Lords Sitting of 30 May 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 Manchester

POST OFFICE CABLE AND WIRELESS SERVICES
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: 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 are aware that the Cable and Wireless Cable Company are now refusing to accept cablegrams other than at full rates, either inwards or outwards; that the cancellation of the letter-telegram service is a serious matter for commercial users in this country and the public generally; and whether it is true that there is a dispute existing between the operatives of the Cable Company and the Postmaster-General, and, if so, what is the nature of the dispute, and when it is likely to be resolved.]
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, my right honourable friend greatly regrets the inconvenience caused by the present restrictions on overseas telegraph services. These
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services are operated by the Post Office and Cable and Wireless Limited are not concerned. The present difficulties have arisen because a substantial proportion of the staff at Electra House, the main operating centre of the Post Office Cable and Wireless services in London, imposed a ban on overtime working. There was already a shortage of staff, and these two things taken together made it impossible for my right honourable friend to maintain the full range of overseas telegraph services.
It was clearly necessary to keep the full rate and urgent rate traffic moving, and my right honourable friend had no alternative but to suspend the letter telegram service. He will restore this as soon as a satisfactory service can be offered, but is very sorry that he cannot yet say when he will be able to do so.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that full reply, may I say that our cable service is not only a domestic concern, but is an international service, and our reputation is involved here. We in this country have always been proud of our cable service—users and cable staff alike—and I would ask the noble Lord whether nothing can be done by way of a special inquiry into the existing dispute between the staff and the Postmaster General in order to achieve an early settlement.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I am well aware of the international importance of this matter, and, indeed, it emphasises the necessity for maintaining the full rate and the urgent rate, because the

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letter telegram rate is, of course, a concessionary service at a concessionary rate. The full rate and the urgent rate are obligatory under international agreement and must be kept up at all costs. So far as the solution of this unfortunate occurrence is concerned, I can assure the noble Lord that nothing is being spared to bring it to an early end and to restore the service.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, overtime has not been banned by the men for nothing. Cannot the noble Lord say something, of the nature of the dispute, how long it has been going on and what is being actively done to end it?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, this overtime ban was imposed as the result of a dispute involving the recognition of a new and additional staff association. The overtime ban is not at the moment operative. The backlog of work as a result of that ban is being dealt with, and negotiations, into which the noble Lord will not expect me to go, are going on, which we hope will prove successful and mean that the trouble will soon end.

CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW AND PARKED VEHICLES
LORD COLWYN: 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 by what right the Metropolitan Police issued notices to house and flat occupiers in Chelsea warning them that during the period of the Chelsea Flower Show any vehicle left in the street would be liable to removal by the police.]
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, under the powers conferred by Section 52 of the Metropolitan Police Act, 1839, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis directed that, for the duration of the Chelsea Flower Show, parking of vehicles should be prohibited in certain streets and permitted on one side only in certain other streets. Vehicles parked in contravention of these restrictions were liable to be removed from the streets by the police under powers conferred by the
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Removal of Vehicles (England and Wales) Regulations, 1957. Notices giving warning of these arrangements were distributed in advance to residents and vehicle owners in the streets in which parking was to be prohibited. These same notices were also distributed by mistake in some of the streets in which parking on one side only was to be permitted, and in these cases the advice given was not altogether appropriate. The Commissioner very much regrets any inconvenience that may have been caused.
LORD COLWYN: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply, but there is one point I should like to bring up. He is entirely right in what he says—that certain streets have not got parking restrictions. Therefore, what we, as householders, assumed from this, was that we had to take our cars and park them elsewhere, and the Chelsea Flower Show cars came in their place. I should like to suggest—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
LORD COLWYN: May I ask that Royal Avenue, which I believe is Crown property, should during the Chelsea Flower Show take an average per day of 300 to 400 cars at a nominal charge of 2s. 6d. to 3s. each, which should go to the Royal Hospital? At the present moment Royal Avenue is used solely as a promenade for dogs—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
LORD COLWYN: —and not as a car park.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that outside the Victoria Hospital for Children, of whose Committee I am a member, doctors were not allowed to park their cars, and one car which was parked there belonging to a doctor who was carrying out an operation was towed away? Could the noble Earl try to see his right honourable friend regarding legislation to enable bona fide doctors' cars to be parked outside their hospital?
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, I was not aware of that, but I do not think that the noble Lord's question has any relationship to the Question asked by his noble friend.

ARMY RECRUITMENT
LORD OGMORE: 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 view of the decline in recruitment for the Army making it unlikely that the Army will be able to fulfil its commitments, what steps they are taking to deal with the situation.]
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, I do not accept the premise of the Question. Any fall in numbers must be a mutter for concern; but the recent slight decline follows two years of very good recruiting and there is no reason to suppose that plans for an all-Regular Army may not be fulfilled.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether he is aware that, according to the latest figures in the Printed Paper Office issued by the Minister of Defence, the Regular other ranks strength on April 1, 1960, was 138,400, as compared to a similar strength on April 1, 1959, of 149,961; and whether this decline of 11,561 in the Regular other ranks strength of the Army does not fill him with some foreboding?
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: Yes, my Lords, I am aware of the difficulties, but I think we must take this matter in due proportion. All these figures are seriously and constantly under review, and I do not think at the moment that we need be unduly worried by the slight fall at this particular period. Naturally the noble Lord knows the figures we set as the target, and I think they will be achieved. If the noble Lord is worried, which he seems to be, at there being any possible chance of reintroducing conscription after 1962, I think I can put his mind at rest. That is not in any way in the Government's mind at the moment.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, the first question which occurs to most of our minds on this matter is, will the strength of the Army be sufficient to cover our commitments and give the proper security? If you are down to a strength of 138,000, would it not be true that, allowing first
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for the units which are composed of new recruits in training, and allowing for the interchange of stations and the like, you might seriously be endangering the security of your commitments? Therefore, the figure seems to me to be fantastically low in relation to what would have to be provided, even by a voluntary force.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, I think we should all agree, whichever side of the House happened to be in charge of the Government, that we would never allow our security to go to a danger point.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that if the Army is being run down like this it imposes an enormous burden upon commanding officers of battalions and batteries—and they are the important people who have to "carry the can", and not the War Office. Does the noble Earl not think it is time the Government took this matter far more seriously than they appear to be doing?
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: Yes, my Lords, I can answer the noble Lord. Having commanded three regiments in my time, I know the wear and tear on commanding officers. From the information I have, I feel that my successors will not be unduly worried.

RADIO RECEPTION IN LANCASTER-MORECAMBE AREA
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: 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 will represent to the British Broadcasting Corporation that the district including Lancaster, Morecambe and Barrow-in-Furness is a fringe area for radio signals and whether they will consider the provision of V.H.F. satellite stations there, in addition to the satellite television stations which they announced last June they would provide in the Lancaster-Barrow-in-Furness areas.]
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, the B.B.C. are mindful of the need for improvement in V.H.F. sound reception,

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particularly in the Lancaster-More-cambe area. They will consider whether something can be done to improve V.H.F. sound reception in this area in a later stage of their satellite scheme.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he is aware that successive Postmaster Generals, for the last fifteen years, have been made aware of the deficiency in this district and have, if not promised, at any rate held out some hopes that remedies would be found; and will he impress upon the Post Office that the remedy is overdue?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I shall be delighted to pass on the words of my noble friend. I would only remind him that the B.B.C. are engaged in a considerable programme of improvement of both the television and the V.H.F. stations all over the country, and they hope to fit this in when they can. I would add, if this seems to indicate some delay, that they are contemplating a further programme of very low-power satellite stations in individual towns with particularly bad reception although they are not yet able to say when they can do anything for these particular towns in that respect.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: I thank my noble friend.

ROYAL EXCHANGE ASSURANCE BILL
Read 3a, and passed.
UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
2.48 p.m.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, in moving the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper,
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I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to the Notice about to-day's Business which was circulated by the Table last Friday. It is proposed, if your Lordships agree, to take the Second Reading of the Professions Supplementary to Medicine Bill, which now stands as first Business on the Paper, after the Report of Amendments to the Administration of Justice Bill. This is to enable the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simonds, to speak on the Professions Supplementary to Medicine Bill which he would otherwise be unable to do, since he is sitting in the Appellate Committee upstairs until four o'clock. I hope your Lordships will agree to that change. I beg to move.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 35 be suspended until the House adjourns for the Recess at Whitsun for the purpose of giving Government Business (except with the consent of the Government) precedence over other Notices and Orders of the Day, and that Standing Order No. 41 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be suspended for the aforesaid period.—(The Earl of Home.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

GAME LAWS (AMENDMENT) BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
NOISE ABATEMENT BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
OIL BURNERS (STANDARDS) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1aa, and to be printed.
ROAD TRAFFIC (AMENDMENT) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

CLEAN RIVERS (ESTUARIES AND TIDAL WATERS) BILL
2.50 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.—(Lord Balfour of Inchrye.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair]
Clause 1 [Extension of s. 7 of Act of 1951 to tidal waters]:
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE moved, after subsection (4) to insert:
"( ) Section fifteen of the River Boards Act, 1948 (which relates to the taking by a river board of samples of effluents passing into waters in their area) shall apply in relation to any controlled waters adjoining a river board area as if those waters were included in that area, whether or not those waters also adjoin any other such area".
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the first Amendment, which is one of those borderline Amendments—almost a drafting one, but not quite. So your Lordships are entitled to an explanation of its purpose. The purpose of the Amendment is to ensure that in dealing with discharges into tidal waters river boards have the same powers as they at present enjoy in respect of non-tidal waters over which they have jurisdiction. It may well be that in tidal waters the discharge of effluent starts in a place which is within the area of a river board but finishes in an area of tidal water which belongs not to that particular river board but to another. This Amendment will enable the river board to have sampling powers at the discharge end of the effluent which is going into the tidal waters, even though the area in which that discharge takes place is not the particular area of the river board where the discharge originates but is the area of another river board. I beg to move—
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 17, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Balfour of Inchrye.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: This Amendment is consequential.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 18, leave out ("subsections (1) and (2)") and insert ("the foregoing provisions").—(Lord Balfour of Inchrye.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD AIREDALE LORD AIREDALE moved, after subsection (5) to insert:
"( ) Before granting their consent under the said section seven to the bringing into use of a new or altered outlet for the discharge of trade or sewage effluent or the making of a new discharge of trade or sewage effluent into controlled waters within the sea fisheries district of a local fisheries committee, the river board shall consult with the local fisheries committee and shall not grant their consent without the approval of the local fisheries committee or shall impose such conditions as the local fisheries committee may require:
Provided that if within thirty days from the date of the rim consultation the river board and the local fisheries committee fail to agree as to whether consent should be granted or as to what, if any, conditions should be attached to the consent, the question shall be referred to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food who, after considering any representations by the parties to the disagreement, shall determine whether or not the consent shall be granted and, if so, what conditions, if any, shall be attached thereto.
( ) In this section the expressions 'local fisheries committee' and 'sea fisheries district' mean respectively a local fisheries committee constituted, and a sea fisheries district created, in accordance with the provisions of the Sea Fisheries Regulation Act, 1888, as amended by the Sea Fish Industry Act, 1938."
The noble Lord said: I must first say that the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, in whose name also this Amendment stands, is unavoidably prevented from feeing in his place this afternoon.
The reason for the Amendment arises in this way. The river boards, a comparatively young statutory body (they have been in existence, I think, only since 1948), are now to have their powers of control extended from non-tidal waters to include tidal waters. Tidal waters have, of course, been very much under the control of the sea fisheries committees, which are much older statutory bodies: they have been in existence since 1888. It seems wrong in principle that one statutory body should be given power to exercise control over a territory which is very much the province of another and very much older statutory body without being required at least to

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consult and to get the consent of the older statutory body for whatever it is that the newer body seeks to permit. For that reason it is sought by this Amendment to require the river boards to consult and to obtain the consent of the sea fisheries committees over any matter concerning effluents which may have been detrimental to the interests of the sea fisheries committees in the tidal parts of the rivers.
Furthermore, this Amendment would enable the sea fisheries committees in certain cases to stamp out and prevent the damage before it was done, instead of waiting—as at present they have to do—for damage to be done and then exercising their powers of prosecution. Thirdly, it is felt that even those powers of prosecution of the sea fisheries committees would be substantially reduced without an Amendment of this kind being carried, because it might well be that a skilful defendant, upon being prosecuted by the sea fisheries committees, would be able to play off one body against another by brandishing before the court, in mitigation of the offence for which he was prosecuted, the consent that he had obtained from the river board in question. It might well be that the courts would be impressed with his arguments and in the knowledge that he had obtained a river board's consent before proceeding would not give as much weight to, or treat as seriously, the offence for which he was being prosecuted by the sea fisheries committee. For those main reasons I beg to move this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 13, at end insert the said subsections.—(Lord Airedale.)
LORD GREENHILL: In the absence of my noble friend Lord Latham, who would have supported this Amendment had he been present, I take upon myself partly at his request to support the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale. I have little to add to what the noble Lord has said, except this: all that is being asked in this Amendment is that one body should not dominate the other body; that where action becomes necessary the two bodies will consult, and that if, by any chance, they cannot agree as a result of their consultation the matter shall be referred
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to the Minister in charge. I think that is a correct reading of this Amendment, which I beg to support.
LORD SALTOUN: I have been asked to say a word in support of this Amendment. I do not want to add very much to what has been said very ably from the other two sections of the House; but, speaking as somebody who has steadily and sadly watched during the course of his life the deterioration of our coastal fishing, I think there is a great deal to be said for this Amendment. Moreover, there is this point that I think is important: that if people are to have their livelihood interfered with it is reasonable to refer the matter to the Minister himself. That is going to the highest quarter to get a decision, and I think these committees should have the right to do that.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: I am afraid that I cannot accept this Amendment, but I hope that by the time I have finished in a few moments the noble Lord, Lord Airedale may agree that it is neither correct in form nor necessary in effect. First, it seems to me that there are three objections to the Amendment in the way it is put on the Order Paper. The first is that it lays down statutory consultation, which it is not desirable to put in an Act of Parliament, for reasons which I think your Lordships well know; and it would certainly be a request duplicated, triplicated and quadruplicated by any and many other interests who considered themselves affected directly or indirectly by such proposals as are contained in this Bill and would of course, if those consultation had to take place, virtually clog the machinery for getting our rivers cleaner.
The second point is that the Amendment says that the approval of the Minister of Agriculture must be obtained before any consent is given by the river board; that the Minister of Agriculture shall have power to impose conditions as regards that consent, and that in the event of a difference between the river board and the sea fisheries committee it shall be the Minister of Agriculture who gives the final consent. I cannot help feeling that the Amendment has been drafted without regard to Section 7 of the 1951 Act, which confers on an applicant for a consent which is refused by the river board a right of appeal to

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the Minister of Housing and Local Government. The Amendment as drafted might well allow the sea fisheries committee to appeal to the Minister of Agriculture to direct the river board to refuse a consent, while the applicant would then appeal to the Minister of Housing and Local Government against such refusal. That is an absurd position.
But the Amendment, I think, is to be resisted not only on those particular grounds, but also upon general grounds. The noble Lord, Lord Airedale, said that the Amendment would allow the sea fisheries committee to prevent any damage occurring. This Bill does not permit any injury to sea fisheries which could not take place at the present time. All the Amendment does is to give an additional safeguard against damage to the sea fisheries. The sea fisheries' rights are all preserved. The only effect of the Bill is to add a safeguard against damage before it occurs—in fact, the Bill is going to do the very thing which the noble Lord wants done. It will, for the first time, enable the sea fisheries committee areas to be, as it were, restricted as regards pollution. At the present time the powers of the sea fishery committee are limited to prosecution after the event. If the Bill passes in its present form the sea fisheries committees will in future be safeguarded to a much greater extent than at present, in that there can be no pollution in their area unless the river board consent has been obtained.
I understand that there is not complete unanimity among sea fishery committees on the proposal put forward by the noble Lord in his Amendment; in fact, I am given to understand that the Eastern Sea Fisheries Committee, which includes the important town of Lowestoft, differ somewhat from the views expressed by my noble friend Lord Airedale. Equally, it seems to me to be rather "shadow boxing", if I may say so, for I understand that no sea fishery committee has entered any objection at any inquiry which has so far taken place—and there have been several inquiries, and five permits given—for the expansion of river board powers to tidal waters under the procedure of Section 6 of the 1951 Act. Why they did not object then but come forward now, it is somewhat difficult to understand.
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If the sea fisheries committees feel that their interests need representation on river boards, then that is a different issue and not one for this Bill to-day. This Bill is to prevent more dirt and filth from going into our rivers and sea waters. If it is a question that sea fisheries committees feel that they should have a greater say, then that is a different issue and a matter of the constitution of the river boards, which no doubt will be considered by Her Majesty's Government, possibly when future legislation takes place as a result of the Armer and Bledisloe Committees' Reports. But I submit to your Lordships that this is not an issue to-day. This is not a Bill for the constitution of river boards, but a Bill for cleaner waters.
However, I always want to try to meet any case put forward, and I am sympathetic to the views expressed by the noble Lord. May I suggest that the noble Lord is not really on sound grounds when he says that, in the event of a prosecution by the sea fisheries committees, it would be a powerful defence if the body prosecuted were able to say, "We have a consent from the river board," because that does not happen in town planning. When town planning permission is given it does not override the local by-laws. But let us try to meet that point, and let us ask the Minister whether he will agree to request the river boards to inform any applicant for a discharge into tidal waters, when such application is granted, that the granting of the application in no way gives any immunity from prosecution by the sea fisheries committee. Give it in a red notice, if you like, or some such specific notice. I think that might meet that point.
The second suggestion I make to the noble Lord is that there should be from the Minister, if he would consider it, an administrative request to the river boards to keep the sea fisheries committees informed in respect of any consents they are giving. The third suggestion I make is one for which I have no power at all, but I put it forward to your Lordships, and no doubt Her Majesty's Government will take note of it. It is this: that as and when legislation is introduced to implement the Armer and Bledisloe Committees' Reports, inevitably the constitution of river boards must be reviewed, and that seems to me to be the

