Lords Sitting of 16 February 1960

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Sheffield
The Lord Trevethin and Oaksey—Took the Oath.

COMMONWEALTH NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT AND MIGRATION
2.37 p.m.
LORD BARNBY: 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 in regard to policies of Commonwealth expansion what (for the past three years)—

(a) expenditure for nuclear development has to date been—

(i) sanctioned but still unexpended,

(ii) expended;

(b) expenditure to support Commonwealth migration has been—

(i) authorised by Parliament,

(ii) expended.]

THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, this Question conveniently falls into two parts. As to the first part, expenditure in the United Kingdom by the Atomic Energy Authority is sanctioned on an annual basis. The figure included in the Civil Estimates for the financial year 1959–60 is £93 million.
Other Commonwealth countries are, of of course, responsible for their own expenditure on nuclear development; but there is close and continuous co-operation with them, and the United Kingdom assists their programmes in many ways—for example, by the exchange of information, the sale of materials and equipment and the provision of places in United Kingdom establishments for training. The mutual benefit is considerable, but it is not possible to assess it precisely in figures.
In answer to the second part of the noble Lord's Question, the total sum authorised by Parliament for the purpose of supporting and assisting emigration from this country to other parts of the Commonwealth amounts to £578,900 for the past three complete financial years. Of this sum, the Government have spent £572,042. The details for each year are as follows: in 1956–57. £189,575 was expended out of an authorised sum of £198,200; in 1957–58, £190,127 out of £192,675; and in 1958–59, £182,340 out of £188,025 voted.

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The Commonwealth and Empire Settlement Acts, 1922–1957 set an upper limit of £1½ million per annum on expenditure for the purpose of assisting emigration of our people who wish to settle in other countries of the Commonwealth. But the amount to be spent each year has to be voted each year by Parliament: the amounts actually voted are those I have already quoted.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, in thanking the noble Earl for his reply, may I hope that he will give consideration to the expenditure of a larger proportion of the £1½ million that he has just stated is annually provided for the purposes of assisting emigration to the Commonwealth?
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I think the most important thing is that we should get value for money. If anybody could suggest a scheme that would do that and improve on the existing situation, we certainly would be willing to consider it.

DARTMOOR PRISON
2.39 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: 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, to facilitate an accurate assessment of the practical nature of alternative proposals, they will publish, at a reasonable interval prior to the public inquiry, a statement showing the cost of the scheme to rebuild Dartmoor Prison, and if they will include in this the annual cost of maintenance of the existing prison and its ancillary buildings, the cost of building a new prison adjacent to the present one, the capital value (excluding the prison) of buildings such as staff accommodation constructed in connection with Dartmoor Prison, showing the method of valuation and the amounts allowed for annual depreciation, and the cost of rebuilding and subsequent maintenance of the prison outside the Dartmoor National Park.]
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, a statement will be made available before the inquiry which will include, among other things, an estimate of the cost of
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replacing the existing buildings and services in Princetown connected with the prison. It is not at present possible to estimate the cost of replacing the prison itself, whether at Princetown or elsewhere.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether he is aware that his reply will give considerable satisfaction to the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and other amenity societies who are vitally interested to see that the right decision, both on economic and on amenity grounds, is arrived at in this matter? But can he say whether it is not in fact the case that the answers to all the questions that I have put will have to be found by the Government before a decision is arrived at, and would it not be better to see that those answers are made available to everybody concerned at the inquiry?
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for the first part of his remarks, but I do want to make it clear that this inquiry is not meant to be a financial inquiry. It is purely to ascertain the views of the interests concerned as to whether the prison should be built at Princetown or elsewhere.

EXPERIMENTAL FARM BUILDINGS
2.41 p.m.
LORD WISE: 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 they can make any statement about plans for the development of experimental farm buildings.]
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, before I answer this Question may I, in order to apologise, draw attention to a printer's error contained in the Notices which were circulated last Friday? In that Notice, the word "farm", which correctly appears in the noble Lord's Question, was omitted between the words experimental "and buildings". The Question is relating to "experimental farm buildings".
Much research has been and is being done on the basic requirements which

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farm buildings should supply. It has, however, become increasingly apparent that there is a lack of facilities for development work to bridge the gap between research and practical application, and a need for trials of experimental buildings. Development work and trials of this kind can best be carried out on farms, which can be chosen to provide the necessary range of conditions, rather than at a research centre or centres.
To meet this situation, and at the same time to overcome the difficulty that buildings of an experimental or unproved nature would not qualify for assistance under the Farm Improvement Scheme, the Agricultural Research Council proposes to introduce a scheme of co-ordinated experiments under which grants, up to a maximum of 50 per cent. of the approved cost, would be available for the erection in approved cases of experimental buildings or structures on farms, or for incorporating experimental features in traditional buildings. The scheme will be administered under the supervision of the Farm Buildings Research Committee of the Council, of which Sir Walter Drummond is the Chairman, and the experimental work will be under the control of the Council's Farm Buildings Unit. In return for a grant under this scheme, the farmer or landowner by whom the building is erected will be required to co-operate with the Farm Buildings Unit in the design of the building and to provide facilities for the inspection of the building and the observations required during the course of the investigation.
The scheme will be administered and the grants will be payable by the Agricultural Research Council. In no case will a grant be awarded for a building project for which a grant is being made under any other Government scheme. Experimental or unproved buildings are not in any case eligible for a grant under the Farm Improvement Scheme, where grant may only be given if the building is such as a prudent landlord would erect and is such as would clearly provide longterm benefit to the land at a reasonable cost.
It is not intended to give grant-aid in respect of all projects which comply with specified conditions but only in respect of proposals that can suitably form part of the experimental programme of the Farm Buildings Research Committee.
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Applications for grant will not in any case be considered in respect of building projects which have already been started. Further particulars of the scheme, and the way in which application should be made for grants under the scheme, will be announced in due course. Farms in England, Wales and Scotland will be eligible for grants under this scheme. The scheme will not cover Northern Ireland.
LORD WISE: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for that very comprehensive Answer, which I am certain will be acceptable to the industry. I hope that in the long run it will have the effect of improving our farm buildings. There is just one question I should like to ask: that is, whether horticulture comes into this scheme. Will horticultural buildings receive a 50 per cent. grant aid, as I understand that at the present time they are entitled to only 33⅓ per cent.?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, horticultural buildings now qualify for grant under the improvement scheme, but this scheme is outside that and there is not necessarily an analogy. So far as I know, they do, but I should wish to have notice, if I were to give a final answer to that question.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, if the noble Viscount is writing to my noble friend on that point with regard to horticultural experimental buildings, would he include in his answer information as to whether these sums on horticultural experimental buildings will be additional to any of the grants which the Government are going to provide under the Horticultural Bill—some £7½ million?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I will certainly consider that point. I do not know what the answer is.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, could the noble Viscount say whether there is a ceiling to the amount of money available for this excellent scheme? And is it being done in collaboration with the recent work done by the Nuffield Division of Advanced Architecture on Experimental Farm Buildings?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, the work which is being done by the Nuffield organisation is being done, I hope, in a full sense of scientific liaison

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with the Agricultural Research Council. But this scheme will be under the Council only and would have to be considered as a separate entity by Parliament.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, will there be a ceiling to the amount of money available?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I am not sure what the noble Lord means by "ceiling". No doubt the amount is not unlimited.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, would the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal consider submitting to the Agricultural Research Council the advisability, when preparing to deal with any project under this scheme, of keeping in mind the necessity for having experiments in different climates within Great Britain, in different rainfalls and on different sizes of farms, and the like, so that we can get the best advantage from the results of the experiments to all the people concerned?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I certainly will bring this point to the attention of the Agricultural Research Council. My recollection is that this is exactly one of the reasons which led them to prefer grants to farmers on farms rather than carry out experiments themselves at agricultural research stations.

THE PRIME MINISTER'S AFRICAN TOUR
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House whether he is going to make any statement to your Lordships' House this afternoon on the Prime Minister's report of his visit to Africa?
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, the statement which the Prime Minister will make in another place is of rather a personal kind, as your Lordships will understand, but I think that your Lordships like to have statements made by the Prime Minister also made in your Lordships' House; and as it is your Lordships' wish, I will make it.

SOUTHEND-ON-SEA CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.
CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a, and committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.

PRIVATE BILL STANDING ORDERS
2.50 p.m.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, I beg to move the Resolution which stands in my name on the Order Paper. These Amendments to Standing Order No. 209 are designed to remove certain defects in the existing Standing Order prescribing the procedure in Joint Committees on Petitions against Special Procedure Orders and to bring the procedure into line with the actual practice which has been developed. Under the existing Standing Order it has become the practice for the Minister to make a short statement on the scope and purpose of the Order before the Petitioner presents his case in support of the Petition, and in bringing the Standing Order into line with this procedure the provision of the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act, 1945, that the onus should be on the Petitioner to oppose the Order, is safeguarded by limiting the Minister's opening address to a brief factual statement which has been agreed with the Petitioner and the Counter-Petitioner, if any.
It is agreed that this clarification of procedure can properly be made under Section 9 of the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act, which empowers both Houses to make Standing Orders connected with the provisions of the Act and, in particular, paragraph (f) for regulating the proceedings of such a Joint

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Committee. The Amendment to Standing Order No. 210 provides for the order of proceedings in a Joint Committee in the event of a Counter-Petitioner being heard against a Petition which is not covered by the existing Standing Orders.
In view of the fact that the new Standing Order on the Order Paper is rather formidable in length, I might perhaps add that much of it is really unchanged, but it has been found to be more convenient, and I think more efficient, that the whole of the original Order should be taken away and replaced by an entirely new Order, rather than have a lot of amendments to the old Order. Your Lordships may therefore like to know that the proviso to paragraph 1 and paragraphs 2 and 4 of the old Order are unchanged by the new Order. The important Amendment is in paragraph 1. Paragraph 3 of the new Order is new but, I think, comparatively unimportant.
The difficulty that has arisen is due to several causes, but perhaps the chief one is that at present, if the existing standing Order is strictly carried out, the Petitioner has to attack a case before he has heard it, which I am sure your Lordships will agree at once is not a satisfactory procedure. It has also been found to be confusing for a Committee to hear this happening, the Committee, as is right and proper, not knowing what the case is before they sit. It is to try to remedy these defects that these Amendments are proposed. Perhaps the most important change is the introduction into the Standing Order of what has been happening in effect over several years—namely, the brief factual statement which is made at the opening of the proceedings by the Minister. That statement has to be agreed by the Petitioner before it is made so it must be factual. This is the first of the six possible stages which it is proposed will operate in the future.
The drafting of this new Standing Order has not been particularly easy, because we have had to be careful to preserve the onus, which under the Act has always been upon the Petitioner, and we must not amend the Standing Orders in such a way as to transfer the onus from the Petitioner to the Minister. If there are any points which are not clear I shall be glad to try to answer them.
Moved, That the following Amendments be made in the Standing Orders relative to Private Bills, etc:—
Leave out Standing Order 209 and insert the following Standing Order:—
("209—(1) Where under section 4 of the Special Procedure Act any Special Procedure Petition stands referred, or has been referred by order of either House, to a Joint Committee, the Committee of this House shall consist of three Lords to be named by the Committee of Selection and the order of proceedings shall be as follows:—

(a) the Minister shall, if required by the Committee, briefly explain the Order by means of a factual statement, to be agreed with the Petitioner and Counter-Petitioner if any;

(b) the Petitioner shall be entitled to be heard in support of the Petition;

(c) if the Committee are of opinion that he has a case to answer, the Minister shall be entitled to be heard against the Petition;

(d) the Petitioner shall be entitled—

(i) to reply, or

(ii) before replying, to call rebutting evidence, with the leave of the Committee, on which the Minister shall be entitled to comment;

(e) the Petitioner and the Minister may appear by Counsel or Agent:

