. Otherwise, I should be strongly opposed to it.
LORD CONESFORD: May I say, in answer to the noble Lord who has just intervened, that I completely agree with him as regards subsections (2), (3) and (4), which are expressly limited to those using the powers conferred by this Bill? What I said was that the duty of trustees in subsection (1) was of general importance.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: That was the question my noble friend asked just now, and I have verified that he is correct. In the other subsections, of course, it is stated that: they apply only to trustees exercising the powers of the Act.
LORD SALTOUN: Subsection (2) says:
"Before exercising any power conferred by section one of this Act to invest in a manner

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specified in Part II or III of the First Schedule to this Act, a trustee shall obtain and consider proper advice…"
and subsection (3) states:
"So long as a trustee retains any investment made in the exercise of such a power…"
I submit that this should go back to subsection (2) and not to subsection (1).
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I think that it does only go back to subsection (2) and not to subsection (1).
LORD SALTOUN: I thank the noble Earl very much.
LORD HAWKE: Presumably that does not stop the Bill putting a general direction on trustees of all trusts to secure that their investments are diversified and suitable.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Subsection (1) applies to all trusts, not only to those which exercise their powers under the Bill.
On Question, Clause 5 agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
First Schedule:
Manner of Investment
PART II
NARROWER-RANGE INVESTMENTS REQUIRING ADVICE
6. In debentures issued in the United Kingdom by a company incorporated in the United Kingdom, being debentures registered in the United Kingdom and not being debentures, which, under their terms of issue, may be converted into shares.
4.20 p.m.
LORD HAWKE LORD HAWKE moved, in paragraph 6, to leave out, "and not being debentures which, under their terms of issue, may be converted into shares". The noble Lord said: I have heard a rumour that Her Majesty's Government might accept this Amendment, and therefore I will postpone wasting your Lordships' time and merely move formally. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 38, leave out the said words.— (Lord Hawke.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: It would not have been at all a waste of time if my noble friend had given his reasons for
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moving this Amendment, because the result of his self-denying ordinance is that I shall now have to give them instead; and I am sure that I shall not do it nearly so well. Convertible debentures are fixed-interest securities which give the holder the option of converting at some future date into equity shares. In view of the ultimate character of the investment it was considered that convertible debentures were more appropriate to the wider-range part of the fund. But whilst they exist as debentures it is not unreasonable to classify them as a narrower-range investment, provided it is clearly understood that when they are converted into equities they must either be sold or be transferred to the wider-range part of the fund. In the latter event a compensating transfer of property would have to be made from the wider-range to the narrower-range part of the fund. Provision for a transfer of this kind has been proposed in an Amendment I moved at our last sitting. Whilst Clause 2 (2) of the Bill will ensure that the understanding mentioned above is implemented, I agree that, subject to that, my noble friend's Amendment is justified, and, as he anticipated, I am willing to advise your Lordships to accept it.
LORD HAWKE: I thank my noble friend.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CONESFORD LORD CONESFORD moved to add to Part II:
"15. In the stocks or shares of Investment Trust Companies incorporated in the United Kingdom and quoted on the London Stock Exchange."
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment that we should add a final paragraph at the end of Part II of the First Schedule to provide an additional class of investment that may be made in the narrower-range. The principal defect of the Bill, as it stands, is that what is intended to be the safest of all the funds, that is, those that are put into fixed-interest bearing securities, are actually endangered by What every member of this Committee knows to be a real danger in the modern world—namely, the decline of the currency. If, through rapid inflation, the value of our currency should be threatened, then the whole of the investments invested in the

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securities at present set out in Part II of the First Schedule would decline in value, and their value could vanish altogether. That is the worst defect of the Bill as it stands.
What is necessary in order to abolish what I submit is a fatal defect is to provide at least one class of equity investment in which trustees can lawfully invest the funds even in the narrower range. Investment trusts seem to me the most suitable of all such classes for this purpose. As I think all noble Lords know, they have these, among other, advantages: an excellent record of achievement over the years diversification—and generally a double diversification; a spread of risk that is both qualitative—various different industries—and geographical—interests in various parts of the world; diversification, again, in classes of securities—they hold some fixed-interest bearing securities and some equities—with, of course, complete freedom to manage their funds in the ordinary way as may seem best to their very skilled advisers. Then, again, they have highly skilled and expert managers. Equally important, they have the protection of ample reserves as a buffer against bad times. These reserves result from various features of these companies. In the first place, it is their general practice not to distribute all their earnings. Again, they have the further protection of the reserves held by the companies whose stocks and shares they hold. Lastly, they do not distribute the profits made by the appreciation of their investments, but retain them.
All this gives their securities a value which is likely to be maintained better than the values of most securities in bad times. That is why I think, if we have to select a single class of equity investments, investment trusts have the best claim to be a suitable investment for this purpose. But the main aim that I have in mind is to provide some security in this list which enables a prudent trustee, competently advised, to protect the trust funds in the event of inflation. At present there is none. What every one of us knows to be one of the principal risks to an investment in the modern world is a risk that this Bill, as it now stands, makes it compulsory for the trustees to face without having any weapon whatever against it. They
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simply have to see that part of their funds vanish. In the protection of our own affairs none of us would subject ourselves to such a limitation. Have we any right to do so in the case of trust funds which are of great importance to a lot of people not very well able to protect themselves? Testators and settlors desire to give additional security for the beneficiaries of their trust. It seems to me really immoral that, as regards half the trust fund, we should deny all security against what we all know to be a real risk—namely, that over the years there may be a serious depreciation, and sometimes a rapid depreciation, in the value of the currency.
In case it is objected that this introduction of a whole class is too wide, I would remind the Committee of two things. First, it is, of course, necessary as regards this investment, just as any other, that the trustees should seek advice. But further, if this Amendment: were accepted and the Government thought that it let in too wide a class, there would he no difficulty in amending the Bill further, as I indicated in my speech on Second Reading, enabling an advisory committee to be sot up (I suggested the membership) to advise the Treasury, and the Treasury to prescribe the equity investments to be added in this narrower-range.
So far as I know there are only two ways in which over the years it has been possible to protect trust investments. One of them is, in some such way as I have suggested, by investment in ordinary shares. The other one, of immense importance to this country historically, is by the holding of land. My noble friend the Lord Chancellor, in dealing with an earlier clause, explained why Her Majesty's Government had not included the holding of freehold land as a narrower-range investment. But historically landowning has been the great protection against inflation. Our great educational charities, our schools, our colleges, our universities have been able to expand their activities and functions to meet modern needs only because, on the whole, their investments have in the past been in land and, notwithstanding the long-term tendency of currencies to depreciate, the holdings in land retained or increased their value.
But we are denying to trustees this protection from inflation—namely, the holding of freehold land. That makes it all the more necessary that we should provide some escape, and I suggest that the addition of an appropriate category in this Part of the Schedule will enable us to look with comparative equanimity on what would otherwise be the unfortunate effect of this division under the Bill into these two classes. We ought not to have any class in which the trustees are compelled, against their better judgment and against the advice of their advisers, to watch their funds simply disappear because that is the obligation of the law. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 36, at end insert the said paragraph.— (Lord Conesford.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: In the first Amendment which my noble friend moved to this Bill last week, he proposed that the trustees should be allowed to invest seven-eighths or 87½ per cent. of their funds in equities and only 12½ per cent. in narrower-range investments. This Amendment in effect would enable the trustees to invest not 87½ per cent., but 100 per cent. of their trust funds in equities and a fortiori if we could not accept my noble friend's first Amendment, which I was sorry not to be able to do, we clearly cannot accept his second Amendment, which goes even further in the same direction.
The arguments of my noble friend on every occasion, as I have tried to indicate, nearly amount to saying that trustees ought to be prohibited from putting any of their money at all into trustee stocks. It is indeed an interesting commentary on the investment pattern of the present age that this contention can seriously be put forward. My noble friend said just now that it was a scandalous injury on the beneficiaries of a trust that we should not rescue them from the ruin which they would suffer by having any money in trustee stocks. I think my noble friend said that it was a very wrong thing, and that we had no moral right not to rescue them. Of course, having regard to the change in relative value between trustee stocks and other investments, one can quite see that point. On the other hand, there have been periods, such as the '30s, in which
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the value of investment stocks went down nearly to nothing, even though they were well spread, and possibly some trustees who had established these trusts might not have wished the whole of the funds to be put into equities.
My noble friend's Amendment accepts shares or stocks of investment trust companies incorporated in the United Kingdom to be included in the narrower-range half of the investment. The obvious question arises: how are you to distinguish between one investment trust from another, or are you to put them all in the narrower range, whatever their merits may be? My noble friend's solution of that, which he gave on Second Reading and has partly repeated now, is that he would have an advisory committee on which there might be representatives of such bodies as the Bank of England, the Stock Exchange, the Public Trustee, the Investment Trusts Association and one or two other bodies. But I wonder whether your Lordships do not consider that the Treasury, and all those represented on the advisory committee, might be placed in rather an invidious position in having to distinguish between the merits of different companies. Do your Lordships think it would be desirable for the Government to lend itself to a scheme which would involve a continuous review by such a committee of the affairs of all kinds of companies in the United Kingdom? It seems to me it would come very near to the Government giving market tips.
I would go as far as this in agreement with my noble friend. I will frankly admit that, if I were creating a trust now, I would most certainly give the trustees power, if they thought right, to put all the funds into investment trust companies, and I would not mind preventing their putting any into gilt-edged. But that is my opinion only, and I do not think we can assume that people whose trusts we are now altering, contrary to their express intentions, would have wished us to go quite so far as that. We have assumed that they would wish us to do something, and we have done something. We have released one half of the trust funds from the limitation of the 1925 Act, and in regard to the other half, although we have kept them in the narrower-range securities, we have somewhat limited the kind of investments which are defined in the First Schedule

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into which they can be put. But I am afraid that to accept this Amendment would undermine the whole basis upon which the Bill is drawn up.
LORD CONESFORD: My noble friend is, of course, right that the problem with which I attempted to deal in the first Amendment which stood in my name is not dissimilar to the problem with which I am attempting to deal now. I do not think he is right in saying that the effect of this is even mare extensive than the other, because, of course, investment trusts themselves contain a great many fixed-interest bearing securities. However, I shall not inflict myself for long upon the Committee at this stage. I wish merely to correct what is, although I know that it is unintentional, a complete misrepresentation of my attitude. I am not in the least against gilt-edged investments always and at all times. If I had any trust funds to invest at the present moment, I should do my best to get my fellow trustees to agree that the best investment into which the funds could be put would be a British Government security standing well below par and due to be paid off at par in a few years' time. I am not in the least against gilt-edged securities at all times and in all circumstances. What I do say is morally wrong is not that people should invest in gilt-edged securities, but that trustees should ever be compelled by law to invest their funds in something that is depreciating before their eyes, and that they may believe will lose its value altogether.
If we leave this Part of the First Schedule as it stands, there is no protection whatsoever for this part of the trust funds in the event of a depreciation of the currency. We all know that over the next 36 years, or whatever time elapses before there is another Bill of this kind (that is the period since the last Bill of this kind), there may be a depreciation of our currency. I say that it is morally wrong for Parliament solemnly to ordain, as it will be ordaining by the Bill in its present form, that what is half the trust fund at the time of the division shall be irrevocably lost in such circumstances, whatever the trustees and their advisers may do, by the simple operation of the law, and a law passed in 1961 by a British Parliament.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I quite appreciate the distinction which my noble friend has just drawn between his attitude towards gilt-edged stocks and that which I perhaps unthinkingly attributed to him. I entirely see the reasoning which has prompted that distinction.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: May I ask one question of the noble Earl? Does he really consider that the Government are prepared to do what the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, suggests—namely, allow Government stocks, even if they are undated, to go down in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, to practically nothing? Do the Government consider that they have no obligations? If the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, is to be believed, he anticipates that it is quite likely Government stocks will go down to absolutely nothing. Will not the noble Earl say that in no circumstances will the Government accept a suggestion of that kind?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: When my noble friend said they might go down to nothing I took it he was indulging in hyperbole, without meaning your Lordships to accept it literally. Of course, if you take undated stocks, when prevailing rates of interest are 5 per cent. they may be at one figure, and if the rates of interest go down to 4 per cent. Government stocks are bound to go up, and if the prevailing rates of interest go up to 6 per cent. Government stocks are bound to go down. It would be an enormous, quite unimaginable change that their value should go down to nothing. I think what my noble friend meant was that not only do they sometimes go down but their value in relation to other stocks gets relatively less, owing to the fact that the value of money has declined in this country during the last twenty years. I am sure he did not mean to say that the value of Government stocks might literally go to nil; but that is something that could happen in the case of equities.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: We have seen Government stocks going down and down, and I have constantly pointed out to the Government that this has been due to their own policy of high bank rate. Now we have the suggestion that the figure at which they are standing at the present time may be a high-water mark, and that things will be going