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appropriate time to consider whether sea fisheries committees should or should not have representation upon river boards.
I hope that the noble Lord will consider those three points which I have suggested: first, that we ask the Minister to request the river boards to give notice that grant of consent gives no immunity from prosecution; secondly, that he should issue a request that, administratively, the river boards and sea fisheries committees should work together, as in fact they do in many ways; and thirdly, that the noble Lord and I join in the hope that Her Majesty's Government will introduce legislation, and will consider, on its merits, the question of giving the sea fisheries committees representation on river boards. With those three hopes, I trust that the noble Lord will feel that I have gone some way to meet his point of view, even though I cannot accept his Amendment.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I should like to be allowed to say a word in support of the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye. These two bodies, the sea fisheries committee and the river board, are approaching the problem from the same point of view—namely, clean water. Therefore, inasmuch as they are in harmony, I should have thought that the suggestions made by the noble Lord who is in charge of the Bill amply cover the case. The objection to the Amendment is a strong one—namely, that it makes for delay. This is an extremely urgent question. I mentioned in a debate previously the increasing pressure of people to the riversides, which creates possible pollution. Therefore, I would hope that the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, in the light of what the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye said, will see fit to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD AIREDALE: I am greatly obliged for the views that noble Lords have expressed, and I am considerably encouraged by the three ways in which the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye is proposing to meet the difficulties that I have put forward. I cannot quite, I think, agree that an administrative request for consultation is quite so good as a compulsory consultation, although I concede that in certain cases
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it may lead to a friendlier and perhaps more profitable consultation. I am most grateful for the points the noble Lord made, and am delighted to hear that there is at least some likelihood that in due course sea fisheries committees, with their wealth of experience in tidal waters, may have representation upon the river boards when the river boards enter this, to them, new territory—what I might call "tidal water territory".
Finally, I am consoled over my fear of what I would call the "playing off" of one statutory body against another by the fact that it has been made abundantly clear by the noble Lord that, whenever permission is granted by a river board, it will be made quite clear to the person receiving permission that it is given without prejudice to the existing powers of the sea fisheries committees. I am grateful to the noble Lord for those three assurances and, in the light of them, I beg leave of the Committee to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.11 p.m.
VISCOUNT SIMON VISCOUNT SIMON moved, after subsection (5) to insert:
"( ) A river board shall upon receiving an application under the said section seven and before varying or revoking any conditions pursuant to subsection (5) of the said section seven send to any interested authority a notice containing all relevant particulars and before giving their consent or varying or revoking the conditions the river board shall take into account any representations made to them by an interested authority within twenty-eight days from the receipt by that authority of the relevant particulars.
( ) In this section:—
'interested authority' means a harbour or conservancy authority having jurisdiction over any harbour or tidal waters into which any outlet for trade or sewage effluent discharges or into which any such proposed outlet would discharge;
'harbour', 'harbour authority' and 'conservancy authority' have the meanings given to those expressions by section seven hundred and forty-two of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894."
The noble Viscount said: I believe the intention of this Amendment is quite clear. It is to provide that when an application is made to a river board in connection with a discharge into tidal waters which form part of waters controlled by a port authority, the authority shall be informed of the application and given a little time—28 days—in which to make any objection they may wish

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to make. When I intervened on the Second Reading of this Bill, I wanted a good deal more than that—to bring the port authorities, who have a very real interest in this matter, into the decisions which have to be taken; but I do not think my advocacy was very successful. It did not move the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, and I got the impression that it did not move the House generally.
I come now with a very modest request—one much more modest than that of the noble Lord, Lord Airedale. I am merely asking that harbour authorities, who are deeply concerned with these matters, should be informed when an application is made; and I do not see that any difficulty can arise in complying with that request. When this Bill was being debated in another place it was said that it would depend wholly on co-operation between the authorities concerned; and Members of the Committee may remember that on Second Reading I quoted what was said by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. He was a little against the Bill and in fact argued that at that time it would be necessary to have consultation with port authorities in appropriate cases.
The honourable Member who brought the Bill into another place said the same thing: that it was desirable that there should be consultations with port authorities. But I am not asking in this Amendment for consultation; I am merely asking that notice should be given to port authorities in appropriate cases so that those authorities, if they have a point to raise (though I imagine that in cost cases they will have nothing to say), will have an opportunity of raising it, so that a decision will not be taken without their knowledge. I make so bold as to suggest at this stage that the fisheries committees, who have been unable to get the Amendment for which they asked, may like to support this Amendment, whereby notice of application would be given to interested parties, so that those parties may have an opportunity of commenting upon it if they wish. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 13, at end insert the said subsections.—(Viscount Simon.)
LORD BURDEN: I sincerely trust that my noble friend, Lord Balfour of Inch-rye, will approach this Amendment in the same kindly, understanding, and, I believe, sympathetic spirit in which he approached the previous Amendment. We on this side, as well as the majority of noble Lords on the other side, being deeply concerned and interested that this Bill shall become law, would not do anything to hamper its progress. I know that the most strenuous efforts have been made to ensure that this Amendment should not weaken the Bill, and it was hoped that it would be acceptable to the noble Lord who has done so well in introducing the Bill to your Lordships' House.
As has been pointed out, the Amendment takes away from the river boards no authority whatsoever. As it is drafted, the final word must, and should, rest with the river boards. All that is asked is that before a decision is reached the appropriate authority that has powers at the present time should be notified and that the river board should consider anything which the appropriate authority, as defined, might think fit to submit to them. I would repeat that the final word will be with the river board. There is no provision for an appeal or anything of that kind, and I hope, therefore, that in the circumstances this Amendment may be acceptable.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: Of course I approach this Amendment in as kindly a spirit as I would approach any other. Certainly the persuasive powers of the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, were deployed to the full, but he did not say what was the real and true effect of this Amendment. I believe that the Amendment is unnecessary, because in any case river boards will consult, and obviously the right honourable gentleman the Minister will tell them that it is their duty so to do. But it is not appropriate to lay down by Statute that such consultation must take place, because that would at once put dock and harbour authorities in a privileged position, to harass the river boards, whose need is for rapid action.
Let me say, on the first point, that consultations will take place. If I may say so, it is very much "shadow boxing" to express the fear that there will be differences. At present there are many

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miles of non-tidal waters in this country under the dock and harbour boards as regards powers for navigation. I am informed by the Severn River Board that there are many miles in their area which are under the British Transport Commission; and as long ago as 1952 a friendly arrangement was reached between that particular dock and harbour authority and that river board whereby each authority undertook to tell any applicant that, the application needed two consents. There was also an agreement for an interchange of views. That has worked perfectly well, and I have not the slightest doubt that this will work perfectly well in the future.
I believe that this Amendment is unnecessary because if dock and harbour authorities have their own powers then, as the noble Viscount, Lord Simon admits, there is no need for the provision in the Bill; and if there is a dock and harbour authority with no powers, then this Bill is all gain to them. I submit that they can have no case for harassing river boards with advice. The noble Viscount said the period would be just 28 days, but I believe that the effect would be serious, because the Amendment would endanger what I would term the three-months period laid down in Section 7 of the main Act, which says that if the river board fail to notify an applicant of consent of their decision within three months then the unconditional assent of the river board is to be assumed.
The Amendment of my noble friend Lord Simon requires a river board to submit "all relevant particulars". That is very vague, but we must assume that it includes the particulars the river board have received from the applicant. These are usually received in a very unsatisfactory state: there is much toing and fro-ing before the proper information can be obtained from any applicant; and much time is involved there. Also, it would entail the conveying to the harbour authority of the provisional decision of the river board. Then, after all this, the river board would have to wait 28 days for the dock and harbour representations and reconsider the matter in the light of such representations. Meanwhile, dirt and filth are pouring out, and the whole purpose of the Bill is being lost.
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Supposing that the sea fisheries committee (as my noble friend Lord Simon temptingly held out to the noble Lord, Lord Airedale) obtained similar rights; and supposing that various other interested bodies came along and said, "We also want a statutory requirement for consultation," nothing would be done. I would ask my noble friend Lord Simon to accept what has been past practice: it has worked well and will, I am sure, work equally well in the future. After all, this is a Bill for cleaner waters; it is not a Bill to put more dirt into the waters, and I am sure that in the vast majority of cases it is the wish of the dock and harbour authorities to see cleaner waters. There is everything to gain and nothing to lose, and so I would ask my noble friend Lord Simon to take a wide view of the position and not to press his Amendment.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: It seems quite superfluous to add a word after the persuasive and forceful way in which the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, has put his case. But I would ask the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, this question: What harm comes from this effluence? I am told that it is supposed to corrode the ships. I do not know. But I cannot understand the direct powerful harm that could come to navigation and which would be avoided by his Amendment.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL WALDEGRAVE): Perhaps, before my noble friend replies, it might be convenient for your Lordships to know that the arguments that have been so cogently put forward by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye are, in the view of the Government, ones which should bear weight with your Lordships. I do not think that this Bill would be improved at all, and delay would be occasioned in its operation, if this Amendment were accepted. I therefore hope that your Lordships may see fit to resist it.
3.24 p.m.
VISCOUNT SIMON: I am very disappointed with this reception. With great respect to my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye, I do not think he addressed himself quite to the Amendment I put on the Paper. He stressed several times that it was not desirable to

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lay down the need for consultation. There is no need for consultation laid down in this Amendment. It is perfectly possible, when an application has been made and it has been notified under this Amendment to the harbour authority, that the harbour authority may make some representations. The river board are under no obligation to listen to those representations if they do not want to. I did not seek to put that into the Amendment because I realised that that difficulty had been raised. The noble Lord says that this Amendment would cause delay. I do not know whether I should be within the Betting and Gaming Bill if I made an offer to the noble Lord that there are very few applications that will ever be dealt with in under 28 days. He suggested that the harbour authorities could not be informed until after the river board had made a provisional decision. The Amendment does not suggest anything of the kind. He said that the applications, when they come in, are in bad form. I suggest that the period stipulated runs from the time when the application is in good form. I do not believe there is any delay caused by this Amendment whatever.
The noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, asked about the interest of the port authorities. It does happen from time to time that noxious effluence will cause damage to ships' paint and so on, but that is by no means the only thing. Not all effluence is fluid effluence. Solid matter may be brought into the river, or difficulties may be caused with regard to dredging and other matters; and it seems to be perfectly reasonable that harbour authorities should be informed of what is asked for and, in appropriate cases—I readily agree that they will be few—should be able to make their desires known.
My noble friend Lord Balfour of Inch-rye said on two occasions, I think, that the harbour authorities would be harassing the river board. I really cannot believe that there would be any harassment in this matter at all. The river board will want to consider any application, I am sure, from every aspect. The noble Lord himself said that they will be willing to consult. If they are, they will surely be willing to receive representations without consulting. It is very disappointing to feel in this matter that we are going to be faced
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with decisions having been taken without anybody in the port authority knowing what has been applied for. I cannot for the life of me see the objection to someone being told what is applied for. It has been suggested that once a decision had been taken the interested authorities should be informed. I think I am right in saying that that is a matter already of Statute, because when a consent has been given it is, in fact, available to the public, so there is not very much in that point, if I may say so. I wonder whether the noble Lord and Her Majesty's Government, who have expressed their view on this matter, would not think again and see whether something could not be done to enable applications as they come in, without any preliminary decision of the river board, merely to be notified to other parties who are closely interested in this matter.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: The voice is the voice of my noble friend Lord Simon, but the words are the words of the Amendment, and there is a considerable difference between the two. My noble friend Lord Simon took me to task for using the word "consultation", but in fact his Amendment says that
"the river board shall take into account any representations."
How could one take into account representations unless there had also been consultation? I think that taking into account representations as a statutory obligation entails far more dangers of delay than does the consultation by legislation, which certainly I would resist. My noble friend Lord Simon painted a gloomy picture of a lot of things that might happen, but in fact they do not happen in practice; they have not happened in the past, and there is no reason why they should in the future. I would suggest this concession, and I would ask the Minister whether Her Majesty's Government would agree. Would it satisfy my noble friend if it were arranged that the river boards sent to the navigational authority a copy of applications as originally submitted to the river boards? There would be no question then of the navigation authority's not having knowledge of what the river board was considering; and men of common sense and good will would then get together, without any need for statutory provisions, and see the matter ironed out in the

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future in a satisfactory way, as it has been in the case of the River Severn, which is only one instance I could mention where it has worked perfectly well.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: Perhaps I should say, in connection with the suggested offer that my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye makes, that my right honourable friend would certainly take note of that suggestion which seems to me, speaking "off the cuff", perhaps to be a reasonable one. However, I should not like to give any absolute undertaking at this stage. I am sure my right honourable friend would sympathetically take note of that suggestion if it would help the position.
While I am on my feet, there is just one further thing that I should like to say. On this question of informing other people and of consultation with other people, that might be appropriate if these powers were being granted to an administrator or to a single person. But these powers are being granted to a board—a board with very wide membership, representing a large number of interests and with members appointed jointly by my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, who select these members very carefully. They have a broad and statesmanlike attitude to the problems that they discuss; and if you first set up a widely-based board of that sort and then, in respect of everything they do, they have to go and seek out independent interests and consult them as well, it seems to me that that really is redundant. I hope that your Lordships will take that into consideration when you are considering this Amendment, which I do advise your Lordships to reject.
LORD BURDEN: I am grateful for what has been suggested by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye, but may I say to the Minister that it would be very slow-moving machinery indeed if the applications had to wait, or the meetings of the river boards, and so on. I speak as one with a very great admiration for their work and I have some connection with them as one of the vice-presidents, of the River Boards Association. It is a step forward, I think, and might go a very long way indeed; because it would
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mean that the officers of the river board, before waiting for any meeting of the river board, would act in the manner suggested, and would have the knowledge of the people concerned. But, of course, the Amendment rests with my noble friend Lord Simon. It is his responsibility, and not mine.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: I am glad the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, is resisting this Amendment, but I am afraid I must resist the suggestion made towards the end of his remarks. I am a member of a river board, and the proposals which have been put forward in this House, and which were also put forward in another place—that consultations should take place before consent is granted—would just make the business of the river boards unworkable, and we must resist attempts at delay of one kind and another. If river boards have to advise port and harbour authorities before they give a consent, I would ask: why only port and harbour authorities? Why not the local water authority? Why not the local county council? Before we know where we are, the work of the river boards and the great job they have to do to clean up pollution in our rivers would be destroyed. It would be unnecessary delay. For the life of me I cannot see why port and harbour authorities have, all of a sudden, this great interest in pollution. Some of the authorities of the greatest ports up and down this country, such as the Port of London Authority, are the pollution authority—and a splendid work they do; but, Generally speaking, the harbours round our coast have no prevention-of-pollution rights to-day. It is because of the fact that they have no rights to deal with pollution that this Bill is being promoted. I hope that this Amendment will be withdrawn. I was glad to hear the Minister say—
LORD BURDEN: I am sorry to intervene again, but I must say one word on what my noble friend has said. The point is, first, that harbour authorities are not represented on river boards; and, secondly, that local authorities are represented on river boards, and in that way, of course, get to know what goes on.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: My noble friend is quite wrong. The Minister himself paid tribute to the representative nature of

25
the river boards. I am a member of a harbour board—the greatest one in the country—and I am also a member of a river board.
LORD BURDEN: But not by virtue of your membership of a harbour board.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: My noble friend is wrong again. I am appointed by the Port of London Authority to represent them on the Essex Rivers Board.
LORD BURDEN: I have served eight years on one of these boards, so I know what goes on.
LORD SALTOUN. The methods of copying are so efficient now, and it can be so easily done, that I think the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, does carry the matter forward. I do not see that there can be any real objection against carrying it into effect.
VISCOUNT SIMON: If the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, could be put into effect, it would go a long way towards meeting what I have put down in this Amendment. It would be the first half of it: that the harbour authorities would know what was asked for. I agree that there would then be no obligation on the river board to take into account anything that the harbour authority might say, but in practice I have no doubt, as has been said before, that there will be the closest co-operation between the bodies concerned, and that they will, in fact, take into account what is said. However, they could not do so if the harbour authorities were not informed what was being discussed; and if, through the good offices of the noble Earl, it were possible for that to be arranged, I think the Harbour Authorities Association, who have asked me to put this Amendment forward, would certainly be satisfied. On that basis, I should be prepared to withdraw this Amendment.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: Before the noble Viscount withdraws his Amendment, I want to be quite clear on this. I will take the suggestion to my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, but I do not want to be taken as having given an undertaking, because I do not know
26
what he will be able to do. I want therefore to make it quite clear, before the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, withdraws his Amendment, that I cannot go further than taking note—and he knows quite well what that means.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: May I just reiterate that I have no power at all beyond the power of representation to Her Majesty's Government which is enjoyed by any noble Lord in this House? I have no authority at all, but my request would be that the navigation authorities should be given a copy of an application for a consent as originally submitted to the river board. To make that request is my right. It rests with Her Majesty's Government in the future as to whether they do or do not agree to it. I am sure the noble Viscount would acquit me of any wish to give him any sort of hope, or of accepting any sort of responsibility for that suggestion beyond that of a private Member of your Lordship's House putting forward a Bill and asking Her Majesty's Government to consider a particular point.
VISCOUNT SIMON: I am much obliged to the noble Lord and to the noble Earl for making their positions so clear. However, one point is not so clear to me, and I do not know whether it is to the Committee as a whole. I am not quite sure what the status of this offer is. Is the offer that, if the right honourable gentleman accepts this suggestion, he will put it into the Bill?
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: No.
VISCOUNT SIMON: Then what will he do with it, if I may ask?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: As I understand it, my right honourable friend would not put anything into the Bill—that proposal we are resisting strongly. But he would, by administrative circular and so on, bring the point to the notice of the interested parties. It is something which has often been done before; and I am sure that your Lordships know very well—and I think the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, knows quite well—what my right honourable friend would do with it.
VISCOUNT SIMON: I am much obliged to the noble Earl. I must not detain

27
the Committee any longer. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
Schedule [Seaward Limits of Controlled Waters]:
3.39 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: With your Lordships' permission I should like to speak in general to all these remaining Amendments, and your Lordships are well entitled to have a few words of explanation from myself as to why I submit them The basic reason for it is that in another place those responsible for this Bill originally tried to define in terms what was tidal water and what was not. Later on, after consultation with the appropriate Departments, that attempt was abandoned, and the matter was, as it were, tackled from the other end: the whole of the coastline was reviewed, and each specific locality of tidal water was charted.
It should be within your Lordships' recollection that on Second Reading I informed your Lordships that would make arrangements to place in the Library a complete set of 95 maps of the coast of Britain with these tidal waters marked out, as decided by the cartographers. The preparation of the Schedule was a big job for the experts, for it included, as I say, a complete examination of the coastline. There was not much time between Second Reading and Committee stage in another place, and further scrutiny has shown the need for fifteen Amendments. They are merely small alterations to make the landmarks more durable and have all been introduced and submitted to your Lordships after consultation and co-operation with the local people. They entail no significant alteration, but make a better definition. If I may give your Lordships an example, in No. 13, Gypsey Race is not really a tidal river and in No. 28 perhaps the original definition could not be justified because it was too far out. I do not want to weary your Lordships by giving a detailed explanation of each individual Amendment, unless any noble Lord wants me to do so.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: Subject entirely to the wishes of the Committee, it is my proposal to put all these Amendments in one Question, but if any Member of the Committee desires to speak on any one of them or to ask any question about any one of them, I will put that Amendment separately.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: I beg to move Amendments Nos. 5 to 20.
Amendments moved—
Page 4, leave out line 33.
Page 4, line 37, leave out from ("Point") to end of line 38 and insert ("to Gore Point.").
Page 4, line 44, leave out from ("to") to end of line 45 and insert ("the northernmost point of Blakeney Point.").
Page 5, leave out lines 7 and 8, and insert—
("22. The mouth of the river Ore.").
Page 5, line 27, leave out from first ("the") to ("to") in line 28 and insert ("West Cliff Bandstand, Ramsgate, at TR37126415").
Page 5, line 35, after ("and") insert ("the east").
Page 5, leave out line 38, and insert—("33. A line drawn between the seaward ends of the jetties at Littlehampton.").
Page 5, leave out lines 48 and 49, and insert ("lighthouse at the seaward end of Hurst Castle Spit on the mainland at SZ31838987.").
Page 6, line 7, at end insert—
("40. Lines drawn across the North Ship Channel, East Ship Channel and South Ship Channel at Portland harbour between the ends of the breakwaters.").
line 13, leave out from ("to") to end of line 14 and insert ("the seaward end of the breakwater at Langstone Rock.").
Page 7, line 4, leave out ("SS41902905") and insert ("SS41432851").
Page 7,line 18, leave out from second ("Point") to end of line.
Page 7,line 18, leave out line 21, and insert—
("68. A line drawn across the entrance to Solfach harbour from SM80162355 to SM79992365.").
Page 7,line 18, leave out lines 36 and 37 and insert—
("77. The mouth of the river Artro.")
Page 8, line 16, leave out from ("to") to end of line 17 and insert ("SJ32259699.").
Page 8, line 20, leave out from first ("the") to ("to") in line 21 and insert ("seaward side of Marine Drive where it is crossed by Southport Pier at SD33021787").—(Lord Balloter of Inchrye.)
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: May I ask the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, for information? Suppose some amendment of this cartographical survey is required, how is it done? Does it mean another Act of Parliament?
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: I am told that once this Bill is passed the points of demarcation are durable, and if there is some alteration in the coastline, due to either encroachment of the sea or recession of the sea, these landmarks will still stand marked on the ordnance map.
LORD DYNEVOR: In the noble Lord's illuminating explanation of the significant and immense amount of work done he said that it had been decided not to make a definition of "tidal waters". Is not the simple definition of tidal waters, "where the tide flows"?
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: That was the original hope of those who promoted the Bill in another place, but "where the tide flows" did not satisfy the precision required in an Act of Parliament, so it was turned over, as it were, and instead of a general definition we came to a series of specific definitions. That is why these Amendments have been put down.
LORD DYNEVOR: I am sorry to learn that it is not a precise definition. These were the words used in setting up the Milford Haven Conservancy Board.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: I am not defending or commenting on the Milford Haven Act. The decision not to attempt to make a general definition but to demarcate specific areas which are tidal was taken and could only be taken, after full consultation with and with the assistance of Her Majesty's Government and her experts.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

FILMS BILL [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) (on report from the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills): Bill reported without amendment.