Provided that the Minister may give notice in accordance with the following paragraph that he desires that the rights and functions conferred on him by sub-paragraphs (a), (c), (d) and (e) of this paragraph shall be exercised by any Applicant specified in the notice, and thereupon the said sub-paragraphs shall have effect as if that Applicant were substituted for the Minister.
(2) Any such notice shall be delivered, or despatched by registered post, to the Petitioner or his Agent at the address endorsed on the Special Procedure Petition and to the Applicant specified in the notice at his address as endorsed on the Special Procedure Order, within a period of four days beginning—

(a) with the day on which the report of the Chairmen is laid before Parliament under subsection (5) of section 3 of the Special Procedure Act; or

(b) if the report is so laid on different days, with the later of the two days;

and copies of any such notice shall be deposited in the Office of the Clerk of the Parliaments and in the Private Bill Office of the House of Commons within the said four days.
(3) The Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee shall he laid on the Table.
(4) If any member of the Committee of this House is prevented from continuing his attendance, the Joint Committee may, with the consent of all parties, continue its sittings in his absence, provided that the number of the Committee of this House he not less than two and that the Joint Committee

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report accordingly to this House at its next meeting; but if the consent of any party is withheld, the Joint Committee shall adjourn and shall not resume its sittings in the absence of such member without leave of this House.").
Standing Order 210—page 85, line 33, at end insert ("either before or after the Minister or Applicant has been heard as the Committee may direct").—(Lord Merthyr.)
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, if the drafting of this Order has been difficult, I can assure the noble Lord that the reading and comprehension of it has been even more difficult. We are therefore obliged to the noble Lord for having explained the object of these Amendments and how they arise. I think I understand it, and I think most of your Lordships will, after the lucid explanation that we have heard; but there is one point which rather puzzles me.
The noble Lord explained that hitherto one of the difficulties has been the making of a case in opposition to something that has not yet been made. I take it that the 'Minister's statement is intended to provide for that omission. His statement, however, will be a purely factual one: he will not be acting as an advocate for the Order and will make a statement which has been agreed by the Petitioner and the Counter-Petitioner. If after that emasculated statement, as it is bound to be, we are going to get the case for the Order, I shall be very surprised. That being so, I cannot see in what way a Petitioner will be any better off. He will get merely a brief factual Statement of what is contained in the Order, which of course be can ascertain by reading it, provided it is intelligible. He will not get to understand what is behind it, what is its purpose, and he will not be able to make his case in opposition to any advantage. I may have misunderstood the noble Lord, but that is how it strikes me. I wonder whether it really is necessary to try to get agreement between the Minister, the Petitioner and the Counter-Petitioner on a factual statement, and whether it will not create considerable difficulties which do not arise at the present time.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords, as the noble Lord is aware, in the case of Private Bill procedure the Promoters of the Bill open the proceedings, because the onus is upon them
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to prove their case before the Petitioner is required to answer it. Under this procedure, on the other hand—that is, under the procedure under the 1945 Act—the onus is not upon the Minister who produces the Order, but upon the Petitioner, and the Committee have to bear that in mind throughout the proceedings. They have to remember, of course, that it is for the Petitioner to defeat the Order, if he can, and not for the Minister to justify it. That really the root of the trouble, if trouble it is.
The original Standing Order was drafted in accordance with the Act in an endeavour to carry out the wording of the Act as best we could. Therefore the original Standing Order provided that the Petitioner should open. The position was that the Petitioner was arguing against a case which had not been made in the Committee Room. That was the real difficulty. It was increased because the Committee, following the usual practice, had been chosen, as is proper, from those noble Lords and Members of another place who did not know anything at all about the Order; they did not know what was the case for the Minister or for the Order. It was therefore difficult to begin by hearing the Petition against the Order.
Now, though not according to the Standing Order, the practice has grown up in the rooms upstairs whereby the Committee ask the Minister, or his counsel, to open the proceedings by telling the Committee, to put it shortly, what the Order is about. That is what has been done. I understand that has proved to be convenient, but it is not statutory. There is nothing in the Standing Order at present to give effect to it. It begins by saying:
"The Petitioner shall be entitled to be heard"
and then the Minister. Representations have been made for some little time to see whether we could improve this procedure. We thought we could do it in another way, but that has not proved possible because it was essential—and we are all agreed on this—that the place where the onus has lain all along under the Act must be unchanged; it must remain on the Petitioners. That has been the difficulty. Therefore, it is now proposed to give statutory effect to what has been a custom and practice, for a

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short factual statement to be made so that everybody in the room will know what it is all about. I should like to tell the noble Lord this. The next stage, after that statement has been made, will be for the Petitioner to call his case and to bring his witnesses.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will not mind my interrupting him, but I am anxious to put my difficulty very clearly before him. I cannot see the value of the Minister making a factual statement which has to be agreed by the Petitioner and Counter-Petitioner. I cannot see that that furthers the proceedings at all. If the purpose is to explain what the Order is all about, and to provide an adequate background against which a Petitioner can make his case, I should have thought that what was wanted was that somebody should stand up and make the case for the Order, not merely to explain the Order in this, as I said, emasculated way. But that is precisely what is not proposed under this Order. The Minister makes a statement which is entirely non-controversial, out of which all the "guts", so to speak, have been taken. He merely explains, after agreement with all parties, what the Order is about, and it is not a great help, so far as I can see, to the Petitioner to make his case.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords, first of all, perhaps I should explain that after the factual statement has been made the Petitioner will then present his case. After that the Minister will present his case. If your Lordships will look at the Amendment, that is laid down in paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and so forth. So we have first the factual statement, then the Petitioner's case, then the Minister's case, after which the Petitioner may be heard in reply, and the Minister may then comment on the reply. There are admittedly six different stages.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, the noble Lord will forgive me interrupting again, but the real point is that the Petitioner has to make a case against something that has not been made, so to speak. If that is the difficulty that you are trying to meet, I cannot see how this Amendment meets it by providing for a mere factual statement by the Minister. If it
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were a statement which made the case for the Order, I could understand it. If it is a pure factual agreed statement, how does it meet the difficulty which the noble Lord himself said has been the cause of the Amendment of the Order?
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords, needless to say, I do not in the least mind the noble Lord interrupting me, but I was going on to say this. It could have been done possibly by the Minister's case coming first. But there is one rather important flaw in that procedure, and it is this. If the Minister makes his case first, and before the Petitioner's case is heard at all, there will be a tendency at least to assume that the onus is on the Minister. That is the important point. The unusual thing in this procedure—and it is all laid down in the Act—is that the onus is on the Petitioner and not on the Minister. It is thought, I believe rightly, that if the Minister opens his case in full before the Petitioner is heard at all it will be assumed, wrongly—there will be a tendency to assume it, perhaps without knowing it; quite unconsciously—that the onus is on the Minister. This point is considered of considerable importance, and I am sure that if I came here to-day with the Standing Order in the form which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, requires, I should not be able to obtain agreement to its passing. It might be that I am not in any case able to do that, but I am quite sure that I should not be able to get the agreement of the House if I came here with the Standing Order, so to speak, the other way round.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I must say that I am very disappointed to-day at the position in which we find ourselves. For one thing, the lay Members of your Lordships' House will, I am sure, have had some difficulty in following the rather professional discussion which has been taking place between the Chairman of Committees and my legal friend Lord Silkin. If we could have had printed on the Paper an actual representation showing everybody concerned in the matter the difference between what is now proposed and the existing Order, possibly by the use of different type or by drawing special attention to the real change, we could have understood it better. While I have no intimate knowledge of the working of these particular

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Committees in considering these Petitions, I have had a considerable amount of experience of handling my own cases before a good many statutory tribunals. It is not quite the same thing, but I must say that I have never come across the tribunal yet in which a petitioner's case, being heard first, is not already fairly well anticipated and replied to effectively by the counsel on the other side. I should have thought that, unless there were special circumstances here, the case has not yet been proved, to me at any rate, that there is a need for this particular Amendment.
3.9 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend the Lord Chairman would allow me to help, for one reason only, which is that fifteen years ago I was largely responsible for the Special Procedure Act, 1945. I left it to the Government of which the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, and the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, were both members. They were good enough to approve of the scheme that I put forward and to put the Bill before Parliament, and it was passed. I hope the House will bear with me. I am speaking from memory, but I think this meets the point which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, had in mind.
We were very anxious that this special procedure and the Orders should start with the advantage of being what was acceptable unless the contrary was proved; that is, we were anxious to preserve the Petitioner's right but not to put the onus on the Minister of proving his Order. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, will remember the policy at the time the Act was passed. We all thought, in all quarters of both Houses, that there would be a great rush of Procedure Orders to deal with the time lag after the war; therefore we wanted the Minister to start in that position: that his Order would never be refused without a case being made out against it. That is why one came to the procedural position that the Petitioner had to begin.
That caused a practical difficulty: that if a Petitioner starts to attack something before people who do not know anything about it, they are in a difficulty. That was the difficulty which our policy
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to meet the situation created. Therefore, the practice grew up—and I think this is the point that meets the doubt of the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition—of dealing with that practical difficulty by making a statement of this kind, and that was found convenient to all the parties engaged. Therefore, in order to validate the practice which had been found necessary through the difficulty of the situation, this Order has been changed. As I understand it, and I think my noble friend the Lord Chairman of Committees will agree, this does not change or make any worse the position of either party. It simply means that the Committee will have a factual, but not an argumentative, statement of the matter before them. If the Petitioner on that develops the case, then the Minister will have every chance of meeting it. I hope my noble friend will forgive my intervention. I thought it might help if I reminded noble Lords of the background of fifteen years ago.
LORD MILNER OF LEEDS: My Lords, speaking with some experience, may I say that although this does not go far enough, I think it is a step in the right direction. It is helpful in the special case which the noble Lord, the Lord Chairman of Committees, has outlined. May I ask whether steps have been taken or are being taken in another place in order to see that their procedure is in accord with this?
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, for explaining to the House much more clearly than I had done the effect of this change. The noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, said that this was unusual. I venture to say that, although it is, the reason for its being unusual is, in my submission, that the Act upon which it is based is unusual. As I think the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor explained, the Act was passed early in 1945 when circumstances were unusual. And of course it is unusual principally in this sense: that whereas in the ordinary law the onus of proof is on the plaintiff in the ordinary way, with some exceptions, here the onus is upon the Petitioner, the party who is opposing something. That is fundamentally the reason for this somewhat unusual procedure. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Milner of Leeds, may

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I say that I know that a Motion to the same effect as the one I have moved today was moved in another place yesterday. I cannot actually say that it was passed, but I have no reason to suppose it was not.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am greatly obliged to the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, and to the noble Lord, the Lord Chairman of Committees, for their explanations, but they do not convince me a bit. The noble and learned Viscount said this was done under an Act passed by a Government of which I was a member, but I was not a member of that inner Cabinet which dealt with things of this sort. I was busy running a great establishment called the Royal Navy. I was never brought into this matter. If I had been, I would have drawn on my lay experience of dealing with tribunals, of which I have great experience. I really do not know how both parties are going to be satisfied by a Minister's statement, carefully prepared and jointly submitted to a body which ought to be so excellent in its personnel as to be able to understand any case, for and against, put to them. Surely they are not elementary schoolboys. I am hardly convinced at all by the arguments so far. I am willing to be convinced. I wish the noble Lord, the Lord Chairman of Committees, could have had a word with us before. Perhaps he did not anticipate difficulty, but I should like further explanation, and if he could adjourn the matter for twenty-four hours I should be obliged.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords, I should have said there was no objection whatever to adjourning it and I do not think there is, except this: that to-morrow one of these Joint Committees is actually sitting. It is not essential for them to have the new procedure, but I believe it would be for their convenience if they did. It would put into statutory form what they will probably actually do in any event, because I expect the factual statement has already been prepared.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, do I not understand that in fact one of the arguments put in favour of this amended Order today is that you have been doing it in
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practice already? I do not see how the failure to formally pass the Motion can hold the practice up to-morrow. Why not give us a chance of having a real discussion before you make this final?
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords, to-morrow there is a Joint Committee of both Houses—I think the Chairman has to be appointed by the Committee, so do not know the Chairman—on the Newcastle and Gateshead Water (No. 2) Order, 1959. I should have liked them to have the new procedure to work on, but I admit straight away that if they do not I do not think it will be disastrous. Therefore, as there is some doubt about it, I would ask leave to withdraw the Motion and put it down another day.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Thank you very much.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