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down and down in the future. I think it is about time the Government gave some hope to holders of Government stocks, who invested in them patriotically, at the request of the Government, that they are not going to be treated in the appalling way the noble Lord suggested. If the noble Earl is not going to make some greater protest against that possibility I think it is a very serious accusation against the Government, of which he is a leading figure.
LORD CONESFORD: Needless to say, that was not my point at all. I was not referring to the market price of stock, a matter on which the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, has so admirably explained his attitude on previous occasions; and I must say that with a good deal of what he has said I had myself the greatest sympathy. I was not referring to the value of Government stocks as measured in their market quotation. What I was referring to was the value of the pound. I am quite certain that any Government which I support, such as Her Majesty's present advisers, will do their best to protect the currency. I am quite certain that would be the intention of any Government the noble Lord opposite would support; I take that for granted. But it still remains a serious thing to enact by law something that makes trustees quite helpless in the event of some future Government behaving less well than he or I would like, and if there were a threat to the currency there ought to be some wise action that trustees could lawfully take.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: With all due respect to the noble Lord—I am sorry to interrupt again, and I will not press the matter further—the logic of his argument is something quite contrary to what he suggests. This Bill is not forbidding trustees to do anything they have had the right to do, anything they could do before. Whether he is dealing with the fall in the value of the pound or with the fall in the value of the market terms of Government securities, the effect is the same. He is inviting persons in the country who have invested their trust stocks in Government securities to consider that they are liable to lose the whole value—not literally, but going down to practically nothing, whether from inflation or
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depreciation of the stock market value; and I suggest that is a deplorable suggestion to come from any Member of your Lordships' House.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
First Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
Second Schedule agreed to.
Third Schedule [Repeals]:
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Section 11 of the Trusts (Scotland) Act 1921, defines colonial stocks in which trustees may invest. That section is being repealed and re-enacted in the present Bill, for reasons which I explained to your Lordships on Second Reading. Section 2 (3) of the Colonial Stock Act, 1948, makes provision for extending the definition of colonial stocks in the Trusts (Scotland) Act to include stock issued by authorities established for controlling or administering matters of common interest. That is no longer necessary, as stock of this kind is now covered by paragraph 4 of Part II of the First Schedule to the present Bill. Subsection (3) of Section 2 of the Colonial Stock Act, 1948, can therefore be repealed, which is done by this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 14, line 37, at end insert—

("12, 13 & 14 Geo. 6. c. 1.

The Colonial Stock Act,1948.

In section two, subsection (3).")

— (The Earl of Dundee.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The effect of this Amendment is to repeal paragraph 9 (1) of the Schedule to the Cyprus Act, 1960, for reasons which I mentioned on Second Reading. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 14, line 57, column 3, at end insert ("(1)").—(The Earl of Dundee.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Third Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed.

EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES BILL [H.L.]
4.54 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be again in Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.— (The Earl of Dundee.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD AILWYN in the Chair.]
Clause 25:
Short weight, etc.
25.—
(2) Subject to the provisions of this Part of this Act, any person who, on or in connection with the sale of any goods, or in exposing or offering any goods for sale, or in purporting to make known to the buyer thereof the quantity of any goods sold, makes any misrepresentation either by word of mouth or otherwise as to the quantity of the goods, or who does any other act calculated to mislead any person as to the quantity of the goods, shall he guilty of an offence.
(7) Nothing in this section shall apply to any goods or sale falling within paragaph (a) or (b) of subsection (5) of section twenty-two of this Act; and except in relation to—

(a) a sale of goods required by or under this Act to he sold only by quantity expressed in a particular manner; or

(b) a sale of goods in the case of which the quantity of the goods sold is required by or under this Act to be made known to the buyer at or before delivery of the goods to him; or

(c) a sale of goods which are pre-packed or otherwise made up in a container for sale and of which the container is required by or under this Act to be marked with an indication of quantity; or

(d) goods carried for reward which are required by or under this Act to be so carried only in pursuance of an agreement made by reference to the quantity of the goods expressed in a particular manner.

nothing in this section shall apply to any goods if the sale or carriage in question is with a view to the use of those goods—

(i) in constructional work; or

(ii) in the manufacture of, or for incorporation in, goods of a different description,

in the course of the carrying on of a business.
LORD FARINGDON: When the noble Earl moved the adjournment of the Committee stage last night he suggested that there was a change in the type of Amendments from this point. Some of
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your Lordships may have thought that this particular Amendment has a slightly odd look about it. To add the sellers to the buyers would seem an odd proceeding in some ways. The object of most of the provisions of this Bill are, in fact, to protect the consumer or the buyer. But there are a considerable number of transactions where in fact the person to be protected is not the buyer but the seller, where the tradesman is the buyer—these are such sales as the sale of rags or of scrap iron which is sold to an itinerant dealer by the householder. It is for his or her protection that I am moving this Amendment to the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, line 23, after ("buyer") insert ("or seller").—(Lord Faringdon.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: This subsection was drafted on the assumption that in the overwhelming majority of transactions it will be the seller of the goods who will in practice be responsible for making their quantity known to the buyer and who will therefore be in a position to mislead or to misrepresent. However, we accept that there will be a significant number of cases where the buyer, not the seller, will in practice he responsible for making the quantity known and who will equally be in a position to mislead or misrepresent. As the noble Lord has pointed out, it should be as much an offence for the buyer to defraud the seller as to quantity as it is for the seller, when he is in a position to do so, to defraud the buyer.
I see the merit of the noble Lord's Amendment. I do not think it could be inserted in its present form here. The phrase in lines 22 and 23:
"or in purporting to make known to the buyer thereof "—
refers back to the concepts in lines 21 and 22 of the sale, or the exposing or offering for sale, of the goods; and it will be necessary to expand these concepts to covet purchase as well. But if the noble Lord could see his way to withdrawing the Amendment at this stage, I will consider the matter further with a view to tabling an appropriate Amendment giving effect to his purpose at a later stage.
LORD FARINGDON: I thank the noble Earl very much indeed for his

415
reception of this Amendment, and on that understanding I withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DERWENT LORD DERWENT moved, in subsection (7), to omit all words after the first "Act". The noble Lord said: I am again this afternoon dealing with Lord Jessel's Amendments as he has not recovered. The words to which I object, and which I am trying to take out of the Bill, deprive of the benefits of the exemption mentioned all goods which are, or may in the future be, covered by the provisions either of a Schedule or by an Order or Regulation made under the Act. The Board has already accepted the principle that transactions between manufacturers, and between manufacturers and large consumers, do not require the same control provision as are necessary to give protection to the housewife; and it is difficult to see any logical reason for excluding transactions of this kind merely because they relate to goods which are the subject of provision elsewhere in the Bill.
May I refer your Lordships to the Explanatory Memorandum at the beginning of the Bill, to page iii, Clause 25. In this Explanatory Memorandum it says:
"This general 'short weight' provision applies to virtually all sales in terms of quantity other than sales to persons purchasing goods for a manufacturing, processing or constructional business."
Those are to be exempt. If the clause is allowed to stay as it is, that Explanatory 'Memorandum is complete nonsense and is definitely misleading. So far as I can see, there is absolutely no reason to retain the words which I seek to take out of the Bill, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 25, line 39, leave out from ("and") to end of line 8 on page 26.—(Lord Derwent.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I am sure that in the absence of my noble friend Lord Jessel, your Lordships are indebted to my noble friend Lord Derwent for stating so clearly at such short notice the case for this important Amendment. Its effect would be to render virtually inoperative all the requirements of the Fifth to Ninth Schedules relating to transactions in the goods specified in those Schedules when those goods were
416
being sold or carried with a view to their use in constructional work or in the manufacture of other goods. Clause 25, to which the Amendment relates, is the key clause in the structure of these Schedules, because it is the main clause under which an offence arises if there is a deficiency in the quantity, or misrepresentation as to the quantity, of the specific goods which these Schedules require to be sold or carried in terms of quantity.
One major difficulty that this Amendment would cause would be to weaken the protection to the ordinary retail buyer. For example, certain pre-packed goods are required to be marked with their quantity, and when an inspector carries out sample tests at a wholesaler's premises he may find that some of the packs are underweight. The public could be seriously defrauded if these goods passed into the shops; but the inspector would be powerless to take any action if the wholesaler said that those particular goods were intended for sale to an industrial buyer. An easy escape would be opened to fraudulent traders who had defaulted on their obligations under the Bill designed to protect consumers; and the authorities who are responsible for the enforcement of the law could be hamstrung.
The Amendment would also make nonsense of a number of specific provisions in these Schedules, the Fifth to the Ninth—provisions which my noble friend has not yet suggested deleting as consequential to the present Amendment. For example, the Sixth Schedule broadly reproduces provisions governing the sale and carriage of sand and other ballast which have been in existence since the passing of the Weights and Measures Act, 1936, and which both the buyers and sellers in this trade have represented as being of great value to them. The majority of transactions involving the sale and carriage of such goods are, in fact, to those engaged in building and structural engineering work, and the present Amendment would make it virtually impossible for the local authorities to take action if short weight or measure were detected in this trade.
Another point of the same kind would arise on the Seventh Schedule, in respect of sales of solid fuel to the industries which use such fuel, either as a fuel or

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as a raw material. Since the Weights and Measures Act, 1889, was passed, all sales of coal have been required to be by weight, and this Amendment would not only remove a form of protection which industrial buyers have found to be of value since those days but would also make it doubly difficult for the inspectors to continue to give this protection to the householder, since an inspector could never be sure whether or not a particular consignment the weight of which he wished to check in transit was really intended for sale to an industrial buyer.
We are always ready to be sympathetic to those who ask that industry should not be given wholly unnecessary forms of protection under this Bill; and we have, I think, shown that we are trying to meet your Lordships in some respects, and have demonstrated that by the exemption for sales to industrial buyers which are voluntarily conducted in terms of quantity—which sales must surely constitute the great majority of the clay-today transactions in which industrial buyers participate. Where, however, a case has been made out for a particular class of goods to be the subject of a specific requirement in the Bill as to its sale in a particular manner of quantity, we believe that the general exemption for industrial buyers which the Amendment proposes would operate unfairly upon those particular classes of industrial buyers who have represented that they wish to have protection in this respect. Moreover, as I say, we feel that it would detract very seriously from the general value of the Bill as a measure of consumer protection.
LORD DERWENT: That is what comes of moving somebody else's Amendment: I have been accused, for the first time in my life, of trying to hamstring an authority. I will, of course, read what my noble friend has said, and I am very glad, particularly in the circumstances, that he has put his reply so fully. I believe that it boils down to this: that, while I still feel that my case is not a bad one, it is now clear, in view of my noble friend's reply, that the Amendment was drawn far too widely. On the Report stage my noble friend Lord Jessel may well want to put down another Amendment on a much
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narrower line. That is my first reaction; but at the moment I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DERWENT LORD DERWENT moved, in subsection (7) after "use" to insert "or consumption". The noble Lord said: With your Lordships' permission, I should like to deal with Amendments Nos. 56, 57 and 58 together because they are all on the same subject. If these Amendments are accepted, the exemption will read like this:
"Nothing in this section shall apply to any goods if the sale or carriage in question is with a view to the use or consumption of those goods in the course of the carrying on a business not being a retail business."
The principle behind this exemption has been accepted by your Lordships' House in the Birmingham Corporation Act, 1958, and the object is to avoid imposing unnecessarily onerous and expensive requirements on the manufacturing industry.
The wording of the exemption as at present drafted, without the Amendment, might exclude from the benefit of the exemption a variety of goods which are used in the manufacturing process but do not form part of the manufactured article. Examples of such goods are: explosives used in demolition work or mining, greases, lubricants, catalysts and solvents used in treating trade effluents. All are used in a manufacturing process but are not part of the manufactured product. I believe that will probably be clear to your Lordships. As the Clause is drafted at the moment I believe there is unnecessary hardship on these manufacturing businesses. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 10, after ("use") insert ("or consumption").—(Lord Derwent.)
LORD ST. OSWALD: These Amendments would carry the Bill's exemptions even further than that lately withdrawn by the noble Lord. They would extend them to cover any goods sold with a view to their use and consumption in the course of carrying on a business except where the buyer was engaged in carrying on any form of retail business. In other words, their use would not he restricted to manufacture or