OFFICES BILL
3.48 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Comrnittee.—(Lord Burden.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Regulations for securing health, safety and welfare of persons employed in offices]:
On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall be agreed to?
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I desire to raise a point with regard to subsection (2) of this clause, which reads:
"The Secretary of State may provide by regulations for restricting the employment of women in offices after childbirth."
Shortly before I came into your Lordships' House to-day, I received a letter from a women's organisation asking me to raise this matter this afternoon in your Lordships' House. They say that they regard this subsection as detrimental to the employment of women and that it interferes with their personal liberty.
In the course of my life, this question of delimiting the employment of women has gone through more than one stage. When I was young, there were a great number of employment cases in which women suffered severely by the methods and conditions of their work. Therefore, a number of women and persons who wished their welfare safeguarded set about getting regulations made to protect (as it was expressed) women from the sort of treatment to which they had been subjected, and many such regulations which the public generously regarded as being beneficial were put into effect; but they largely arose because women had no means of protecting themselves. Few had trade unions. Such unions as there were were not fully representative of women workers, and unscrupulous employers misused their rights, with the result that these regulations, such as they were, proved of great benefit to women.
As years went by, a somewhat different position arose, because many of these

31
regulations were not used for the purposes for which they were supposed to be used but in the interests of men, to keep women out of employment. Women were classed with young persons. A great many regulations were made which affected women and young persons, and it meant that women, not in their interests, but in the interests of other people, were prevented from entering into occupations in which they were fully capable of working. Now we have reached a stage in history when a great many of these regulations have been swept away, with the result that there are only a few cases where women are prohibited by law or regulation from carrying on work for which they are fully capable.
The question which arises on this particular subsection is into which category this proposed restriction comes: whether it is a benefit to women, or whether it is not. The view taken by the society that has written to me is that it would be better to leave out subsection (2). They think that women are quite capable of looking after themselves and that any such restriction is deleterious to the vital and personal interests of women. I will not say that I necessarily endorse all the views of that society, but I want to draw attention to this in order to make sure that if this subsection is going to stand as part of the Bill it is not used improperly. There are two things I want to say with regard to that. The first is that it is essential that the women themselves must be consulted—and by that I do not mean individual women, but women's organisations—before any such regulations are made. As I understand it, that is already provided for in Clause 1 (4) of the Bill, which says:
"Before making any regulations under this section, the Secretary of State shall consult such organisations as appear to him to represent the interests concerned."
So far as that subsection goes, it meets the first objection that I put.
But on this question of childbirth, there is another point I want to make. We have the phrase here "after childbirth". That is rather a neutral phrase, but presumably it means for a limited time after childbirth, because it would be quite absurd for a woman to be prohibited from doing something years after she has given birth to a child. But the point arises—and I am sure that Mem
32
bers of your Lordships' House of both sexes will agree—that the effects of childbirth on women differ enormously from one woman to another. One woman may be incapacitated for months after childbirth, and no regulation stating a limited amount of time in which she must not do this, that or the other would have any effect. On the other hand, some women recover with extraordinary rapidity. No regulation which specifies a certain number of days, weeks or months is a suitable thing to apply in the abstract to a case where so many different standards would arise.
Therefore, though I am not moving the deletion of this subsection to-day, I want to draw the attention of my noble friend who is in charge of the Bill to this matter. I hope that, if he can give any satisfactory assurance, he will do so, and if not, perhaps the noble Earl opposite can promise that the Government will look into it and will take care that it shall not be used improperly, as some of the women who have written to me feel that it may be.
LORD SHACKLETON: I, too, should like to refer to the point with which my noble friend Lord Pethick-Lawrence has been dealing—namely, this question of the restriction of the employment of women in offices after childbirth. I speak with some knowledge on the subject, since it is my job in business to administer regulations concerned with this field. The weakness of this particular provision is that unless it is associated with a general sick-pay arrangement it can be very hard indeed. But provided there is some proper sick-pay arrangement—and I hope the time will come when the whole of industry will have proper sick-pay arrangements—it is entirely reasonable and desirable, in my opinion, to have such restrictions. In my firm we give permission to women who are expecting children to be off for thirteen weeks on full pay, of which five weeks is to be after the birth of the child. It may well be necessary for them to be off longer, but that would naturally depend on medical advice. I hope that this provision will remain in the Bill, and that when the Government come to consult interested parties before they make their regulations they will have regard to the experience of industry, where there is information available on the working of such arrangements when

33
they have been made internally in a particular firm. I think it is a desirable thing.
There is another aspect of this matter, although, again, I do not think we can hope to put it in this Bill or in regulations. There ought to be some guarantee of re-employment afterwards. The time comes when a woman goes off and has a baby every year for two or three years, and it becomes a little onerous on the management and expensive to the firm if they have to send her off for thirteen weeks on full pay and provide a replacement. None the less, it is a step in the right direction, and I hope that it will remain in the Bill.
It is unfortunate that the limitations on our procedure with Private Members' Bills and the time available make it virtually impossible to make other changes to this Bill, and particularly to this clause. It would not be in order, therefore, for me to propose Amendments which I do not intend to move. None the less, when the time comes for the making of regulations, I hope that the Government will bear in mind the desirability of interpreting this clause as widely as possible. It seems to me to be a defect that it covers, and, indeed, the whole Bill is concerned with, offices and does not cover that vital area, access to offices. I hope that in any regulations that are made—I do not know whether this will be legal—the possibility of covering access, which is where accidents are particularly apt to happen, will be dealt with. I do not think it would be improper to do so under the Bill, us drafted.
I would ask my noble friend and those who are concerned with and will be following this Bill into regulation form that Clause 1 (1) (k), the maintaining of adequate and suitable first-aid equipment, might also be interpreted to cover the training of people to look after that equipment. If this is to be properly maintained a regulation must also ensure that there is somebody capable of maintaining it. I think it is unfortunate, and is a defect, that there is no provision along the lines of other legislation that has been introduced for providing for the training of people to become expert in this field. I would stress that we are not concerned so much with accidents as with ordinary day-to-day misfortunes—colds and all sorts of things—which in due course, I am sure, will be increas
34
ingly treated at the place of work by the development of an industrial health service. This is of equal importance where offices are concerned, and is not confined only to factories. I hope that this clause will be passed unamended, and that when the time comes to make regulations matters which are ancillary and related to the various provisions of this clause will, so far as possible, be covered by the regulations.
LORD TAYLOR: May I add one point to what my noble friend Lord Shackleton has said about the regulations for first-aid boxes? It would be a great pity if the existing regulations with regard to factory first-aid boxes were automatic, ally applied to offices, because the needs of offices are quite different. For example, the amount of dressing material which goes into a factory first-aid box is quite substantial, as it should be, but in an office, as my noble friend has said, the things that one looks for in a first-aid box are simply homely remedies for headaches, coughs and colds, for the women workers' pain at periods, and that sort of thing. We have found in fact that three sets of tablets meet fully the needs of the first-aid box for office workers in respect of medicines. They need only a small quantity of dressings. It is hoped that when the regulations come to be made they will be realistic and related to need.
4.2 p.m.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I am much obliged to noble Lords who have taken part in this discussion. May I apologise to the Committee for not being here quite on time to move that the House go into Committee? I was seeking information about the first Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Jessel, on which I was not at that point fully informed.
With regard to the important point made by my noble friend Lord Pethick-Lawrence, I quite see the argument of the organisation which has communicated with him. There is a school of thought which does not like legislation for the protection of women because it means discriminating in favour of women to such an extent that it might restrict the possibilities of the employment of women. I think that may be the apprehension behind the communication my noble friend has received. On the other hand, it is a matter of community

35
interest for the protection of the mother, and possibly also for the protection of the child, that a woman should not go back to work too soon after childbirth. I think that is a matter of sufficient community interest to warrant legislative provision being made, not for the purpose of damaging women but for the purpose of protecting their health and, possibly, the well-being of the mother's child or children. Therefore, I think it is desirable that this should remain.
I admit that it is a tricky point as to whether there should be a period stated in the regulations, because, as has been said, the situation varies from woman to woman as to when they are fit to go back. I suppose the way to cover that would be to require the regulations to state a period, the effectiveness of that being dependent upon a medical certificate to the effect that the woman was capable of returning to employment. However, there are many things for which medical certificates are required, and sometimes the way medical certificates are issued is not altogether satisfactory. However, it is a point the Government might consider when they make the regulations.
On the question of consultation, it is provided in the clause that appropriate organisations shall be consulted. There may, of course, be differences of opinion as to what are appropriate and what are not. There are a good many organisations known to be feminist in character, but they can be consulted under the wording of the Bill and in any case they could communicate with the Minister concerned and ask for their views to be taken into account, if possible by personal interview or by correspondence. There is no doubt that consultation with appropriate organisations is provided for in the Bill. I am much obliged to my noble friend for the broad view he has taken on the matter. As a matter of fact, it was my noble friend Lord Shackleton who mentioned a firm with which he is associated which gives three months pay to women employees before and after childbirth. The period before is not unimportant. As my noble friend said, if a woman has an annual custom of having children—and it does happen in some cases—the employers might get a little "browned off", shall we say, in continuing, to pay three months pay for
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no work. In any case, it could not be done under this Bill, but it is a point which is worth keeping in mind. Women get some benefit under the National Health Service Act, but not benefit of this scope.
The point in regard to paragraph (k) in subsection (1), about training in first-aid, was partly answered by my noble friend Lord Taylor, who said that in the case of offices very little was needed, other than suitable tablets for certain troubles. In so far as that is true, provided there are proper directions on the bottle or box containing the tablets, not much first-aid would be needed. Nevertheless, in so far as first-aid is needed, the regulations could take into account that there should be suitable facilities for training to take place. In the case of a small office one could not very well expect it to employ a special person for that exclusive purpose. On the other hand, if it is an office in a factory, it is quite likely that the industrial health service will be there, and that the matter will be taken care of. My noble friend Lord Taylor was quite right in saying that the circumstances of offices and office employment are quite different from those which obtain in factories. In the circumstances I think the clause is about as good as we can get it, but no doubt the noble Earl opposite will be able to assure us that the points will be taken into consideration by the Secretary of State in making the regulatons so that they can be properly considered.
EARL BATHURST: I think it may be convenient if I take this opportunity to echo what the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, has said. This particular subsection to which the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, has drawn your Lordships' attention is, of course, solely for the protection of women, and there was no idea of restricting the employment of women in offices, whether for reasons of childbirth or otherwise. Any regulations my right honourable friend makes under this subsection will, of course, be made after the fullest consultation, not only with members of industry, as the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, and the noble Lord Shackleton, asked, but also with representatives of the women employees' associations or trade unions. As the noble Lord will see, under Clause 5 these regulations will be subject to debate in

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both Houses of Parliament. I hope that when that happens—it must be some time in the future—your Lordships will have the benefit of the expert advice of the Lady Members of your Lordships' House. It is most sad that none of them is able to be in her place to-day, as I am certain that we should have had the most expert and beneficial advice from them.
The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton asked about access to offices and, of course, that matter is not covered in the ambit of this modest Bill. The noble Lord must recognise that it is a modest Bill. Such accidents will be treated in the same way as if they had happened in a street or some other public, or fairly public, place, where they can be collated and registered. As it is at present, accidents in offices are lost. They become a jumble of statistics, and it is impossible to find out what accidents do happen. But that is the point of this Bill; to make certain that these accidents can be tabulated under a subsection of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, spoke about first-aid boxes, and your Lordships know how much he has done in the whole field of industrial medicine. Of course these first-aid boxes will be described in the regulations again after consultations. I do ask the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, to appreciate, as the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, said, that this is a modest Bill and cannot go into all the divergent subjects about which we have heard this afternoon. I hope that that satisfies the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I have no wish to push this matter any further now, but I want to say just two things more—first of all, on this question of how long a woman should be kept out of the office. It is not a question of manual labour, but a question of the offices. It must vary very much from individual to individual. As to the pre-natal period, I may perhaps tell the House a fact that may surprise them; I should not have come into the world at all if my mother, who walked across the frozen Serpentine the day before I was born, had had an accident in consequence of that action.
As to post-natal activity, it seems to me very much to depend upon the kind of occupation. Take a woman who is
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a secretary, and perhaps does not even have to move the keys of a typewriter. In such a case it may be that a period of something like ten to thirteen weeks for her to stay away from work may be fantastic. It may be very much better for her to return within a few weeks. What may arise may be the question of the child, and that is the question the women's organisations are concerned with: the woman's right to decide what is best for the child. It may be better that she should go back to work and that the child should be cared for in some other way. She would get more money. But it is not a question for the Secretary of State to decide. The interests of the individual woman as she feels for herself should, in the general case, prevail over some regulation made from outside on a generalisation of the circumstances of women who differ so very greatly from one to another.
EARL BATHURST: I am quite certain that your Lordships all appreciate everything the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, has said, and I assure the noble Lord that, when these regulations come to be made, all that has been said in your Lordships' House this afternoon will be taken into consideration. The regulations will be made for the protection of women, and my right honourable friend will have to take the best advice available to him, including, no doubt, the advice given to us this afternoon, when he makes up his mind as to how these regulations shall be formulated and then applied.
LORD SHACKLETON: I should only like to say that the whole weight of medical opinion is against my noble friend Lord Pethick-Lawrence.
On Question, Clause 1 agreed to.
Clauses 2 to 4 agreed to.
Clause 5:
Notification of accidents
5.—(1) Where any accident occurs in an office which either—

(a) causes loss of life to a person employed in the premises; or

(b) disables any such person for more than three days from earning full wages at the work at which he was employed,

written notice of the accident, in the prescribed form and accompanied by the prescribed particulars, shall forthwith be sent by the occupier to the local authority in whose area the office is situated.
4.14 p.m.
LORD JESSEL LORD JESSEL moved to add to subsection (1):
"Provided that, in the case of an office to which the provisions of section seven of this Act apply, the report shall be made to the factory inspector in whose area the office is situated."
The noble Lord said: your Lordships will see that Clause 7 of the Bill provides that offices forming part of a factory are to come under the supervision of the Factory Inspectorate and not the local authority. But if your Lordships look at subsection (1) of Clause 5 you will see that it says that
"written notice of the accident, in the prescribed form and accompanied by the prescribed particulars, shall forthwith be sent by the occupier to the local authority in whose area the office is situated."
The object of my Amendment is quite simple and, I think, logical. I want to ensure that an accident in an office which comes under the supervision of the Factory Inspectorate should be reported to that department, and that department only. I understand that Her Majesty's Government are quite favourable to this Amendment, and also (which is equally important that they will see that time is found in another place for the Amendment to be considered and incorporated in the Bill. I have had some correspondence with the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, and I have assured him the last thing I want to do is to wreck the Bill. I hope that we are now going to get an assurance from the Minister in charge of the Bill that he will accept my Amendment; and as a little douceur may I say that I understand the other Amendments are not viewed so favourably, and I am not going to move them. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 40, at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Jessel.)
LORD SHACKLETON: This Amendment seems a very reasonable one, but I am not sure whether it is as necessary as the noble Lord suggests. The purpose of Clause 5 (and I must apologise to the noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, for misunderstanding the purpose) is primarily to provide statistics—I think I am correct in that. It is not from the point of view of providing information which would be of value to factory inspectors from the immediate point of view of investigating
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an accident. I ought to remind your Lordships that there is, of course, provision under the Industrial Injuries Regulations that all accidents which are liable to give rise to a claim for National Insurance must be recorded, and this is a much stricter requirement than is that laid down in Clause 5, which is almost word for word the same as in the Factories Acts.
There is, or should be, in every establishment employing more than ten people such a book, and this information will be recorded in it, and will presumably be open to the factory inspectors as provided by Clause 7. I think, in fact, that the factory inspectors are enabled in certain cases to discharge responsibilities under this Bill. I agree that there is a certain illogicality in this clause not also applying, but in so far as the purpose is to provide information and statistics of accidents in offices there is, I submit, a certain logic in letting it go to the authority which is particularly concerned with collecting those statistics; and to that extent, whereas I would not oppose the regulation, I do not think the case for it is quite so strong as when I first heard it. I know that there is no question of the noble Lord's wishing to endanger the Bill, but if the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, feels it too dangerous to accept this Amendment—and I think it is a great tragedy we cannot do this sort of thing—I do not think too much harm will result.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Shackleton for the helpful speech he has delivered. My instinct was to resist the Amendment, partly because I am not sure that it is really vital, and partly because I do not want to run the risk of delay in another place. On the other hand, Lord Jessel has come forward with a fairly noble offer: that he proposes to move this Amendment but not the other two that are on the Paper, on which I had ready a very fine speech that would have completely undermined his arguments. I am sorry not to deliver it, but it will save the time of the Committee. This Amendment really means that it is an office in a factory, and that therefore, when the accident takes place, it should be reported to the factory inspector to whom powers in factories are being delegated for the administration of the Bill.