NATIONAL INSURANCE (EARNINGS) REGULATIONS, 1960
3.18 p.m.
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Dundee, who is indisposed, I beg to move that these Regulations, which stand in his name on the Order Paper, be approved. These Regulations have nothing to do with the rates of pensions or the principle of the earnings rule. They are made under Section 2 of the National insurance Act, 1956, and are the instruments whereby Parliament may approve the raising of the limits of the disregarded earnings. These particular Regulations have been before the Special Orders Committee and received the assent of another place last night.
If your Lordships agree, these Regulations will raise the level of the disregarded earnings, from the present 60s. to 70s. in the case of retirement nensioners under the age of 70 for men and under the age of 65 for women and for widow pensioners. Those pensioners will now be able to earn £6 10s. 0d. before the pension is completely withdrawn at present, the figure is £6. In the case of widowed mothers, the Regulations raise the level of disregarded earnings from the present 80s. to 100s. A widowed mother will now be able to earn £8 net before her personal allowance of 50s. is completely

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withdrawn; whatever her earnings the more favourable child allowances for the widowed mother are paid in full: that is, 20s. each for the first two children, and 22s. each for any subsequent child, inclusive of the ordinary family allowances.
Those are the bare bones of these Regulations, but in order perhaps to forestall a question from the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence (who, your Lordships may remember, last time the Regulations came forward, reminded us that he and his wife were more or less instrumental in getting the extra provisions for the widowed mothers) I should like to tell him that these Regulations will be in force on March 21, which is the earliest date they can be brought in.
I commend these Regulations to your Lordships, and, on behalf of my noble friend, I beg to move that they be approved.
Moved, That the National Insurance (Earnings) Regulations, 1960, be approved.—(Earl Bathurst.)
3.21 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I should like briefly to ask the noble Earl two questions on points which it was not proper for me to pursue when this matter was considered by the Special Orders Committee. I am afraid that he has not already forestalled my two questions. First of all, I should like to ask the Government why they have not taken this opportunity of putting widows and widowed mothers—those who are widowed through the illness of their husbands, if I may so put it—in the same position as widows and widowed mothers whose widowhood has arisen as the result of an industrial accident. As the noble Earl is aware, if a man is killed as the result of an industrial accident his widow, whether or not she has dependent children, can earn as much as she is able to without any sort of deduction from her pension or the allowances of her children.
The noble Earl indicated that these Regulations are in line with the retention of the earnings rule or principle. That may well be the case. But the pension enjoyed by a woman who is widowed as the result of an industrial injury arises, in part at least, from the contributions
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which have been paid earlier by her husband and, as such, may be already re, garded as a serious breach of the earnings rule, and one of which I think people throughout the country would approve. But this is a serious anomaly. My first question, therefore, is why the opportunity has not been taken to remove this hardship and this anomaly altogether, whereby if a woman is widowed because her husband was killed down the pit she can earn as much as she likes without deduction, but if her husband has been run over by a bus, or killed in some other way, she is subject to this restriction.
The other anomaly is one which is actually increased by these Regulations. The noble Earl pointed out that these Regulations alter the position whereby at present a widow can earn up to 60s. before there begins any deduction from her pension, and a widowed mother can earn up to 80s. before deduction; and, of course, any allowances paid to her children are in addition to that. So that in some cases under the present circumstances the widowed mother may be able to earn as much as £4 or more before there is any deduction from her pension compared with the £3 which the widow without dependent children is able to earn. That is a most serious difference and one which, for the moment, I am not opposing. But under these Regulations the position of the widow is improved so that she can earn up to £3 10s. without deduction, and the widowed mother so that she can earn up to £5. At the moment the gap is 20s., the difference between the 60s. and the 80s., as between the widow and the widowed mother; but under these Regulations the gap is increased to 30s.—in other words, the relative disability of the childless widow is considerably increased. I should like to ask why that has been done.
I can see the justification, if the earnings limit is to be retained, for keeping the gap as it is now, but I can see no justification for adding an increased relative penalty, as it were, in the case of the ordinary widow, particularly having regard to the fact that many of them, though they do not have dependent children, do inherit after the death of their husbands other expenses in assisting their parents, parents-in-law and so on. It seems to me, therefore, that, whilst

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we all support this rather meagre improvement—that is the only way one can describe it—in the relaxation of the earnings limit, nevertheless the Government have made a retrograde step in increasing the gap between the widow and the widowed mother.
3.26 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, there is just one point that I should like to put to the noble Earl. Possibly I did not quite understand what he said, but my recollection from what he said is that the old people, the pensioners, will get the new increases at 70, for a man, and at 65 for a woman. My recollection is that once upon a time if you reached the age of 70 you could make as much as you wanted without deduction from your pension, and that the same applied to women at the age of 65. My recollection is that originally when you were 65 the money was deducted, but that when you got to 70 you could make as much as you wanted. I wonder whether that has been changed, and if so, why we could not go back to that comfortable state of affairs.
3.27 p.m.
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, perhaps I may answer the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, first and then turn to the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. In the case of male pensioners who reach the age of 70, and in the case of women 65, whatever they earn at that age, they are deemed to have retired. With regard to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, I fancy that he is still out of Order in raising these points, which these Regulations really do not affect at all. However, it is true that they carry on the differences—
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, if I may just interrupt, I would point out that I took what I thought was the highest advice I could get—namely, from the noble Lord, the Lord Chairman of Committees.
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, I am sure that noble Lord took the best advice in regard to everything. Nevertheless, these Regulations cannot do anything about the points which he has raised. It is agreed that they do carry on the difference in treatment between the widowed mother and the widow. This has been the practice of previous
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Governments, to give the widow with children the extra benefit. It has been the feeling of Members of your Lordships' House and of another place that if she is able to earn extra money she should not be discouraged from doing so. The ordinary widow, the widow without children, has probably fewer expenses than has the widow with children; I think that must be agreed by all your Lordships. It is agreed that it is not a complete solution, but at least it is a solution which allows the widow with children some extra concession.
With regard to the Service pension and the pension of the widow whose husband is killed in an industrial accident, these widows' pensions do not in fact come within the scope of pensions subject to the earnings rule. Again, it has been a tradition in the past that the Service widow and the "industrial accident" widow deserve something a little extra. Her Majesty's Government and preceding Governments have agreed that that is fair in order to meet their special circumstances. But I want to make it quite clear that these Regulations have no connection with those cases—they are purely for the purpose of raising the earnings limit in relation to National Insurance pensions.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

WESTERN EUROPEAN UNION (IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES) ORDER, 1959
3.30 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): My Lords, I beg to move the first humble Address standing in my name on the Order Paper. As a result of the Brussels Treaty of 1954, the Agency for the Control of Armaments of the Western European Union was established. This Agency is responsible for controlling the levels of stocks of offensive weapons held on the Continent of Europe, excluding the United Kingdom, by the member States of the Western European Union, and for ensuring that the West Germans abide by their undertaking not to manufacture certain weapons listed in the Brussels Treaty and, in particular, atomic weapons.

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The Agency was given powers under the revised Brussels Treaty to inspect arms factories and examine the commercial documents of any arms companies which were being inspected. In the course of carrying out their inspections, the investigators have access to secret commercial information. Arms companies which thought that some of their confidential information might be misused by members of the Arms control Agency were unable to sue the Agency on the grounds that it was an international organ and therefore immune from legal process. In December, 1957, the member Governments of the Western European Union signed a convention establishing a Tribunal to which private individuals or companies could appeal in the event of damage to their interests as a result of the Agency abusing its powers. Until the Tribunal has been set up—which requires the ratification of the Convention—the Agency, as at present, is obliged to inspect arms companies only with their agreement, and individuals and companies have no means of redress against the Agency. In short, ratification of the Convention is vital if the Agency is to exercise complete control over arms stocks on the mainland of Europe.
This Order revokes the earlier Order of 1955 and re-enacts it to include the three judges and the Clerk of the Tribunal, while at the same time it confers no additional advantages to the existing officers of the organisation. I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Western European Union (Immunities and Privileges) Order, 1959, be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on December 1 last.—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
LORD MILNER OF LEEDS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Marquess whether he can tell us how many persons are likely to benefit from these immunities and privileges? I understand that only four additional cases are mentioned in the Order. Can the noble Marquess tell us how many, in all, will have these benefits?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, the number is 74 officers.
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

DRAFT COUNCIL OF EUROPE (IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES) ORDER, 1960
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I beg to move the second humble Address standing in my name on the Order Paper. This Draft Order simply consolidates and replaces three previous Orders in Council. These were the original Order of 1950 and two amending Orders of 1954 and 1958. This Order confers no new privileges or immunities whatsoever. I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Council of Europe (Immunities and Privileges) Order, 1960, be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on the 2nd instant.—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

THE PRIME MINISTER'S AFRICAN TOUR
3.35 p.m.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, as I said earlier, the statement made by the right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister to another place is of a very personal kind, and I think it is better that I should make it here in his words. It is as follows:
"Soon after I became Prime Minister I determined, if it were at all possible, to make visits during my period of office to all the independent countries of the Commonwealth. In the early weeks of 1958 I visited five of the individual Commonwealth countries—Asia and Australasia—India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Australia and New Zealand. I also went to Singapore; but, unfortunately, I was not able to include Malaya in that tour.
"I had hoped to complete my Commonwealth travels in 1959 but, in the circumstances which arose, and after careful thought, I decided to postpone the rest of my Commonwealth tour and to undertake instead a visit to Moscow. I am happy to say that this decision was supported by the Governments of all the Commonwealth countries.

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"In the concluding months of last year arrangements were made by which I could fulfil my ambition of completing my Commonwealth journeys by a tour of Africa. As a result I recently visited four countries of Africa which have attained, or are well advanced towards, independent membership of the Commonwealth—Ghana, Nigeria, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and the Union of South Africa. I am most grateful to the Governments of all those countries, who invited me to visit them and made such admirable arrangements for my tour.
"My purpose in these visits has never been to negotiate or to settle any particular problems which there might be between the United Kingdom Government and the other Government concerned. Matters of that kind are better left to the normal channels of communication and to the Ministers who have special responsibility for them. My idea was that the visits of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers to London—which we welcome so much when they take place, which is at intervals of some eighteen months or two years—excellent as they are from our point of view, ought not to remain what I have called a one-way traffic'. I felt that the presence, even for a few weeks, of a British Prime Minister in office, would be both a symbol of the links which bind the Commonwealth and a practical method of holding informal discussions on broad general issues such as are appropriate on a visit of this kind. I need hardly add that it makes my work in London much easier, and I think more fruitful, if I have some personal impression of the character of these countries, their problems and their ambitions. In addition, one is able to have personal discussions in their own homes with the Prime Ministers and other Ministers concerned.
"I have now visited all the independent countries of the Commonwealth with the exception of Malaya. I have nearly completed the task I set myself on assuming office. I would certainly not overestimate the value of these visits. Still less would I claim that in a few days or weeks I have gained any expert knowledge of the
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problems of each country. Nevertheless, I hope that these journeys will have at least demonstrated the faith of Her Majesty's Government and people in the United Kingdom in the value of the Commonwealth as one of the greatest forces for peace and progress in the world to-day."
My Lords, the right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister then went on to say that there were a number of Questions on the Order Paper in another place and that he would therefore confine himself to some general comments. He continued:
"The countries in Africa which I visited represented almost every different facet of the African problem. In Ghana, where I was most hospitably entertained by the Governor-General and the Prime Minister, I had the opportunity of seeing the great economic, social and political progress which is the culmination of many centuries of contact with the West. Europeans are playing a great rôle in the economic development and progress of this independent African country. I believe they will continue to do so in the future. For I felt a real sense of friendship for the British people, and a full understanding of the debt which Ghana owes to them.
"In Nigeria I was fortunate enough to be able to address the Assembly on an historic date. This was the first meeting of the Parliament elected under the agreement reached at a series of conferences presided over by my right honourable friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire, to whom many tributes were paid. This historic meeting which I had the privilege to address represented the last stage in the country's progress to independence, which will be finally achieved in October this year. Nigeria is an immense country. In area it is four times the size of the United Kingdom. In population it is the largest single country in Africa and the fourth largest in the Commonwealth. It has a great future before it. The recent discovery of oil and the development of agriculture should give it a sound economic basis. I hope and believe that the federal structure which has been devised will enable the three Regions to work together in the development of a truly national spirit.