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constructional work but would apply to almost any form of business whatever. Thus many thousands of small farmers and service businesses, from dry cleaners to window cleaners, would be stripped at a blow of all the protection which the Bill gives them against short weight. It would be interesting to know how far such businesses have expressed a will to be free from all protection.
Again, a wholesaler buying from a supplier might be said to be "using" the goods in the course of his business, even though he was selling them to the retailer in exactly the same state as he received them; and the retailer might similarly be said to be using his supplies in the course of his retail business if he was selling them on to the public in exactly the same state as he received them. The Amendment, would, in fact, restrict the protection which Clause 25 confers almost entirely to the final consumer, and would leave both the large and the small retailer and wholesaler to fend for themselves.
At present, the Merchandise Marks Acts, 1887 to 1953, give them a protection against short weight and measure where they have obtained a written statement from their suppliers as to quantity; and it would be a sad commentary upon a Weights and Measures Bill of 1960 if it could not take over this type of protection from the Merchandise Marks Acts in respect of at least a substantial proportion of the everyday trade of the ordinary middleman. Even the manufacturers themselves might not welcome such a wide gap in the law. If a man buys for the office, in the course of business, a box of staples or paper clips which is marked with its quantity but which proves to be seriously deficient in quantity, he tends to feel that "there ought to be a law about it". There will be, as Clause 25 is at present drafted; but with the present Amendment, there would not be.
Indeed, so widespread would become the classes of purchaser exempt that it would be difficult to enforce Clause 25 in the case of goods voluntarily marked with their contents and offered for sale to retail shops, since in many cases they might be bought for consumption in a
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business. Similarly, the subsection as at present drafted would exempt such goods sold in such circumstances where the seller was engaged in any form of business, be it retail or wholesale. The effect of the Amendment would be to render the exemption inoperative where the buyer was engaged in carrying on any form of retail business,
The Government, as is evident from the existing provisions in subsection (7) of this clause, have accepted the undesirability of giving the industrial buyers of raw materials and semi-manufactured goods a protection under Clause 25 against short quantity which they maintain they do not need. But the effect of the present Amendment would be to restore that protection to certain classes of manufacturers who have said they do not want it—namely, the manufacturers who run a retail business side by side with their manufacturing businesses. Cases in point would be the manufacturer or processor who runs a mail-order business, or the factory which has a sales showroom attached to it. Such an ancillary retail business, even though only a side-line to the main manufacturing business, would seem to be sufficient under the Amendment to carry the whole business outside the scope of the exemption in subsection (7). The practical effects of the wording of the Amendment would, therefore, depend quite fortuitously upon whether the manufacturer ran a rein it; and if the primary object is to ensure that the exemption in this subsection covers squarely the ordinary manufacturing and processing business but not the ordinary retail trader, the Government would suggest to the House that the present wording of the subsection, which had precisely this object in mind, is still the best means of achieving it.
LORD DERWENT: I thank my noble friend for his detailed reply. If I may perhaps give a précis of the reply it is the words "too wide". I shall have a look at it and judge with my noble friend a narrower Amendment for the next stage, because I think there is still something wrong, although I agree with a large part of the reply so far as I have had time to study it. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 25 agreed to.
Clause 26 agreed to.
Clause 27:
Additional defences and safeguards for traders
27.—
(3) In any proceedings for an offence under this Part of this Act or any instrument made thereunder, being art offence in respect of any excess in the quantity of any goods, it shall be a defence for the person charged to prove that the excess was reasonable and necessary in order to avoid a further offence arising at a subsequent time by reason of the goods having by then become deficient in quantity.
(4) In any proceedings for an offence under this Part of this Act or any instrument made thereunder, being an offence in respect of any deficiency or excess in the quantity—

(a) of any pre-packed goods; or

(b) of any goods which have been otherwise made up in containers for sale, or have been made for sale, or have been sold, and which are required by or under this Act to be so made up or made or to he sold, as the case may be, only in a particular quantity,

the following provisions shall have effect, that is to say—

(i) if the proceedings are in respect of a single article, the court shall disregard any inconsiderable deficiency or, as the case may be, excess; and

(ii) if the proceedings are in respect of one or more of a number of articles of the same kind tested on the same occasion, being articles which, or articles containing goods which, were sold by the person charged or in that person's possession for sale, the court shall have regard to the average quantity of, or of the goods contained in, all the articles tested and generally to all the circumstances of the case.

5.15 p.m.
LORD HAWKE LORD HAWKE moved to leave out subsection (3). The noble Lord said: move this Amendment not because I wish to leave out this subsection—I do not—but to draw attention to one aspect of the Bill and to ask Her Majesty's Government for their explanation of it. As the Bill is drafted, there is an offence created for giving underweight, and penalties are prescribed; but nowhere in the Bill is there mention of any offence for giving overweight. Yet this subsection (3) provides a defence in the event of proceedings for an offence in respect of giving an excess quantity of any goods. I know that in the Merchandise Marks Act, 1953, which prohibits false or misleading trade descriptions, a declaration of weight is, I believe, held to be a trade description,
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but I have never heard of any prosecution of anybody for giving overweight. I wonder why this Bill by inference visualises such an offence. Is it morally right to do so? We are told to give good measure,
"pressed down and running over"
but the moment we start to get "running over" we shall find our way to the courts and be asked if we can plead Section 27 (3) in extenuation of the circumstances. It looks to me as if the butcher who often tempers the wind to the old-age pensioner and gives her 1¼ lb. of stewing steak when she asks for 1 lb. may be guilty of an offence. He certainly could not plead this particular defence, and he would stand to be convicted of undue charity.
Then, finally, when we come to the defence itself, we find that it is to the effect that the person charged has to prove that he gave the excess believing that at some future date his goods would shrink down and slough off the excess. That, of course, would be a perfectly adequate defence in many pre-packed foodstuffs. For instance, Christmas puddings are always packed overweight—and I imagine that many other foodstuffs are, too. But it would not provide a defence to the carbonate drink manufacturer of what I believe in plain language is "pop", who, for technical reasons, always slightly overfills his bottles and could have no possible ground for believing that evaporation could reduce the level, because he has put a sealed cork upon them. It is for reasons such as these that I took the liberty of bringing this Amendment before the Committee to hear Her Majesty's Government tell us what they think about the offence of giving overweight.
Amendment moved—
Page 28, line 16, leave out subsection (3).—(Lord Hawke.)
LORD SALTOUN: As this is an exploratory Amendment may I ask for clarification, which I prefer to do on this point, rather than on the previous Amendments? Like my noble friend Lord Hawke, I cannot see how an offence could frequently be considered to have been committed by giving overweight, unless it was a chemist giving a poisonous medicine, in which case I suppose it might conceivably happen. But if I understand the Bill rightly (and

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I am ready to believe that I do not), I understand that the principal thing we are doing is relating the unit of length to the wavelength of a certain colour of light, and the unit of weight is not related to that in the way in which units of weight have been hitherto (because water loses so many molecules so rapidly into the atmosphere by which it is surrounded), but is related to a metal weight which is kept near Paris in a velvet box and exposed only very rarely in order to test it and to make certain verifications.
Now if our units are reduced to this very fine standard, what happens if you go into Harrods, as I did the other day, and buy 2 lb. of cheese? It is practically an impossibility that your 2 lb. of cheese will be exactly in conformity with those weights. Such weights are bound to be rough and ready measurements, and, in that case, what becomes of underweight and overweight? I imagine that if I took an action against Harrods because the 2 lb. of cheese that they sold me was not precisely in conformity with the measure that is kept, I believe, at Paris, I should lose my action because nobody would entertain it; but that is an entirely different thing. We are legislating here for a matter of overweight or underweight, and one would really like to know where the offence begins and what the proportions are. They may be in the Bill, but I cannot recollect having seen them.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My noble friend Lord Saltoun need not be afraid that he will have to go to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris to test his 2 lb. of cheese. For the purpose of this Bill, the immediate legal standard will be that in the possession of the local authority, which is the weights and measures authority for the district. When my noble friend Lord Hawke said that he had never heard of a case of anybody being prosecuted for giving too much, I am afraid he cannot have listened very carefully to the speech of the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition on Second Reading, who described the case of a man known to him who had been prosecuted for selling bread 2 oz. over the prescribed weight.
LORD HAWKE: May I interrupt the noble Earl? I should very much like to know under what Act that particular prosecution was brought. I said under the Merchandise Marks Act. Under what Act was the bread prosecution brought?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: It might be that, or it might be the Sale of Food Act, 1926. Anyhow, it is the law now; and, in this Bill, Clause 23, subsections (1) and (2), enable offences in respect of overweight to be committed. My noble friend asked what the reason was. The reason is not that we want to discourage the giving of a little extra, but in order to protect the public. In certain kinds of goods it is thought desirable that they should be in certain specified weights only—say, 8 oz., 12 oz. or 16 oz.—and that no weights between these specified amounts should be permitted, because, if they were, it would be much less easy for the public to be able to see what they were getting. If they know that there are certain weights at which bread, and other commodities to which these limits apply, have to be sold, and if there is a reasonably large interval between one legal weight and the next legal weight, the purchaser can easily see which he is getting. Moreover, of course, if weights are permitted between these prescribed limits, it becomes much easier for a tradesman to sell a weight which is below and not above what the customer thinks he is getting.
The reason for the law, and the reason why a prosecution may occasionally take place, is not because we condemn the giving of too much weight but because the law, in order to prevent the giving of too little weight, prescribes that only certain weights shall be used in the sale of these commodities, and that no other weights shall be used at all. That was the information which my noble friend asked for, and as I gather from what he said that he has no intention of trying to leave out the subsection, I do not think I need say any more about the actual effect of his Amendment.
LORD LATHAM: In the light of what he has said, would the noble Earl answer this question? Does this subsection (3) do more than make certain defences available to a person who it is alleged has committed an offence in