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I am bound to say, on looking into the matter and taking advice, that I think that the noble Lord has made a case, subject to this: that the Government will give time in another place for the consideration of the Lords' Amendment or Amendments, as the case may be, and ensure the passage of the Bill in the present Parliamentary Session. If that undertaking is given then I think this is not an unreasonable proposition. I imagine that the purpose of the provision in the Bill—I say this with great respect to my noble friend Lord Shackleton—is not only the collection of statistics. An accident may reveal that there is something wrong in the factory itself, either in its physical construction or characteristics, or something else, of which the factory inspector ought to take notice and possibly serve notice on the owners of the factory to make certain modifications or alterations. That rather strengthens the case of the noble Lord, Lord Jessel, for the factory inspector rather than the local authority to have the report, because he is the man who can best take action arising out of an accident.
In all the circumstances—although I must say that I was hoping to get this Bill through without amendment—reason comes to me and I think it would not be right or fair to resist this Amendment of the noble Lord, provided that the noble Earl can give undertakings of the character that I have mentioned. I am obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Jessel, for not pursuing the other two Amendments. That makes it easier to accept this one.
EARL BATHURST: My noble friend Lord Jessel argued that it would avoid confusion if notifiable accidents occurring in offices inspected by the factory inspectorate were required to be reported to the local inspector, and that is exactly the point that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, made to the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth. For those reasons Her Majesty's Government consider that the balance of argument is, in principle, probably in favour of my noble friend's Amendment. The parallel provision is in Section 64 of the Factories Act, which requires accidents occurring in a factory to be notified to the factory inspector of the district. Although the prime object behind the clause in this Bill is to collect the information for more general purposes for the analysis
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of the types of accidents to which office workers are exposed, as the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, mentioned to us just now, particular notification may well be of interest to the local enforcement authority, again for the reasons that the noble Lord mentioned, so that possibly measures can be brought to the notice of the employers, or that measures in general might be applied in that particular type of office. This is an Amendment which can reasonably be accepted if your Lordships so desire it and provided it meets with the wishes of the noble Lord, Lord Morrision of Lambeth. As we have heard, it would meet his wishes, and I assure the noble Lord that should your Lordships pass this Amendment, there will be time made available by Her Majesty's Government in another place.
LORD SHACKLETON: I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Jessel, on his break-through on this Bill. If the Government are prepared to provide time for this useful Amendment, might they not perhaps take over one or two of the suggestions that have been made—this point of access, and so on—and get those through also? I am quite sure that the noble Earl is aware of other improvements that might be made and which he might think of putting down on Report stage—or we would put them down for him, if he is prepared to give the same sort of undertaking.
EARL BATHURST: The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and his noble friend Lord Stonham, who is not now in his place, know perfectly well the problems that we should have to meet if some of their ideas were to be put into effect. No doubt they may be good ideas. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, and I have said, this is a modest Bill, and is a start to put right some of the wrongs that no doubt exist in offices. I must draw the noble Lord's attention to the OFFICIAL REPORT of another place on Friday, where, in column 1762, my right honourable friend said:
"As to the future, the Government are considering whether the Bill should be overtaken by some more comprehensive form of legislation such as has been referred to."
Those in another place were having a rather similar debate on points brought

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up such as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and his noble friend Lord Stonham, have been bringing before your Lordships.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: It is a most remarkable Parliamentary innovation to say that because a Bill is a modest Bill you cannot accept an Amendment. The Amendment depends upon the Title of the Bill. If the Amendments were within the Title, then they can be accepted. The argument that there is not enough time is another matter altogether. I point that out only in passing, because I do not think that that is an innovation which is in accordance with Parliamentary practice.
EARL BATHURST: I would not lightly cross swords with such an expert on procedure as the noble Viscount, but I assure him that there are so many bodies and interests to be consulted that it would be far beyond the scope of a Private Member's Bill, which is a modest start. I hope that by quoting from the speech of my right honourable friend I have shown a little which way the wind is blowing.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: Neither the blowing of the wind nor what the noble Earl says was said in another place affects the fact that what is proper to go into a Bill is governed by the Title.
EARL BATHURST: I did not say that it was not proper. I said that it was almost impossible at this late stage in the Session—not improper.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I, too, do not wish to cross swords with such an experienced and expert Parliamentarian as my noble friend Lord Stansgate. He was once a Government Whip. I gather that he does not much like to be reminded of that. He got out of that job fairly expeditiously, and he became a lively and effective Back-Bencher for many years afterwards in another place. It is always a pleasure to hear him. I do not blame him at all for making the point he made, especially as it affects the noble Earl opposite rather than myself. On the other hand, the noble Earl opposite makes a perfectly fair point; it was made by myself, and he is entitled to rely upon what I said as evidence on his side. I have never handled a Private
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Member's Bill before—it is a new experience for me—but it is undoubtedly the case that if there is too much in the Bill there will be trouble and there will be delay in getting it through. Then there is further delay when your Lordships give it proper and adequate consideration. As a consequence, one may endanger the passage of the Bill.
I sympathise warmly with my noble friend Lord Shackleton. I know exactly what he is getting at. If he will not mind my divulging our private relations, I may say that he and my noble friend Lord Stonham had intended to put down Amendments. Lord Stonham had done so and my noble friend Lord Shackleton wanted to do so. There was nothing on earth to prevent my noble friend from doing it except that I persuaded him and my noble friend Lord Stonham not to do so. I am grateful to them. The reasons I gave were the same as I have given to-day. Now, lo and behold! my noble friend Lord Shackleton comes along and sees me accept an Amendment from a noble Lord opposite. He is quite entitled to say, as the late Earl, then Mr. Lloyd George said, "Me, too". But I am afraid that that is the situation, and I cannot help it. I am obliged to my noble friend for his assistance in the matter and, indeed, to the noble Lord, Lord Jessel, for not moving the other two Amendments. There we are. Such is the nature of Parliamentary business.
LORD JESSEL: I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, for being so kind about my modest Amendment on this modest Bill, and also for the assurance given by my noble friend Lord Bathurst which has made it possible for him to accept it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Enforcement of Act by factory inspectors in certain cases]:
On Question, Whether Clause 7 shall be agreed to?
LORD BURDEN: This clause was inserted at the Report stage in another place and, quite briefly, it transfers responsibility for the enforcement of the provisions of the Act in relation to offices in factories from the local authority to factory inspectors, leaving the

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local authority inspectors to look after only the sanitary conveniences in offices. It would be unfair to develop the matter further this afternoon, because I have not had an opportunity of discussing this point with my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth; but I take this opportunity of saying that on the Report stage I shall move that Clause 7 be deleted.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I have taken note of what has been said by my noble friend. I would only say that I shall be a partisan in favour of very strict economy on Amendments and changes on the Report stage, solely for the reason I have indicated. Nevertheless it is still a free country, so far.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
House resumed.
Then Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution):
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, I was proposing to move that the Report be now received. That would mean that we should pass the Report stage to-day, but that would not exclude consideration of Amendments which, under the procedure of your Lordships' House, can be considered on Third Reading. If the House would be good enough to agree, I would move that the Report be now received, so that the next stage would be the Third Reading, with consideration of any Amendments which might emerge. I beg to move that the Report be now received.
Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Lord Morrison of Lambeth.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: The Amendment reported.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL [H.L.]
4.33 p.m.
Amendments reported according to Order.
Clause 1:
Right of Appeal
1.—
(2) No appeal shall lie under this section except with the leave of the court below or of the House of Lords; and such leave shall not be granted unless it is certified by the court below that a point of law of general public importance is involved in the decision and it appears to that court or to the House of Lords, as the case may be, that the point is one which ought to be considered by that House.
LORD CHORLEY LORD CHORLEY moved to add to subsection (2):
"Provided that the foregoing provisions of this subsection shall not apply in relation to any appeal from a decision of a Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division in proceedings on a criminal application for habeas corpus."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, your Lordships will have observed that the subject matter of this Amendment is covered by an Amendment to Clause 15 in the name of the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack. My Amendment was put down before I appreciated that his had been put down. I have no doubt that he will think that his is better placed and possibly better drafted, and I do not feel very strongly about these matters. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking him, first, for meeting at any rate one of the points on which I have been arguing rather strenuously: that the qualifications in regard to the matter raising a point of law "of general public importance" should be removed from appeals in connection with matters of habeas corpus.
I have been fortunate on this occasion to have the assistance of a skilled draftsman in preparing my Amendments, so that I do not apologise for their amateurish quality—as I have had to do in the past when, in conjunction with my less skilled friends, I have moved Amendments to Bills in your Lordships' House. Indeed, on this occasion I rather feel that my Amendment is somewhat better drafted than that of the Government. In particular, I prefer

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"proceedings on a criminal application" to the phrase "a criminal application". My noble and learned friend Lord Conesford is here and I am sure that he, on whom we have come to rely for lessons in the use of our native tongue, will agree with me that on this particular point, at any rate, my Amendment is possibly better drafted than the Government Amendment. I do not like the expression "criminal application". I am not at all sure that an application can be "criminal", but I suppose it is only a small point; and in order to have the views of the noble and learned Viscount I will formally move my Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 19, at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Chorley.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, for his appreciation of the fact that we have met his point to a considerable extent; but the effect of the Amendment as drafted would be to give a right of appeal to the House of Lords from any decision of a Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division on a criminal application for habeas corpus free from the restrictions imposed by subsection (2), including even the need to obtain leave to appeal. This unrestricted right to appeal would be available to the prosecutor as well as to the applicant. Both sides would then be in a better position with regard to their right to appeal to the House of Lords than any other English litigant, for in all other cases, without exception, leave to appeal is necessary.
I do not believe that a case has been made for this far-reaching alteration in the law; and the argument as to the importance of the writ of habeas corpus is met by my Amendment to Clause 15 (Amendment No. 9). I believe that that goes as far as can reasonably be expected in the direction desired by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley. I think he will agree that I have tried very hard to pay the fullest attention to what has been said, and I hope that I have met the substance of the matter. For I believe that it would be wrong to ask the House of Lords to hear all appeals without the sieving done by the Appeal Committee, and I hope
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that the noble Lord will not insist on it. Apart from that, if I may use the words of an old story, I should like to say that I realise his Amendments are beautifully cooked.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I am not sure that all of your Lordships will quite appreciate the wit of the noble and learned Viscount's remark, but some of your Lordships, I am quite sure, appreciated it at its true value. I accept the substance of the noble and learned Viscount's argument, and beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 13:
Appeal in cases of contempt of court
(4) Subsections (2) to (4) of section one of this Act shall apply to an appeal to the House of Lords under this section as they apply to an appeal to that House under that section, except that so much of the said subsection (2) as restricts the grant of leave to appeal shall apply only where the decision of the court below is a decision on appeal to that court under this section.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, perhaps I might discuss and put Amendments 2 and 3 together. These Amendments are almost entirely drafting. They result in a more logical arrangement of subsections (1) and (2) of Clause 13 and, in my view, introduce greater precision. I could go into the details, but I do not think your Lordships would want me to. If there is any point raised I shall be pleased to answer it. With your Lordships' consent, I will put these two Amendments together.
Amendments moved—
Page 8, line 9, leave out from beginning to ("shall") in line 11 and insert ("Subject to the provisions of this section an appeal shall lie under this section from any order or decision of a court in the exercise of jurisdiction to punish for contempt of court (including criminal contempt); and in relation to any such order or decision the provisions of this section")
Page 8, line 14, leave out from ("appeal") to ("and") in line 17 and insert ("under this section shall lie in any case at the instance of the defendant and, in the case of an application for committal or attachment, at the instance of the applicant").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, Amendments 4 and 5 go together and I will, with your Lordships' consent,

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deal with them together. As subsection (2) of Clause 13 stands, appeals in contempt cases will lie from inferior courts to the Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division. The effect of the Amendments is to channel appeals from most of these courts, other than quarter sessions, to the Court of Appeal instead. The Amendments accord with the policy generally adopted in Clause 13: that appeals in cases of contempt should, so far as possible, follow the existing appeals procedure. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page, 8, line 18, leave out ("other than a county court") and insert ("not referred to in the newt following paragraph")
Page 8, line 21, leave out from ("court") to ("having") in line 23 and insert ("or any other inferior court from which appeals generally lie to the Court of Appeal, and from an order or decision of the Chancery Court of a County Palatine, of a single judge of the High Court, or of any court").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
4.43 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY LORD CHORLEY moved in subsection (4), to leave out "(2) to (4)" and insert "(3) and (4)". The noble Lord said: My Lords, the next two Amendments are really designed to secure the same position in regard to contempt cases as that in relation to habeas corpus. It seems to quite a number of people that habeas corpus cases are really in a different category from ordinary criminal cases and the qualifications in Clause 1, which have been discussed so much, ought not to apply there any more than to habeas corpus. The noble and learned Viscount has indicated that he does not altogether accept this view. I feel that the argument about the sieve is not really very strong here because these contempt cases are not very common. I suppose that those that go any substantial distance are, on the whole, newspaper cases, and it may very well be that in regard to the newspaper cases there is a stronger argument for a qualification than in some other cases.
There is also the point which I have already made and which I am not quite sure the noble and learned Viscount has really dealt with: that in some, at any rate, of these contempt cases (possibly not the newspaper ones so much) it is not really a question of law, or the question of law is only partially the problem; it is
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a question of getting new minds to work on a problem which is essentially one of discretion. In cases of that sort it has seemed to a number of people—and I know that my noble friend Lord Shaw-cross, who is still not well enough to be in his place this afternoon, feels very strongly on this point—that the qualification on the appeals in relation to contempt cases ought to be put on the same basis as that to which the noble and learned Viscount has agreed in the habeas corpus cases. I think that that is sufficient to explain the object of these Amendments, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 38, leave out ("(2) to (4)") and insert ("(3) and (4)").—(Lord Chorley.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the noble Lord has explained the purpose of the Amendments. There is the objection that they are defective in that they leave untouched lines 41 to 44 of subsection (4) of Clause 13, which qualify the circumstances in which subsection (2) of Clause 1 is to apply. But in any case, I think that the arguments that I used in relation to the noble Lord's last Amendment to Clause 1 apply even more strongly in the case of contempt. I do not think that there can be any justification for giving a right of appeal to the House of Lords without the need to obtain leave to appeal.
It might be convenient if I just said what the effect of the existing provision is, so that the noble Lord and his friends can consider it. The effect of Clause 13, as it stands, is that in contempt cases (a) there is one unrestricted right of appeal from an inferior court, a Chancery Palatine Court, a single Judge of the High Court (or person having the powers of a Judge of the High Court), with a further right of appeal to the House of Lords if the court appealed from certifies that a point of law of general public importance is involved in its decision and that court or the House of Lords gives leave to appeal; and (b) there is a right of appeal from a Divisional Court or the Court of Appeal dealing with a case of contempt at first instance, as well as from the Court of Criminal Appeal and the Courts-Martial Appeal Court, to the House of Lords with the leave of the Court below or that House.

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I hope I have made it clear that there is this unrestricted right, and in the case of the Divisional Court, of course, the appellant has to get leave; but he has not got to show that it is a matter of general public importance where he is appealing from a decision of first instance. The principle, as I said, is to give one right of appeal which is either entirely unrestricted or, in the case of the House of Lords, requires leave from the first decision on the case; then, after that, in the case of a second appeal, the restrictions must apply. I feel that that gives all that can reasonably be required.
But I should like to put to the noble Lord and his friends, who I know have given so much thought to this question, that a multiplicity of appeals in contempt cases is undesirable; and, after full consideration (and I have been considering this matter for months), there does not appear to me to be any case for giving a second right of appeal except where a point of law of real importance is involved. The noble Lord was good enough to say on Committee stage—he has been very fair in his arguments—that he thought that more than one appeal in contempt cases will rarely be necessary, but he doubted whether I was right in laying so much stress on the newspaper cases. But in all cases the clause gives a general right of appeal against the finding of the court below; and, as it is proposed to be amended, it makes it clear that an appeal will lie at the instance of the defendant even where the court says that there has been a contempt but makes no order against him. That is the effect of one of my other Amendments. So, although I am aware that I have not given full satisfaction, I hope that the noble Lord will appreciate that I have tried to weigh his points, and I think he will agree that I have come a considerable way to meet them. I hope, therefore, that he will not press his Amendment to-day.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I should like to say that, while I feel that we have not got 100 per cent. perfection in this Bill on this matter, we have obtained a very considerable improvement on the position as it exists in our law at present; and I am sure that every lawyer is very grateful to the noble and learned Viscount for what he has done in this
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regard. I appreciate that in this world one can never, or very seldom, get 100 per cent. of what one is after, and in the circumstances I do not propose to press this matter any further. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this, again, is mainly a drafting Amendment. There was some doubt as to whether subsection (5) carried out its purposes, and these doubts are allayed in the revised subsection which is now before your Lordships. I will willingly go into details, but I know that there is a lot of other Business before the House, and unless your Lordships ask for anything I will move with these words: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 1, leave out subsection (5) and insert—
("(5) In this section 'court' includes any tribunal or person having power to punish for contempt; and references in this section to an order or decision of a court in the exercise of jurisdiction to punish for contempt of court include references—

(a) to an order or decision of the High Court or a county count under any enactment enabling that court to deal with an offence as if it were contempt of court;

(b) to an order or decision of a county court, or of any court having the powers of a county court, under section thirty, section one hundred and twenty-seven or section one hundred and fifty-seven of the County Courts Act, 1959,

but do not include references to orders under section five of the Debtors Act, 1869, under any provision of the Magistrates' Courts Act, 1952, or under any provision of the County Courts Act, 1959, other than the sections referred to in paragraph (b) of this subsection and sections seventy-four and one hundred and ninety-five so far as they confer jurisdiction in respect of contempt of court.")—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 15 [Appeal in habeas corpus proceedings]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this is the Amendment which is really my substitute for Amendment No. 1, set down by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley. We discussed it when Amendment No. 1 was before the Committee. I think your Lordships are all acquainted with the point, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 3, at end insert—
("() In relation to a decision of a Divisional Court on a criminal application for habeas corpus, section one of this Act shall have effect as if so much of subsection (2) as restricts the grant of leave to appeal were omitted.")—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Second Schedule [Modifications of Act in relation to Northern Ireland]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this Amendment adds, as a further provision which is to apply to the Bill's application to Northern Ireland, a provision that any reference to an enactment is to include reference to an enactment of the Northern Irish Parliament My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 15, line 21, at end insert ("and any reference in this Act to any enactment shall be constructed as including references to an enactment of the Parliament of Northern Ireland").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, might I ask your Lordships' permission to pass this Amendment with a verbal alteration to the Amendment as printed? That is to say, after "section six", about two-thirds of the way down the new subsection—"section six of the Debtors Act (Ireland), 1872"—there should be inserted "or section six A"? This Amendment is a Northern Irish adaptation consequential on the new subsection (5) of Clause 13, to which I have referred. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, leave out lines 41 to 45 and insert—
("(2) For subsection (5) there shall be substituted the following subsection:—
'(5) in this section "court" includes any tribunal or person having power to punish for contempt; and references in this section to an order or decision of a court in the exercise of jurisdiction to punish for contempt include references—

(a) to an order or decision of the High Court or a county court under any enactment enabling that court Ito deal with an offence as if it were contempt of court;

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(b) to an order or decision of a county count under section fifty-seven or section one hundred and forty-one of the County Courts Act (Northern Ireland), 1959,

but do not include references to orders under section six or section six A of the Debtors Act (Ireland), 1872, under any provision of the Summary Judisdiction Acts (Northern Ireland) or under any provision of the County Courts Act (Northern Ireland), 1959, other than the sections referred to in paragraph (b) of this subsection and sections seventy-one and one hundred and forty so far as they confer jurisdiction in respect of contempt of court'.")—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 12, 13, 14 and 15 are drafting Amendments or consequential drafting. With your Lordships' approval, may I put them together and so save time? If any of your Lordships has any point on them, I shall of course be only too pleased to explain them more fully. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 18, line 7, leave out from ("to") to end of line 8 and insert ("prisoners or other persons suffering from mental illness or other mental disorder")
Page 18, line 7, leave out lines 46 to 48.
Fourth Schedule, page 21, line 9, at end insert—

"45 & 46 Vict. c. 50.