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"In the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland I was able to have talks with the Prime Minister of the Federation and his Cabinet, with the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia and his Ministers, with the Governor of Northern Rhodesia and his Council, and also with the Governor of Nyasaland and his advisers. I was also able to see representatives of a large number of political and other groups and to form at least some picture of the difficult problems, as well as the impressive prospects, of this immense territory. At the moment when my noble friend Lord Monckton and his colleagues are just about to start work I do not think the House would wish me to comment upon the constitutional problems except to say this. We all know that, in the course of the next year, important decisions must be taken. The final responsibility lies, of course, with the Governments. But they will, I am sure, be well served by the preparatory work which is to be undertaken by the Commission. We shall come to the final conference well prepared. Meanwhile I must say that everything I saw confirmed my confidence in the future. Much progress has been made in recent years and great possibilities for future development lie ahead. The formal opening of the Kariba Dam by the Queen Mother this May will be an impressive symbol of what has been done and what may be achieved in the future.
"In the Union of South Africa I had only a few days to make a tour covering a very large area but I was able to see a little both of the mining and of the various industrial developments, and to have long and intimate discussions with the Prime Minister—who kindly entertained me in his own house at Cape Town. The Union of South Africa is about to celebrate the fiftieth year since its foundation. It should not be forgotten that it came into being as a result of a decision of the British Parliament in 1910 in an attempt to build a single nation after the long struggles between the Afrikaaners and the British.
"While I was in South Africa I was able to pay visits to each of the three High Commission territories—
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Bechuanaland, Swaziland and Basutoland. The visits, however short, were a demonstration of the interest shown by the people of the United Kingdom in the progress and welfare of these Territories.
"Here then was contrast; I began with Ghana, which became independent some two years ago, and I ended with the Union, which became independent fifty years ago—both by decisions of the British Parliament. I began with a purely African country where there has never been and never can be a European resident population. I ended with a country where, as well as the large African population, there are three million Europeans, many of them descended from ancestors who entered the country more than 300 years ago. In between these two we have the Federation—containing in Southern Rhodesia a large European population and smaller European communities in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. They are citizens of these countries and cannot be citizens of any other country, for their homes are there. All these varying situations, as well as the immense distances and size of these territories, convince me more than ever that it would be wrong to try to apply a single and simple solution to a multiform and complex problem.
"In a speech of some length in Salisbury I tried to state the point of view of the United Kingdom Government on certain aspects of policy for which the British Government and Parliament have varying degrees of responsibility. In Cape Town, where the Prime Minister kindly invited me to address the Assembly and the Senate, I tried to set out courteously, but I hope clearly, the broad British point of view on the handling of these problems. Of course I made it clear that in the Union we had no direct responsibility beyond that which every man of good will has towards his neighbours in trying to understand their problems. I made it clear also how deeply we treasure and value the Commonwealth connection and how great I believe the contribution of the Union can and will be towards the strength of the Commonwealth.
"Perhaps, Sir, I might make two final observations. In the first place

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I am more and more impressed by the need and duty of the people of the United Kingdom so to manage their economic affairs as to be able to make increasing contributions, from genuine savings and a favourable balance of trade, to the economic welfare of the less developed countries of the Commonwealth. The more we are able to improve our position at home the more we shall be able to follow the policy of the good neighbour overseas.
"The second is this. We have to face, in this coming year, the next stage in attempting to reach some settlement, whether permanent or temporary, of the differences between Soviet Russia and the Western Powers. I feel more than ever convinced as a result of this journey, as well as my previous Commonwealth journeys, that the contribution which the United Kingdom Government may be able to make towards this—the supreme question which faces the world to-day—can be enhanced by the sense of comradeship and fellowship which we have in the Commonwealth. I am very glad to think that we shall have an opportunity of consulting with the other Commonwealth Prime Ministers in London in the week preceding the Summit Conference."
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, we are very much obliged to the noble Earl the Leader of the House for giving us this statement by the Prime Minister.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House whether the Prime Minister could extend his statement by giving us some particulars as to any contact he had with those in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland who are in captivity and those in the Union of South Africa who have no franchise?
THE EARL OF HOME: No, my Lords, I think not, in connection with this statement. I have no doubt that in both Houses of Parliament during the coming year there will be many debates on different aspects of the African problem, and I think that would be the time for the Prime Minister to tell us of his experience.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, I do not know whether the right honourable
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gentleman and the noble Earl think it is sufficient to speak about "different aspects of the African problem" in view of the grave and fundamental issues which I have mentioned.
THE EARL OF HOME: There are different aspects, and for the present and for to-day the Prime Minister has described the African scene in that way. We can take the different aspects as they come and as they will arise, I have no doubt, on many occasions during the coming months, and debate them.
LORD REA: My Lords, in thanking the noble Earl, may I add that we welcome the Prime Minister back to this country after his successful tour?

INDECENCY WITH CHILDREN BILL [H.L.]
3.47 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair]
Clause 1:
Indecent conduct towards young child
1.—(1) Any person who commits an act of gross indecency with or towards a child under the age of fourteen, or who incites a child under that age to such an act with him or another, shall be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, or to both.
LORD SALTOUN LORD SALTOUN moved, in subsection (1), after "person" to insert, "being of the age of eighteen or upwards". The noble Lord said: In moving the Amendment that stands in my name I should like to observe that this Bill provides for a sentence of two years' imprisonment for any act of gross indecency, and seven years for any attempt at intercourse. Provided that my Amendment is accepted by your Lordships, my only objection to the Bill would be that it carries no additional penalty for the use of violence. I think that all men, in all ages and in all stages of civilisation,

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have always been infuriated, and rightly so, by the use of violence against women in this kind of connection. But it may be that such additional penalty is carried by other Acts. If not, I think that our Legislature is rather complacent in this matter and rather remiss.
But for those under the age of eighteen I think that the case covered by this Bill is quite altered. Anybody who has any knowledge of what goes on among secondary school children to-day will, I think, realise that a large proportion of the children may well become obnoxious to the law by the passage of this Bill. At least that is what I am told by my doctor friends of whom I have made inquiries and I hasten to add that they generally add that, however reprehensible the present situation is, no permanent harm seems to result from it. I do not remember that fifty years ago, when I was living in Hackney, these actions prevailed among children, although at that time people were living far more on top of one another than they are to-day. It may well be that I was either unobservant or ignorant—that is very probable. I think that the change, if there has been a change, is largely our own fault that we ourselves have brought it about.
Some years ago, just after the war, I was very much shocked and very indignant at the organised rapes of wretched girls carried out by young juveniles, and I did my best at that time to get Parliament to take some action in the matter. I tried to go into the causes of these frightful crimes, and I formed the opinion that there were several causes at work. My doctor friends told me at the time that they attributed this kind of trouble mainly to the sex instruction given in schools. I do not think that that kind of instruction is suitable for classes, and evidently doctors seem to have the same opinion. In respect of the matter we are discussing to-day, I am quite convinced that a lot of this misbehaviour among juveniles is due to this cause. If that is so, I should like to point out to your Lordships that we are in the position of having ourselves caused the trouble and are trying to cure it by bringing criminal proceedings. My own opinion is that trying to remedy this matter among juveniles in a court of law is a rather clumsy expedient which
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is unlikely to be successful and may, indeed, have very ill consequences. I think myself that we had very much better leave it to social workers.
In moving this Amendment, which I now do, I do not want to pose before your Lordships as being widely conversant with social conditions, though I do my best to find out what they are. I shall be interested to see whether I am supported by any noble Lord whose experience is greater than mine, and I shall be very much guided in what I do by the action that they wish to take in this matter. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 5, after ("person") insert ("being of the age of eighteen or upwards").—(Lord Saltoun.)
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: Whilst I should not wish to be committed to the age of eighteen, which would take these cases beyond the jurisdiction of the juvenile court, I should like to say a word in support of what I understand to be the intention of this Amendment. As I see it, this Bill as it now stands creates a new sexual offence with which a child or young person can be charged. Indeed, the Committee which sponsored this Bill, or which may be said to have been responsible for its paternity, stated explicitly that this charge could be brought against anybody over the age of criminal responsibility—and I should like to remind your Lordships that that age is now fixed at eight years. This means that a charge of a criminal nature for an act of gross indecency can be brought against a child of eight years old for an act in which another child, perhaps of the same age, or not very much older, has participated.
In common with quite a number of those who, unhappily, sometimes have to deal with these situations in practice, I very much regret the creation of any new sexual offence which can be charged against children or young persons. Indeed, I think many of us deprecate the use of criminal proceedings to deal with these situations at present, and we do so the more because, after all, cases of this kind can already be dealt with under the "care and protection" proceedings, which are of a civil nature and which enable us to make provision for the welfare of children and young persons who

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are involved in actions of this kind without any finding of guilt being recorded against the child or young person. I should therefore very much like to see this Bill confined to persons of much more mature years. I notice that the Committee who, as I say, were responsible for the paternity of this Bill gave no reasons for their view that it should apply to all persons over the age of criminal responsibility. They said merely that they saw no reason to confine it to adults. Indeed, if your Lordships will not misunderstand me, I think that the Committee took a somewhat lordly view of this point, not feeling it necessary to argue the case.
I should also like to raise one other point in connection with this Amendment, and that is: what is the position if, so to put it, the incitement should be the other way round? That, regrettably, is not an imaginary situation: it is a possible fact of experience. Perhaps your Lordships will forgive me if I quote a case within my own experience which occurred a little while ago; a case which many of your Lordships may feel to be exceptionally shocking, but which, I am afraid, is not without its parallels.
Not so long ago, two girls of school age, both under fourteen, which is the age which in this Bill is chosen as the maximum age for what we may call the supposed victim of these acts, took up a position in a London square in their lunch hour, and subsequently did the same after school, where they offered to commit acts of gross indecency with passing males for a small sum of money. This was an extremely systematic business, worked out on what might, in another connection, be thought to be good socialistic principles, since these young ladies offered their services at differential charges according to how they estimated the economic position of their potential customers. Fortunately for their welfare, they eventually attracted the attention of, and indeed offered their services to, a police officer in civilian dress who was passing; and that brought those proceedings to an end.
Now in a case of that kind it is clear that the incitement was entirely on the side of the juvenile. As the law now stands, no proceedings are taken against the adults involved, but the juveniles were in fact the subject of "care and protection" proceedings. I should be
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very grateful if the noble and learned Viscount would tell us what would be the position if this Amendment is not carried. In such a case, will the adults be the subject of criminal proceedings and the juveniles still be dealt with under "care and protection" proceedings, or will the juveniles, where they are responsible for inciting an adult to commit an act of gross indecency with them, as in a case of this kind, also be the subject of criminal charges? In any event, I would repeat that I think it is very unfortunate, in this day and age, that we should extend the scope of criminal proceedings against children of eight years and upwards for matters of a sexual nature.
LORD AMULREE: I should like to say a few words in support of the Amendment. It has always semed to me a very wrong and improper thing to take criminal proceedings against young persons for sexual offences, and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, has put down a very sensible age below which this particular Bill, when it becomes law, should not apply. The one thing I do not entirely agree with is the noble Lord's reason for the occurrence of these offences. I think that sex education for young people is a thing to be encouraged, and not a thing to be deprecated. However, I should like to support his Amendment on a purely factual basis.
4.0 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think that it would be to your Lordships' convenience and assistance if I pointed out what would be the effect of the Amendment set down by my noble friend Lord Saltoun. It would be to relieve persons under eighteen of liability to be convicted of the new offence created by Clause 1 (1), of committing an act of gross indecency with or towards a child under fourteen or inciting a child under that age to such an act with the offender or another. As I explained to your Lordships on Second Reading, the object of the creation of this offence is to fill what I think is a serious gap in our law—that is, to deal with someone who gets hold of a child who has little understanding of these matters and without the use of force and without any of the elements of assault makes that child a party to disgusting conduct for the