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respect of an excess? It raises certain defences which I gather are not available to him at the present time under the present law.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: That is quite correct. I did not go into that because my noble friend began by saying that he had no intention of doing what his Amendment proposes to do—that is, leave out subsection (3). What in fact this subsection which the Amendment proposes to leave out does is to enable it to be pleaded as a defence, if a trader is accused of selling overweight, that the overweight is due to a reasonable expectation of loss of weight by the person who packed the article at the time it was packed.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I am much obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, for having put this Amendment down, although he is certainly quite right in not intending to proceed to a Division on this Amendment to leave out subsection (3). I am very interested in this subject, and whilst, of course, we all welcome the approach made in this Bill to provide, as my noble friend Lord Latham has just said, a means of defence in the case of unreasonable prosecution, I do not know whether it is the intention to define this still further by way of Regulations. The subsection says:
"In any proceedings for an offence under this Part of this Act or any instrument made thereunder,…"
which leads us to worry, until we get a further instrument published, as to exactly what the position will be. In the case of bread, the noble Earl was kind enough to refer to my previous comments on an actual case, which I find to be extraordinary on such report of it as was made to me. That was a case in which a loaf of bread was sold at the proper price for the standard weight but which was, in fact, over the weight of that proper standard. But no higher price was charged for it—none at all. Instead of defrauding the customer, it brought him a benefit.
In my youthful days, there used to be a great deal more voluntary attention given to satisfying the customer as to correct weights and measures than today. I remember that I used to help my local milkman in the lunch-hour.
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That was, maybe, 64 or 65 years ago. Then, you had only cans and dippers, you were asked for half a pint (and sometimes, even, for a gill) at the door, and you were trained by the master accepting this schoolboy labour to give the measure and then to put the dipper down again and give a little more to make sure that the measurement was correct. It is only when you come to the really big combinations, apparently, that some of these questions about giving overweight arise. It is as if there is some tremendous suspicion in the mind of the Department that, in the case of a loaf of bread, there are all kinds of new mechanical devices by means of which a loaf of bread can be made to appear to he of a much larger weight than it actually is. I have never been able to understand that sort of thing.
Therefore, whilst I welcome the fact that some sort of alternative defence is to be provided under this subsection, I should like to know, if one is selling a l4 oz. Loaf at the price of a 14 oz. loaf, and with the mechanical means and automatic machinery available to-day for dividing dough and weighing it through, there is some overweight, why there should ever be the slightest desire to prosecute. I am completely unhappy about the answer given by the noble Earl, that it is to prevent fraud, which is really the essence of his answer. Again I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, for moving his Amendment, but between now and the Report stage I shall myself take further advice on this matter as to whether or not we can accept this principle without further explanation.
Perhaps, in the meantime, the Department would be good enough to indicate to the trade whether any possible instrument made thereunder, as expressed, will give proper tolerances in these matters so that there cannot be any dubiety left in the mind of the trader or the customer as to whether or not there is intention to defraud. In the case I quoted, at any rate, there was a prosecution willy-nilly. The defendant society had to pay £3 costs for having done something to benefit the consumer, and I think that is absolute nonsense.
5.31 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: Before the noble Earl replies to my noble Leader, I should

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like to support, as strongly as I can, my noble Leader's plea for a statement by the Government as to the tolerances which they call reasonable. It would seem to me grossly unfair to traders to pass these particular clauses unless we are given an assurance that, at a later stage, something will be said by the Government, or something introduced into the Bill, to give traders an idea of just where they are. Although I was greatly interested in Lord Hawke's reasons (and in fact I guessed them in advance) for moving this particular Amendment, the noble Earl, in replying, laid, as the reason for the retention of this sub-paragraph, the greatest emphasis on the need to ensure that where there were specific weights—8 oz., 12 oz., 1 lb., or something like that—traders should not infringe those regulations by selling intermediate weights. I can well appreciate the reasons for that, and I would, indeed, support them.
But when traders do that—and they are going to do it deliberately—the defence available in this sub-paragraph is not, in most cases, available to them. This particular defence to a charge of selling overweight is almost exclusively for the use of people who have packed overweight because it is known that in a day or two days there will most certainly be a loss of weight in those particular goods. The noble Earl acknowledged that when he said that it was to meet the case where goods are packed overweight because of a reasonable expectation of a loss of weight.
The whole question, as my noble Leader indicated, lies in what is reasonable. As we all know, many commodities consist of 70 per cent. up to 90 per cent. of water, and the packer can pack such commodities to allow for 24 hours' loss of weight, which one would regard as reasonable, expecting the goods to be sold next day. However, in many cases they are not sold for two or three days. They have not necessarily lost condition but they have lost weight, and they will be below weight if the weight is ordered to be marked on the package. Inevitably that would bring a prosecution on the retailer if the goods in question are stamped goods, unless the Government can give an indication of what is reasonable in those circumstances. I do think this particular
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matter cannot be glossed over. It would not be honest to gloss over it, and I hope the noble Earl will say something about it.
LORD SALTOUN: I cannot very well understand how one can sell, say, bread overweight which will lead to the customer's being defrauded because he has received bread overweight, even if his eye is taught to expect too large a loaf. It seems to me that the only thing which might happen in those circumstances is that the seller could be trying to attract custom by selling a larger loaf for the same price as his neighbour, and so, perhaps, be traversing a price-fixing agreement. I think the Restrictive Practices Act has done away with price-fixing agreements, so I am rather puzzled, and inclined to agree with the noble Viscount opposite.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Before my noble friend Lord Hawke says anything more, may I point out that, as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said, all that this sub-paragraph does is to enable reasonable allowance for loss of weight to be a defence against a prosecution for selling an intermediate weight between the two legally specified weights. But it is not quite true to say that a prosecution is inevitable. It is not inevitable at all. If the inspector is a reasonable man, he will be aware of the reason why this particular package is a little overweight—that it is because an allowance has to be made. As a rule, inspectors are reasonable and are on fairly good terms with traders, and do not try to bring unreasonable prosecutions. But you must have the safeguard there: that if a prosecution should be brought, such a case will be regarded as a defence.
With regard to the more general question, I do not know how far it arises on this Amendment, but, of course, nobody prosecutes anybody because he has given overweight. The reason why a prosecution is brought is that an article has been made of a quantity which is forbidden by law. The law requires specified weights to be, let us say, either 10 ozs. or 14 ozs. Your Lordships may say the law is wrong to make that requirement, but if the requirement has been made, and if it is illegal to make an article of 12 ozs., intermediate between those two weights I have mentioned, then the law has been broken. It

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is not a question whether you charge a 14 oz. price, in which case you would be charging too much, or a 10 oz. price, in which case you would be charging too little: the offence consists of making an article of a weight which is legally forbidden.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Then does that not make it all the more necessary that this matter should he further considered? I do not think that answers my case at all. We on this side are all in favour of having a clause of this nature in the Bill, because its very infusion at this stage shows that there were unreasonable prosecutions in the past which the new measure wants to try to take care of in some way or other. But is it enough? Does it really give the tolerances with which trades can undertake to agree with the Department, which would enable wastage, and that kind of thing, to be used as a defence to this sort of prosecution? I am asking whether, if there are going to be instruments made under the Bill—such things as regulations covering tolerances, and other matters—we can know about it now, while the law is going through, and then we shall know where we are. I did not gather from the noble Earl that he was willing to consider that point of view and say something to us in The later stages of the Bill.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My noble friend Lord Hawke has an Amendment to one of the Schedules dealing with bread, which suggests a 2 per cent. tolerance, and perhaps it would be more appropriate to deal with these questions when we get to the part of the Bill which provides for that. But I do not agree with the noble Viscount that the clause which we are now discussing necessarily shows that unreasonable prosecutions have taken place. It is a precaution against unreasonable prosecutions taking place under this Bill in future. The fact that the inspector knows that this defence which we are providing is available should, in practically every case, deter him from bringing a prosecution where he knows that the reason for overweight is that an allowance has been made for loss of weight between the packing of the article and its sale.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I hope the noble Earl
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recognises that what he has just said is practically the same as saying that the prosecution I have quoted was correct, that an offence had been committed, but that the prosecution ought not to have been allowed to proceed, as a penalty was incurred. It is because of that very happening that I am pressing the matter so hard, because the case was unjustified.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: With great respect to the noble Viscount, I have no knowledge, except from what the noble Viscount said on Second Reading, of this particular bread case which he has in mind. I would certainly not express any opinion of my own on a judicial decision of that kind. Apart from the fact that I am naturally interested in anything which interests the noble Viscount, I have not the slightest interest in the matter myself one way or the other.
LORD HAWKE: I think we have stirred up something. I would accept the explanation of my noble friend willingly in connection with articles which are required to be of such a specific weight that one size cannot he muddled up with the next size up or down, but it occurs to me that this clause is going a great deal wider and appears to deal with goods mentioned in Clause 24,which deals with the sale of goods by retail which purport to be sold by weight or measure, and I should have thought that that would have brought in the butchers and everybody else. I wonder whether my noble friend would have a look at this clause to see whether he can remove the inference of prosecution from cases other than those where a specific weight is required to be written on the goods. I feel that this is what one might call an officials' Bill. One knows that the tendency of the official mind is to keep the whole population in thraldom, all in a state of having committed offences, but rarely prosecuting. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.41 p.m.
LORD DERWENT LORD DERWENT moved in subsection (4) to add to sub-paragraph (i): "in addition": The noble Lord said: In dealing with this Amendment may I have your Lordships' permission to deal with Amendments Nos. 60, 61, 62, 63 and 65 at the same time, as they all deal with

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the same point? If these Amendments were accepted the two sub-paragraphs of subsection (4) would read:

(i) if the proceedings are in respect of a single article, the court shall disregard any inconsiderable deficiency or, as the case may be, excess; and in addition

(ii) if the proceedings are in respect of one or more of a number of articles of the same kind, being articles which, or articles containing goods which, were sold by the person charged or in that person's possession for sale, the court shall have regard to the average quantity of, or of the goods contained in, a fair sample of all the articles and generally to all the circumstances of the case.

The Hodgson Committee recommended that defences for traders should be strengthened, and it would appear that in this clause the defences for traders have been weakened. These Amendments are designed to ensure that proceedings shall not be brought in respect of a single article where a number of articles are available and that in the case of a single article the court shall be directed to take into account all the circumstances of the case. We believe that neither of these things appears in the clause as now drafted. For those comparatively simple but important reasons we think that the trader should here have greater protection. I beg to move the first Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 28, line 35, at end insert ("in addition").—(Lord Derwent.)
LORD SPENS: I do not know whether it would be convenient to your Lordships to discuss my Amendment at the same time. It is directed to the same anticipated hardship on traders, although it treats it in a slightly different way. The existing law, which is contained in the 1926 Act, specifically directs that, after there has been a test of a number of goods on sale or offered for sale at the same time, the court shall have regard to the average weight or measure of a reasonable number of other articles of the same kind offered for sale at the same time. The clause, as it is at present worded, gives a direction only that
"the court shall have regard to the average quantity of, or of the goods contained in, all the articles tested…"
It says nothing about the rest of the articles to which the court were expressly directed to have regard under existing legislation. It leaves that out altogether.
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May I take the case with which I am most familiar? Suppose there is a load of 300 milk bottles and that an inspector comes along and picks out, we will say, 10 which he thinks may be deficient in some way. If he tests them and finds, we will say, that 25 per cent. are defective, all that the court can direct its mind to, under this clause, is the result of the test of those 10 bottles. It is true that the clause end with the words, "and generally to all the circumstances of the case". Would this, in the defence which has been constantly used in these cases on behalf of traders, in which they say that only a small percentage of the total load has been tested, enable the court to have regard to the fact that there are 290 bottles which have not been tested and against which nothing has been said by the inspector? Time after time that has been a defence which has mitigated any adverse deductions which the court can draw merely from the bottles tested.
Now we have this new wording, and I think he would be a bold man who would say that an argument to the magistrates that Parliament had deliberately altered the wording and the directions given to the court about what they shall consider may not result in the magistrates' saying that they must not have regard to the fact that these 10 bottles were only part of a load of 20 or of a load of 300, and very different deductions might be drawn from that fact. My Amendment really reinstates as a direction to the court that, in addition to the result of the test, the court must also have regard to
"a reasonable number of articles of the same kind in that person's possession for sale or delivery on the same occasion,"
If this wording is accepted, there can be no doubt at all that the court can take into consideration not only the result of the limited number tested but also the proportion that that number bears to the total amount offered for sale at the time.
LORD BURDEN: May I say a word in support of the case made out by the noble Lord, Lord Spens? As he rightly says, this clause makes a substantial change in the existing law. As the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, has pointed out, it goes against the recommendation of the Hodgson Committee, and I think that