The Municipal Corporations Act, 1882.

In section ninety-two, in subsection (6), the words from 'except' to the end of the subsection.

47 & 48 Vict c. 70.

The Municipal Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Practices) Act, 1884.

In section twenty-eight, subsection (7).")

Fourth Schedule, page 21,line 25, at end insert—

("12, 13 & 14 Geo. 6. c. 68.

The Representation of the People Act, 1949.

In section one hundred and fifteen, in subsection (6), the words from 'except' to the end of the subsection.

In section one hundred and forty-nine, subsection (10).")—

—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.

PROFESSIONS SUPPLEMENTARY TO MEDICINE BILL
4.58 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read:
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will be disappointed at missing a speech by my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham, but he returned, not exhausted but somewhat extended, by his American visit, and I am here to-day in his place.
This is a short though fairly complex Bill, devised and presented for the benefit of seven separate professions, the patients they serve and those members of the medical profession whose work they supplement. The seven professions are: chiropodists, dietitians, medical laboratory technicians, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, radiographers and remedial gymnasts. They are all highly skilled and highly trained professions requiring the protection and status that this Bill is designed to give them. I should explain that, as first presented to another place, the Bill included eight professions: the seven I have named, with the addition of the speech therapists. It is quite possible that, one day, eight professions will again be included in these provisions—eight, or even more, up to the limit of twelve, for which allowance is made in the Bill. But during the passage of this Bill through another place, the speech therapists, for reasons which they clearly explained, voluntarily withdrew from its provisions.
The main object of the Bill is the registration, training and discipline of the members of these seven professions on the broad lines of earlier legislation of the same nature, such as the Medical Acts, the Dentists Acts, the Nurses Acts and the Opticians Act of last year. It will be necessary to give some history of this particular piece of legislation, but I shall try to keep this as short as possible. In doing so, I shall forfeit some opportunity of explaining the time taken to bring it before Parliament. If your Lordships have any questions upon this point or upon any other, it may be for the convenience of the House if I say a few words, by leave, at the end of this debate.
The introduction of the present statutory registration scheme has been an ob
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ject of Government policy for a good many years. Its history can be said to begin in 1949, when a series of eight Committees were set up under the chairmanship of Mr. Zachary Cope (now Sir Zachary Cope) to consider the supply and demand, training and qualifications, of certain medical auxiliaries employed by the National Health Service. The Reports were published in 1951 and recommended a unified system of statutory registration for medical auxiliaries. The formula put forward was a Registration Council representing doctors, medical auxiliaries and others in approximately equal numbers, with advisory committees to the various medical auxiliaries concerned. That was in 1951.
As a first stage, and pending the formulation of such a registration scheme, the 1954 Regulations were made which at present govern the qualifications of medical auxiliaries for employment in the National Health Service. These Regulations cover the eight professions, including speech therapists. When they were introduced and adopted in Parliament the then Minister for Health, now my right honourable friend the Colonial Secretary, made it clear that they were intended only as a temporary measure. The Regulations, which are now in force, provide that hospital authorities and local health authorities may employ medical auxiliaries only when they satisfy one of a series of qualifications. This list of qualifications I do not propose to inflict upon your Lordships at present, though, of course, I am ready to answer any question upon them if any noble Lord should so wish.
By way of emphasising the temporary nature of these 1954 Regulations, a Working Party was set up by the Health Ministers in the same year to find out what measure of agreement could be reached among the medical auxiliaries themselves as to what form statutory registration should take. The Working Party produced a Report in the form of a draft scheme for statutory registration for eight classes of medical auxiliaries. This scheme provided for the establishment of registration boards, on which the medical auxiliaries would be in the majority, for each of the eight professions, and for a co-ordinating Council, consisting of eight medical auxiliaries, eight doctors and seven others, which

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would have power to veto the board's proposals but not power to direct a board what it should do. The aim here was to provide a measure of self-government for the medical auxiliaries, and the main emphasis was placed on the registration boards, which would be controlled by the medical auxiliaries themselves, assisted by medical and other expert members.
A long period of negotiation followed between the Minister and representatives of the medical auxiliaries and of the medical profession to see whether title details of the scheme could be agreed. Discussion centred, as it has done ever since, on the proposed membership of the registration boards, land the powers of the co-ordinating Council. The medical profession wanted equality of numbers between the doctors and the medical auxiliaries on the registration boards, and also wished the co-ordinating Council to have overriding powers over the registration boards. The medical auxiliaries were not prepared to accept either of these amendments, as they saw in them the defeat of their object of self-government.
In the first half of 1958, a measure of agreement between the eight professions and the Joint Consultants' Committee appeared to have been reached, and the revised scheme was discussed at a conference in July of that year between representatives of all the medical auxiliaries concerned and of the same Committee. The scheme as it stood provided for each registration board to have a majority of only one medical auxiliary in its membership and the co-ordinating Council to have only powers of veto over the registration boards. These provisions were accepted by the representatives of the medical profession, so long as provision was made for any disputes between the boards and the Council to be referred to an independent arbitrator, assisted by expert assessors appointed by both sides. The medical auxiliaries accepted this proposal. Subsequently, however, the British Medical Association were unable to endorse the agreement reached at the conference and returned to the line that the scheme would be acceptable to the medical profession only if either
"the numbers of doctors on each registration board remained equal to the numbers of medi
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cal auxiliaries, or the co-ordinating council were given over-riding powers over the Boards."
When these suggestions were put to the medical auxiliary bodies, they rejected them almost unanimously.
My Lords, in that relatively short description is contained the explanation of why it bas taken so long to bring this Bill before Parliament. Your Lordships will appreciate the difficulties of reaching agreement between the seven professions, upon what they deemed an essential measure of independence, and the doctors, upon their demand for what they considered adequate representation. The doctor's interest in all this is very plain. When a consultant calls for treatment by one of these professions for a patient, that patient remains the doctor's responsibility, and clearly a conscientious doctor must be perfectly assured of the qualifications of his fellow professional before doing so. The present provisions represent a nice balance between the seven professions and the medical profession under whose general direction they work. I hope that the imaginations of noble Lords will enable them to understand why this commendable outcome has taken the time it has. Much is owed to the Cope Committee's Working Party, who did a great deal of hard work to provide the basis of the Bill.
The present Bill provides machinery for registering members of seven professions, and for regulating their professional education and conduct. It also provides for the setting up of one registration board for each of the seven professions concerned and of a Council which will be responsible for the co-ordinating and supervising of activities of the boards. The Council will consist of 21 members—7 representatives of the supplementary professions, 7 medical practitioners, and 7 laymen, including the Chairman. On all the boards, the supplementary professions have a majority of one, and their insistence upon this seems reasonable in view of the intimate concern of the members with the affairs of their professions and their members. The minority consists of doctors, experts in professional education and such additional specialists as are appropriate to the individual board.
The functions of the Council are co-ordination and supervision, and are described in subsections (2) and (3) of

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Clause 1. Its work of co-ordination will be especially important in view of the number of professions covered by the Bill. It will also provide a central secretariat and will deal centrally with financial matters. The general tasks of the boards will be the promoting of high standards of professional education and professional conduct among members of the professions concerned. To this end they will have the functions of preparing and maintaining registers, of making rules dealing with a number of matters related to the registers, and of preparing and approving courses of training.
When this Bill becomes law, the professions concerned will cease to be subject to the National Health Service (Medical Auxiliaries) Regulations, 1954, to which I have referred, and the intention of my right honourable friend the then Minister of Health will be carried out. His words during the debate on these regulations were:
"I regard it as highly undesirable that the Minister of Health should concern himself with qualifications in this sort of field unless it were inevitable. This is only a temporary measure and must be considered as such".
Perhaps I should say a word about the speech therapists. Until the Report stage in another place, they were included in the Bill, together with the seven other professions. But shortly after its introduction they indicated that, even though they had been concerned in all earlier discussions, they were not happy about the detailed proposals contained in the Bill and that the profession as a whole wished to withdraw from it. It was the view of my right honourable friend that they had nothing to lose by remaining in the Bill and a good deal to gain, and he made very considerable efforts to persuade them to reconsider their decision. In this he was unsuccessful, and they were therefore excluded from the Bill, by Government Amendment at the Report stage. My right honourable friend did not, and does not, accept the view that the speech therapists are not a profession supplementary to medicine; but, for the time being at least, they have gone their own way. If at some future date, they should reconsider, it will be open to them to apply to contract in.
Noble Lords may notice that the rôle proposed for the Privy Council is some
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what larger than that assigned to it in other similar measures. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that, as I have emphasised, the Bill is concerned not only with the supplementary professions but also with the medical profession and their special relationship and interest in the courses of treatment involved. The second is that the Bill covers seven professions—it could even be regarded as covering the ground of seven separate Bills, and it establishes seven boards, together with a Council, to co-ordinate and supervise their work. As I have recorded, the main points of difficulty have been the composition of the boards and the relative powers of the boards and the Council. As the medical profession had repeatedly pressed for either equality of representation on the boards or for overriding powers to be given to the Council, neither of which was acceptable to the supplementary professions, the Government decided that the proper solution would be to leave the supplementary professions in a majority of one on each board, the Council with powers of general supervision, but for the avoidance of possible deadlocks (to which the medical profession attach considerable importance) to leave decisions on certain matters (such as courses of training and qualifications) subject to the final approval of the Privy Council. The Privy Council already has wide experience in exercising such powers in other registration schemes and so is well acquainted with the kind of problem involved.
My Lords, with one exception I think I can pass fairly rapidly over the detailed clauses and Schedules of the Bill after this general review. Perhaps I should deal with the exception, first of all—it occurs in the Second Schedule. This Schedule deals with the constitution of investigating and disciplinary committees and their procedures, including the appointment of legal assessors. Most of this is in common form, but this month produced a new development with the publication of the Report of the Committee of my noble and learned friend Lord Simonds, and I think I must take up a few minutes of your Lordships' time in explaining the position here.
Paragraph 2 of this Second Schedule, as originally drafted, empowered disciplinary committees to administer oaths, and also conferred express powers for

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the parties to proceedings before a committee to obtain writs of subpoena. At the Committee stage in another place a Government Amendment was moved and accepted removing these express powers to secure the issue of writs of subpœna. This resulted from the Government's decision to set up a Committee under the chairmanship of my noble and learned friend Lord Simonds
"to consider to what extent and subject to what condition, subpoenas (or in Scotland citations) should be issuable to secure the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents before disciplinary tribunals; and in particular to consider whether subpœnas should be issuable to secure the production before such tribunals of evidence obtained by police officers in the course of criminal investigations".
It is quite clear how the appointment of this Committee affected the Second Schedule as originally drafted, but in seeking to remove the express powers initially conferred, my right honourable and learned friend surmised that the recommendations of the Simonds Report might require them to be put back. In fact, the recommendations of my noble and learned friend, Lord Simonds, published some days ago, are entirely explicit on this point. The Committee says in paragraph 15 of the Report:
"We therefore recommend that express statutory power to secure the issue of writs of subpoena should be conferred on those statutory disciplinary tribunals that do not now possess it. We further recommend that if Parliament sees fit to create additional disciplinary bodies in the future they should also have the power for the reasons we have given".
Consequently it is proposed that at the Committee stage of this Bill, which is set for Tuesday, June 28, an Amendment will be moved by my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham to restore to this Schedule the express powers for the issue of writs of subpœna, which were struck out at the Committee stage in another place, shortly after the appointment of Lord Simonds's Committee. I trust that this will be agreeable to your Lordships, but since my noble and learned friend himself is, I am happy to say, going to speak later in this debate, the House will no doubt know a great deal more of this matter within some minutes than I should be capable of explaining in the entire afternoon.
That is the only complication that I am aware of in the Bill as set out, and
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for that reason I have thought it better to bring it forward, out of its proper order, before proceeding to the list of clauses. Clause 1 deals with the establishment of the boards and the Council. Clause 2 deals with the establishment and maintenance of registers by these boards and places a duty upon each board to prepare and maintain a register, and also to have that register primed, published, and put on sale to members of the public. It also enables the Council, with the consent of the Privy Council, to make rules governing registration fees. Clause 3 describes the qualifications entitling a person to be registered. Clause 4 lays down the procedure for the approval of courses and training, qualifications and training institutions.
Clause 5 provides for the supervision by boards of approved institutions and of examinations leading to the approved qualifications. Clause 6 lays down titles which may be used by persons registered and penalties for improper use of those titles. Clause 7 describes penalties for fraudulently securing or trying to secure entry of a name on a register, and Clauses 8 and 9 define the disciplinary machinery for removal of names from the register and for the hearing of appeals against removal. Clause 10 provides machinery for extending, restricting or modifying the application of the Act to supplementary professions in the future. This clause was altered in another place, and an Affirmative Resolution of both Houses is now required to effect such changes, whether additions or removals. Clause 11 empowers the Privy Council to take action in default of the Council or of a registration board, and Clause 12 lays down certain procedures to be followed by the Privy Council in exercising those powers under the Act.
The First Schedule deals with the constitution of the Council, the constitution of the boards, and with supplementary provisions relating to the Council and to the boards. The Second Schedule deals with the constitution of investigating and disciplinary committees to be set up under Clause 8 and with the procedure of the disciplinary committees. I have already referred to the Amendment by the Government which will affect Paragraph 2 of this Second Schedule, but I might

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make a reference to another recommendation of Lord Simonds's Committee, in Paragraph 45 of the Report, which reads:
"Any disciplinary tribunal should have available to it legal advice not only for assistance in the conduct of its hearings generally, but for its guidance in ruling on the submissibility of evidence and of schemes of privilege".
Paragraph 4 of this Second Schedule already provides that a legal assessor should be present at all proceedings before disciplinary committees.
My Lords, I hope that I have covered the purposes of this Bill. If at the beginning, and despite my promise, I laboured the gestatory stages at greater length than might have seemed necessary, it was with the object of emphasising how delicate the negotiations have been and how reluctantly certain concessions have sometimes been made. The Government think that in these provisions is contained a just and workable formula for all concerned. The exact work undertaken by these professions is, as I have said, skilled and highly trained. It is also extremely varied as between one profession and another, and if questioned I can satisfy the curiosity of noble Lords upon the various natures of this work as I have fairly recently satisfied my own. The numbers involved are not large, but their work is vitally important and of benefit to a large proportion of the public. Although still regarding myself as possessing an abnormal degree of rude health, I find that I have already benefited from the ministrations, seen or unseen, of the chiropodist, the medical laboratory technician, the physiotherapist and the radiographer. There is no doubt that I should benefit also from the ministrations of the dietician, the occupational therapist the remedial gymnast, and most of all, as no doubt your Lordships will now be ready to bear witness, of the speech therapist. It is therefore in a personal, as well as a public, note that I ask your Lordships to give this Bill a Second Reading.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord St. Oswald.)
5.20 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, has moved this Bill with his usual eloquence and clarity, although at times I thought he had rather a tongue-twisting brief. We, too,
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welcome this Bill, as it was welcomed in another place. It was fifteen years ago that I had to give a Fabian Lecture on "the Professional Man in the Socialist State." I may say that I was doing it only because the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, had to go to Nuremberg at the time. To-day we are adding seven new professions, if not to a Socialist State, at least to the socialised sector of our society, for most of the members of these professions will be working for most of their time within the National Health Service. As the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, has said, it would have been eight professions but for the decision of the speech therapists to opt out of the provisions of this Bill. They decided, I think, that they were closer to education than to medicine, and I suspect that they were not uninfluenced by the fact that they thought they would do better under the Whitley Council for Education than under the Whitley Council for Health. We all regret this, but they may be right, for the professions covered by this Bill are, I am sorry to say, very poorly paid.
The Bill not only creates seven new professions but leaves the door open for the creation of more by Affirmative Resolution. We wonder why it is up to twelve? Is there any mystic reason for the figure twelve? Are there going to be only twelve supplementary professions to medicine in due course? Would it not be better to omit this limitation, for who can say what will be the nature of medical advance in the years ahead? There may well be a growth in supplementary professions out of all recognition and out of all our beliefs nowadays. So I hope this limit will go, as it seems an unnecessary restriction.
The Bill does, however, raise the question of what are the criteria of a "profession," because here we are creating seven new professions—and we can admit more under the Bill—without really thinking what we are doing. The boundaries between trades, professions and occupations are a little blurred. I looked it up, and the earliest use of the word profession "I could find was the following:
"Joseph, the spouse of Mary, was by profession a carpenter."
The four classical professions are the Church, the Law, Medicine and the Army. We speak, perhaps a little loosely,

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of "the theatrical profession". But one would suggest that the essence of a profession is responsibility. The membership of a profession should guarantee to the public the reasonable competence of the individual concerned. This is achieved partly by the individual maintaining his competence and professional traditions, and partly by the profession collectively supervising the training, examination and subsequent conduct of its members.
It implies a proper body of knowledge—a corpus of knowledge—which can be taught, and in which competence can be assessed. It implies, too, that there should be no free market in the service offered to the public, but that the fees charged shall be reasonable and not more than reasonable. It implies, moreover, that there shall be no individual advertising to obtain clients or patients. Finally, it implies that the occupation itself is something of real and generally accepted value to society. In future, claims to admission for professional status will certainly grow. One has watched with great interest the endeavours of the advertising agents to persuade us that they are a profession, though they certainly do not hesitate to advertise themselves; and I should say that they are not yet a profession.
As the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, has said, this Bill had a long gestation. Sir Zachary Cope did a very good job, and I would pay tribute also to Mr. J. E. Pater, of the Ministry of Health, who chaired the Working Party which had a very difficult time indeed. This had one good effect, for it changed the collective title from "Medical Auxiliaries" to "Professions Supplementary to Medicine", which is a much better way of describing these excellent people. Most of these professions come into operation at the request of a registered medical practitioner, but the public can approach sonic of them direct—for example, the chiropodists. In the past, doctors have been in some doubt about their responsibility for the work done for their patients by these medical auxiliaries. We think that under this Bill the position is now quite clear—at least we hope it is.
In another place, Miss Edith Pitt, speaking for the Minister, said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 614 (No. 28), col. 939] that in future doctors will not take responsibility nor be held respon
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sible for work done by these new professions. This is very important indeed, particularly with regard to one of these professions. The activities of these workers are mainly concerned with people who are not in any great danger as to life or limb, but there is one group of people who are handling an exceedingly lethal weapon—I refer to the radiographers, whether doing therapeutic radiography or diagnostic radiography. We make, and have been making in this House, very stringent regulations for the control of radio-active substances, but the danger from radiology is far greater than the danger from radio-active substances. I think it should be clearly recognised that under this Bill we are transferring, so far as I can see, the doctors' responsibility to the radiographer when the radiographer is doing his job.
The Faculty of Radiologists—that is, the doctors who specialise in this subject—have been a little worried about this, and my old friend Professor Smithers, Professor of Radiology at what was the Royal Cancer Hospital and is now the Royal Marsden Hospital, the son of Sir Waldron Smithers, and one of our leading radiologists, has approached me about this; he has asked whether it would not be possible to make sure that on the board for this particular subject there could be guaranteed to be representation of at least one therapeutic radiologist and one diagnostic radiologist. There are, in fact, three doctors appointed by the Royal Colleges who might fulfil these criteria. I hope we may have a guarantee of this, because it is very important indeed that the public and the radiographers themselves should be safeguarded in this way. Apart from this point, the Council and the Board are about right as to numbers and composition.
As the noble Lord has said, the only point of serious controversy has been about the balance between the different professions, but we are generally happy with the solution which has been arrived at. I should add that in another place the Government have been most generous in meeting the points which my honourable and my right honourable friends have raised, and there is little in the Bill as it stands with which we do not wholeheartedly agree.