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sexual gratification of the person who does so. Though I naturally pay the greatest attention to what the noble Baroness has said, I still think that this is a gap which it is essential to fill.
I should like to deal with the matters raised by my noble friend Lord Saltoun first and then come to the points of the noble Baroness. As regards the question of violence, which worried my noble friend, I think that he can take it from me, without going into all the details of offences, that that is well covered. The gap consists of the absence of violence, and I think that your Lordships generally felt it to be a gap that should be filled. I am not going into the questions raised by my noble friend about the habits of secondary school children or about the effect of sex instruction. I am not in a position to comment on what he said from anything except my own very general experience. I have not looked it up and, with great respect to my noble friend, I think that he somewhat overstated the position, speaking from my own knowledge as a Member of another place for a largely industrial constituency for over twenty years. But I am not going to argue this, because it is a matter of experience.
I want to put the position under the existing law. As the noble Baroness said, as the law stands at present, a child of eight cannot be guilty of any offence. The noble Baroness will remember that a child under fourteen is presumed to be incapable of criminal intent, unless the presumption is rebutted by the court's being satisfied that the child knew that he was doing wrong. She will also remember that the law assumes that a boy under fourteen does not possess sexual capacity and therefore that he is incapable of committing rape and offences akin to rape. But, subject to this, youth does not exempt an offender from responsibility for existing sexual offences, including indecent assault, which constitutes a high proportion of them. In spite of what I have heard, I think that that is right.
I see no reason for treating young offenders differently in regard to this offence from the way they are treated in regard to the existing offences under the law. As I said, this clause is aimed principally at the man who, without any
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show or threat of force, successfully invites a child to handle him indecently but cannot be prosecuted for indecent assault because what he does cannot be called an "assault". There seems no reason why a youth of seventeen, for example, who, if he induced a child to do an indecent act of this kind by threat or force could be prosecuted for indecent assault, should not be liable to prosecution under the new clause if he induces a child to do such an act without threat or force. The clause is designed to protect younger children who do not understand the significance of what they are asked to do, and, in my view, these children need protection against adolescents as well as against adults.
I think it would be useful if I gave some information which I really obtained for a reply to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, because it is important that your Lordships should have the picture accurately before you now. Between 1954 and 1957, the police brought to the notice of the Director of Public Prosecutions 70 cases of indecency, which, in the light of the decision of the court in Fairclough v. Whipp, it was impossible to make the subject of proceedings. Out of the 70 victims, 19 were under seven, 46 were between seven and eleven—that is, 65 out of 70 were under eleven; three were eleven, one was thirteen, one was fourteen and there was none older than fourteen. I think that these figures will be useful on both the point which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, wished to make and on my noble friend's point.
Unfortunately, the gap which this provision fills is largely concerned with very young children. I cannot find much sympathy for the young man of seventeen who does this with a girl under seven. As the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, will appreciate, I feel great sympathy from the penological point of view, but I do not feel sympathy in the sense that this young man should not be answerable. I feel that the psychological damage that may be done to the small child is so immense that anyone of seventeen ought to be answerable for it.
I would say at once that if my noble friend Lord Saltoun has a fear that the Bill will result in young boys being sent to prison for relatively trivial or childish acts of indecency, and if that lies behind the Amendment, I believe that fear to

37
be unfounded. An offence under Clause 1 (1) by a person under seventeen would come before a juvenile court and would normally be, dealt with summarily. A juvenile court has no power to sentence to imprisonment. It is required to have regard to the welfare of the offender and has available a variety of methods to deal with him, according to what it considers to be in his own best interest. Even if the case were serious enough for the accused to be tried on indictment—and that would have to be a very serious case—a youth of seventeen could be sent to prison only after the court considered that no other method of dealing with him was available.
I come to the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger. In the first part the noble Baroness expressed a reluctance that the offence should be created, and I have tried to deal with that point. I think it is essential that this gap should be closed, and I think the figures I have given of those cases reported to the Director bear this out. With regard to the question of age, I have given the list, and I have shown the ages that are affected. The noble Baroness said that the Committee on Criminal Law had not considered this matter. I do not want to debate their Report line by line, but I think they did consider the social problems and the question of ages fairly carefully on the other point. I agree with them, and still do not see, after all that has been said to-day, why this offence should be confined to adults. I still cannot see why a boy of sixteen or seventeen who uses a little girl of four or five to gratify his sexual lust should not be answerable by being brought before a juvenile court and having the effect of what he has done pointed out to him. As I have said, the juvenile court cannot send him to prison, but there are various forms of treatment which are open to that court and which I think would be helpful to him.
The noble Baroness has raised the question of the incitement coming from the other side. If she will look at it once again, as I am sure she has looked at it often, she will see that there are two limbs to the offence. First, there is the committing of an act of gross indecency with a child; and secondly, the inciting of a child under the age of fourteen to such an act—and the second limb, incitement, has to be proved on the
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part of the person who is charged with the offence. As to that second limb, I think there are really two answers. I should still say that if someone secures that the indecency is committed, even if there be an incitement, he is still answerable criminally, as well as morally, for succumbing to it. If the noble Baroness feels that that is too severe a view, I would remind her of the figures that I gave: 19 cases under seven; 46 cases between seven and eleven; and 65 cases under eleven. In these cases I cannot believe that the incitement is likely to come from a child under eleven. There may be remarkable phenomena in that age group, as in every other, but I should think it is extremely rare. And I should have said that with regard to those under seven it is something one need not contemplate.
One then comes to the age group of thirteen and fourteen, of which there are two cases out of 70. I am sorry to anticipate, but the question of the shift in maturity which has been raised was one of the matters which I proposed to put to the noble Lord, Lord Silk in, for his consideration. Broadly speaking, maturity does come earlier; and that is interesting because it fits in with one experience of my noble friend Lord Saltoun, when he was describing conditions 50 years ago. But I still think—and this is really on Lord Silkin's point—that fourteen is a reasonable age. As the noble Baroness will remember, the Committee preferred fourteen, and their runner-up was thirteen; and, of course, they mentioned the point of maturity, with which I am dealing. In that case there will be some hard cases, but on our experience, they will be few. But I think that to rule out the protection for small children because of the hard cases through over-mature girls of thirteen or fourteen would be a wrong balance and would be using the hard cases to make bad law.
I hope that my noble friend will not press this Amendment, and that he will believe that this is something we have considered. If he will not accuse me of being melodramatic, I should like to tell him this: that one of my joys when I was Home Secretary was that I was not only responsible for the Queen's peace but was responsible for the safety and promotion of the happiness of underprivileged children. I believe it is our

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first duty to protect children, and for that reason I would ask the Committee not to agree to this Amendment.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: Could the noble and learned Viscount give us any information (I imagine it is is hard to come by) as to the ages of the other parties in the cases he has quoted? He mentioned that there have been a number of cases in which the police were unable to bring prosecutions for offences of this character against very young children. No one is more concerned than I am to defend very young children, as I am sure the noble and learned Viscount will accept. He has argued his case entirely in terms of young men of sixteen or seventeen. What I have in mind are cases of boys of perhaps twelve, thirteen or fourteen. If no restriction is put upon the age at which charges can be brought, boys of that age can be charged under this Bill with this offence. They can, as I said just now, be dealt with under the "care and protection" proceedings as being in moral danger, and such proceedings, I should have thought, are of a character which would have a far less deleterious effect upon the young person concerned. Could the noble and learned Viscount give us any information as to the ages of the persons who are likely to be charged with this offence as against the ages of those against whom the offence is committed?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have not got the figures, and whether they are obtainable I do not know. I can only give my experience over the twenty years in which I practised in criminal cases. I should have thought they were fairly well spread over the age group. I have recollections of quite young defendants and of quite old defendants. I cannot from my own recollection attach it either way. On the other point, I pointed out to the noble Baroness—and I think we ought to have it in mind—that under the present law, which would apply to the case of indecent assault, a child under fourteen is presumed to be incapable of guilty intent, although the presumption may be rebutted by satisfying the court that the child knew that he was doing wrong. I should have thought that the effect of that would be that the number of cases where that would be applied would not be very great. We must face
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the point of those who are older than that, and must take our balance between the two. After all, these children could be dealt with by a "care and protection" order, even if they were brought up to court for this offence: that would not be difficult if there were sufficient evidence. But the balance is how we are to take the ages for the best advantage of the children. I believe that the Bill does that.
LORD SALTOUN: I am sure that everybody in your Lordships' House recognises that those who speak on both sides of this question have equally at heart the care and protection of children. With regard to what the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, said, I entirely agree that there must be sexual instruction. It is a question of how and when, and the way in which it is given. I think that is where the error perhaps exists. It is a thing which everbody who is a parent has had to think out very carefully and take his own line over. I think the noble and learned Viscount misrepresented me. I was not talking about conditions 50 years ago, except to say that I have no knowledge of them, either through ignorance or because they did not exist. I was talking about conditions which obtain to-day, and which I do not believe I have exaggerated. I am bound to say that I would far rather see children treated under "care and protection" proceedings than brought into any form of court of law. I am quite conscientious about this matter, and I am in the noble Baroness's hands. I do not myself wish to press the Amendment, but if the noble Baroness wishes to do so, even if she is alone in the Committee, I will divide with her, because I think it is an important matter, and this debate has been on an important point. I gather that the noble Baroness does not wish to have a Division, so with your Lordships' permission, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.24 p.m.
LORD SILKIN LORD SILKIN moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "fourteen" and insert "sixteen". The noble Lord said: We have been spending some little time in dealing with persons who commit acts of indecency. I should now like to turn to the victims of these indecencies. My Amendment is designed to widen the

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scope of those victims so as to increase the age of persons against whom an act of indecency becomes a criminal offence, to sixteen instead of fourteen.
The noble and learned Viscount has been good enough to put forward some figures about offences. I understand they have been reported to the Director of Public Prosecutions. I do not think I should attach great importance to those figures, for two reasons. The first is that it has been notorious that it has not been an offence at all hitherto. This Bill is a Bill to fill a gap. The gap has been in the treatment of something which ought to have been a criminal offence, but has not. Therefore, there would be no particular reason why, in a large number of cases, these matters should have been reported to the police at all. The other reason is that a report to the Director of Public Prosecutions would probably deal with cases in the nature of a very serious offence, and what we are dealing with here are not necessarily the kinds of cases which would be a matter for the Director of Public Prosecutions. While I do not challenge these figures, I say that they are by no means exhaustive They certainly do not represent the sum total of all cases of indecency which have been perpetrated against children, either under the age of fourteen or under the age of sixteen.
I have spent a good many anxious moments in trying to make up my own mind as to what was the right age. On the occasion of the Second Reading I indicated that I had some doubts, but I did not make up my mind about putting down this Amendment until a few days ago, after again considering the matter and seeing what was the case that had been made by the Criminal Law Revision Committee, and what were the answers. I have said this before in this House, and I think it is worth saying again: you can always build up a formidable case for a particular course of action, as the Committee have done, if you close your eyes to the other side. I should rather think that that is just what the Committee have done. They have built up in paragraph 9 of their Report a very strong case for limiting the age to fourteen.
The noble and learned Viscount on the Second Reading gave us some of their reasons, and I will not weary the House by reading paragraph 9 of the
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Report, but it does make a number of assumptions, one of them being that children mature much earlier in life to-day than they did, and so on. I think that that is perfectly true in a large number of cases. But children are not all alike. I should like to think that there are still innocent children, even of fifteen or sixteen, who are not so fully aware of the facts of life as some of the young ladies my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger spoke about a few moments ago. We all know that there are such children—many of them—and they are essentially the kind of children one wants to protect. It may be that the other type of child does not need any protection, and is well able to look after itself, but there are large numbers of young children under the age of sixteen who can be led astray, often by someone whom they highly respect and who has considerable influence over them. I do not want to illustrate the kind of person I have in mind, but we can all visualise the sort of male who might have a considerable influence on these young children. I feel that if there were half a dozen girls between the ages of fourteen and sixteen who, as a result of this Bill, could be protected, it would be worth while raising the age.
After all, what is the objection? How are we trying to protect them? We are dealing with people who commit acts of indecency with girls between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, some of whom, let us admit, may have a knowledge of the facts of life, but others of whom, I would submit, may not. I think the damage that can be done to a girl between the ages of fourteen and sixteen can be very much greater in many cases than the damage done to a much younger and, perhaps, less impressionable child. The age of sixteen is not fanciful; it is the age which is referred to in the Sexual Offences Act. Under Section 14 of the Sexual Offences Act it is an offence for a person to make an indecent assault on a woman under sixteen. A girl under sixteen cannot give any consent which would prevent an act from being an assault for the purpose of that section. There is Section 15 which makes it similarly an offence for a person to make an indecent assault on a man, with the same proviso: that a boy under sixteen cannot in law give any consent which