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the Government ought to give substantial reasons why they are making this change. It is for the Government to give evidence that the existing law has proved inadequate to deal with such cases. From my experience as a local councillor, the existing law has never prevented weights and measures inspectors from taking action which they thought necessary. Surely, while in this Bill we want to catch the dishonest trader we do not want to harass unduly the honest and decent trader because of perhaps one mistake. I think that this protection is accorded by taking the result of the average in regard to a number of single articles which he may have on sale at the Same time.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: As these Amendments are largely of a legal nature I have some slight diffidence in replying to all of your Lordships who have spoken to them, but I should like to try to meet the wishes of your Lordships in this matter. The wording in the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Spens follows that in the corresponding safeguard to traders in Section 12 (1) of the 1926 Act. But that Act does not contain the provision which is contained in this Bill about the court having regard to the average quantity of all the articles tested by the inspector. I think our intention was to provide a safeguard which went wider than that in the 1926 Act by requiring the court to have regard to the entire number which that inspector had in fact tested. Under the 1926 Act the inspector could test 20 out of 50 similar articles on the trader's shelves, and finding that 10 of them were under weight he could bring proceedings solely on those 10, which could certainly be regarded as a reasonable number, in the circumstances. But he was not required to divulge to the court his findings about the other 10 which might have been perfectly all right.
Under this Bill, as it stands, he will have to lay before the court details of the full 20 tests, and the safeguard in that respect will thus go further in protecting the trader than the 1926 Act did. But what I think the Bill in its present form fails to do, and what I do not think the noble Lord's Amendment would do, is to require the inspector positively to take a reasonable number of tests in the
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traders premises—"a reasonable number" meaning not a certain number all on one shelf, but a fair cross-section of other articles on other shelves, to make sure that they have not been arranged for the purpose of the inspection. I think he ought to be required to do that, and that possibly the most appropriate place to insert a provision of that kind would be either in art earlier clause or in Clause 30 of the Bill.
I should like to look at this point, if the noble Lord will agree, and bring in an Amendment which will be designed to give the full protection which all your Lordships who have supported these Amendments wish to give to the trader, by ensuring that the case should rest on a reasonable number of tests and not only on either one or two, or a large number, which for some reason, such as of being in the same lot, may be an unfair sample of what the trader has in his stock.
LORD SHEPHERD: May I say that I thoroughly agree with what the noble Earl has said? I should like him to go one stage further for the trader's protection. If the trader's goods are inspected and there is a shortage of weight or measurement on certain items, and the inspector inspects a few more and there is still some deficiency, if the trader feels that his stock overall is not of that standard he should be able to ask the inspector to carry out, say, a survey of at least 50 per cent. of the mechandise. If the inspector has the right to weigh as much as he likes, if the case is going to be based on what is the average, I think the trader should have the right to expect the inspector to weigh or measure a fair percentage of his total stock. In other words, the trader should have the opportunity of requesting the inspector to survey as much as the trader wishes.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: If I have understood the noble Lord rightly, that is exactly what I wish to try to do. Anyhow, I will look at the OFFICIAL REPORT of what he has said, and will certainly bear it in mind.
LORD SILKIN: I hope that we shall not make this Bill quite unworkable. This is a Bill for the protection of the consumer and not particularly for the protection of the trader. Nobody wants to do an injustice to the trader, but we

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are here to protect the consumer. If a burden is placed upon the inspector of having to examine an abnormally large number of articles, as might happen in a large store, he might have to spend possibly a whole day inspecting something at the request of the trader. That would make the thing unworkable. I would much rather have some general wording than any specific quantity. I hope the noble Earl will try to hold the balance between the trader and the consumer.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The slight difference of emphasis between the noble Lords, Lord Silkin and Lord Shepherd, illustrates the difficulty we have in doing the right thing. We will certainly do our best to achieve the best available balance.
LORD STONHAM: When the noble Earl is giving consideration to this matter, will he consider whether one possible way of handling it would be to give some definition of what in the Bill is called "inconsiderable deficiency". Clause 27 (4) (b) (i) says:
"If the proceedings are in respect of a single article the court shall disregard any inconsiderable deficiency or, as the case may be, excess."
If the traders have what the Government regard as an inconsiderable deficiency ", and we had that defined, it would take us a much longer way along the road to understanding.
LORD SPENS: In regard to the noble Lord's last remark, it is what the court considers an "inconsiderable deficiency", not what the Government consider. It is an offence when the trader gets before the court.
LORD STONHAM: I was hoping to save the courts a lot of trouble.
LORD SPENS: With regard to the main point, I am very glad to hear what the noble Earl has said. I took just the other view from that he has indicated: that in fact the clause was cutting down the existing safeguard for traders. I gather that the noble Earl agrees that the existing clause is not very satisfactory in the way it is at present worded—there are difficulties about it—and it is only right that what was intended, and what I understand is still intended, should now be made intelligible. It is the one clause in the Bill
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to safeguard traders; all the rest of the Bill is for the benefit of consumers. I think the traders deserve one clause for their protection, and they deserve a clause which is reasonably clear.
LORD DERWENT: I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that what has happened in this case is that the trader has been given a little extra but, owing to rather doubtful drafting, has had taken away a little of what he had before. However, I am quite happy to leave it in my noble friend's hands. If we do not like his Amendment, thank Heaven! the next one will be a Government Amendment and we can pull it to bits. But I do not think it should be difficult for a skilled draftsman to draft now that we are apparently all on the same side. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.0 p.m.
LORD DERWENT: This is a horrible looking Amendment, but it is quite simple to explain. There appears to be no reference anywhere in the Bill to the checking of the volume of liquid by reference to temperature. A drop in temperature between the time when the liquid is despatched and the time it is delivered means a reduction in the volume of the liquid, though the weight remains the same. This Amendment is trying, in effect, to give a yardstick, so that with this decrease in volume, which is bound to take place with a lowering of temperature, both the inspector and the trader can know if the decrease in volume is due to temperature and not to short weight. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 28, line 43, at end insert—
("() In any proceedings for an offence under this Act or any instrument made thereunder being (i) an offence in connection with any deficiency or excess in the measurement by capacity of any article or (ii) an offence in connection with the testing of any equipment used for the measurement by capacity of any article the prosecution shall produce evidence of the temperature of the article at the time of the alleged offence and it shall be a defence in addition to and not in derogation from any other defence provided by this Act for the person charged to prove that the alleged offence was due to the difference between the said temperature and the temperature producing the density of distilled water described in Part IV of the First Schedule of this Act under the conditions therein set out".)—(Lord Derwent.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I do not think my noble friend meant to suggest, in moving his Amendment, that in the case of smaller flowmeters or petrol measures the present methods are unsatisfactory. They have worked very well. The inspectors' standards are made of metal. They may have different co-efficients of expansion, but at any rate with the normal variation of temperature which we get in this country errors due to the difference will be small. Inspectors have been testing deliveries of various liquids from kerbside flow-meters for a long time, and no suggestion has previously been made that provisions of the kind referred to in the Amendment were at all necessary. If they had been, the Board of Trade would have taken steps to meet the situation by means of regulations.
My noble friend may perhaps be thinking that hitherto inspectors have been concerned only with comparatively small quantities of liquids and small flow-meters, whereas under this Bill they may be called upon to test bulk deliveries where temperature differences might possibly make some appreciable difference in volume or measure. If this is so, I shall be glad to consider any evidence as to the need for provisions of this kind which could involve the preparation of correction tables for use by inspectors, or even prohibition of testing otherwise than under temperature-controlled conditions. But I think this matter ought to be considered in connection with the regulations which the Board will, in any case, have to make before the appropriate Parts of the Fifth to Ninth Schedules come into operation. That would be a more appropriate method of dealing with it than altering the wording of the Statute itself.
LORD DERWENT: If I understand my noble friend aright, if evidence is produced and he thinks, or between us we think, the evidence is good enough and that there ought to be a clause in the Bill, we could draw a clause and put it in. But if we do not want to do that, then he thinks it can be dealt with under regulation. I think that is the gist of his remarks.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: May I make it quite clear? I do not think it would be appropriate to put a clause in. What I was saying was if we had the evidence
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that it would be necessary, then the Board, in the regulations which they would make before the date at which this Bill comes into operation, would take account of that.
LORD DERWENT: I am obliged to my noble friend. I understand his point of view, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD HAWKE LORD HAWKE moved to add to the clause:
"() In ascertaining the weight of any goods for the purposes of any proceedings for an offence under this Part of this Act or any instrument made thereunder, being an offence in respect of any deficiency or excess in the weight of those goods, the moisture content normally present in goods of the same class or description under normal conditions of temperature, atmospheric pressure and humidity shall be included; and in ascertaining for the purposes of this subsection the moisture content normally present in goods of any class or description, regard may be had to the provisions of any British Standard for the time being relating to goods of that class of description."
The noble Lord said: My noble friend Lord Barnby much regrets that he is unable to be present to move his Amendment. The Amendment deals, broadly, with goods which have a highly hygroscopic nature—that is to say, absorbing and losing moisture by evaporation dependent on temperature, humidity, and so on. Naturally, their weights are vitally affected at the point of sale. The manufacturer can be held to supply a sufficient weight to take account of this, and in the defence against a charge of underweight he has to show that he took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid the commission of such an offence. That might not be very difficult in the case of certain goods, but in other goods, particularly those my noble friend had in mind, such as woollen yarns, where there is a considerable degree of hygroscopicity, it is difficult to ensure a standard. A manufacturer, for instance, might be spinning in a period of great wet in the north of England, knowing perfectly well that his goods were going into a drought-stricken south-east England, and likely to stay there some time before sale. Could it be said that the resulting loss in weight was through lack of reasonable care to ascertain what that loss of weight was likely to be?
In the Amendment, we substitute some sort of standard in the matter. If there is any shortage of weight, then in ascertaining the amount of the shortage, you must compare the moisture present with what is normally present in goods of the same class or description under normal conditions of temperature, atmospheric pressure and humidity; and, where there is a British Standard for the time being, regard must be had to any provisions of that standard. I understand that the people who spin yarns are rather anxious about this point, and I hope that Her Majesty's Government will give the Amendment sympathetic consideration. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 28, line 43, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Hawke.)
LORD ST. OSWALD: In the last two Amendments we have gone from temperature to moisture content, and the two noble Lords sitting behind me seem to be saying that if it is not heat it is the humidity which bedevils the trader. I myself live in the same part of the world as the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, who put down this Amendment, and I am fully sympathetic to the problems of the wool textile trade. But this Amendment introduces considerable practical difficulties by being based upon the concepts of "normal" conditions of moisture content, temperature, humidity and so on. It is not easy to see how the prosecution, the defence and the courts could agree upon what should be regarded as normal "for this purpose. However, on the substance of the Amendment, it appears either to be unnecessary, in view of the defences and safeguards already set out in Clause 27, or else, if it is designed to give traders a wider sanction than those defences allow, to be liable to weaken seriously the protection of the consumer.
Subsection (2) of Clause 27 gives the trader a defence if his goods lose weight for any reason for which he could not make reasonable allowance at the time when determining the quantity to be declared by him in respect of them. For example, it defends the trader where there is an unexpected and exceptional evaporation loss, if he can prove to the court that he had made a reasonable allowance for the normal and expected
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evaporation loss when marking the weight on the container. This defence would appear to meet satisfactorily one aspect of the matters touched on in the Amendment. If, however, my noble friend is suggesting that there should be a defence, based upon some concept of "normal" conditions of moisture content, humidity and so on, for a trader who marks a pre-pack with a weight which he knows may not be correct by the time the goods reach the shops, then the Government must declare their belief that this would strike at the very roots of the protection this Bill attempts to give the public.
Again, subsection (3) of Clause 27 gives the trader a defence if his goods gain weight unexpectedly during distribution. An offence of giving excess weight can, of course, arise under the Bill only in respect of those limited classes of goods which are required to be pre-packed or made for sale in a range of specified weights only. However, for this limited class of goods the defence in subsection (3), which still stands, despite my noble friend Lord Hawke's efforts to do away with it a few minutes ago, should meet the other aspect of the matters touched on in the Amendment. This is because an unexpected gain in weight could equally well be followed, still before the goods reached the shops, by a corresponding reduction in weight, if the temperature or humidity conditions changed back again; and the trader should easily be able to establish that it was reasonable and necessary for him to pack the amount of goods that he in fact did, in order to avoid the quantity becoming deficient at any subsequent time.
If the noble Lord is suggesting that a trader, knowing perfectly well that one or other of these limited classes of goods inevitably gains weight on its way to the shops, should have a defence based on some concept of "normal" conditions which were different from the conditions which would obtain at the time of retail sale, then his Amendment would undermine the protection given to the public by the requirement to pre-pack in specified weights only. This again the Government could not accept. If the noble Lord refers to semi-processed or other goods being sold to a manufacturer, I would point out that the short-weight provision of Clause 25 will not "bite"