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Much has been said in another place about the value of the services to the community of chiropodists, dieticians, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, radiographers and remedial gymnasts. We, too, add our praise and gratitude for the fine work they are doing. Without them, modern medicine could hardly function. I should like to make a special mention of the chiropodists. I remember that when my wife was Governor of Holloway they got a chiropodist in, and it was a thing which made the biggest difference to the life of the women in Holloway. It would seem a silly little thing, but it was a matter of major importance. I found exactly the same in industrial medicine. If there was one service the women workers particularly appreciated it was chiropody.
I should also like to pick out for extra comment, since they were not mentioned in another place, the medical laboratory technicians. Most people do not see much of them, but they are very important people indeed. They work under the clinical pathologist, and he is one of the most important folk in modern medical diagnosis. Most of his work is, however, done for him by the medical laboratory technicians. In a sense the clinical pathologist is the architect and the medical laboratory technician the master craftsman. He is in fact very much like the mediæval craftsman in the way he goes about his job, and I like to think they are the same sort of people. They play a great part in research and the advancement of medicine. In my own first research work I was immensely helped by the medical laboratory technicians. I have always looked on them as colleagues and one is delighted to welcome them to-day as fellow professional workers.
There is a danger of overdoing professionalism. It is natural enough that each and every group in the National Health Service should now want to have professional status—for example, the operating theatre technicians. One might imagine that operating theatre technicians were surgeons or anæsthetists. In fact they are theatre porters. They have a real value to society, but I do not think there is a proper body of knowledge which can be passed on and for which people can be trained—there may be one day, but there certainly is not yet. The question
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may arise in the not too distant future as to whether dental hygienists should be included, especially in view of the shortage of dentists, and I would ask the Government whether they could be included under this Bill or whether they are adequately covered by the Dentists Act, 1957. The other groups, about whom I am wondering whether they could come in, are the social workers and the psychiatric social workers; the Bill might be a valuable way of granting them the kind of status they so badly need to do their jobs in future.
Clauses 8 and 9 give the Boards disciplinary powers. Some people are a little worried about this power to strike off the register. But, of course, it is not an exclusive register. There are two kinds of professional register. There is the medical kind of register, which is a list of people entitled to call themselves doctors, and the nurses' register, which is a list of people entitled to call themselves State Registered Nurses. But other people are allowed to nurse and be doctors. On the other hand, there is the exclusive register, the kind that the dentists have, when no one can practise dentistry except a dentist or a doctor. The registers under this Bill are of the non-exclusive kind; they merely register the title of registered chiropodists, or whatever it may be; but people can still practise without being on these registers, so striking off is not such a terrible thing.
But it is interesting to wonder exactly what they will be struck off for. If a chiropodist "cuts one to the quick", is that a ground for being struck off? One can just imagine unprofessional conduct on the part of a masseuse, but what about my friends the medical laboratory technicians: how does one commit unprofessional conduct when doing a blood count or perhaps taking blood? I suppose it is possible. What about the remedial gymnast who is drunk in charge of a car, or the dietician or occupational therapist who gets caught shoplifting, or the radiographer who gives a Press interview? But these are really matters which will have to be worked out by the boards and the Council. The noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, mentioned the power to subpœna. We entirely agree with the necessity for the disciplinary committees or boards to have the power recommended by the Simonds Committee. We

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think the Report is very sensible, and if there are to be professional inquiries there must be a power to get the evidence to make these inquiries a reality.
There is one serious matter of considerable public importance which was not exhaustively discussed in another place, and that is the matter of registration fees. For the professions there are again two types of registration fee. There is the once-for-all registration fee which we as doctors pay; we pay, I think, 12 guineas when we qualify, and we are in for life unless we are struck off. Then there are the annual or periodic registration fees; you pay them every year or every other year as the case may be. Nurses, incidentally, are of the same group as doctors; they pay once for all; whereas midwives have to register every year. It is a very undesirable thing that people should go off the register simply because they fail to pay the fees. In the groups we are dealing with, the people are relatively poorly paid, and many of them are women, and I think that in every case there is a serious shortage. What happens is that the women get married. In the case of the physiotherapists there is an enormous exodus from the profession by the age of about 27, and it is the same in these other groups, the radiographers and the chiropodists. We want them back as soon as we can have them, after they have finished having their families. A few minutes ago, my noble friend Lord Pethick-Lawrence was encouraging women to go back to work early after having had a baby. These are just the sort of people we want to get back to work. They will have to make a choice: they will have to reregister and pay a fresh fee, or they may go off and do some quite different job, and that would be a national loss.
But this does raise the question of cash. The Opposition cannot amend the Bill in this respect in this House. Only the Government could do anything about this, and they would have to do it having regard to the need to put the Bill through the other place, if we were going to make any cash help for the Council. In medicine we have built up a nest-egg for our General Medical Council by the large influx of fees when the doctors all had to register for the first time. The result is that the General
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Medical Council have a fair nest-egg, bringing in annual income, enabling them to carry on with annual fees only. I would ask the Government, most earnestly and sincerely, to consider whether they could not make a small grant to start this Council off. I have in mind no great sum of money—perhaps £25,000, or even less than that. If they could do it, I think it would enable the Council to start without having to impose an annual charge on all the registered professions. I believe it would be an enormous help to them.
That is all I want to say about it. We welcome our new professional colleagues. We welcome this Bill. We hope they will set their standards high and build up and maintain worthy traditions. At present they are still all too poorly paid, but in the long run professional status will help them to get the financial recognition which is their proper due. More important, it will enable them to do better the work they are already doing well.
5.37 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, before I say the few words I propose to say in support of this Bill should like to declare an interest in the professions concerned. I have just completed five years as President of the Occupational Therapists Association, and at the same time I am one of the members of the management committee for the London Foot Hospital, which is one of the biggest chiropody training schools in the country. That is as far as I go there.
I think that the Bill we are discussing now is a very good Bill. It will do a great deal to encourage the supplementary professions. It has always seemed to me that when a professional body of people come to the stage when they become registered, it is a sign that they have got a form, have matured and have really taken their place in the world. They know what their work is; they know what their responsibilities are going to be, and they can now take their place among the other registered professions. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, in welcoming to our ranks seven more professions. It is quite a big number, coming all at once, when there have been only four or five for so long. I am sure we welcome them warmly. There has been, I know, a certain amount of doubt among some of the professions as to whether they should come into this

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Bill or not—whether they wish to form a register. They have, I am pleased to say, come into the Bill. They have joined with their colleagues and, although they did not particularly want to when it was first discussed, I am sure that, as time goes on, they will find that they have done a valuable thing and will not look back with any sorrow that they name into the Bill and co-operated with the Minister in trying to get this legislation on the Statute Book.
The first months or a year following the registration of a profession are bound to be difficult, because some people will probably come on to the register who would not have come on were the register not being formed for the first time. There are bound to be a number of people who are doing and have done good work, and who will do good work in the future, but will not have had the professional training that they should have had. They must come on the register because their work is just as good as that of the trained people. They have acquired their skill by experience and not by being trained by any particular course. That is a state of affairs which causes some trouble and disquiet at the start; but it does not go on for long, for these people will soon become absorbed into the register, and no new people will come in who have not been through one of the approved courses. So, although there are difficulties, I do not think they will be serious or will last for long.
I should like to support what Lord Taylor said about the difficulty in regard to the registration fee. When the medical profession first acquired its register, a long time ago, there were enough doctors in the country to pay a big enough fee to enable the General Medical Council to be set up. That Council have continued in being ever since by reason of doctors paying a fee of either 10 or 11 guineas a year. Naturally, the Council say that they have not got any money, but they manage to continue, and there is no call upon a doctor to pay more than one registration fee. It seems to me that if you are going to pay a fee every year it is a rather discouraging expense. I do not know what the fee is going to be, but I imagine it will be something of the nature of £2 or £2 10s., or something of that sort. Supposing
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that one's total salary is between £400 or £500 a year, or, it may be, £600, that comes to quite a large fee; and when at the same time one has to pay a fee to keep up membership of a professional association, which will probably be about 4 or 5 guineas a year, it means a total expenditure of 7 or 8 guineas a year.
I should like to support Lord Taylor in his plea that the Government might be able to help to set up the Council. Failing that, it might be better if the professions were themselves to charge a rather bigger fee to start with. People would not mind paying a big fee when they have just passed an examination, because they would be pleased and excited at having got that part of their work done. Alternatively, their parents might pay it. I think the imposition of a yearly fee on these unfortunate people is to be deplored. Another course would be for their salary to be increased. Again, I think that that is a matter which will probably have to occur, because they are doing extremely good and valuable work for little money. That matter does not arise out of this Bill, but it is worth mentioning.
Supposing they have to pay these two fees a year, it is quite possible that they might think it simpler to pay the fee for registration, which they must pay by Statute, rather than to continue with their professional association. That, I think, would be a real disaster, because I am sure that by being a member of a good professional association they learn to keep up standards. I think it would be a disaster if these were to fall by the wayside because of the fee that their members may have to pay. One of the recommendations of the Cope Committee—I think it was in paragraph 89—was that the cost of the Council and the professional administration expenses should be met from the National Health Service. No doubt that was merely a recommendation in the Report, but it shows that the matter was carefully considered by this body and was thought to be a perfectly right and proper thing.
The other point which Lord Taylor raised and which I should like to support is that it is difficult for women who get married and go away and have a family, and are thus forced to give up their profession during that time, to have to pay another fee when they want to come back.

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They have to get themselves put back on the register because they have lapsed from it merely because they have been engaged in other work which is quite as valuable—having a family. When they want to come back they have to go through the formality again of applying to come back, and they have to pay a fee once more. When a doctor who does not wish to practise for four or five years wishes to exercise his profession again, he has no formalities at all to go through.
The last point I should like to make is again one in support of what Lord Taylor said. He spoke of the great difficulty in regard to radiographers. They deal with one of the many dangerous things in the modern world of today. I believe it to be one of the most dangerous of all. I think it would be a great advantage if somebody from the X-ray profession was permanently on the Board, if not on the Council, so that he can really see that those people get some help in dealing with what is, as I have said, one of the most dangerous things in the world. It would probably be necessary to have more than one person; the work of the diagnostic X-ray people is so different from that of the therapeutic X-ray people, and it might be necessary to have advice from both sides of the profession. Those are the few points upon which I wished to make some observations in giving a welcome to this Bill. I hope that your Lordships will give it a Second Reading and will allow it to pass into law without undue delay.
5.48 p.m.
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: My Lords, I propose to direct my observations to a single point, and to do so very shortly. The noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, who introduced this Bill in a speech of admirable clarity and, if I may say so, enviable audibility, indicated the point upon which he expected me to make a few observations. It is just this. The Bill establishes a disciplinary committee with most formidable penal powers—a power to deprive a member of the particular profession, at any rate, of the best opportunities of earning his livelihood in his chosen profession. It is quite true, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor has said, that though he be removed from the register he yet can practise. But nobody, I suppose, would doubt that his chances of earning
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eminence in his profession will be greatly marred; and there is no doubt also that he will be damaged in his profession if, when he is brought before this disciplinary committee, he suffers an adverse decision.
How, then, can it be just that all the available evidence should not be brought before that committee? I venture to think it is quite elementary. Ask yourselves, if you will, what is your position if you, being a member of that profession, are charged with an offence which may result in serious consequences; if you know that there is evidence available, if the witness would but give it, which might turn the event in your favour, but he, because he is callous, ungenerous, does not want to be bothered, or for whatever other excuse a man may choose to give, refuses to come, with the result that you stand in grave jeopardy. I say beyond all doubt there should be a power to issue a writ of subpœna to compel such a man to come forward. Undoubtedly, it is an inconvenience, but there are many inconveniences in life. I suppose nothing can be more inconvenient than the public duty of sitting on a jury, but this is one of the inconveniences that a man may suffer.
Now I ask your Lordships: what is the position, not of the man charged but of the prosecuting body whose interest it is to maintain the honour of their profession and to see that a man who, as they think, is unfit to practise it should not continue to practise it to the great detriment of the public? They have information which leads them to believe that a certain person is not fit to practise. They take proceedings against him, and then, it may be at the last moment, the very evidence on which they are to rely is not forthcoming. Again, for whatever reason it may be, a potential witness refuses to appear, and so it will happen, to the great disadvantage of the public, that somebody will be allowed to continue to practise when he ought not to be allowed to do so. It is clear that in that case, again, the man should be compelled to come forward and give evidence.
Then look at this matter from the point of view of the disciplinary committee themselves, who are exercising a judicial function. Perhaps I could speak of this more clearly than I can of the position

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of a prosecutor or an accused. What is the position of a tribunal, faced with the plea from one side or the other: "If only there were the evidence available I could convince you"? That might be true or it might be false. But what are the Committee to do except decide on the evidence before them and come to a decision which they must know they might not have reached had there been other evidence? Where a tribunal of this kind is set up everything demands that evidence should be available; otherwise justice is not done.
That was the conclusion reached by a Committee over which I had the honour to preside, consisting only of my noble and learned friend, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest and myself, and, so that Scotland should not be left out, Lord Thomson, now Lord Justice-Clerk, formerly Lord Advocate in the last Government. We reached that conclusion unanimously. I am very pleased to hear from the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, that Her Majesty's Government propose to adopt our Report and to replace in the Bill the provision in regard to subpœnas. I was glad to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, that the proposal was supported on his side.
I want to occupy the House for two further minutes to say something on one aspect of the Report relevant to the Bill on which there has been a great deal of misunderstanding. The last words of the appointment were:
"In particular, to consider whether subpœnas should be issuable to secure the production before such tribunals of evidence obtained by police officers in the course of criminal investigations."
For some reason that I have not been able to discover, that has been thought to have something to do with telephone-tapping. Of course, it has nothing at all to do with that: it is a question of whether a policeman, like any other man, should be amenable to the jurisdiction of the court and be compelled to give evidence of matters which come under his personal observation. A policeman, of course, is a civilian, if in uniform; and whether or not in uniform he should be amenable to give evidence on matters which come under his observation. That does not mean in any sense that the police authorities need volunteer information to professional bodies, or
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even that they need give information if asked to do so.
What is meant is that a policeman who has seen or heard something which is material should be compelled to come and tell the tribunal of it. That does not mean that he may not have a good ground of privilege for refusing to give an answer, for the question of privilege is not touched upon here. It may be that if the information he has has been obtained by telephone-tapping, that is a reason why he should claim privilege. On that I say nothing. The question is whether a policeman should be amenable to subpœna to come and give evidence. I believe that he should, and I hope that there will be no qualification of any kind when this new provision is inserted in the Schedule to the Bill. Upon that, if necessary, I shall have an opportunity of saying something more when the Bill is in Committee, should Her Majesty's Government propose to reintroduce the Clause. I hope that when the matter is introduced there will be no doubt about that.
5.55 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, I congratulate Her Majesty's Government upon having brought this Bill forward and secured its friendly passage through another place, and having presented it to your Lordships to-day for Second Reading. I consider that the structure of the Bill is a sound one. The supervisory or co-ordinating Council, with a nice balance between the old and the new professions and the layman, is good, and the Boards or Committees with a majority of the supplementary workers is satisfactory.
I am glad that the supplementary professions stood up against the doctors in this matter and refused to be browbeaten and placed in a minority by them. Doctors are most important people, but they are not the only people who can do us good; and often
"A little of what you fancy does you good."
I am glad, therefore, that those in these supplementary professions have been given their majority on the Committees, not only because of their dignity and status but also, as I think, because of their wisdom. That is not to say that I am in any way opposed to doctors, but. I am glad in this instance to see what