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would prevent an act from being an assault for the purpose of that section. There is Section 28, in which it is an offence to have carnal knowledge, unlawful sexual intercourse or commit an indecent assault on
"a girl under the age of sixteen for whom he is responsible."
Sixteen has been accepted under the Sexual Offences Act as a crucial age and I cannot see why a lower age should be taken in this Bill.
Finally, the school-leaving age to-day is fifteen. We hope that if the Crowther Report is accepted within a short time it will be sixteen. Indeed it is sixteen to-day for a large number of girls; a high proportion of the girls who could leave at fifteen stay on till sixteen. If not to-day, certainly within a very short time sixteen will be the school-leaving age, and these girls will be school children. I suggest that from that point of view again sixteen is the appropriate age at which girls should be protected. When they are at school, in point of fact they may be vulnerable to this kind of offence to a much greater extent as a result of having to be in contact with people who could have a considerable influence over them. So for all those reasons, though I recognise that the Committee have gone into the matter fully and have come to the conclusion that fourteen is the right age, as against thirteen, I submit that neither of those ages is high enough and that the proper age for the protection of our young girls should be sixteen. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 6, leave out ("fourteen") and insert ("sixteen").—(Lord Silkin.)
4.33 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has most impressively deployed a case which must arouse great sympathy, but I feel, having given all the consideration I can to it, that in regard to this offence we should maintain the age of fourteen which is suggested by the Committee. The noble Lord self-denyingly did not read paragraph 9, but there is just one point which I hope he will forgive me if I mention to your Lordships, and of course he can deal with it again. The Committee said:
"We are convinced that it would be wrong to choose an age as high as sixteen which is the age below which a person cannot in law
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consent to what would otherwise be an indecent assault. The main purpose of the proposed provision is to protect children who are incited to do indecent things the nature of which they do not fully understand. We think that this applies with much less force to children of fourteen and fifteen and that they are already sufficiently protected by the existing provisions as regards sexual offences."
That is principally by the charge of indecent assault, to which the noble Lord has referred.
As I have pointed out, the evil with which the clause seeks to deal is the corruption of younger children who, because they do not understand the significance of what they are being asked to do, respond to an indecent invitation without being threatened or forced. I should like just to say one word about the ages. The ages of the girls concerned in the cases of Fairclough v. Whipp and the Director of Public Prosecutions v. Rogers which disclosed the gap in the law were nine and eleven. Although I cannot vouch for this, I understood (but I may have been wrong and therefore I do not want to make too much of it) that the figures that I mentioned, the seventy cases that were reported by the police to the Director between 1954 and 1957, were brought to his attention to show the importance of closing this gap in the law. Your Lordships will remember what they were: nineteen under seven, forty-six between seven and eleven, three were eleven, one thirteen and one fourteen. Of course the noble Lord is right; they are not a complete record, nor could they be. But from such general inquiries as the Home Office have been able to make they tell me that there is no reason to think that the age distribution which they show is other than typical. I make no false statistical point against the noble Lord; I only say that that was how the figures were got, and the Home Office have no reason to suppose that they are unrepresentative.
LORD SILKIN: Does the noble and learned Viscount know whether the police, who obviously went seeking information, sought information about girls over the age of fourteen at all?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I did not ask that specific point, but I will read to the noble Lord what was given to me from the Home Office as a result. After giving those ages the next line is:
"There was none older than fourteen."

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I take that to mean that in this type of offence, where there is no force used, the police did not report any case of a girl of fifteen or sixteen in that position where there was an indecency without an indecent assault. But again, because I try never to make a false point, I have read to the noble Lord exactly what was given to me.
That leaves the other point, which I find extremely difficult and which I think the noble Baroness must find difficult, in view of the incident which she mentioned in her speech—that is, broadly, the question of maturity. The Committee relied on that, and I am told that it is accepted as a biological fact that children now mature substantially earlier than was the case even 25 years ago. It follows from what the noble Baroness was referring to—the Committee, too, pointed this out—that the Courts are already faced with a difficult problem in dealing with sexual offences against mature girls who are consenting parties, or even, as the noble Baroness mentioned, the instigators of the offence. I think that it would increase the difficulty if we increased the area in which this difficulty arises. When you get beyond fourteen you get into an area where the difficulty certainly does increase, and I believe that it is safer to limit the age to fourteen, which is high enough for the purpose for which the clause is primarily designed—that is, of the child who is induced into indecency without really appreciating what is happening.
The noble Lord is well aware that only 25 years ago people were wanting to raise the age of consent to seventeen. Serious social thinkers of that time were considering that. But I believe that in approaching this problem on the basis of maturity the Committee showed that they were not taking a legalistic view, but were trying to approach the social problem. In the very difficult balance—I admit that it is a most difficult balance, and there are great attractions in the noble Lord's argument, because naturally we all want to protect children to the greatest extent we can—in view of the careful consideration we have had, and in view of this change in maturity which I understand to be generally accepted, I believe that fourteen is the safe age, and I should advise the Committee to retain it.
4.43 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: I must confess that I find it a little difficult to accept the noble and learned Viscount's views about this, persuasively as he has put them. It seems to me that my noble friend Lord Silkin is undoubtedly right when he says that there are a substantial number of people between fourteen and sixteen who are not mature in this sort of way; and I should have thought that, on the whole, the balance of the argument was in favour of giving protection in those cases, and in the other type of case of leaving it to the discretion of the police not to prosecute. We all know that a considerable amount of discretion is used in connection with whether or not there should be a prosecution. Moreover, I doubt very much whether these statistics are really convincing, in the sense that it does not look to me as if the police have made any great efforts to cover the ages between fourteen and sixteen.
As I understood them, the statistics that were given were entirely concerned with girls. I may be wrong about that, but one obviously important side of this case is the homosexual side, which is, I think, covered by this clause. I remember, from a rather distant professional experience in this type of case, that when I was practising in the criminal courts I was concerned with some rather widespread homosexual cases in which schoolboys were concerned—they had, in fact, been paid sums of money to behave in the sort of way which is now criminal. I wonder whether that point is already covered and whether it is not a relevant matter in this particular connection. It may be that it is already covered, but I am not certain that it is not in the same sort of field as the expression
"who incites a child under that age to such an act with him".
Surely that would cover a male child. I doubt very much whether it is covered by the law as it now stands.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It certainly would cover a male child. There was nothing in the list of statistics which was given to me to show that it was limited to little girls. If I gave that impression it was my fault, because I had little girls particularly in mind. But the figures may well have included little boys as well.
LORD CHORLEY: There was a great deal of reference to girls in the remarks in the argument, but this side of it is most important. Undoubtedly, over the last few years there have been numbers of this type of case, certainly at assizes and quarter sessions courts with which I am familiar. I have been very disturbed within only the last few months at a serious outbreak in a part of the country with which I am well acquainted, and I am pretty sure, from what I have heard, that there are concerned a number of children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. It therefore seems to me that this protection should be extended in the way my noble friend Lord Silkin has suggested.
LORD SILKIN: The remarks of my noble friend Lord Chorley add weight to the case which I have made. I am bound to say that I am most disappointed at the reply of the noble and learned Viscount, who is always most sympathetic in these matters. Does it really mean that because girls mature at an earlier age generally, and because there are some girls who might even go so far as to incite males, therefore the ordinary girl between fourteen and sixteen is not to be protected: that this gap that we have been talking about is to remain so far as these girls are concerned? I cannot think that that would be the wish of the noble and learned Viscount or of the Government. Having introduced a measure of this kind, they would, I should have thought, have gone the whole way and tried to fill the gap, even erring on the side of extra precaution.
I will deliberately not deal with the case of homosexuality, although everything I say is of equal applicability there. But if a young man is charged with an offence and it turns out that there was incitement, that is a matter which the magistrates will always take into account. But the fact is (I am not in a position to give figures) that the majority of girls between fourteen and sixteen are not so mature or experienced in life that an act of this kind cannot deprave them and cause them considerable sufferine in after-life.
The noble and learned Viscount made one statement which rather surprised me—namely, that the reason for this Bill is that children are being incited to
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commit acts of indecency. I thought the point was that there was commission of acts of indecency as well as incitement, and that equal weight is attached to both sides of it, though it is the mere commission of an act of indecency which becomes an offence. Although, as the Committee stated, this may have much less force between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, they do not say that it has no validity at all. I should have thought that even if it protected only a limited number of young persons it would be worth while to extend the age. I very much hope that Her Majesty's Government have not said the last word on this point and are prepared to think again, because it is a serious matter. The Committee themselves took the view that the question of age is one on which there can be different views. I do not think they meant the difference between the ages of thirteen and fourteen in that context, although later it transpired that they themselves were wavering between the two ages. I believe they genuinely meant that there could be different views as to whether the age should be fourteen or sonic other age, and I hope Her Majesty's Government will be prepared to think about this again before the next stage.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will certainly think about it again. I must do so because the noble Lords, Lord Silkin and Lord Chorley, have advanced their arguments. I still think that the Committee were right, and it is interesting to note that, with all their consideration, they were wavering, as the noble Lord frankly said, between the ages of fourteen and thirteen, although they meant that there were arguments the other way. I will look into this question, for it is a very serious matter, though I should not like the noble Lord to think I have been shaken in my view.
LORD SILKIN: For the moment neither of us has been shaken. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Remaining Clauses agreed to.
House resumed.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, might I ask the assistance of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin? In the normal

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course I should move, "That the Report be now received"—which would mean that there would be no separate Report stage. I should not like to do that, however, if the noble Lord would like the opportunity of having this matter considered again on Report stage.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I should very much like to have the matter considered again. The noble and learned Viscount will remember that at one time we deliberately decided that the mere fact that there was no Amendment on the Committee stage should not deprive us of a Report stage; and I think this is a case where that might apply.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. That is exactly what I wanted to know, and so I shall not move, "That the Report be now received."