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anyway, due to the exemptions under subsection (7) discussed earlier.
LORD HAWKE: Would the noble Lord say something about British Standards, which are mentioned in the Amendment.
LORD ST. OSWALD: I should like to look at the noble Lord's suggestion on standards. I am afraid that I am not in a position to say anything about it at the moment, but I will contact my noble friend later on the point be raised.
LORD HAWKE: I was interested to hear my noble friend's explanation, and I am glad to hear indirectly that the offence of giving overweight happens only in the case of pre-packed goods. We might have heard that earlier, I think. The spinners, particularly of woollen yarns, will read his reply with interest and we shall be able to see at the next stage of the Bill whether they consider they will have adequate defence against the variations of our climate.
6.13 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: May I put one point to the noble Lord. He said—and I agree—that there could be no defence when a trader, at the time the goods reach the shop, marks with a weight which he knows may not be correct. Everybody would agree that would be an offence which should be punishable. I should like him to deal with the point which was made in regard to wool textiles (and they are not the only goods with which it can occur), that the inspector does not necessarily call at the moment when the goods reach the shop. He may call days after, and the trader, the processor or the packer, cannot possibly know the conditions of humidity and so on at the time of sale. He cannot possibly know precisely when the goods are going to be sold, and therefore he cannot guard against continuing losses of weight in those kinds of goods where loss is continuous through evaporation. He can pack in such a way that at the time the goods reach the shop they are the correct weight, but he cannot—and no one can—guarantee that at the time and place they are sold they will be the correct weight.
It therefore seems to me that Lord Hawke's suggestion could be of very considerable value. And surely it is a safeguard that should not be dispensed with simply because it may he somewhat difficult of application. After all, if
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it is just that this should be considered, the mere difficulty of application of this safeguard should not apply. I would ask the noble Lord, therefore, to realise that it is not only the moment the goods reach the shop that matters; it is also the moment when the inspector calls to look at them. And, in my view, Clause 27 does not in all circumstances provide an adequate safeguard to the trader.
LORD ST. OSWALD: As often before, the noble Lord baffles me with science. As I understand it, this loss of weight through evaporation is not a continuous process which goes on ad infinitum. As I understand it, when the weather changes the substance can gain weight again. The picture he has given is of a substance, such as a textile, losing weight continuously and never gaining weight. I will naturally, as always, look with great interest at what he said, and I will take it up with those who know a great deal more about it than I do. But my first reaction to his remarks is that this is not, as he seemed to describe it, a continuous process.
LORD STONHAM: I was not trying to baffle the noble Lord with science, because I am not scientific. But perhaps he will accept that if goods have a high moisture content and go from a humid atmosphere into a dry atmosphere they must lose more weight on the second day than they lose on the first; that is perfectly obvious. Will he, in his consideration of these matters, consider not only wool textiles but the vast range of other commodities which do lose weight by evaporation the longer they are kept, because they are the ones about which traders are mostly concerned?
LORD ST. OSWALD: I have a more precise answer to the noble Lord. If the goods are short when found in the shop the inspector first considers whether the shortage occurred in the shop. If so, the shopkeeper has committed an offence. If it was the packer's responsibility, Clause 28 enables the offence to be taken back to the packer, so that the loss of weight is not considered as if it must have happened entirely in the shop. It is taken into account that the process may have started from the packing stage.
LORD STONHAM: Can the noble Lord say bow the inspector knows whether the loss of weight occurred

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before or after the goods reached the shop?
LORD ST. OSWALD: Presumably he cannot say by looking at them, by a spot judgment. He has to look into the circumstances—the date when they were packed, the distance they have travelled and various other circumstances. That is my own impression.
LORD HAWKE: I think the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has made the point very much better than I could have done. I would emphasise that the point the spinners fear is that their goods may be put in a shop window, exposed to violent sunshine and lose weight very heavily, in which case they would be held to blame; and that is why the question of the British Standards specification comes in with particular reference to that type of goods. My noble friend has promised to look into this British Standards specification, and I hope that he may be able to provide a defence based on those lines for goods which have such a specification of moisture content et cetera. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 27 agreed to.
Clauses 28 and 29 agreed to.
Clause 30 [Special powers of inspector with respect to certain goods]:
6.19 p.m.
LORD LATHAM LORD LATHAM moved, in subsection (1) (a), after "sale" to insert:
"or carried on any vehicle or otherwise for delivery on sale".
The noble Lord said: I rise to move Amendment No. 67A. It may be to the convenience of your Lordships if the next three Amendments are taken at the same time, as they all run together and with the first. Clause 30, as your Lordships will know, provides for special powers of the inspector with respect to certain goods, and the Amendment on the Paper is to close what is thought to be a gap in the language of the clause as appearing in the Bill. It will be observed that the goods may not be offered or exposed for sale, but may be inside a vehicle and subsequently sold during the course of the vehicle's journey. This applies particularly to coal. As I have said, the Amendments are intended to
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cover such circumstances or such a situation. As at present drafted, if the coal dealer is carrying coal which has not been ordered but which he may dispose of during the course of his round, it would seem to me that the clause does not apply, and it is important that it should apply. I ask the noble Earl whether this obvious gap can be closed. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 30, line 25, after ("sale") insert the said words.—(Lord Latham.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The words which the noble Lord, Lord Latham, proposes to insert, "for delivery on sale", are a term which is used in the Weights and Measures Act, 1889, in relation to transactions in coal, which he particularly mentioned in his remarks; and it means delivery to the buyer in pursuance of a sale to him—that is to say, where the goods are sold to him and have been appropriated to that purpose. In this Bill the same language is not used. I have looked carefully at the noble Lord's Amendment. It seems to me that, although the Bill does not repeat these words, it uses words which cover the same circumstances—for instance, paragraph (a) of subsection (1) covers "any goods offered or exposed for sale". If the goods are being offered or exposed for sale when they are being carried on a vehicle—for example, coal sacks on a hawker's car—this paragraph covers them already, and I do not think there would be any need to mention a vehicle specifically.
LORD LATHAM: May I intervene on that point? What happens if it is a closed vehicle? The coal is not then exposed for sale.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I think that the paragraph covers them already—"any goods offered or exposed for sale." I do not think that there is any need to mention a vehicle specifically, because, by definition, the goods cannot yet have been sold; there cannot be any "delivery on sale" which would be relevant to this paragraph. Paragraphs (b) and (c) of this subsection both specify goods "in the course of delivery to the buyer." I think that fully covers "delivery on sale" and" carriage for delivery on sale" whether the vehicle is open or closed. I think the point is covered already.
LORD LATHAM: The noble Earl said that the language of an earlier Statute had been abandoned and new language incorporated in this Bill. Was it the case, then, that the language of the earlier enactment was regarded as being unsatisfactory; and, if so, in what respect? I would point out that coal which is in a closed van is not only not exposed for sale, but is not necessarily offered for sale.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: It is being carried. Paragraph (c) specifies goods "in the course of delivery to the buyer." I think that covers goods in a closed vehicle. As for the language of the 1889 Act, with particular reference to coal, I did not suggest that the words had been unsatisfactory. What I think is the case is that the new wards in the Bill are a little more satisfactory.
LORD SHEPHERD: Can the noble Earl give me an explanation? Suppose coal has been ordered for delivery and is being delivered to the consumer's house by a vehicle. Have the goods at that stage been sold, or are they on offer? The point that I am trying to raise in support of my noble friend is that if those goods are on the vehicle and the customer complains and is fortunate enough to get an inspector to come and inspect the goods, as the Bill is now before us I imagine that he could not examine and weigh those goods on the vehicle. I should have thought that if my noble friend's words were inserted it would then be possible, if the consumer raised an abjection and was fortunate enough to get an inspector to came and weigh the goods, that those goods could be weighed on the vehicle and it could be established whether an offence had been committed.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I will look into that point, but it does not seem to me that the words of the noble Lord's Amendment would give any greater protection than those already in the Bill. Where coal is travelling in a closed vehicle to a place at which it is to be sold, it is in the trader's possession or charge for sale and is covered by Clause 30 (1) (c). If it has been ordered already by telephone I do not think the sale has yet been concluded.
LORD LATHAM: I should like to make this point. It is unimportant as
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to whether, in this connection, the words suggested in my Amendment are no better than those in the Bill. The point is, are the words in the Bill satisfactory to close this gap which can give rise to abuse and avoidance? That is the point.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: That is exactly what I have been trying, I know in a most inadequate way, to convince your Lordships of for the last ten minutes.
LORD LATHAM: Would the noble Earl be good enough to look into the matter in order to make assurance doubly sure? In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD LATHAM: The purpose of this Amendment is to enable the inspector to secure the co-operation of the persons in charge of goods under the terms of the clause, and to strengthen the language of the clause. Obviously, if such persons are difficult, the inspector may be unable to perform his duties under the clause, and it is thought to be desirable that he should be able to rely upon authority such as that which would be given to him by the words of this Amendment. When considering this Amendment I thought that perhaps Clause 49 might provide the additional powers, but I am not satisfied that it does, and I think it would improve the Bill if the Amendment were accepted. I hope that the noble Earl may find himself able to do so. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 31, line 9, at end insert ("and such person shall afford the inspector such facilities and assistance as he may reasonably require for these purposes").—(Lord Latham.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: This Amendment relates to subsection (l) of Clause 30 which is concerned with specifying the special powers given to inspectors to enable them adequately to enforce the provisions in Part IV of the Bill relating to transactions in goods and in particular with empowering the inspector to weigh or measure the goods, to weigh their containers and, if necessary, to break open any containers in which goods are packed; and the Amendment seeks to insert in this clause an obligation upon the trader to give the inspector reasonable facilities and assistance for these purposes.