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is put in the Bill. The Register will bring protection to the entrants into this field, as well as prestige, and I welcome it on both those grounds.
I should declare my special interest in this matter which arises out of no financial interest, direct or indirect, but because it has been my duty and pleasure in the last 40 years to help a particular group of workers who are to be included on the Register. They are, broadly speaking, the physiotherapists generally, and especially among their number blind physiotherapists, and particularly among them, the blinded soldier physiotherapists who have been my protegés. Bodies representing physiotherapists—the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, the St. Dunstan's Organisation and the Civilian Blind organisation—have now worked in harmony for a very long time and have done much to uphold the status of the profession and encourage those who have taken the examinations from year to year to take longer courses and learn more complicated subjects, and to get a very good grounding so that they become very expert, with sometimes three or four years' training. That has been a splendid work upon which, I believe, we ought to congratulate the bodies concerned, and particularly the Chartered Society.
The noble Lord opposite rightly said that most practitioners in most of these professions—and especially is this the case with physiotherapy—will be working for the National Health Service. That is true, but do not let us forget that there are still a good many in private practice. I am glad to say that in spite of the expectation that the National Health Service would put the private physiotherapist out of business, it has not done so—at least, not so far as my St. Dunstan's friends are concerned. There are 110 of them in this country, 28 in other parts of the Commonwealth, and about 200 other blind persons, and more than half of them are in private practice. They include many young men blinded in the Second World War. And very good they are, and very successful. Nevertheless, if we add together all the blind men and the sighted men who work in the physiotherapy profession we shall still find, when the register comes to be set up, that the women will outnumber the men by 9 to 1. That cannot be helped. I am not
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even prepared to say it is a pity. I think it is just one of those things. But I very much hope that the women, though they must outnumber the men, will not swamp the men. And I make a plea that when the Government set up the first Committee, which they will do by arbitrary methods before the elections come along at a later stage, they will set a good example by trying to make sure that at least one man—and preferably, as I should wish, a St. Dunstan's man—might be a member of the Physiotherapy Committee.
It is a pleasant thought that as a minor aspect of our passing this Bill to help these professions generally we may be doing a good turn to this group of men who have themselves done so well. It is 40 years since the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists started their campaign to get recognition and registration for their members; and these 40 years caused me to look up the words of an old song which will be familiar to some Members of your Lordships' House, one verse of which says:
"Forty years on, growing elder and older,
Shorter in wind as in memory long,
Feeble of foot and rheumatic of shoulder,
How will it help you that once you were strong?"
My Lords, it will help you when you are suffering from the debility caused by your arduous labours in this House if you will aid these auxiliary or supplementary persons the better to do their job by establishing this register; it will help you, if I may say so without offending the doctors by advertising my friends the "St. Dunstaners", if you would like to ask me for the name and address of one of them; and it will help you if you give a Second Reading to this Bill.
6.3 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, like every other speaker who has taken part in this debate, I should like to extend a general welcome to this Bill. That is not to say that there are aspects of it which I think cannot be improved, and some of them I think are debatable. I have a slight interest in this matter because for some years I was President of one of the institutes of chiropody, and therefore I can, I hope, claim to have some idea of the aims and desires of that particular group of people who are dealt with in the Bill. My noble friend Lord Taylor referred to the question of the closed

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profession; and I feel that we ought to ask ourselves what is the purpose of registration under this Bill.
Presumably, everybody who is to-day practising at all will be able to secure registration. The terms of the Bill are so widely drawn that it is difficult to see who can be excluded under the provisions. People need have no particular qualifications. At the worst, they have had no academic qualification and merely have been engaged in practice for some time: they have experience. To-day people become chiropodists in a variety of ways. There are people who take a three-year course, and there are a two-year course and a one-year course, and there is even a correspondence course which lasts six months. One can become a chiropodist by having that course, and then one need not take any academic course at all. One can become, as a few people are, even a part-time chiropodist. There is one case I heard of, of a person who is normally a lorry driver but who carries on chiropody as a sideline. I presume that that person is going to be registered. If he is not registered, if the members in their wisdom decide that such a person has not the requisite experience—and for all I know he may have; he may have been carrying on this series of operations for years—what then? He can still carry on as a chiropodist. And the same applies, of course, with the other professions.
As regards the ordinary public, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simonds, made play of the fact that it might be a serious matter to be struck off the register. I should not think so. I should think that a person who is normally described as a registered chiropodist (the same applies to a registered member of any of the other professions) can go on calling himself a chiropodist, and the public on the whole would be no wiser. I should have thought, therefore, that it would have been preferable to come to a decision that registration is essential to enable a person to practise one of these professions. I recognise that there are arguments to the contrary. I do not think that they are very strong, and I will not debate it at this stage because one can more appropriately deal with the matter in Committee. But I think that the balance of
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advantage for the protection of the general public requires that only registered members of these professions should, after a certain time, be able to carry on their profession, and that without registration they cannot carry on. That is the first point I wanted to make.
The second is that I am not too happy about the provision for discipline. The Bill does not attempt to define "infamous conduct", one of the grounds upon which a person can be struck off the register. It leaves it to the disciplinary committee from time to time to decide what is to be regarded as infamous conduct. It is far too vague a term, and I consider that we should be rather more definite in this matter, instead of using these vague words. I am also a little apprehensive about the powers of the Board. They are going to be men of little or no experience. It is true that in course of time, by making mistakes, they will learn; but in the course of those mistakes a good many people may suffer. Although I am not prepared to-day to say what is a more appropriate alternative, I have some doubts as to the wisdom of setting up seven disciplinary bodies and seven bodies which will advise as to whether there is a case, and then leaving it to them, subject, I agree, to an appeal to the Privy Council.
I was very interested to hear the speech of the noble and learned Viscount, which was both audible and clear. Those are two descriptions which he regards as a merit on the part of the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, which I wholly approve of, and certainly he set a very good example. I agree with nearly everything that he said. I agree that it is important that both the person accused of infamous conduct and the boards should have the right to subpœna witnesses. I was not altogether in agreement with him as to the pronunciation of the word "disciplinary". I prefer that to "disciplinary", but that is a matter of taste and opinion.
At this stage, may I congratulate the noble and learned Viscount on having produced this very valuable Report, which I am sure will be appreciated by all members of the professions which have to deal with these problems? The noble and learned Viscount rather complained of some misunderstanding about

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the last words of his Report, but I can assure him that there is a certain amount of apprehension about police evidence, and particularly police evidence that is obtained by tapping the telephone. There was a case recently—and the noble and learned Viscount will remember it—where a member of a profession was struck off the register of membership of his profession almost entirely on evidence obtained through police tapping of the telephone.
VISCOUNT SIMONDS: My Lords, if the noble Lord will forgive me, that was not a case of telephone tapping at all, I think. In any event, if he is thinking of the same case as I am, it is a case which is very shortly coming before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; and therefore I, as least, was careful not to say anything about it.
LORD SILKIN: In fact, my Lords, I was not going to say anything more about that particular case, but I feel that there is a general sense of abhorrence as to any evidence obtained and given in proceedings in that way; and while it may be that the Report of the noble and learned Viscount does not specifically deal with this question, I think we ought to be extremely careful to ensure that somehow such evidence is not acceptable if given by police witnesses in the course of hearings on discipline.
As I said at the outset, I am sure that, broadly speaking, all the professions which are covered by this Bill welcome it. I think many of them would prefer to be in a position to exclude those who are not qualified to be registered, and I consider, as I have said, that in the interests of the public that should be the case. However, these are matters which we can deal with at a further stage of the Bill; and in the meantime we certainly feel that this Bill should receive a Second Reading.
6.14 p.m.
LORD GEDDES: My Lords, there is little to add to what has already been said about this Bill, but there are one or two points which still seem to call for additional emphasis. It is sometimes difficult to decide whether or not one has a declarable interest when addressing your Lordships' House, and while I have no interest to declare in the tech
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nical sense, I have a close personal interest in the profession of occupational therapy through a student who is just completing the three-year training course. Through that introduction I have had an opportunity on several occasions to meet the leaders of that profession, both in London and in Edinburgh, and my remarks are therefore primarily a reflection of their views, although I have been informed that the Bill also has the full support of the other six professions affected by it.
In considering this Bill it is important to bear in mind how widely different are the professions affected by it; and, again, how widely they differ from the profession to which they are supplementary. It is almost as though one were to go to the zoo and find one cage for the lions, another for the tigers and another for all the other animals; for your Lordships will realise that there is little in common between a medical laboratory technician and a remedial gymnast. Having said that, however, I must add that it cannot be denied that this is a good Bill, although its value may be much greater to some of the professions concerned, some of whose members may have learned their trade merely by practice, than to the more highly scientific professions included within its provisions. There was at an early stage the proposal that the medical profession should have at least equality on the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine. The present Bill gives these seven assorted professions a bare majority, provided that in a vote they are unanimous among themselves. This would seem to be the least they can ask, and it is hoped that on this important point there will be no change in the present pattern of the Bill.
The greatest danger in the working of this Bill arises through the provision that these seven professions must be saddled with the cost of its operation. Unlike the great professions, these are little professions of relatively little people—and, as has already been said, they are relatively lowly paid. After three years of training, an occupational therapist is entitled to a basic pay of £500 per annum; which, after statutory deductions, leaves a net income of the order of £8 5s. 0d. per week. This ill compares with the remuneration of an unskilled labourer. And, after a lifetime

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of work, the occupational therapist can expect a remuneration of only roughly £1,000 a year, or considerably less than half the average earnings in the great professions. From such meagre sums he or she must live, and in some cases support a family. Already, as has been said, there is the payment of roughly four guineas per annum for membership of the professional association; and now, in addition, another charge is to be levied for registration which might be of the order of £2 per annum. This, my Lords, may seem a trifling sum, but it is a large proportion of a week's pay at £8 a week. Indeed, it is so large as to have caused some misgivings that the young graduate might feel unable both to pay it and to support the professional association.
But it is thought that the running charges can be met, and the profession does not at present seek a continuing subsidy. However, there will be an initial expense to establish and equip the respective registries. As has been said, a rough estimate suggests that a sum of the order of £20,000 to £25,000 will have to be found for this purpose, and among these professions it is very hard to see where such a sum can come from. In paragraph 89 of the Cope Report there was a recommendation that assistance should be provided from National Health Service funds to meet these initial expenses; and, with the noble Lords, Lord Taylor and Lord Amulree, I would ask Her Majesty's Government whether they would not reconsider making an initial grant to help in the establishment of the registries if the professions themselves undertake to maintain them thereafter. Having said this, I commend this Bill to your Lordships for a Second Reading.
6.18 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I am most grateful for the welcome that has been given throughout the House to this Bill. I will try to answer most of the questions put to me in the course of the debate. My noble friend Lord Taylor asked me why the limitation of twelve was placed on the possible future number of professions under these provisions. The reason is simply this: that it is considered that a greater number would be too unwieldy for one piece of legislation or for one Council, and if the
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Council and the number of boards grew any greater, it would no longer be workable.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, on that point, may I ask my noble friend this question? If a new profession is added, is there any alteration in the constitution of the Council? I do not think there is, but perhaps he would confirm that.
LORD ST. OSWALD: Should a new profession be added, there is provision in Clause 10, subsection (2), paragraph (c) for the Privy Council by order to vary the constitution of the Council.
The noble Lord also asked about specific professions possibly joining this registration scheme—namely, dental mechanics, social workers, and psychiatric social workers. If these three professions made application, their applications would be considered under Clause 10. They would have to be approved by the Council, by the Privy Council and then the matter would come before Parliament as an Order for the approval of Parliament.
The noble Lord and the noble Lords, Lord Amulree and Geddes, were worried about the whole question of fees and expenses of the registration boards. I know that these fears are shared by certain of the professions who are worried that perhaps their members, since they have to pay a registration fee, might be unable to keep up their contributions to the professional society, which might dwindle away or be unable to carry on with its useful functions. They are worried, I know, about such questions as whether attendance fees at Council meetings will be payable and therefore would be chargeable against the Council and whether the Council will tend to be extravagant. But the answer—at least, the potential answer—to these questions is that the professions will have influential representation on the Council and, I should have thought, will be able to make their own desires about economy felt. It is laid down that fees shall be such the Council consider will produce not more than the sums required to defray the reasonable expenses of the Council under this Act. This point was made to meet the anxiety of the professions concerned and is intended to safeguard them against the building up of unnecessary credit balances.

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I am aware of the Cope Committee's recommendation that the administrative expenses of the registration machinery arising from its general and supervisory activities should be met from National Health Service funds, while the expenses of maintaining registers should be met from fees. But in the view of others who have studied this proposal, it is doubtful whether it would be possible. The main objection is that professions are always expected to meet the full cost of their registration machinery; indeed, they are normally anxious to do so. This whole question came up in another place, and my honourable friend Mr. Charles Doughty put forward his opinion that it would be quite wrong for the professions to accept Government money in the form of a grant and thereby lose an element of their independence.
In the course of the last few days, I have interviewed representatives of all these professions, and I am bound to say that the great majority of them agree with that view, and positively stated that they objected to accepting even an initial grant from the Government to start them off. I hope that I am not directly contradicting my noble friend Lord Geddes on this point, because, when he mentioned his own interviews with representatives of these professions, I was not absolutely clear whether he meant that everything that followed was by agreement with them. My own conversations with them gave me a different impression.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, when the noble Lord says "representatives", does he mean persons officially representing the professions or representative members selected, as it were, by chance?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I mean officially representative members of the societies representative of these professions. As regards expenses and the general financing of the registration scheme, it is thought that the initial register may contain something like 25,000 names and that fresh registrations may come in at the rate of 2,000 annually. It looks as if it will be necessary to levy both an initial registration fee and an annual retention fee. But it is thought that the latter could be quite small. Something in the nature of three guineas for the registration fee and an annual fee of one guinea ever after would more or less fit the book.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord would think about the point I tried to make—namely, whether it would be better to charge a bigger fee at the start, and so build up the Council, and not charge a fee for subsequent years.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I think that I am right in saying that under the terms of the Bill, the Council, who have the responsibility of fixing fees, would be free to do that; but I do not think that at the moment it is the wish of the professional representatives that this should be done. In any case, as the noble Lord will agree, it is not a matter for the Government to decide here. I hope that to some extent I can meet the anxiety of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, about the possible dropping away of members of the professions by saying that there is nothing in the Bill, or in the Government's mind, against the introduction of two rates, one for those actually practising and a lower rate for those not practising, or even conceivably no subscription at all but a slightly higher re-enrolment fee, though not so large as the original registration fee.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, would there be anything against raising the initial registration fee, in order to have life members, and a lower annual subscription?
LORD ST. OSWALD: I am sorry if I have not made myself plain—
LORD TAYLOR: If the noble Lord would excuse me: I am suggesting the alternative of a big life membership fee—say eight or ten guineas—and a smaller fee annually.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I see the noble Lord's point, but I think that that is a matter for the Council when they meet, and one which could not possibly be decided at this Despatch Box. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, mentioned that the number of medical representatives on the Radiographers' Board should be unchanged but that some of them should be nominated by the Faculty of Radiologists. This is a point which I am perfectly certain could be sympathetically considered before the next stage of the Bill.
The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simonds, as I foresaw, gave, in a few

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lucid and compelling words, the reasons for bringing back the powers of subpœna into the Bill at the next stage. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, felt that the terms of the Bill were drawn so widely that nobody could be excluded, and that even if they were, it would not matter to them. I do not think that I can go into the matter of why I disagree with him. I can only remind him that many of these professional people are employed in the National Health Service and that the provisions of this Bill take the place of the 1954 Regulations, which exclude from employment with the National Health Service anyone who is not qualified. I presume that the provisions are as strict as the Regulations, but the strictness or laxness of the qualifications accepted is very much a matter for the professions themselves. I should have thought that their professional colleagues would be the first to insist that proper standards of professional conduct and achievement were maintained.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I have no doubt that proper standards will be laid down and observed. I was not making any point on that. My concern is that, having laid down these standards and having said that everyone who is registered must comply with them, there is nothing to prevent any member of any of these professions from carrying on practice without registration. I presume that registration will be refused because people do not comply with the standards laid down. Nevertheless, they can practise on the public, although admittedly they will not practise under the National Health Service.
LORD ST. OSWALD: I do not know to what extent that could be called a matter of opinion, but I should have thought that if there were an official standard recognised and set, and this system existed of maintaining professional standards among those who were within it, people seeking professional treatment of this nature would insist upon a registered professional. As has been emphasised in the course of the debate, most of these professions—although I agree not the chiropodists—work under a doctor or through the advice of a doctor; those out in the cold would be very much out in the cold, and it would be due only to the casualness
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of the patient if he did not insist on the best treatment, which would presumably be from a professional enrolled under one of the registration boards. That is all I have to say. I should like to thank all those who have taken part in the debate for giving this Bill such an encouraging welcome.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

COMMONWEALTH TEACHERS BILL
6.32 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, this Bill is concise, but it embraces within it a subject which is of deep significance to the modern Commonwealth. Both the Montreal Economic Conference and the Oxford Conference which followed it, in which the seeds of this Bill were sown, recognised that education was the indispensable foundation of political democracy and of the economic and social advance of countries in the twentieth century. I think it was agreed—it was certainly the policy of the United Kingdom Government, and I ant sure it was agreed by all parties in the United Kingdom—that we should take a decided lead in trying to help the Commonwealth in this corporate effort to expand the scope and the quality of education.
There were three ways in which the Oxford Conference suggested that we could do this. The first was to increase the number of places for students, both undergraduate and post-graduate, in our universities and technical colleges; the second was to add to the supply of teachers to go from here to posts overseas; and the third was to take an increasing number of persons from the Commonwealth countries and train them in this country to teach. We never can be satisfied with the results that we achieve in this field; nevertheless I think we can be reasonably proud of the part which this country is playing and the facilities which we are providing. Out of a total of about 44,000 students from overseas in this country to-day, 32,000 are from the countries of the Commonwealth. In the next ten years we hope to provide from the expansion

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which is going to take place in our technical colleges some 4,000 additional places—that is, additional to those which are now enjoyed by the students from the Commonwealth.
I think your Lordships will be glad to know that, following upon the Montreal and Oxford conferences, 220 Commonwealth scholars are going to arrive in this country this autumn—the first scholarships to be given following the Montreal conference—and 400 bursars are going to arrive to take their places in the teacher training colleges of this country. Lord Scarbrough, who has taken on the chairmanship of the Commission who select the Commonwealth scholars, tells me that they are fulfilling their highest expectations and are boys and girls of very high quality—or, perhaps I should say, men and women of high quality, because a great many of them are taking post-graduate courses.
The intake of students on this scale and on the expanded scale to which we look forward in the next ten years could not be made without sacrifice. As noble Lords know, there is a clamant demand among the boys and girls of this country for places in the universities and technical colleges. Nevertheless, I am sure that everybody in the country supports the inclusion in our expansion programme of a high percentage of Commonwealth students, because the service of education is one of universal benefit to humanity and one in which we are peculiarly qualified from our experience and traditions to give.
The second part of what I have to say concerns the supply of teachers from here to go overseas and the attraction of individuals to come here to attend our teacher training colleges. The long-term objective, of course, is that each Commonwealth country should develop its own educational resources. But the best short-term help which we can give is to send out from this country as many teachers as we can enlist to fill key positions in the educational field in overseas and Commonwealth countries; and secondly to train here and to equip individuals from the Commonwealth countries so that they may take a leading part in their own educational organisation when they go home. Very large numbers of teachers are going from this country to the Commonwealth
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countries overseas every year. I am not going to name a figure; it is very large. But it is a little misleading, because a great many go to the countries which are already developed, and we want to see a better distribution so that the newer Commonwealth countries get a greater share. Again, the supply of teachers in large numbers overseas cannot be done without sacrifice, because we are all the time in this country, of course, trying to reduce the number of children in a class in school But, again, I am sure it is the wish of the House and the wish of the country that that sacrifice should be accepted.
Now that the Government are providing the money and creating the opportunity, I hope that there will be large numbers of volunteers among people who are interested in teaching, because their services will be enormously appreciated, particularly in the new Commonwealth countries; and I feel quite certain from what I have seen when I have been overseas to these countries that when they return the teachers themselves will feel not only that they have been rewarded, but that they carry a greater authority and influence in their profession here by reason of the additional experience that they have gained overseas.
Lastly, I should like to express my gratitude for the co-operation which has been shown by the teachers' representatives, by the local authorities, by the churches, and by the teacher training institutions, who have pledged themselves to make this scheme for the supply of teachers to the Commonwealth work. They have devised a draft scheme of secondment to which we hope that all the education authorities will subscribe and which we hope they will all adopt. I will not give your Lordships the details of it, but under it salary and pension rights and career and promotion prospects are safeguarded. There, again, the Minister of Education has set up a national committee to supervise the supply of teachers for overseas. Out of an expenditure of £6 million in the five years, which was agreed at the Oxford Conference to be the United Kingdom's subscription, £3¾ million will go for the purposes of this Bill and the incidental purposes connected with it. It is very important that in this matter education should be a continuing service, and therefore machinery