PUBLIC HEALTH LABORATORY SERVICE BILL [H.L.]
4.55 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 4 agreed to.
LORD TAYLOR LORD TAYLOR moved, after Clause 4, to insert the following new clause:
Amendment of 9 & 10 Geo. 6, c. 81, s. 17
". Section seventeen of the National Health Service Act, 1946, shall be amended by leaving out the word 'bacteriological', and by inserting the words 'or other' after the word 'infectious'."
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the new clause standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Amulree, and myself. I hope that it will be for the convenience of your Lordships if Amendments Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 8 are considered together, so far as discussion is concerned, because they are all making precisely the same points.
The description of the Public Health Laboratory Service and its functions stems from the National Health Service Act, 1946, Section 17, which says:
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"The Minister may provide a bacteriological service, which may include the provision of laboratories, for the control of the spread of infectious diseases, and the Minister may allow persons to make use of services provided at such laboratories on such terms, including terms as to the payment of charges, as the Minister thinks fit."
Now the effect of these Amendments is to strike out the word "bacteriological" in the parent clause and to add the words "or other" after "infectious diseases". This would result in the Public Health Laboratory Service being free to tackle any kind of public health problem. One thinks that "public health" means the health of the public, of groups of people as contrasted with the health of the individual. I tried to show (and I hope that I did show) on Second Reading that in fact the Service does a great deal more than bacteriology. There is some dispute as to how the word "bacteriology" should be defined. The common definition is that it is the study of bacteria, but its use is sometimes extended to cover also the viruses. But the public health bacteriological service is concerned with more than this. It is concerned with the study of protozoa, with the helminthes, which are larger creatures still, and the study of fungi, none of which is, strictly speaking, bacteriology. The service is concerned also with the study of physical agents, such as dust, and on occasion has been concerned with chemical agents.
The effect of the second alteration to the section is to remove the limitation under which the Service works. At present it is limited to infectious diseases. In the early days, public health was primarily concerned with infectious diseases. In the 1860s, there was a great cholera epidemic, and since then notification and isolation of infectious people, the study of carriers and so on, has played a great part in public health. But public health has gone on extending, and is now concerned with general disease prevention, especially in expectant mothers and infants, and in school children. When we turn to the work of the Public Health Laboratory Service, we find it is concerned, for example, with the study of congenital defects. Now admittedly it has been discovered in recent years that congenital defects are often due to infections in the mother; but it is spreading the sense of infectious

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disease very wide if it is to include infectious diseases in one generation producing what are certainly congenital changes in the next generation.
The Public Health Laboratory Service is concerned with the study of food poisoning, and while food may be poisoned by bacteria it may also be poisoned by chemicals; and the Public Health Laboratory Service has studied, for example, poisoning due to zinc. It is concerned with the study of soap and detergents, and some of its publications have appeared in the Journal of Applied Chemistry. It has also been concerned in the study of the causes of sudden death in infancy and with the study of development of equipment for measuring ventilation. The basis of this study is, of course, spread of infection by droplet spray, but this leads on, very properly and rightly, to the study of the speed of air flow through rooms and so on.
The Service is also concerned with the effect of organisms on fertility. It cannot, in fact, do its work without overstepping this limitation of the word "infectious", and it is only by broadening the use of the word "infectious" so as to render it meaningless that in fact the Service is able to operate. The same thing has happened with the word "epidemic": epidemiology has now come to mean the study of the statistics of disease, rather than the study of epidemics of disease in the conventional old-fashioned sense. So one would suggest that the word, or, rather, the provision—the limitation to epidemic disease—is much better left out in the originating section of the Act.
One urges these Amendments on three grounds, any one of which, I think, is sufficient to justify their adoption. The first is that the law ought to be precise and exact. When your Lordships are dealing with the law in relation to marriage or divorce or sexual offences, such as we have just been hearing about, every word is carefully, and rightly, weighed. In future, the law will be more and more concerned with scientific matters, and I should like to make a plea for equal precision here. I do not think it is good enough to say "bacteriology" and then leave it, so that it can mean anything somebody wants it to mean later on. I think the Bill gains nothing by including the word "bacteriology".
I have tried to devise a list of words to cover the actual work which these laboratories do; and however one works out this list, inevitably one finds faults and weaknesses in it. For that reason the approach which I have adopted is to try to leave out the word "bacteriology" with the limitation that it implies rather than to lay down a series of categories in which these laboratories have to work. In the future it may well be that these laboratories will be concerned with molecular chemistry and molecular physics, as they get down to studying the details of bacteria in ways which cannot be done now. So my first proposition is that words used in law should be precise; they should mean what they appear to mean, and should not require elastic stretching by Ministers and civil servants who have to operate the law.
The second ground for this group of Amendments is that the law is the primary method by which Parliament controls administration. In modern times we accept the necessity for statutory instruments. We just cannot avoid them, because of the complexities of the situations with which the law has to deal. But we quite rightly define in our Acts the fields in which statutory instruments may be made. If we accept the power of the administrators to make words mean what they want them to mean, Parliament is in fact handing over its right and duty to control administration. It is as though we said, "We do not mind if the word 'railway' in an Act of Parliament is expanded to include tramway-cars because they too run on rails, and trolley buses because their course is circumscribed by the existence of fixed wires." I think it is wrong that the Government and the Civil Service should be given a duty of this kind, of elastic stretching of phraseology, if Acts of Parliament are to be made to work; and I think it is particularly important that we should have precision of definition and wording when setting up a public board to carry out an essential public service. Boards must have the right terms of reference if they are to do their job properly.
This is no hypothetical or theoretical objection. In every large organisation—and in many small ones, too—there is an unpleasant group of people who always want to say, "No"—abominable

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"No-men"; fellows who delight in thinking up reasons why things which are desirable and good should not be done. As it stands, the Bill is a standing invitation to one such official to stop useful and, indeed, vital work, when all he has to say is, "The Board must stop doing mycology because it is not part of bacteriology. They must stop examining 'beat disease' of miners because that is not a part of bacteriology, or it is not an epidemic." And there is nothing that the Public Health Laboratory Service Board can do. In fact, one man in the wrong place can frustrate the entire intention of Parliament. That then is the second ground.
The third ground is one which I mentioned on Second Reading: that we want to leave the door open for the development of the Public Health Laboratory Service to cover other aspects of risk to the public health, including risks in industry. Note that we are not trying to force the door open; we are merely saying that if at some future date the Minister of Health and the Minister of Labour should decide to extend the field of operation of the Public Health Laboratory Service they should be able to experiment a little to start with, without having to come back to Parliament. It may be argued that it is wrong to leave a door open. To that I would reply that in fact the door is already ajar, and it was opened when the Public Health Laboratory Service started to study anthrax, and "beat disease" of miners, and respiratory infections in office workers, and zinc poisoning, and dust, and so on. These are all matters of public health—and public health does not end in the home, the canteen or the sewage works; it embraces the whole environment of man, including his working environment.
If we believe that the law should be precise and accurate in its wording, that administrators should obey the law and not interpret it as they think fit, and that this Public Health Laboratory Service should serve the public health of the country outside the narrow confines of bacteriology, as it is already doing, then these Amendments should fall on open ears and a willing heart on the part of the Lord Privy Seal; and I am sure that in accepting them he will have the support of the whole Committee. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 4 insert the said new clause.—(Lord Taylor.)
LORD AMULREE: I should like very briefly to support what my noble friend Lord Taylor has just said. Two reasons of his were, I think, most important. One was that the law should be precise. On one occasion in this House a Bill which I myself was introducing was turned down because it was not precise enough and would be impossible to enforce properly, and so I feel rather strongly about that point. The other point that is extremely important is the fact that it is possible for someone to say, "No, it cannot be done". Here I can talk from experience. It is so simple to say that there is nothing in the Act to say that something can be done. Therefore, I should like to see the word "bacteriological" go and some better phrase used. I think that the other phrase which is suggested is better. Apart from the present, one can never be sure that in the future some narrow-minded person, with a rigid, inflexible mind, may not come along and stop a large amount of good work and prevent the Laboratory from doing what it is now doing so very well. Therefore, I should like to support the Amendment which has been put down in the name of my noble friend Lord Taylor.
5.10 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: When the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, first put forward this point on Second Reading, he put it forward on a relatively narrow ground, and, as I understood it, he made two broad propositions about it. The first was that, in the course of time, a service which bad started with the study of bacteria had gone on to the study of viruses and other small bodies, and the term "bacteriological" was really no longer apposite to deal with the actual scope of the service. Secondly, he said that he hoped we should not be too narrow in our definition, should we accept a new definition for the Service, because it would need to cover quite a large range of activities. At the time, although I was advised very strongly that the point was not a good one technically, I was at any rate very favourably impressed by it. But, to be honest, I am less impressed with these Amendments. I do not think that they do the

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things which the noble Lord said on Second Reading he wanted done, and I think they do a number of things which he definitely says now he does not want. I would therefore say that, although I do not want to close the door, it seems to me at the moment that the difficulties in the way of accepting these Amendments are really insuperable.
In the first place, I was originally of the opinion that there was something in this argument that "bacteriology" was no longer a suitable term because the scope of the Service now includes virology and the study of other small bodies. But I am advised that this is not so. Legally speaking, the term "bacteriology" is, I am advised, wide enough to cover all these disciplines, and would be interpreted by reference to the use of the term in 1946, when the substantive Act was passed. I am advised by those who know these things better than I that, although of course a virus is not a bacterium, and it is still less a small fungus or a protozoa, the word "bacteriological" is used generically to cover all these things, and is used both popularly, if such a word can be said to have a popular use, and in the medical profession. For instance, I am advised that if there was a room full of doctors and you said, "Hands up all those here who are bacteriologists," the virologists would all put up their hands, too, because this term is still in common use as a generic term. It therefore is not wanting in precision, and it is not narrow in its application.
Now in his quest for precision, the first move by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, is to take out the word "bacteriological" altogether, with the result that any kind of precision in Section 17 of the Act of 1946 disappears altogether. Therefore, although he comes wearing the garb of the legal purist demanding precision, the only effect of his Amendment is to take it away. He then goes on to remove the other words in Section 17 which give some precision to the definition of the Service. Perhaps I had better read the section:
"The Minister may provide a bacteriological service, which may include the provision of laboratories, for the control of the spread of infectious diseases …".
I do not read the rest of the section, because it is immaterial. The noble
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Lord then proceeds to take out the only other words which give precision—that is to say, "for the control … of infectious diseases", and says that they are not to be in the clause, either. The result is that in this magnificent quest for precision he has taken out any kind of precision in the clause which he is seeking to amend.
He would then further parade his legislative virtue, and proceeds to say, "We believe in the Government obeying the law and not interpreting it themselves". Then, in his third proposition, he proceeds to announce, "The whole object of what I am about to do is to enable the Minister and the Secretary of State to experiment to see whether there are some things which they want to do which Parliament has not actually thought of yet". How this philosophy is reduced to one of precision and Parliamentary control, I do not understand. There may be much to be said for fluidity and a broad view, and in not hampering the Executive in highly scientific matters, but how that can be brought forward under the banner of precision and of making the Ministers obey the law is something which I confess, as I listened to the noble Lord, I utterly failed to understand.
However, there is to my mind another objection to doing this. I will tell the noble Lord straight away that I should be very much attracted to this series of Amendments if I could think of a generic term which did better than "bacteriological" and covered the whole range of disciplines without confining itself to any and without limiting the future growth of the Service but I should not be prepared to advise my right honourable friend to accept Amendments which simply enabled him to provide laboratories for some kind of a service not more precisely defined, because they would be "South Sea Bubble" laboratories, and it is not the purpose of this Bill to provide laboratories for some sort of a service hereafter to be defined by the Minister when he wants to experiment. I submit that it is I who am the apostle of legislative precision in this respect, and the noble Lord who is the heretic.
There is another point which I would draw to your Lordships' attention. We really must have some regard to the scope and limitations of this Bill. This