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The noble Lord, Lord Latham, was good enough to consider whether this might already be covered by Clause 49. I would not say it was, but I would submit to your Lordships and the noble Lord that it is fully covered by the following clause (Clause 50) which deals with the question of assistance which the trader should be obliged to give the inspector for these purposes. Subsection (1) of that clause makes it an offence wilfully to obstruct an inspector or to fail wilfully to comply with any requirement an inspector may properly make in the execution of his duties under Clause 30 and, without reasonable cause, to fail to give the inspector such other assistance as the inspector may reasonably ask of him in carrying out his duties under Clause 30, or, indeed, under any other clause in the Bill. I believe those provisions in Clause 50 appear to meet fully the objective of the noble Lord.
LORD LATHAM: I am much obliged to the noble Earl. I agree that the words referred to in Clause 50 meet the point I had in mind. The noble Earl will not be unaware that there is another Amendment dealing with Clause 50 in another connection; but, having regard to the provisions of that clause in relation to the point I have just made, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 30 agreed to.
Clause 31:
Powers of inspector with respect to certain documents.
31.—(1) An inspector, subject to the production if so requested of his credentials, may require the person in charge of any document required by or under this Part of this Act to be associated with any goods to produce that document for inspection.
LORD LATHAM LORD LATHAM moved in subsection (1) after "document" where that word occurs a first time, to insert "relating to quantity". The noble Lord said: Clause 31 deals with documents, and this first Amendment has for its purpose a strengthening of the provisions of the clause; and the further Amendment will do likewise. Clause 31 enables an inspector to require the person in charge of any document required by or under Part IV of the Act to be associated with goods to produce the
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document for inspection, or to seize and detain it if it contains a false statement, or to endorse it with particulars of the inaccuracy. The requirements for documents to be associated with goods relate only—and this is important—to such goods as are specified in the Fifth to Ninth Schedules of the Bill.
There are, however, many common transactions in terms of weight, measure or number in goods not included in these Schedules. Among such transactions are the sale of screws, normally sold by the gross—and I should imagine that the demand for screws has very sensibly increased recently as a result of the expansion of the "Do it yourself" doctrine. Then there are organic fertilisers which are sold in a bag by weight. I should think that the growth of interest in gardens, with the stimulus of chemical manufacturing companies, has certainly increased the demand for, and the sale of, organic fertilisers. There are sheets and blankets which are sold by measure, as are carpets. There are blocks of ice sold by weight and clothes lines sold by length. On the occasion of the Second Reading of this Bill I gave the House an instance of shortage in length of certain clothes lines in respect of which a trader was successfully prosecuted.
Since the giving of short weight or short number or the making of misrepresentation in respect thereof is to be a general offence, it is considered that the powers of any inspector of weights and measures in relation to documents should be extended so as to cover any document relating to goods, irrespective of whether or not the goods are scheduled. The purpose of the Amendment is to extend the power of the inspector and therefore the protection which will be given to the consumer. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 31, line 43, after ("document") insert ("relating to quantity").—(Lord Latham.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: This Amendment and the next relate to subsection (1) of Clause 31 which as at present drafted, gives inspectors of weights and measures certain special powers to examine, and if necessary to seize or endorse, any documents which are specifically required by the Bill, or by orders made under Clause 22, to be associated with particular classes of goods and to

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be delivered to the buyer. The nature of the documents which are required under the Bill to be associated with goods is fairly precisely defined. The most general class of such documents is dealt with in Clause 24, which prescribes a simple statement in writing as to the quantity; slightly more elaborate forms of document are prescribed in the Sixth and Seventh Schedules, which require certain additional information to be inserted, such as the name and address of the buyer and seller and the precise nature of the goods to which the documents refer.
The present Amendment would, however, confer upon inspectors of weights and measures the power to examine and seize any other documents which the person concerned happened to be carrying at the time and which related to the quantity of the goods, irrespective of whether these documents were intended to be delivered to the buyer. This would enable inspectors to seize documents in the possession of a vanman which are intended purely for internal business use by the seller and which the seller was not required under the Bill either to carry with the goods or to deliver to the buyer. Documents of that kind could, by chance, be in his or his vanman's possession when the inspector met him. If noble Lords take the view that the nature of any of the documents required by the Bill to be associated with particular goods is inadequately defined, or if they doubt the inspectors' ability to obtain copies of records kepts at public weighbridges, the Government will be glad to consider on their merits any suggestions for any Amendments designed to remedy such deficiencies; but we cannot accept a proposal on the lines of the present Amendment which would confer upon inspectors such a very sweeping and arbitrary power.
LORD LATHAM: Apparently I did not make it clear that the Amendment does not relate to the type of documents but to the goods in respect of which, under my Amendment, there must be or would be documents. Our complaint is that there are goods which I cited, and many others, which are exempt from the provisions, whether in the clause or in the Fifth to Ninth Schedules. The purpose of this Amendment is to bring all goods within the obligations of documentation. That is quite different, as I
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understood it, from the point the noble Earl was answering. He was answering a case I have not put up yet.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: It is not a question of the goods but of documents, because the Amendment empowers the inspector to take possession of any other documents relating to the quantity of goods. That would include documents of all kinds which relate to the quantity of the goods but which the seller is not required by law to carry and which he did not intend to deliver to the buyer. There might be correspondence of all kinds, or catalogues which relate to the quantity of goods but which are a private affair between the sellers and agents, which are not intended to be delivered to anybody else and which are not required under this Bill to be delivered. The effect of the Amendment would enable the inspector to take possession of documents of these kinds. We think that this is too sweeping a power. We are willing to consider any deficiencies in the existing provisions of the Bill, which clearly defines the kind of document of which the inspector is able to take possession.
LORD LATHAM: We are not ad idem. There are certain cases in respect of which documents can be prescribed under the Fifth to Ninth Schedules. I am not suggesting that with regard to those goods there will be additional documentation. What the Amendment suggests is that other goods shall be brought within the requirement of having documents. Presumably those documents would be no more unrelated than the documents prescribed in respect of certain prescribed goods under the Fifth to Ninth Schedules. Is it the point that there would be correspondence or letters in connection with the goods which I am suggesting should be brought within the Schedules, such as screws or organic fertilisers, whereas there will not be correspondence as a part of documents relating to the goods which are at present provided for within the Schedules? The point is: why cannot the application of this requirement be extended in the manner in which I have indicated?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I quite see the noble Lord's point. What he wants is to bring in other kinds of goods under this requirement. But what his Amend-

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ment would do is enable the inspector to take possession of other documents relating to goods which are already covered by the Bill, although the documents are not at present required by the Bill to be carried. They might be of a purely private nature, and we do not think it would be right to empower the inspector to seize them.
LORD FARINGDON: I still do not think that the noble Earl has taken the point. I have been looking at this Schedule just this minute, and there are, for example, cleansing powders and scouring powders included. What we have asked is that not only scouring powders and the other things included in the Fifth to Ninth Schedules should require documents; but the carpets that my noble friend spoke of, or the nails, or all the other things he mentioned, should also require documents; and that, those documents being required, as documents will be in any case regarding the scouring powders, they can be demanded and treated by the inspector as provided for in this clause. With great respect, it does not seem to me to raise the question of looking at private documents or any other documents that happen to be on the vehicle. It is only to do with extending the number of articles which will require to have documents attached to them. Surely that is the point.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The noble Lord may be looking at the Fifth Schedule. I am looking at Clause 31, Powers of inspector with respect to certain documents. This clause is not concerned with requirements as to documentation, but simply with the rights of the inspector to inspect documents—rights which are laid down elsewhere.
LORD FARINGDON: Would the noble Earl suggest that in order to bring these other articles within the scope of this Bill, and in order to require them to have documents, we should perhaps put down an Amendment to one of the Schedules and bring the documents into that?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Yes.
LORD LATHAM: If that be the procedure to be followed, it shall be
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followed. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 31 agreed to.
Clauses 32 and 33 agreed to.
6.45 p.m.
Clause 34 [Making quantity known to, and weighing in presence of, persons]:
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved, in subsection (1) after "Act", where that word first occurs, to insert:
",subject to the provisions of paragraph 4 (c) of Part VII and of paragraph 1 (c) of Part XI of the Fifth Schedule to this Act,".
The noble Lord said: Clause 34 lays on the seller an obligation to make known to the buyer the quantity of the goods sold, and he must do it by weight, measurement or number. He must do it in the buyer's presence, or deliver in a container marked with the quantity purporting to be delivered; or he must furnish a written statement containing the necessary information. Paragraph 4 (c) in Part VII of the Fifth Schedule expressly permits sales of goods in containers where the contents are clearly visible—sales of up to six articles. It does not require them to be sold by weight; it does not require production of a written document; and it does not require them to be marked with the number. It would therefore seem that the words of Clause 34 do not apply to those particular transactions which are permitted under paragraph 4 (c) of Part VII of the Fifth Schedule. If that is so, and if it is not covered elsewhere in the Bill (and the noble Earl may tell me that it is), it would seem that after the word "Act" we must insert words drawing attention to that fact; and that is what the Amendment proposes to do.
The noble Earl will see that I have included in the Amendment a reference to paragraph 1 (c) of Part XI of the Fifth Schedule, which requires packages of shell eggs to be marked with a number and therefore would come, as it now stands, under the provision of Clause 34. But I am hoping that at a later stage the Government will accept an Amendment which I hope to move so that the requirement for shell eggs shall not apply until the number of eggs in the packet exceeds six, provided, of course, that the contents are in a package which leaves them clearly visible to the buyer. It is with that in mind that I venture

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to include in this Amendment a reference to that paragraph 1 (c). I hope that I have made my meaning clear to the noble Earl and that he will be able to assure me either that the point is covered somewhere else in the Bill (it obviously is not covered in Clause 34) or that he will accept the Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 33, line 7, after ("Act") insert the said words.—(Lord Stonham.)
6.50 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, seemed to be in some little doubt as to what Clause 34 actually does, The clause does not in itself impose any requirements upon transactions in any particular goods. All it does, in the three paragraphs (a), (b) and (c), is to specify three of the possible ways in which a seller can fulfil the obligations imposed upon him by the various provisions in the Bill to make the quantity of goods known to the buyer. The quantity is to be deemed to have been made known,

"(a) if the goods are weighed or otherwise measured or counted in the presence of the buyer; or

(b) if the goods are delivered to the buyer in a container marked with the quantity purported to be sold; or

(c) upon delivery to the buyer of any document required by or under this Act to be associated with, and to contain a statement of the quantity or, the goods."