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has been set up, and there is now a Commonwealth liaison unit in the field of education which will ensure that consultation over the whole field is regular and continual. The first Director is a very distinguished Indian, Dr. Jha, who was lately Vice-Chancellor of Benares University, and the next conference to review the progress will be held in New Delhi in 1961–62.
I thought it worth giving that short review of these educational facilities to your Lordships' House, and to use this Bill as an excuse to do so, because I hope that this, which I think is a promising start, will be endorsed by your Lordships and the Bill will be given your unanimous approval. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill now be read 2a.—(The Earl of Home.)
6.41 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords my noble friend Lord Dalton asked me to apologise to your Lordships because he had to attend a committee on university halls of residence. We welcome this Bill very warmly indeed. We welcome all its objectives, and it is a great pleasure to be assisting in putting it on the Statute Book. We think it will be easier to get teachers to come to this country than to make arrangements for our teachers to go to Commonwealth countries. There is a little reluctance to be overcome, on account of the problems which the noble Earl has mentioned—the problems of pension rights, of losing one's place on the career ladder, and the feeling that one has not the chance of applying for a post immediately it is advertised if one goes overseas.
We are delighted to hear what the noble Earl had to say about the draft scheme which has been worked out with the local education authorities, and we hope very much indeed that it will be universally accepted and universally successful. If I may say so, I only wish that there was a similar scheme for dealing with medicine in the Commonwealth, particularly in the more underdeveloped Commonwealth countries, where we have had just this sort of difficulty with the National Health Service. But we have not yet had a Bill like this to overcome it. We warmly welcome both the Bill and what the noble Earl has said.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for taking over for his noble friend and giving a welcome to this Bill. It is my keen desire that we should get in touch with all the employers in industry and the professions in order to try to see what arrangements can be made, whether in medicine or in any other profession, to create a Commonwealth service of this kind. So if the noble Lord has any ideas, I shall be a very ready recipient.
On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived.

GHANA (CONSEQUENTIAL PROVISION) BILL
6.43 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, the House by now, after recent years, is familiar with the pattern of this Bill, because we have had similar Bills in the case of India and Pakistan. Ghana has lately, by a vote in the Assembly, and then by a plebiscite, decided that it is the wish of the Ghanaian people to be a Republic. When Dr. Nkrumah, the Prime Minister, came to the Prime Ministers' Conference, he requested that that Republic of Ghana should be accepted as a full member of the Commonwealth. As your Lordships know, the Prime Ministers readily and unanimously gave their consent. As your Lordships also know, when that happens the United Kingdom Parliament has to pass enabling legislation. That is required because, for instance, if it were not passed, there might be doubts whether Ghanaian citizens would remain, in United Kingdom law, British subjects and Commonwealth citizens or whether, for instance, the preferences granted at the Ottawa Conference could be legally made to cover Ghana. This legislation removes all doubts and places Ghana as a Republic in the position to enjoy exactly the same advantages she enjoys to-day.
I do not think I need elaborate any further. This Bill is in common form when a country in the Commonwealth chooses to become a Republic. There is just one point to which I should draw attention. Ghana does not wish to continue with appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, but would

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like outstanding appeals to be heard. This Bill provides that that can be done. I am confident that this change from the Monarchy to the Republic will not diminish the feeling in Ghana for the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth, and will not lessen the ties between Ghana and this country. I have pleasure therefore in moving this Bill, and I ask your Lordships to give it a Second Reading.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Home.)
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to say, on behalf of my colleagues here, how much we welcome the bringing of this Bill to the House for its approval. It marks the end of negotiations which have been of very great importance and, indeed, has established an important event in the history of the Commonwealth. The great fight for freedom in which, in the last Great War, this country engaged, on top of the First Great War, has led to a more rapid expansion of the general idea of the British Empire becoming a great Commonwealth family of nations. This is just another one in the succession of events in that direction.
I am delighted that the Ghanaian people and their Government have decided to remain inside as a member of the Commonwealth. You may look at the present world situation as you like, but it is certain that the great struggle in the world will be in the direction of free societies of peoples who have great and common objectives for the advancement of their particular nations. On the other hand, there is a struggle to erect the kind of monolithic state in which some stated objectives may be very good but which does not rely upon the free contribution of the individuals to the achievement of those objectives, but relies, in the ultimate, upon compulsion. It is a great event at any time in our history when we add to our family of free nations another, as Ghana is being added to-day of her own volition.
I think we ought to pay this tribute—we so often have controversies in debates on controversial matters in the House—to those who have been responsible on our side for the conduct of the negotiations in this matter. Although I suppose that in the first instance the
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transfer of a territory from a Colonial to a Commonwealth Government is a matter that lies with the Colonial Office and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, I think we should like to congratulate the noble Earl the Leader of the House, as Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, on his part in this and similar matters. We hope very much that the people in Ghana will feel the warmth of the welcome that this country gives to it. We should like them to know that we never forget that, in the great struggle for freedom in which we were engaged, so many of their own people fought side by side with those of our own homeland and other countries in the Commonwealth. We all wish to see them not only gain this independence within the Commonwealth, but succeed to great economic development, and we wish them a general and continuous rising of the standards of education and enjoyment of standards of life such as we have been able to obtain for ourselves. We therefore welcome this Bill with very great pleasure. We wish the people of Ghana and her Government for the whole of her future the greatest possible happiness and the greatest possible amount of unity with us and our objectives that we can jointly secure together.
6.50 p.m.
LORD SPENS: My Lords, may I add a word of welcome to the historic fact that Ghana has decided to remain within the Commonwealth? I cannot add to what the noble Viscount has said in his words of welcome, and I want only to address a few short remarks to your Lordships on Clause 2 of the Bill.
Clause 2 embodies the arrangement that has been made, as I understand, between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of Ghana about pending appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council: as soon as Ghana becomes a Republic no new appeals will come from Ghana to that great tribunal. It is not for us, in my view, ever to complain of what a newly independent country thinks fit to do; and certainly independence entitles it to decide as it thinks right as to what should be the final Tribunal to which cases in law shall go from that particular country. But it does cause one, I venture to think, some anxiety that one more unit of the Commonwealth has

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drifted away from the great unifying legal influence of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Of course I know from my personal experience in India that although appeals no longer come to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council the respect that India continues to have for decisions of the Privy Council remains just as great as before.
None the less, as the years pass we are finding more units of the Commonwealth drifting away from the Judicial Committee; and that does mean, it seems to me, that in the days to come we are going to have a number of Supreme Courts dealing with very much the same fundamental law, both doctrinal and positive, that they have inherited from us during the periods they have been in the colonial state. As the years pass that will mean, unless some other unifying Court can be found, that we shall see a tendency to differing decisions and differing drifts away from each other, although basically the laws which are being administered have very much in common.
If I may just speak shortly from my own experience in India, where there were twelve High Courts administering the same basic law, the position was that unless there had been a unifying Court at the top one would find in the course of 20 or 25 years differing decisions on exactly the same points. There a unifying Court, such as the Judicial Committee, or my own Federal Court, was of the greatest value in keeping the law unified within reasonable means. I do not suggest for a moment that local customary law, or indeed local land law throughout the community, requires a unifying Court; but what I do suggest is that now, in these days of great commercial enterprises, which operate all over the Commonwealth, and indeed over large parts of the world as well, it is very desirable that the commercial laws should be kept as unified as possible. It is of the greatest inconvenience to commercial firms to find that what is recognised as valid in one State is invalid in another: that although the fundamental law is the same there are conflicting decisions of Supreme Courts.
There is one other point about the desirability of a unifying Court; and I think it particularly applies to the new
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units of the Commonwealth who are applying for investment from overseas. There is no doubt a good deal of extra confidence given to investors if in fact there is a Supreme Court to which they can finally go and which is not one which is entirely local in appointment and in administration. The three essentials, it seems to me, of a Court are, first of all, how the judges are appointed; secondly, what their tenure of office is; and thirdly, how independent they are of the Executive in their country. It was, of course, the great value of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council throughout the whole of the colonial period that the Judicial Committee, the highest Court to which citizens of the Empire could go, was entirely independent, both in appointment and in influence from everything local.
It has, of course, been asked for some time, as the drift away from the Judicial Committee sitting in this country was continuing, whether there were any other means by which a Court could be established which would appeal to these people. For a long time a peripatetic Privy Council was advocated by Lord Tomlin and others, but in my view the time has now passed where that would serve the purpose. It is difficult to see exactly how in the Republics you could deal with it in the same way as you could in the Monarchical part of the Commonwealth. Indeed there is this difficulty: that in the new units, particularly, to accept the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, even though it went and sat in their country, would be regarded to some extent, I believe, as a derogation of their sovereign powers, because, after all, it is a Court of the United Kingdom.
Therefore there has grown up the suggestion that it might be possible to constitute some other Commonwealth Court as a Supreme Court of appeal for different units of the Commonwealth. I think it is felt by many units of the Commonwealth that they have—as indeed they have—a number of most eminent judges whose services would be acceptable outside their own particular units. I think the judicial talent throughout the Commonwealth is very great indeed at the present time. There are courts of appeal all over the Commonwealth with most eminent judges sitting on them, and I do

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not believe that it should be impossible to devise a system by which a Commonwealth Court of Appeal could be constituted. I realise that there are great difficulties as to how the judges should be selected. That would have to be a matter for each particular unit of the Commonwealth. It would be possible to get a panel of Commonwealth judges who would be available—of course nothing could be made compulsory on any single unit of the Commonwealth—and ready to accept appeals from units of the Commonwealth who were willing to send appeals to them.
It seems to me that the time has come when an attempt might be made to form such a Court as that to which units of the Commonwealth who were willing to do so should send certain types of cases which were really common to all Mem7 bets of the Commonwealth whose basic law had come from this country. I believe that if that could be done it would prevent, in the next 100 years, our British doctrines and legal doctrines going off in all sorts of diverse directions without any Court at all to unify them and keep them on common lines. I think it would be a great service to both the commercial and trading communities of the Commonwealth if something of that sort could be done. I believe that such an idea has been discussed, but I think that if time is allowed to pass before anything is done we shall lose one of the great common contacts and one of the most valuable links which hold the units of the Commonwealth together.
7.2 p.m.
LORD HEMINGFORD: My Lords, in supporting this Bill, may I, as an old and grateful friend of the people of Ghana, join with other noble Lords who have spoken in wishing them well in the future? They have chosen, and freely chosen, a change in their Constitution. That change has been noted in this country with understanding. We are glad, indeed, that they have chosen to remain within the Commonwealth. When I had the privilege of revisiting Ghana a few months ago, one of the many happy impressions I received was of the profound respect and regard felt by the people there for Her Majesty the Queen and for the Royal Family. Another was of the esteem that had been won by that greatly respected Member
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of your Lordships' House the present Governor-General. It is a paradox that we have often found true in our history, that the loosening of formal bonds may lead to the strengthening of the ties of friendship, and we all earnestly hope that that will continue to be true of the very happy association between the United Kingdom and Ghana.
7.4 p.m.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I am grateful to the House, and I am sure the Prime Minister and people of Ghana will be too, for the welcome which has been given to this Bill. The choice for a Commonwealth country as to whether it remains a Monarchy or a Republic is, of course, one entirely for the people of that country. It is of great satisfaction, now that the people of Ghana have chosen to be a Republic, that they have of their own free will decided to remain within the Commonwealth. I was grateful to the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition for recalling the modest part which I have been able to play in recent years in this matter. Doctor Nkrumah himself has testified that his belief is that the Commonwealth is the best guarantee of freedom in the modern world, and, with great respect, I agree with him.
My noble friend Lord Spens has raised the question of the position of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the modern Commonwealth, and he has said that the question of whether there might be a Commonwealth Court was one which was raised in particular by Senator Cooray of Ceylon in the recent discussions at the Commonwealth Prime Minister's Conference. He was not dogmatic as to the sort of court it might be, and he had very much in mind, as my noble friend had in mind, the value that a court might be to the newer members of the Commonwealth and to the smaller members of the Commonwealth who have found or might find it difficult to build up a skilled independent judiciary of their own, at least for a good many years.
There was also in mind the point of confidence which, as my noble friend has pointed out, is so important when countries wish to attract investment. This matter was remitted by the Commonmealth Prime Ministers for the particular

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concern of the United Kingdom Government and of their own Governments, and each representative went away to study the matter. In particular, my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor is studying it at this moment, and my noble friend Lord Spens can rest assured that, it having been remitted for consideration by the Prime Ministers, no time will be wasted. If my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has any proposals to make, certainly they will be most sympathetically considered by his colleagues at home in the United Kingdom Government; and, of course, they will then have to be remitted to the Commonwealth Prime Ministers to see what their view is. I have always hoped that something like this might be found, so I hope that the Lord Chancellor will be fortunate in his researches. My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

MERCHANT SHIPPING (MINICOY LIGHTHOUSE) BILL
7.7 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I feel that perhaps a word or two of explanation of this Bill would not be out of place, and I am prompted in that feeling by the remark of one of my colleagues recently who said to me, "What is a Minicoy, anyway?" Of course, Minicoy is a small coral island between the Laccadive and Maldive Islands on the East Coast of India. I am perfectly certain that it is charming and beautiful, and if I have taken no steps to check that, I think we should be happier if we continued to assume that it was.
During the eighteenth century Minicoy Island, together with the Southern Laccadive Islands, was in the possession of the Cannanore family, who also had estates on the Indian mainland. The head of this family, in which the succession went in the female line, as customary in that part of India, was known as the Adi Raja—the Prince of the Deep. In 1908 Imbichi Bibi, the lady who was the current Adi Raja, ceded her sovereignty over the Laccadive Islands and Minicoy to His Majesty the Emperor of India, to form
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part of His Majesty's Indian dominions as from July 1, 1905. The 1935 India Act and the 1947 Indian Independence Act transferred the sovereignty over the Laccadive and Minicoy Islands from the United Kingdom to the Government of India.
But in 1885 the Board of Trade had built a lighthouse on this island, and this remained the property of the United Kingdom Government. Your Lordships may think that this is a little odd, but I am advised that as the Government of India Act, 1935, did not transfer the ownership of the Minicoy Light to the then Government of India, it followed that the title to this property remained undisturbed by the 1947 Act. In due course the Government of India suggested that as the lighthouse was situated on Indian territory it was not appropriate that it should be administered by an agency functioning outside India and they asked that it should be transferred "free of cost and with all its assets" to be administered by them.
The United Kingdom Government thought that was quite reasonable and proper, and the management of the lighthouse was taken over by the Indian Government on the 2nd April, 1956, it being understood that the legal transfer of the property and the clearance of the financial issues would be dealt with afterwards. At the end of 1958 the Indian Government asked for the early enactment of legislation to permit this to be done and were told that it would be introduced at the first opportunity, and this is it. The purpose of the Bill, therefore, is to empower my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport to transfer to the Indian Government the title to the lighthouse on Minicoy Island and also to hand over the assets attached to the lighthouse.
The financial position is rather complicated and I do not think I need go into the full details unless I am asked to do so. To cut a long story short, the Indian Government, since April, 1956, have borne the cost of running the Minicoy Light, but the dues which have continued to be collected and received by us since then are held in a separate account of the General Lighthouse Fund. The calculation of the other earlier assets in respect of this light as at April 2, 1956, has also been made, and this figure is assessed, as nearly as can be, at £15,000.

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It is not possible to determine the figure quite precisely, because the Minicoy Light was one of a group of three from which it is now divorced. Apportionment is perhaps the right word to use, and this has been done as accurately as possible.
That sum of £15,000, plus the dues collected since April 2, 1956, which are estimated at about £10,000, and interest at the rate of 4 per cent. on the whole, will, if your Lordships grant the powers asked under this Bill, be paid to the Indian Government, from the General Lighthouse Fund. It is a question of regulating the position from one of de facto to one of de jure. I have nothing more to say except that the Indian Government have been informed of all this, and I hope your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Chesham.)
7.12 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, like the two previous Bills which were introduced this afternoon, this Bill is warmly supported by my noble friends on this side of the House. The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, in introducing the Bill, dealt with the early history of the islands. I would inform him that they have a longer history. In fact, they were discovered by Vasco da Gama in 1499 when he was making one of his great voyages to the eastern part of the world which, as we know, brought great wealth to Portugal and also to ourselves. The word "Minicoy' also has some significance to travellers though it depends on the direction in which they are travelling. If one is travelling East, the word "Minicoy" is a very pleasant sounding one, for once the Minicoy Lighthouse has been passed one is out of the monsoons and the rough weather; and when travelling West, the word "Minicoy has a rather evil sound, for then one runs into the bad weather.
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I have only one query to make in regard to this Bill. In his final words the noble Lord said that the Indian Government have been informed of this Bill. I would ask the noble Lord the Minister whether he can assure the House that the terms of this Bill have received the approval of the Indian Government; because this is really a ratification of a business deal, and, obviously, if we are asked to ratify it we should have some assurance that the other party have also accepted the terms.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, on the particular point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, I would say that the Government of India have been fully informed on this matter. They have asked for this action for some considerable time, and the arrangements which I have explained to your Lordships have been put before them in full. While I cannot stand here and say that they have approved of them—and I have no knowledge that an actual approval has been signified—they have certainly not disapproved of or contested them in any way. I believe it has been worked out as fairly and squarely as can be, and I do not think the noble Lord need have any misgivings on the subject.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, can the noble Lord give an assurance that the Indian Government have had details of these terms for a time sufficiently long to have permitted them to object if they disapprove?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, the answer is Yes, I certainly can.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

SALFORD CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.
House adjourned at sixteen minutes past seven o'clock.