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is a Bill for the transference of an existing Service which has never yet found itself hampered either by Parliament or by the Courts, or by that mysterious body of "abominable 'No'-men" who seem to me to be as mythical in this particular connection as the creature in the Himalayas after which the noble Lord evidently named them. The purpose of this Bill is to transfer this existing Service, which is quite happy in its work and unfettered in its discretion within the realm laid down for it by Parliament in the Act of 1946, from one body—namely, the Medical Research Council—to another, a new Board to be appointed by the Minister of Health. If you look at the Long Title of the Bill—we are not always bound by the Long Title, but we are bound by the general scope of the Bill—we see it described as:
"An Act to establish a Public Health Laboratory Service Board for the exercise of functions with respect to the administration of the bacteriological service provided by the Minister of Health under section seventeen of the National Health Service Act, 1946."
I must say that I have the greatest possible doubt as to whether it really is within the function of rather a modest little measure of this kind, which is designed to transfer an existing Service from body A to body B, to redefine the scope and purpose of the Service so as to include a large number of functions which, at any rate on the face of it, are not already included within it. I myself would say that the House would not be wise to accept an Amendment in this sense.
I am sorry to have deluged the noble Lord, whose views on this subject I treat with very great respect, with such a bucketful of cold water, and perhaps I may be allowed, in conclusion, to offer him some solace. I am bound to say that I resist these Amendments in this form, but I still think that if I could think of a better name for the Service, and if I could be persuaded that it would be within the bounds of propriety to put it in this Bill, it would be quite a convenient thing to do. I will ask my right honourable friend to think of that between now and the Report stage, and to see whether he cannot, with the aid of the Parliamentary draftsmen, put something into the Bill in that sense. With that limited assurance, I hope that the noble Lord, who I trust has taken my
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remarks in the spirit of friendly badinage in which they are meant, will be content and, in those circumstances, will not press his Amendment.
LORD TAYLOR: If the Amendments which I am moving were adopted, there still would be a real measure of precision, because the words "Public Health", which I think are the best possible definition of the functions of this particular laboratory service, would remain. The Service is concerned with public health, whatever the cause of the mishap to public health. But if the noble Viscount wants a portmanteau word, and I must say that I share his feeling on this subject, there is one which is coming rapidly into use—"microbiology", which covers bacteriology, virology, mycology and all the rest. I recommend "microbiology" in all sincerity, not in levity, because it is a seriously used word, which I think would meet the object and allow the Service to perform its proper functions, as it is performing them now. In view of the noble Viscount's assurance that he has not closed the door—and I hope that he will look most sympathetically on this suggestion—I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Schedule:

CONSTITUTION OF PUBLIC HEALTH LABORATORY SERVICE BOARD
3. The Board shall consist of a chairman appointed by the Minister and nine other members so appointed, and—
(a) the chairman and one other member shall be fully registered medical practitioners;
(d) two members shall be appointed from among persons holding office as medical officer of health of a local authority;
(e) two members shall be appointed from among persons having administrative experience.
5.22 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR LORD TAYLOR moved, in paragraph 3, to leave out sub-paragraph (a) and insert—
"(a) one member shall be an officer of the Ministry of Health;"
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Amulree and myself. I hope that the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal will feel that these Amendments are not moved in any frivolous

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spirit, as indeed was not the last one, but in a serious attempt to give legal precision to something with which I do not know quite how to deal. Again, I think it would be convenient if I might take the general principle underlying all these Amendments before we consider them in detail.
On Second Reading, I said that there were two types of public board: the first non-categorised, where the Ministry were left free to appoint whom they would, without having to fit them into different categories, and the second, of which this was an example, where they had to fit them into a sort of jigsaw which was laid down in the Act. I should prefer the first type, but one is satisfied that in this case the Government are probably right to categorise. That categorisation is virtually complete. There is a chairman and nine other members and the peculiarities are laid down for every one of these members, except probably one.
The chairman and one other member shall be fully registered practitioners (that is two), two members shall be appointed after consultation with the Medical Research Council (that is four), two shall be people of experience in bacteriology (that is six), two are to be medical officers of health (that is eight), and two are to be appointed from among persons having administrative experience (that is ten—in other words, nine plus a chairman). There is only one member about whom the Minister could exercise much freedom and that is the one other member mentioned in paragraph (a). The Minister is free to select any kind of fully registered medical practitioner, and possibly not a fully registered medical practitioner, because that person may well be covered in one of the subsequent categories.
I think this is a basic decision, and we should like to know what the Government are thinking about it. It would be possible for this Board to be heavily weighted with Ministry of Health officials or to be a balanced board of experts and users, but not excluding officials. Under the Bill as it stands, heavy Ministry of Health weighting is possible, and it is certainly believed in the Public Health Laboratory Service that that is the intention. I must say that I was greatly encouraged by the
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remarks of the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal on Second Reading, when he drew a simile between this Board and a Regional Hospital Board. Those are indeed the agents of the Minister of Health, but they are balanced boards of experts and users and are not composed of Ministry of Health officials. And very good indeed they have been. Therefore, we should hope that the noble Viscount will give your Lordships a clear statement of the Government's intention about the members of the Board who may or may not be civil servants.
First of all, the Government intend to have a medical chairman. I pointed out on Second Reading that throughout the entire life of this Board—and it has been in existence for about six years as part of the Medical Research Council—it has never had a medical chairman. I cannot see why on earth they want to specify that there should always be a medical chairman for this Board. I see no objection to there being a medical chairman sometimes. Why should this not vary from time to time? I should like to know what is behind this. Again rumour has it that the intention is that the chairman should be the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health. I must say that one thinks that that is a very bad idea, not because one has anything against the Chief Medical Officer—he is an excellent person—but because his time is so fully occupied already. He is a very busy Governmental official, and it would be far better to have someone who can devote a great deal of his time to the work of this Board, particularly as in all probability the Chief Executive will be retiring in the course of the next few years.
The first effect of our Amendments is to get rid of this restriction and leave the Minister free to vary the chairman. We have sought not to increase the size of the Board, but if one more member could be appointed, one would willingly accept one more official of the Ministry of Health. In Amendment No. 4, we suggest that one of the members should be an officer of the Ministry of Health, to replace the provision about the chairman. I can see no objection to there being two members who are officers of the Ministry of Health, providing that the total number can be increased by one. It is only fair to say that on the present Board there are two representatives of

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the Ministry—Sir John Charles and Dr. W. H. Bradley, who is an observer. Paragraphs (b) and (c) of the Schedule are perfectly satisfactory. Paragraph (d) brings us to users of the Board. The only users recognised on the Board are medical officers of health, but, as was pointed out by a number of noble Lords and myself, the Service is widely used by the hospitals and very often works as a hospital bacteriological laboratory. Yet there is no representation on the Board of the hospital administration and of general practitioners, although general practitioners also make use, and should make use, of this Service. One cannot see why either hospitals or general practitioners should not be substantial users, because it is in everybody's interest that they should be.
Therefore, we have reluctantly suggested that the number of medical officers of health should be reduced from two to one, and one representative of the hospitals, perhaps a senior administrative medical officer of one of the Regional Hospital Boards, should be appointed. We suggest that a practising general practitioner should be introduced, and finally, in place of these two persons having administrative experience, we suggest having one person having experience in industry, which is a little more realistic. Again it would mean that we brought in someone from outside rather than putting on two more civil servants. So the first point is to clarify whether the Board is primarily to be composed of civil servants, plus experts, or to be truly based on the principle of having experts and users with some Ministry of Health representation. If the latter, then it must, I feel, include the hospitals and the general practitioners. If the Government do not like the precise proposals in the Schedule that we have made, we shall be only too happy to vary them or to try to work out something that is reasonable but does not impose the limitations imposed at present.
There is one further provision which we suggest, and that is that there should be two assessors to represent the staff, and that this should be written into the Bill. In fact, there are two assessors who do represent the staff on the Public Health Laboratories Board. These people have been there, so far as I know, ever since the Board has existed. In the Annual Reports of the Medical Research
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Council one finds staff assessors at the bottom of the Board, and there they are. These two gentlemen, we understand, have no voting rights, and we merely suggest that this provision should be written into the Bill, so that the Board, after consultation with any appropriate bodies, shall appoint two assessors from among the staff of the Public Health Laboratories Service, with the right to attend meetings, but not to vote. Again, if the phraseology of this new paragraph is not right, we should not wish to stick rigidly to it, but merely ask that the principle be written into the Bill rather than that it should be left to the administration.
I do not want to enter into a long argument about public Boards, but I do feel that if we are going to have portions of our public services administered by public Boards it is much better if those Boards are not composed of civil servants, or at least not primarily composed of civil servants. One has in mind that the best of all public Boards was probably created by a Conservative Government when the B.B.C. was brought into operation. When we had a Labour Government a number of public Boards, including Regional Hospital Boards and new town development corporations were created, and they worked very well just because they were not civil servants. It is no criticism of the Civil Service—that is the last thing I have in mind—to say that it is a good thing to introduce other elements into the running of the public service, because the Civil Service can so easily get too big. I must say that I very much hope that this will be one of the kinds of Boards which is not primarily civil servant but which will be composed primarily of people who want to do a good job of public service, who are highly skilled, well equipped and representative of the users, and also that there will be real delegation and not just pseudo-delegation. If we have a large number of civil servants on such a Board, then the delegation becomes a false delegation, an apparent delegation without reality. I very much hope that, even if much of the detail may not be acceptable, the principles underlying the Amendment will be. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 31, leave out sub-paragraph (a) and insert the said new sub-paragraph.—(Lord Taylor.)
5.35 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: Again my right honourable friend and the noble Lord appear to some extent to have changed places. The Bill as drafted contains fairly precise provisions for the constitution of the Board, and the Amendment as drafted by the noble Lord contains fairly precise provisions, differing to some extent, for the constitution of the Board. On Second Reading the noble Lord said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 220 (No. 34), col. 1011], and I was very much impressed with his remarks:
"In my experience, I must say that it is usually best to leave the selection of some new board to the individual Minister, while at the same time saying that he must consult with various people before he does it. That is, in fact, what happened under the National Health Service Act in respect of Regional Boards. The Minister consults, but then he appoints whom he thinks fit, regardless of whether they fit into a series of neat little categories."
That was the noble Lord's view then, and I gathered from his first remarks in moving this Amendment that that is his real view now, but that he presented his precise Amendments out of deference to the view of the Government that they wanted a fairly precise Board. In the interval of time between the Second Reading and the present time my right honourable friend has studied with respect and admiration the noble Lord's remarks, and he hopes to have for the Report stage an Amendment of the Bill which will conform to the noble Lord's first specification but not to his second. In view of that, I am not sure that the noble Lord would wish me to enter into the merits of his particular Amendment, because he may feel so gratified that his advice on Second Reading is being taken that he will not wish to press the Amendment which he devised out of deference to the Government.
There is only one other thing that I would say. As regards the assessors, it has, as the noble Lord said, been the practice to have staff assessors sitting with the Board to which the Medical Research Council have delegated the administration of the existing service. This has been a most useful arrangement, and it is not intended that it shall cease. There are naturally many matters coming before the Board on which it is most important that staff members
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should have the opportunity of expressing their views to the Board. This has been done and is being done, and it is intended to continue it. The attendance of staff assessors can be, has been and will be, arranged administratively, but the view of the Government is that it is neither necessary nor desirable to write them into the constitution of the Board, which is, after all, the creation of a legal entity to which the function of administering the Service is actually given by the Act of Parliament. So that on that part of it my right honourable friend agrees with the policy which the noble Lord has enunciated, though he would rather not have it in the Bill. In view of what I have said about the proposal to provide that the Board should consist of certain persons appointed by the Minister after consultation with different categories of bodies, I hope that the noble Lord will not at this stage press his Amendment, and then he can come back on the discussion on the Report stage and avoid what I fear would now become a somewhat academic discussion.
LORD TAYLOR: I am amazed and delighted at the result of my Second Reading speech. I quite thought that as there was no Amendment at this stage I had better have a shot at what was left. The only reason that made me a little hesitant about rejecting the Government's original proposal out of hand was to make sure that the Medical Research Council were fully brought into consultation and that the bacteriologists were brought in, so that the research function could continue. I am sure it is best that the Minister should have the widest discretion in composing his Board, though I hope that (a) the consultations will be sufficiently wide-flung to include the hospital services and the general practitioners; and (b) that in practice, when he comes to appoint, he will not forget those two sides, and, even more important, the Medical Research Council and the bacteriologists. In view of what the Lord Privy Seal has said, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule agreed to.
House resumed.

FOREIGN SERVICE BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

AIR CORPORATIONS BILL
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
House adjourned at seventeen minutes before six o'clock.