This clause is purely declaratory or explanatory. It clearly states that the specification of the three ways of making the quantity known is entirely without prejudice to any other means of actually making it known which the seller may wish to employ. I do not think the noble Lord's Amendment could have any effect on the subsection, and I do not think it would effect any saving for the particular exempting, provisions of the Fifth Schedule to which he referred. But if it has enabled him to draw your Lordships' attention to subsequent Amendments which he intends to move, the noble Lord's Amendment has, nevertheless, served a useful purpose.
LORD STONHAM: I need hardly assure your Lordships that it was not raised for that reason, but out of a genuine belief, which is still not entirely dispelled, that it was a necessary Amendment. The noble Earl recounted, as I did, the three provisions which are in this subsection; the three ways of making known the
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weight or contents of the goods. But, as I pointed out, none of those three ways applies to the particular case which is permitted in paragraph 4 (c) of Part VII of the Fifth Schedule. I therefore have to ask him whether the words in Clause 34,
"without prejudice to any other means of making known to the buyer,"
cover the particular case which I have cited; because my impression is that merely exposing goods for sale in a manner in which they can be clearly seen is not a positive action in making them known to the buyer. But if the noble Earl assures me that it is so regarded, and that paragraph 4 (c) is still perfectly in order despite this Government clause, then I shall, of course, be perfectly satisfied.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Yes, I really think that it is without prejudice to any other means of actually making it known which the seller may wish to employ.
LORD STONHAM: I am very grateful for that assurance, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 34 agreed to.
Clause 35 [Local weights and measures authorities in England and Wales]:
6.54 p.m.
LORD BURDEN: This Amendment and the two subsequent Amendments are, of course, linked. The suggestion—and this is what I would put to the noble Earl—is that the dates specified in subsection (3) for prescribing the end of the period during which certain non-county boroughs cease to be weights and measures authorities may prove in actual practice to be too early, particularly having regard to the work of the Local Government Commission for England and Wales. There may be changes in population and in the status of boroughs, and it is therefore suggested in these Amendments that the Board of Trade should have power, if necessary, to appoint later dates than those set forth in the Bill. The Amendments are designed to help in the working of the Bill, and they are moved in that spirit. I beg to move the first Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 34, line 10, at end insert ("or in either case, such later date as the Board may by order appoint").—(Lord Burden.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: This is a slightly difficult question, which it may be the Government have made more difficult by trying to find some compromise between what the Hodgson Committee recommended and what the noble Lord would prefer. The Hodgson Committee recommended that only counties and county boroughs should be weights and measures authorities, and they even advocated that the smaller ones among these authorities should combine for all weights and measures purposes. There is a great deal to be said for that course, in the interests of both economic and efficient administration. It is not a question of the smaller authorities being inefficient in any way, but that, particularly as trade is conducted more and more on a national or regional basis, the enforcement by bigger units becomes in itself more efficient. To-day we have traders and manufacturers operating over wide areas with fewer authorities to deal with, and the establishment of local offices by the local authorities ensure that enforcement is not remote from the consumers. It is also in the interests of business and consumer alike that the standard of enforcement should be uniform over fairly wide areas.
But, in spite of these considerations, the Government decided not to accept the Hodgson Committee's view, and the Bill provides for a large number of non-county boroughs and urban districts to exercise the function if they so wish. By no means all the authorities which have been entitled to the function in the past have, in fact, exercised it. They have often combined with other authorities, or sometimes ceded the function to the county; but there are some non-county boroughs which are attached to the exercise of this function, and the Bill enables any non-county borough or urban district with a population greater than 60,000 to be a weights and measures authority if it so wishes. It goes even further by enabling the Board to make orders by which non-county boroughs and urban districts with a population below that figure may, in special circumstances, be enabled to act as weights and measures authorities. So, in both these respects, what we are proposing in the Bill constitutes a considerable "watering down" of the Hodgson Committee's recommendations.
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We thought this was the best compromise we could make between the arguments for the county and county boroughs only, on the one hand, and the need to keep a lively civic organisation in the smaller units of local government, on the other. Of course, like all compromise solutions, it can be shown to open the possibility of some illogical developments. We admit that the combined operation of the Local Government Act, 1958, and this Bill could produce a situation in which an authority ceased to be a weights and measures authority and then, later on, owing to an increase of population as a result of a boundary change, regained the right to be one.
Having created these possible causes of uncertainty as to who were going to be weights and measures authorities, it is desirable to try to limit the period of uncertainty. I would suggest to the noble Lord that the limits in this Bill—that is to say, until 1963 before an authority relinquishes its functions; until 1964 until an appeal can be lodged for special consideration for an Order by the Board of Trade; and then until 1965 until the new authority can actually be conferred by the Board of Trade—are as far ahead as we reasonably ought to go. I think that if we were to enable the definition and settlement of weights and measures authorities to be delayed still further, and that if we were to prolong the period of uncertainty, we should not be making the best compromise we could, and which we have tried to do under the Bill.
LORD BURDEN: I am obliged to the noble Earl for the explanation of the Government's point of view. With regard to the compromise, I quite agree with what the Government is doing in regard to authorities who are to be weights and measures authorities under the Bill. The only object of the Amendment was to try to get the Government out of some difficulties which might arise, as the noble Earl himself implied was conceivably possible, owing to the operations of the change in population or the activities of the Local Government Commission. However, if the Minister is satisfied that he has got sufficient elbow room without the Amendments that I propose, then it is not for me to press them any further.

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Obviously, the Amendments were trying to help the Board of Trade in the circumstances which the Minister indicated at the end of his speech. In those circumstances, I beg to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 35 agreed to.
Clause 36 [Local weights and measures authorities in metropolitan area and in Isles of Scilly]:
LORD LATHAM LORD LATHAM moved., after subsection (2) to insert:
"(3) Before making any order under subsection (2) of this section the Board shall consult with and consider any representations, with respect to the subject matter of the order, made to the Board by the local authorities concerned."
The noble Lord said: Clause No. 36 deals with authorities. The rubric is rather engaging, I think. It says:
"Local weights and measures authorities in metropolitan area and in Isles of Scilly".
Most civil of them, I think! It is an engaging prospect that the Isles of Scilly will become one of the Greater London boroughs under the proposals of the Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London. Quite an entertaining prospect! However, Clause 35 deals with the local weights and measures authorities, and., as the noble Earl has said, county and county borough councils will be the authorities during the transitional period, as a saving for existing borough authorities.
Clause 36 provides that Clause 35 shall not apply to the metropolitan area—that is, Greater London—but that:
"The Board may by order…direct that all or any of the provisions of the said section thirty-five shall, subject to such exceptions, adaptations and modifications, if any, as may be specified in the order, extend to the metropolitan area or any part of it".
The purpose of the Amendment is that the Board should be required, before making any order, to consult the local authorities which will be affected by the order, and thus accord with the general principles of consultation between Government Departments and local authorities. Moreover, as the noble Earl will no doubt be aware, there is provision in Clause 35 (5) (b) for consultation, and there is likewise provision in Clause 55 (2) for consultation. The purpose of
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this Amendment, which I sincerely hope the noble Earl will be able to accept on behalf of the Government, is to require that there should be consultation with the local authorities before any steps are taken by the Board under the provisions of Clause 35 or otherwise. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 35, line 43, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Latham.)
7.5 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The noble Lord has correctly stated the privileged position accorded to the Isle of Scilly and to the metropolitan area of London under this Bill. It directs that the provisions of the Bill in respect to the other areas are to apply to the London area, with or without appropriate modifications. The contents of any order will depend on such decisions as may be made about the local government structure in the metropolitan area after the Government have considered the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London. The noble Lord's Amendment seeks to make Consultation between the Board of Trade and local authorities in the metropolitan area mandatory upon the Board.
It may be that provisions for responsibility for the weights and measures function in the metropolitan area could best be included in any general metropolitan area legislation that may prove to be necessary, and that it would be better not to introduce it by itself. But if the weights and measures function is to be dealt with separately from other legislation—that is to say, if it is to be dealt with under the powers given in this clause—I can assure the noble Lord that no order would be made under subsection (2) of the clause without consultation between the Board and all local interests which are likely to be affected.
But there is one reason against making the consultations statutory: that the necessary consultation might best be conducted in a much wider circle so as to cover a much greater number of functions at one time, a much wider field of discussion. And it might jeopardise proper consideration of the whole question, to the prejudice of all concerned, if consultation on weights and measures had to be kept separate, as it almost certainly would in order that a statutory

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requirement could be seen to be observed. In other words, if consultations on weights and measures were taken out of the general field of wider consultations which will result from the Royal Commission, it might be to the disadvantage of everybody concerned in those consultations. It might suit everybody far better to take them together, but they would have to be taken out if there were statutory provision in this Bill to that effect. But if we do have to act under the Bill, I can assure the noble Lord, on behalf of the Government, that consultation will take place.
LORD LATHAM: I am obliged and grateful to the noble Earl for the assurance he has given. But one can only deduce from what he has said that the application of the provisions of this Bill, When it becomes an Act, to the metropolitan area will follow, and not precede, the legislation, if there is to be any, in connection with Greater London local government. Is that so?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The consultations which lead up to the general legislation may include consultation about weights and measures functions and I think that would possibly be to the advantage of everybody. It would not necessarily mean that the arrangement of weights and measures functions would have to wait in order to be included with other legislation, but it might be that consultation upon them would be much more effective if carried out at the same time.
LORD LATHAM: I will not offer any prospective appreciation or otherwise of the value of consultations which may ensue from the Royal Commission's Report but I gather that the situation in the metropolitan area will remain for the most part what it is pending such consultations as may be decided upon in connection with the general question of local government in the metropolitan area, and 'that, if that be not the case and the Government proceed to change the present situation under this Bill, then consultation Will take place. I am much obliged to the noble Earl and in those circumstances beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD HAWKE: The City of Winchester, Which is not a county borough, is
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nervous about losing its place as a weights and measures authority. It is probably the oldest weights and measures authority in the country. It has the set of weights of King Edward III, the bushels of King Edgar and the yard of Henry VII. I think that it would come very properly from my noble friend, considering the many years he spent at Winchester—and from observation they appear to me to have been very happy years—that the City of Winchester should receive some sort of assurance that their case is the very case Her Majesty's Government had in mind when providing under Clause 35 various methods by which non-county boroughs can remain weights and measures authorities if they wish to do so. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 35, line 48, at end insert—
("() Section thirty-five of this Act shall not apply to the City of Winchester.")—(Lord Hawke.)
7.13 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I should like to warn the noble Lord, who has been most helpful on this Bill, that he has raised a very controversial question. In your Lordships' House and certainly in another place, there are many who are devoted to the existing administrative arrangements for weights and measures in the boroughs with which they are connected. The not subtle but open approach to the Minister who is to reply, on the basis that he had a long connection with Winchester School, does not seem to me to be very apposite. There are many Members of this House, with all kinds of qualifications, who have tender municipal recollections. I was born, a working-class boy, in Weston-super-Mare, which has a population of over 42,000, and I am the No. 1 Freeman of the Borough. It has always been a weights and measures authority. I should think that I have an equally good claim to put in a special plea for my borough as the noble Lord has to make a special request for the City of Winchester—certainly a bettor plea than that the noble Earl, who is a very popular Member of your Lordships' House, went to school there.
The noble Lord mentioned the ancient weights and measures at Winchester. I,

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myself, am a past Master of the Worshipful Company of Bakers, which has continued for some 800 years what is called the Assize of Bread. If we go on extending our researches into what are the dividing lines between those authorities who would qualify under the Bill for inclusion as a separate weights and measures authority, we may get into deep waters. Of course, we should be delighted to see the noble Earl get up and make a speech defending the prior claim of Winchester and its weights and measures. He is such a master of words that I am sure that he would be able to make a pleasant speech. But if he starts on that way, I can promise him a long journey through our municipal museums.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: It is with bitter sorrow that I rise to reply to my noble friend's Amendment. In a sense, my noble friend and I were exact contemporaries at Winchester for five years, but it is my duty to say that, although my noble friend hoped that Winchester might have been one of the places which had been in the mind of the Government when they arranged for non-county boroughs with less than 60,000 people to apply for special consideration by the Board of Trade, and although perhaps it might have been, it would have been quite improper for the Government to express any view about whether any non-county borough with a population likely to be below 60,000 on June 30, 1961, should or should not have weights and measures functions conferred on it by the Board of Trade. If we did, we can see what would happen. We should immediately arouse the violent jealousy of Weston-super-Mare and no doubt of a large number of other places all over the country which have a larger population than that of Winchester, which I am sorry to say is only 27,000 compared with the 42,000 of Western-super-Mare.
The reason for my noble friend's Amendment, which seeks to circumvent the normal arrangements in the case of Winchester, is because it is such a very ancient city, the old capital of Wessex and the centre of the ancient weights and measures of that part of the country. Although it is a weights and measures authority under the present law, it is actually in combination with the county of Hampshire for all the purposes of the
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existing Weights and Measures Acts. The provisions of Clause 35 will make it necessary for Winchester Corporation to lodge a claim, if they wish to retain this function. If the Corporation do so and the appeal is unsuccessful, then the present combination, by virtue of subsection (3) of Clause 38, will cease to have effect. That would have no practical effect on the existing provision, because the job of carrying out weights and measures functions would continue to be performed by the county of Hampshire with exactly the same inspectors and same staff as now; but, of course, Winchester would lose the nominal status which it has had for centuries. If, on the other hand, their claim is successful, the present arrangement would then continue undisturbed.
I can do no more than give that factual statement of the case. I am afraid that I cannot indicate any possible action which the Government may take with regard either to Winchester or Westonsuper-Mare or any other non-county borough with a population under 60,000. Every one of them which wishes to appeal must have its case considered on its merits.
LORD HAWKE: I thank my noble friend for his reply, from which I think the City of Winchester as well as other non-county boroughs will take some comfort. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 36 agreed to.
Clauses 37 and 38 agreed to.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The last thing I should want to do would be to prevent the noble Lord, Lord Burden, from moving the next Amendment, but it occurred to me, as it is now twenty past seven and as we have made good progress, having got to the end of Clause 38, that this might be the time when your Lordships would like to adjourn the Committee. If that is agreeable, I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved, That the House do now resume.—(The Earl of Dundee.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and House resumed accordingly.
House adjourned at twenty-two minutes past seven o'clock.